Chapter 9.07

Chapter 9.07
Chapter 9.06	Chapter 9.08
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Chapter 9.07 is the 10th chapter of Volume 9.

tl;dr[edit | edit source]

Erin eats the Bulkup Bisque and can walk.
Ceria handles the distribution of loot from the Village of the Dead raid. The horns keep the circlet, sword, spellbook, and rings.
Erin forms the Order of Solstice and knights Normen.
Yelroan accepts an invitation to work at the Wandering Inn.

There were many events that helped wrap up or start important plot points throughout the chapter. One issue from the previous chapter was the distribution of the adventurer's loot from the raid on the Village of the Dead. Ceria handled this such that most relics and monster materials would be auctioned off through the Merchant's Guild, and the gold would be pooled together and given evenly as shares to the participating teams. Silver-rank teams would get one share, Gold-rank teams would get two, and Named-ranks would get three. There would be no allowances for larger teams, and no extra loot for the dead. Teams would be able to buy some of the artifacts pre-auction for market price if they wanted to lay claim on a specific item. The Horns themselves having a strong claim on many of the relics would hold onto the rings, circlet, spellbook, and sword but would give up the Helm of Fire and the scrolls they took. Through some clever bending of the truth Ceria convinced the adventurers that the circlet was still in Savere and the sword truthfully was in Chandrar which made it seem more acceptable. What helped convince the adventurers the most though was that the Helm of Fire on auction was projected to sell for one million gold coins giving every team at minimum a 20,000 gold coin payout.

While the adventurers were handling this, Normen was wheeling Erin around the city and he mentioned to her how much of a shame it was that her new Bulkup Bisque did not work to make herself stronger. In reality, she just hadn't thought of eating it yet. She rushed back home and found out that it would help her stand for four hours a day albeit with extreme pain and soreness afterwards. The adventuring teams returned and celebrated their good fortune as well as Erin recovering enough to walk and while they celebrated, Erin got a letter from Ryoka telling her about the runner's whereabouts. Erin learned about her situation on Terandria and used that terandrian connection to remember Rabbiteater who she learned was a hero of the war versus Dawn Concordat. Moore came to the inn as well, and despite his wariness, broke down over the attention given by Erin and Mrsha - especially Mrsha who would not leave him alone once he'd finally come back to the inn. After things had settled down, Erin went to the Garden of Sanctuary to vocalize her thoughts in private. Mrsha and Normen overheard her talking about Numbtongue and Octavia's secret relationship and her plans to start new quests namely a Heroic Quest: Zeladona’s Trial of a Thousand Blades! and a <Legendary Quest: Destroy Roshal. The first didn't work because the reward of a swordmaster's skill wasn't right, and the second she deemed not the right time.

The following day, Erin went to the Mages Guild to pen a response to Ryoka and to also inquire about the whereabouts of Nanette who she'd promised to look after. Due to her being dead though, she couldn't easily contact Laken who she knew was in contact with many [Witches]. When she got back to the inn, it was in the middle of a heated argument between Lyonette and her Thronebearers vs Lism and the [Negotiator], Teliv. Lism was to return Erin's Magical Door now that she was alive again, but the financial side of it was a mess. Liscor had actually lost money on the door due to how much mana it took to keep it running, but Lyonette wanted the profits. The issue came up that both Lyon and Erin were frankly really bad with finances. Despite all of their friends there was no one that wanted to handle the inn's messy financial situation. Mrsha luckily did have the right connections. She first tried to get Fetohep for help, but he refused, but she then brought Erin to the Mages Guild once more where they could contact Yelroan since he made a living off of this kind of math.

Yelroan and the rest of the Plain's Eye Tribe were not doing well. Merish acted as chieftain, and they had been left a spot nearby where they would start to build a city in order to weather the coming winter. Yelroan was staying to help the dying tribe budget despite being the only Plain's Eye gnoll left without white fur. Ysara and Qwera were leaving for Liscor and Ysara offered Yelroan a place, though his sense of loyalty kept him with his tribe. Mrsha's letter to him was a welcome distraction from the disastrous situation he found himself in. He told her how to subsidize the costs per city, and how to get this subsidy agreement in a magical contract form that would be accepted. He also continued to write about planning for the future of the door which bled into his own struggles with the Plain's Eye Tribe. Erin, reading this all over Mrsha's shoulder, wanted to help him, but all of those that could, she recognized would want too much in return or were just generally not the right people to ask.

As she fretted about this, she was approached by adventurers looking to buy personalized <Quests> and she had to flee the guild. While fleeing she ran into another group this time of knights who had come to inquire about the Order of the Solstice. Ceria's rumor and Rabbiteater's chosen name had gotten enough attention that it had come back to Erin. Through council from the Ser Lormel and her knowledge from the Land of the Dead, Erin used loopholes in founding Knighthood Orders to declare the new Order of Solstice as a crusade chapter of Chandrar. Most continents required hundreds of knights to form an order, but Chandrar only required as many as there were Shield Kingdoms of which there are only five remaining. She could found the order in Chandrar and move it to Izril because of the familiarity she had with chandrarian knights in death. The members would be herself as leader, Ser Solstice, Brunkr who she inducted posthumously, and Normen who she knighted herself.

The knighting of Normen was a moment, and with him she found the start of a solution for some of the problems that she could not bring herself to send others for. In the afterglow, she had Mrsha send a formal request to Yelroan for a job offer at the inn. She bribed him with math from the laptop, and work with Hexel, but mostly because there was a lot of good he could do in Liscor. Yelroan was writing his refusal when Merish interuppted him. Yelroan thought he was needed with Plain's Eye and Merish couldn't disagree, but it was time for the tribe to stop holding him back. Merish reasoned that Yelroan should go abroad and send money back if he wanted to, but he should flourish elsewhere. The two embraced, and Yelroan agreed to leave. That night, Normen leveled up evolving his class into a [Courteous Knight] and Erin leveled up to level 47 gaining the Key of Reprieve for her Garden of Sanctuary.