Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 30 (Patreon)

Chapter 30: Advice Sought

(Original Chapter Title: Adventurer III)

VERY little of this chapter was in the original draft, mostly just Hexara recommending that Ranthia go for it, a hint of a debauched birthday, and Ranthia's decision to attend the Ranger Academy (she was always late after her birthday).

Ranthia is rich! ...For her standards, at least. This was a kind of on-whim addition, setting up for a future flagrant display of wealth, and... because when I edited A Brief Bit of Immortality (the prior chapter) it felt odd that the government didn't acknowledge anything. Throwing a bit of coin at the Adventurer felt like a great way for them to keep the Guild happy too (unlike say giving her a medal). I wanted to write another cat scene, but when I thought more about Ariminum... yeah, no celebrating with strays for Ranthia.

The scene with the young Adventurers was very important: It's our cover moment!

Did you catch that when you read? Ranthia looks so cheerful on the cover I wanted a lighthearted moment, so I added this one. It's also good to show that not all Adventurer jobs are things Rangers/etc. should be handling. Sometimes they're just investigating something odd that nobody expects to be anything, for far too little coin!

The other job was an excuse to get her to talk to some of the other top-ranked Adventurers, though it was also nice to have an excuse to show off the Adventurer's Guild self-policing. This is basically the only way the Guild can work. Elaine's biases aside, if Adventurers are just killing and mugging people they Guild would have been shut down, hard. Only by using extreme rapid force to respond to major breaches of their code can they function within Remus. Which in this case meant hunting down and killing a group that got greedy and/or pissed at their client. ...Something Ranthia had once recommended, which would have gotten them killed.

We've come to a major decision path though: yet everyone Ranthia asked either encouraged her to go for it or told her that either path was just fine in terms of what was important to her. Which is why Ranthia's decision was so clear once Hexara encouraged her to go for it.

As for Ranthia's birthday... imagine it for yourself! I've no intention of writing it, even if she is finally old enough.

But Ranthia's decided to become a Ranger! Surely this will be a smooth and easy path.