I’m not really sure where I’m going with this one. But I’m also really tired today…
The short version is that a lot Fantasy stories — particularly as I’ve noticed in anime — use fairly video gamey systems for character rankings. This isn’t really an insightful commentary on that — because, again, I’m really tired today — so much as borrowing the premise.
I think what I want to get out of this is to give Kat an opportunity to connect with the two Addies, a premise I previously used in another Daily Writing Exercise.
Copyright
J.B. Norman
“This is the worst!” Kat groans.
“What’s the matter now, Katherine?” Amara asks.
“I have to do community service!”
Kat lowers her head onto the table/
“Now, Katherine, did you get into trouble with the law when I wasn’t looking?”
Kat peers up from the table.
“No. This for the Guild Authority,” she explains. “I have to do four hundred hours of community service for the Guild Authority before I can apply for my Silver-Plus Adventuring Licence! That’s work!”
“I’ve never had to anything like that for my Licence,” Amara notes.
“Yeah, but that’s because you’re still at Silver-Standard,” Kat notes. “I’ve been an adventurer for eight months longer than you, so I apply for the next level sooner than you can.”
She slumps back onto the table.
“And, besides, you like helping people,” she says. “You’ll probably get, like four thousand hours of community service. It’s that… noble sauce… ob…longata stuff you’re always talking about.”
“The word is noblesse oblige, Katherine,” Amara says.
“That’s two words,” Kat notes.
“Not the point, Katherine,” Amara replies.
Kat pushes off the table, leans back on her chair and stares at the ceiling.
“So,” she asks. “Know any communities that need to be served?”
“Well,” Amara says, counting on her fingers. “You could feed the hungry, give directions to the geographically inept, trim the hairy, reach things for the short.”
“We’ll keep workshopping it,” Kat mutters.
“Oh!” Amara says, her face lighting up. “You could find some junior adventurers to mentor! As I recall, you only need to be Silver-Minus ranked for that.”
“Ugh,” Kat groans. “That’s even worse!”
“Us! Pick us!” Adelaide Lyte cries from the next table over.
The novice adventurer is accompanied by her fellow aspiring adventurer and girl named Addie.
“Gah!” Kat cries as the two younger adventurers appear seemingly out of nowhere.
The two Addies hopefully inch their chairs forward.
“Gah!” Kat cries as the other Addie’s beloved pet weasel pops out from her pocket and immediately makes for Kat’s face.
“He seems quite fond of you, Katherine,” Amara says with a smirk.
“Ugh,” Kat groans, gently scratching behind the weasel’s ears in hopes to trying to coax it away from her face.
“Please, Miss Kat,” Addie Lyte says. “We could learn so much from you.”
“Indeed,” the other Addie says. “It seems we could help each other. We need mentorship, while you could quite easily reach your community service hours by mentoring us.”
“Four hundred hours, say, eighteen hours a day,” Addie Lyte offers. “That’s only…”
“Slightly more than twenty-two days,” the other Addie notes.
“That’s less than a month!” Addie Lyte says.
Kat blinks in bewilderment.
“Why would I be spending eighteen hours a day with you?” she asks.
“Well,” Addie Lyte offers, “if we’re adventuring, we’l probably need to huddle together at night for warmth.”
“Absolutely not!” Kat exclaims. “And — Gah!”
The weasel perched on her shoulder has begun trying to console her by nuzzling into her cheek.
“Please say yes, Miss Kat,” the other Addie says. “If you refuse us, you’d break poor Sebastianus’ heart.”
Also, the weasel’s name was previously “Sebastian”, which ended up being the name of the Rat Girl from the second Suicide Squad movie’s main rat. Adding the Latin-style “-us” both helps to differentiate and make Addie (full name Adelgundis, by the name) seem even more eccentric.
Ultimately, I’m still workshopping the name…
The rest of my writing exercises are here.
Follow along for the rest of my Spring 2024 30 days of writing. And catch up on that here.
And follow me here:
If you’ve enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me through Ko-fi or Patreon, or through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:
Follow Realmgard and other publications of Emona Literary Services™ below:
Subscribe to the Emona Literary Services™ Substack newsletter here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.
All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.
The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.
Realmgard is published by Emona Literary ServicesTM
