Mary was a couple years older than Merrick, somewhere around 22 or 23 if he recalled correctly. They’d gone out on a couple of dates years prior, shortly after his exploratory apprenticeship with Master Jerald, his alchemy teacher, had started. She was the daughter of one of Master Jerald’s primary herb suppliers and a proper herbalist.
In fact, Merrick owed Mary more than he’d ever really be able to repay considering that the obscure text on Varlamore alchemy had been lent to him from her. It wasn’t missed on him that the reason things between them didn’t really go anywhere was due to how engrossed he became in said book and the inroads he made in training his alchemy, or Potioneering as his status registered, directly after.
In fact, the guilt over realizing he’d missed a scheduled date with her, alongside multiple letters over a two week period of him due to him being locked in his At-The-Time-Master’s spare workshop experimenting with ratios on his newly discovered Potioneering skill, was a large portion of the reason he tended to avoid social gatherings for young adults his age. He became somewhat of a pariah after standing up on of the most eligible bachelorettes outside of the nobles. Not that Mary ever made much of a fuss about it, she was far too kind to disparage someone’s image.
Even now, Merrick could see that she was happy to see him. He could only assume that was due, in large part at least, due to the monthly delivery of his home-brewed plant growth tonic he’d been sending since he found the recipe. Their courtship may not have worked out, but Merrick knew he owed her a life debt for finally finding a way to turn his useless Merge skill into a crown jewel.
“It has been far too long! I’m still waiting on you to tell me what herbs you’re using to make your wonderful fertilizers. None of that silly ‘trade secret’ stuff either, I already told you that you can hide the real herb in a list and I’d grow them all. Honestly, your potion is so useful it makes me just want to lock you in my bedroom and make you brew them all day.” Mary linked her arm through Merrick’s and tugged him out of James’ grip.
‘Women are too expensive, women are too expensive’, Merrick closed his eyes and repeated the internal mantra that prevented him from seeking out companionship during his steep decline into debt over the previous few years. Alone in his room, it was easy to remember but it was hard to stay strong with such convincing assets pushed up against his side. Mary’s pouting look didn’t help either, it was just too damn cute.
“I think I’d have to wrestle you for that right, there’s no way I’d be let go of my wood polish supplier without a fight,” James butted in his a signature hair flip and smirk. It was a bit of an open secret that he’d been attempting to woo Mary for years and she didn’t give him the time of the day.
“Heh. So do you want to wrestle a beautiful woman or have Merrick polish your wood? Mixed messaging, James. You got to work on that or you’ll have a hard time clearing up all the fancy boy allegations,” a baritone voice rumbled as Rod picked at James. Rod was a large man, towering over Merrick, who was already a healthy 5’11, by a good head and a half with shoulders to match. Although it was all in good fun, Rod never missed a chance to knock James down a peg or two due to the latter’s constant pestering of Mary.
Although he looked like a castle wall and could probably carry around a bank’s vault door as a shield, Rod’s chosen weapon was actually a longbow and he was one of the more accomplished Ranger Apprentices. How the mountain of a man was able to disappear into the trees with nary a sound would forever elude Merrick. He could only assume it was a skill his father, the same man who taught Merrick his forestry skills, had passed down to him. Rod and Mary’s fathers were fast friends and sworn brothers, which led to a very close sibling-like relationship between the two of them.
“Nice to see you as always Merrick, impressive that you’re so good at hiding from all of us considering my pa never was able to help you pick up a stealth skill. Don’t think I forgot that it’s your turn to cover dinner, I don’t care if it’s been a year or a decade a food debt cannot go unpaid!” Merrick was one of the few men Rod had ever approved of, not that he would ever elaborate on why. It really did mean something to Merrick though, because that friendship had been in place long before he discovered how to use the dusts his skills yielded.
Back when he was on his rapid decline on ideas how to make himself useful and his sponsors had started bailing on him. He was even there for Merrick the previous year, when Merrick’s mother had to accept a very restrictive contract, with a secrecy clause, just to help pay off enough of Merrick’s debt to keep him out of prison for another year. A year that was rapidly ticking down in time. His mother could only tell them that the contract was related her profession and had insisted she would have accepted it even without the upfront bonus. Where she went, exactly what she was doing, how long it would be, and if it was dangerous were all questions she’d been unable to answer.
His older brother and younger sister hadn’t spoken to him since.
“Sorry about that Rod, you know how I get. How about this, I’ll cover dinner tonight out of our dungeon earnings.” Merrick could only appease the gentle giant and send a prayer that he’d be okay with bottomless stew at the inn near his workshop. There were few places he could afford to cover Rod’s dinner bill, even when his wallet wasn’t literally empty.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Oh? Where are we doing? Will I have time to bathe and get freshened up before dinner?” Mary’s eyes sparkled as she interjected and Rod gave Merrick a thumbs up behind her back.
“Uh, did you forget that we’ve got plans to work on nurturing saplings after our trip today? I still need your help setting up the botanical arrays since I couldn’t really figure out the diagrams you sent me,” James felt the wind draining from his sails. He’d heard about Merrick and Mary’s past relationship, not that it lasted long enough that he wanted to acknowledge it but hadn’t known they were still so close. She’d refused to go out and eat with him every time he’d asked but volunteered to tag along with Merrick and he could help but feel depressed about that.
“Heh. He wants my beautiful sister to waste her time ‘nurturing his sapling’. How forward of him.” Rod needled.
“Rob! Stop it!” Mary said, though the smile on her face told everyone present she gave her tacit approval of the teasing, “Though, James, Rod and I already agreed to come on a last-minute Dungeon delve on the busiest days of the year with you. If I recall, you were begging for help because you needed to go harvest more branches to make up for your Master’s weekly quota. Surely, you’re going to be too busy to play around with arrays considering it’s a personal project. Honestly, you probably don’t even have time to join us for dinner so I’ll make sure to send a courier to bring you dinner to Uncle Kendrick’s workshop.”
“You know, James probably wouldn’t have needed to beg if he’d just mentioned that he was bringing Merrick along- Oof!” A quick elbow from Mary cut Rod off mid-thought. James was already regretting dragging Merrick along and the heavy blush from Mary and oblivious look on Merrick’s face didn’t make him feel any better about that. He gloomily thought, ‘no percentage chance of getting a permanent discount from Merrick by getting closer to him was worth this cost’.
“Don’t feel so down, James, I wasn’t going to pay for your food anyways. I only owe Rod dinner so you’re not missing on any free meals.” Merrick patted James’ back, completely misunderstanding the down look on his face. For Merrick, a free meal was a godsend and always a cause for celebration so he could only assume that was what James was moping about. He was so concentrated on James’ reactions that he missed Rod’s facepalm and Mary’s scowl.
“Hmph, we’re wasting time lets go queue up.” Mary released his arm and stomped away pouting. Merrick quizzically tilted his head to Rod and only received a headshake in response as James hustled to catch up with her.
As they walked, Merrick took stock of their party composition. He knew that James was a sword and shield user, likely fancying himself some sort of knight out of a story book even though he lacked the noble title required to gain system acknowledgement to earn that class. He stood at 5’10, with blond hair and blue eyes, and was carrying a steel longsword and a bronze round shield. He was wearing a metallic chainmail that he’d almost certainly picked up for a discount at the Apprentice’s Market that he’d met Merrick at. Hopefully, Merrick thought to himself, James’ lack of a helmet wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass.
Rod was somewhere around 6’8 tall, with wide shoulders and rippling muscles. His black hair was short on top and shaved on the sides, like usual, and the beard he’d been rocking since he was 14 years old inspired envy in Merrick who’d never been able to fill one out even at his current ripe age of 21. The beard was, obviously, tucked into his cowl as he pulled it over his face. It was made of the same high quality leather as the rest of his armor, with some variety of monster scales coating the outside. On his back was a quiver of arrows that were almost twice as large as a standard arrow and his longbow which was some variety of blueish wood with swirls of teal metal reinforcing it. The longbow was also significantly larger than the norm, with a much larger draw strength that Rod took full advantage of.
On his hip, Rod wore a near identical clone of the short sword Merrick carried, which made sense considering it was the ‘apprenticeship gift’ his father gave all his new wards, including the church sponsored exploratory ones. Merrick had found it amusing that Rod had never upgraded his melee weapon, considering the length and weight almost made it about as useful as a dagger for the man. ‘Any longer and it’d get stuck in the bramble and give me away when I’m stealthing’ he’d told Merrick with a straight face.
Mary was wearing a padded and reinforced robe that somehow did not manage to hide an of her curves. She carried an ornamented staff made of a similar wood as Rod’s longbow, but without any metal lacing through the grain. The staff was taller than her, which wasn’t too difficult as she was only 5’7, and the head of the staff was almost the size of her head. Honestly, Merrick though, the burl on whatever tree they made that staff from must have been decades old and worth a significant sum. While he was watching, she put her brunette hair into a bun before covering her hair with a silk bonnet and pulling up the hood attached to her robe.
Merrick could see that the entire hood was reinforced with extra leather like her vitals were with extra attention paid to the neck area. She even fastened a few buttons he hadn’t seen before so that only the upper part of her nose, her eyes, and her part of her forehead were visible through the gap. He nodded his head in appreciation for her proper care, only a vapid fool wouldn’t wear a helmet into a combat scenario. Or someone who couldn’t afford armor, of course. He couldn't help but think she was doing an amazing job considering her druidic class restrictions on weaponry and armor.
Mary, who’d looked back as she buttoned up her hood in order to make sure everyone was there as they officially queued up for the dungeon, caught Merrick admiring her and nodding his head in appreciation. The words she’d had got lost in her throat and she snapped her head back forward with a furious blush on her face, thankful for the hood hiding most of her skin from the other parties in line.
“Looks like there’s only two parties ahead of us, so we should be less than 20 minutes. Feel free to take a seat nearby and I’ll hold our spot in line,” James offered up to everyone.
