Chương 24: The Collegium

Dast locked his office and led us up the stairs. We had barely reached the street before Corso came level with him.

"An adventuring company?" he asked, grabbing Dast's forearm.

"That is what I said, yes. It's mostly a formality, in case the next magistrate we meet is less inclined than Bardi," Dast said with a small smile, pulling Corso along.

"I know. I only meant—" Corso stopped himself as we stepped to one side to make room for two guards running past us.

"A company, you said. Properly registered?"

"It's simply easier to do it properly. It has forms and processes and clerks, and even a healthy portion of paperwork." He actually rubbed his hands.

"I wouldn't even know what you mean by an alternative. An improperly registered adventuring company? Although now that you mention it, that's probably how you have operated so far." Corso ignored him, following on Dast's heels like a grinning puppy.

"That means we can take contracts! We'll get a badge, and a rank. And work the contracts, and get a higher rank." He looked at me, and I could not help grinning back at whatever enthusiasm was bubbling there.

"We have to find a company name!" he added.

"And our names will be added to the collegium registry! On the list in the hall!" Dast turned his head to look at Corso, bewildered at the large man's sudden and uncontrolled enthusiasm.

"Yes." We crossed the Piazza di Santa Cavallia. Normally when Corso walked anywhere, people saw him coming and moved aside. Now he was trailing Dast, his attention fixed on our advocate.

"And we'll get access to the collegium resources. Their maps, and… And the lounge!"

"What lounge?" I asked. He turned to me.

"The collegium lounge. It's like a tavern, but they call it a lounge. We can… We can hang out with adventurers! Other adventurers, because we will also be adventurers!" He turned pensive for a moment.

"I think we need to reach a metal rank for the lounge."

"How do you know this?" I asked. He shrugged.

"Everyone knows it. I've known it since I was a boy. My uncle had a friend who worked there. Not as an adventurer, but as a clerk. He brought me with him once, and I got to stand there a full day watching the adventurers come and go!" I had never really thought too much about what went on inside those doors, and had never really been that interested. What was more strange than Corso's reaction was why he had never mentioned this… obsession before now.

"The yellow board is in the main hall," Corso added after a few steps.

"That one has the common contracts. They told me the red one is in the lounge." Dast looked sideways at him.

"Everyone knows that too?" Corso just nodded, not having caught Dast's sarcasm.

"I expect so," he answered. What I knew was this: the Collegium was called a guild, but it did not resemble the trade guilds of Varenza, with their training and support. The Collegium Expeditionis was where adventurers congregated. Like most who had spent their lives inside the walls, I only vaguely understood what that meant. I knew only tavern stories: creatures corrupted in spirit and body, dangerous places beyond the city and caravans needing protection on the roads.

Something about the security of Varenza extending some small distance away from the city herself, before fading. Beyond that, there was some danger which to me remained unspecified and vague, but the adventuring companies were filled with classers with the will and skill to hold the wilderness away from Varenza's walls. That enabled outlying villages and farming to feed the Varenzan machine.

"We should think about our composition," Corso said as we entered the Arti Vecchie.

"Our roles, who is in front and who is in support. Normally, there are special classes. Perhaps a Warrior to go toe-to-toe with the monsters and an Elementalist to throw damage from afar."

"What?" I asked.

"I need to reveal my class?"

"No," Dast said with a small shake of his head.

"We can keep that hidden. We just need to sign that we know the risks. Different companies… do different things. It is quite normal to have a blend of skills and classes. And my understanding is that many adventurers prefer to keep their classes a secret."

"Yes," Corso said.

"It depends on what they do. If they fight monsters, delve dungeons or—" A thought flew across his face.

"But really, everybody knows the famous companies. Their classes and roles. Like the Lupine Charge, I think they only accept classes with sword-skills."

"Everybody," I muttered but Corso went on, as if not having heard me.

"Of course, the traditional setup is to have strong frontline fighters, backed by healers and magicians. Some have scouts, strategists or even sappers."

"And that's without talking about the auxiliaries," Dast added.

"Exactly," Corso said, and explained before I could ask.

"They would be the company members that support the operation without joining those who go into the fields. Logistics, mercantile, etcetera." Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I looked at them. Then I said, "We have a porter, an advocate and an unemployed quaesitor."

"Relic Hunter," Corso corrected.

"We know that, even if we don't tell them. Classes with skills that can look for traps or treasure are not unusual, although yours is just ridiculous."

"And they won't ask for details?" I asked, still concerned about revealing my class.

"They might ask, but just… Don't answer," Dast said.

"Even the guild clerks are probably going to ask, but anyone can register a company, with any composition. It is one of the main principles in ius expeditionis."

"Who is our front?" I asked. Corso considered that.

"Me?" he said, but without a great deal of confidence.

"And our scout?"

"We will both have to be very observant," Corso answered, grinning at me. There was something in his face that I had never seen during all our years at the Misericordia. Not happiness exactly. Recognition, perhaps. Like a man who suddenly found himself walking on a road he had never expected to walk. Dast turned into the lane leading towards the Collegium. Corso went with him half a pace ahead of me. The Collegium Expeditionis had been built to make adventurers feel important.

Where most of Varenza was clad in umber and ochre sprinkled over solid marble stone, the adventuring guild was housed in a round structure made from as much wood as stone. The foundations had stood for centuries, built from heavy, coarse stonework. Around that foundation, they had affixed heavy oak walls. They had painted all the seams, sills and frames in gold which now shone in the sunlight that filtered through the surrounding buildings.

We approached doors that were twice the height strictly required by any man: oak dyed black and painted with scenes of a man fighting a horned devil. Colourful banners were hung above the door. The left-hand door stood open. Corso pointed up.

"Those crests… It's the top of the guild lists. The centre one belongs to the Argent Cohort, with the Vulture Company to the left and the Far Lanterns to the right." He made us stop for a moment, as if in reverence, looking at the banners.

"Nobody has seen the Far Lanterns for near three years now," he added in a quieter voice.

"They went north. There was a contract out for some kind of necromancer." Then he went quiet. I was impatient, and I cared little for these strangers and their accomplishments, but I placed a hand on Corso's shoulder. We stood like that for three breaths, then I asked him, softly.

"Is this what you thought about, those long hours in the coemeterium? Adventurers and adventuring? Going out there, outside the walls?" He looked at me, nodded. I gave his shoulder a squeeze, and then we walked in through the door. We found ourselves inside a large, rectangular hall. Up and around us, a walkway gallery ran around the walls on all sides, with doors placed at irregular intervals.

The walls below the walkway were covered in various trophies and items: weapons, shields and the preserved bodies and body parts of what seemed to me to be impossible animals. Varenza was full of dogs and cats and rats, so I will freely admit to inexperience when it comes to what is probable, but there was something clearly unnatural about the snarling snout of what looked like a huge cat-like monster which almost made me take a step back when I saw it.

The centre of the room was full of rectangular and circular tables, some made of stone and some of wood, all surrounded by a variety of benches and chairs. The hall smelled of lamp oil and sweat, and perhaps twelve or fourteen adventurers occupied the tables; some in mail beneath travelling coats, others in robes or silks. Many displayed sharp steel. Weapons whose workmanship would likely demand more than my old annual salary.

At the far end of the room, two writing desks sat, one with an idle clerk observing us as we stepped inside the room, our eyes wide open as we took it all in. Corso stepped towards a yellow board that hung from a pillar on our left, and then he went to another pillar with another document. I walked up to him and joined him.

"The lists," he said, with awe in his expression.

"Companies in good standing. Ranked. These," he pointed to small markings to the left of each entry, "are the company tiers. They start all the way down at ash, and then the companies have to work their way up. Ash and wood and glass, then the metal tiers. The red board." Dast gave my shoulder a small push. He had grabbed Corso's arm with his other hand, and then he led us up past the tables to one of the desks at the front.

"Come, gentlemen. We can gawp later." We approached the counter.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," he said with a small bow.

"We would like to register notice of company formation." The clerk was a young woman with short hair, three pens lined up at her elbow in descending order of use. Her eyes had followed our traversal through her hall with interest, and now she narrowed those same eyes.

"Right," she said.

"And by that, I assume, you mean an adventuring company."

"Yes—" Dast began, but was interrupted.

"My next assumption is of course, that the three of you are some kind of clerks. You seem like the type."

"I am an advocate, if that is what you mean," Dast said, "but these two—""As I expected. An advocate." She looked at Corso.

"You must be his assistant." Then at me.

"And you look like you are here to make sure things get done right. So, Sers, to be efficient and do things right. Let me first say: We require that upon registration all active company members present themselves to the collegium."

"We—" Dast tried.

"Hold on, Ser Advocate," she said.

"Let me finish, this is important. And much more efficient, you see. I was going to say. Adventuring is a serious business. Not to be undertaken lightly, and frankly, it is insulting to the guild that whoever sent you could not be concerned to attend themselves."

"Wait—""I am not done. Adventuring is serious and dangerous. I know you city-folk see it as some kind of holiday. Purchase an expensive class, gain some muscle and ask your father for a sharp sword. Then you head out, are not heard from for a week, and we have to send in good men to reassemble your remains into something that can be shipped to the Misericordia.

That danger needs to be accepted personally, in person, by the person putting themselves in that danger and not by proxy through an adocate who has never encountered anything more dangerous than a pencil that was sharpened too far."

"Ma'am—""Shut it. So, let me put this clearly. Go back, fetch whoever rich noble sent you here, and instruct them that they can get their pretty asses down here, or there will be no adventuring for them." She stopped, and it got quiet. Very quiet. I realised all conversations behind us had also stopped, and when I turned to look I saw an array of faces watching us with fascination and trepidation. As if waiting for something very unfortunate to happen to someone who was not them.

The quiet continued for a heartbeat, then the clerk said, "Now, you may speak. One sentence, then you may leave." Dast took a deep breath, thinking, planning his words. He looked first at Corso, then at me. Then he turned back to the collegium clerk.

"Ma'am." He gestured to us.

"I present to you, the collegium's newest adventurers; Sers Marek Vale and Corso."