Quaestor

"I wonder if they're such a place for cooks somewhere on this floor," he mused, drinking in the excessive decor.  If there was, why wasn't Maggie's shop there instead of where it was?  Maybe that meant there wasn't?  Doubt prompted a quick check of his HUD.

"Not even halfway?  Damn.  Either this quest got harder or even my gathering skills got rusty."

"They call it foraging now."

"Whut?"  It took him a moment to even realize who had spoken to him, let alone realize that he'd been musing aloud.  "Oh, uh, hello.  Didn't see you there.  Sorry about that."

The skinny young boy looked like a child standing next to Quaestor, especially while the latter was still in his armor.  Not that he really had any need for it out here, but it gave him a sense of comfort and security while away from his shop.

"That skill you say you forgot.  They call it foraging.  Used to be gathering, but things changed."

Approaching the edge of town, the dark, crimson red of his centurion's uniform clashed harshly against the more predominant pink.  Some random woman in an elegant sari simply fainted as he approached, aghast at the very notion that he would dare enter their pristine village.  

"Oh, uh?  Is she gonna be okay?"  He asked innocently, eyes wide that people could take fashion so seriously.  Who was he kidding?  His youngest sister had always been just as dramatic about fashion, which made the whole thing more dismissible.  Only the dedicated illuminati of the craft could possibly understand, right?  Pfft.  Quaestor didn't even realize that he was laughing, let alone how loudly until a trio of young kids stopped and stared.

"Umm...  just remembering my favourite joke.  It's about these three sailors and aquatic iguana..."

The kids vanished before he could carry own, already savvy and wary of the long-winded tales told by strangers.

"Right.  Nevermind, then."

Putting his back to the past, Quaestor resumed his walkabout, searching long the shores of a nearby creek and through the thin foliage and underbrush of the first floor's mostly cultivated landscape.  All the recipes he'd developed remained in his menus, he simply couldn't reach or activate any of them.  Frustrating as it might be, he'd hardly allowed himself passage beyond the threshold of his shop and home until more recent days.  He'd moved there to hide away from the world and found his hopes rekindled instead.  Maybe there was something to be said for faith, after all.

Tolbana fell behind and soon he neared another, smaller village.  Fuchsia, wasn't it?  The town names after the colour?  Tailors who visited his shop went on and on about it, like some sort of clothier's nirvana. 

"The food must be unbelievably drab," he mumbled, a wry but mirthful smile partially hidden beneath his beard.

Setting aside the demands of his quest, for but a moment, Quaestor scoured the ruined woodlot in the area that once was the great hall of the Madrigal.  

"It might still be here.  And if it is..."  A small depression in the corner, filled with water and overgrown with weeds.  The position was about right.  Pulling back the fronds and reaching down, he drew forth a badly worn crest, most of its colour faded to gone.  Not much remained of the sculptural relief, but there was enough.  Just as its members had faded, and few now remained, they too would regain their standing and clarity.  The voices of the Madrigal would sing again.

The worn stone faded at his touch, dismissed to storage in some distant elsewhere until it was needed.  The others would need to see this - know that their legacy remains, and that it could be rebuilt.  It would serve as a reminder and momento of things lost.  So much loss, all for the sake of a game.

Gripping the stone, he swore his oath to the legacy of those who fell in this place.  Such an act would mean nothing to the digital overlord that governed this place, but it meant something to him.  It would mean something to his family and any others who might have survived the brutal purge.  Likewise, he'd find who did this and made sure they paid for their predatory ways.  

The lone centurion sat in silence a while, pondering the meaning of everything he'd just promised and how he could possibly made good on his words.  The guild would have to be reforged, for sure.  The others were already on board for that.  They'd asked Freyd to join them, hoping to thank him for his efforts, but the man already had commitments.  It was a fair and forthright refusal.  No shame in it.  If they could somehow make a mark for themselves, maybe others would sign on.  It worked before. 

"It could work again."

"How could I have let this happen?!"  He knew the truth.  Miri's loss had ruined him and any good he might have offered to his fallen guild mates.  Despite all past efforts, his strength had left him in the aftermath of her disappearance.  It had left them all.  Seating himself on a stack of broken blocks near where the main hearth once stood, his mailed hand patted it softly, as if soothing a child.  "Sorry, chums.  I let you down, and I'm going to have to live with that."

Looking about, memories filled in most of what reality was missing, at least to the extent that this place was ever real in the first place.  Jeeves and Tashi would scheme in the corner.  Miri would rally weary souls with a song or two in the central table while Tython likely set himself on fire, again.  It brought a smile to his lips and steeled determination in his soul.  The Madrigal would stand again.  He'd see to it.

"We'll bring it all back," he swore to himself.  "The Madrigal can rise again, and be even better than before."  Brass plates creaked and squealed as Quaestor clenched his armored fist, the gauntlet long overdue for a bit of oil and attention.  A tug at the horse-haired plume on his helm turned his head, like some sort of strange destiny-driven weather vane.  Bits of shaped stone poked out from the edge of a nearby copse of trees, supporting timbers long since burnt were barely visible in the thick underbrush.  A few quick cutting slashes from his axe.  

"Is this... home?"  

Rooting through the bits of broken detritus, Quaestor found his breath gone and heart stilled. Here were the last traces of his former guild's hall. It was like walking through a mausoleum and discovering that those buried within were your friends.

"Raskar.  Trivallaine.  Kesko."  Name spilled from his lips while an addled mind struggled with the magnitude of grief that swept over him.  He hadn't come back, and they paid the price.

"I'll need to make peace with Jeeves," he admitted aloud, scolding himself while kicking a few stray pebbles along the dusty road.  He'd already punted that apology too far along.  The man had lost his sister, and all Quaestor could manage was to shut him out.  It wasn't like him, and he owed better - especially to family. 

"When I get back."  A sailor's promise made, and debt owed.  Such things were not taken lightly.  

The burbling of water caught his attention.  Ahead, a shallow stream crossed his path, its stony bed having seen ample traffic over the years.  Nearby outcrops of granite brought back memories of a long-lost picnic.

"Could this have been the place?"  It would have been one of their last gatherings before fate unfurled its foul designs.  Time would have scoured away details, in the real world, but not here.  Every tree, branch, blade of grass and fallen log was just as it was years ago - the immortal mark of a digital reality.  

Skirting the edges of the sleepy village, Quaestor waved to a few fellow players as they went about their business.  A light breeze swept over the landscape, setting the grassy plains aflutter.  It reminded him of the sea, where he'd spent so much of his life.  News had reached him that some of the upper floors had wide expanses of water, and even sailing vessels, but they were unlocked long after he'd retired from the adventuring life.  Perhaps, with things changing, he might drag Miri up there - not that he would likely have to do so.  She'd just as soon race him and take a dive off the first available cliff.  A soft chuckle rumbled deep in the man's chest.  She was the brazen risk-taker in their group, and he'd not have it any other way.  The spark that blazed behind her ever-mischievous eyes had carried him across the globe, and driven him to carry on in this crazy place.  Part safe harbour, part bewitching siren and kindled with child-like wonder, he'd never met anyone else quite like her.

A few shimmering fronds on the edge of a nearby brook caught his attention.  Herbs line the dazzling water's edge, commanding his attention.  They would serve Maggie well.  Bending low, Quaestor observed a group of players walking and talking nearby: three men and one woman, laughing and playing as they went.  It brought a smile to his mustached lips to see that such bonds still survived.

Retreating to Angel's Point had been a deliberate withdrawal from the world and people still left in it.  Granted, it provided the space and time he'd needed to recover from Miri's disappearance, he'd also allowed himself to disengage too much from everything and everyone.  Miri had always been the tether that tied their group together and to those that gathered around them.  It wasn't a talent he possessed, at least not so overtly.  Perhaps now, with his heart rekindled and passions restored, he might find his way back to his old self.  She would expect it, after all.

Reaching the outskirts of Tolbana, Quaestor recalled its walls in flames, assaulted by seemingly endless hordes of ravenous kobolds.  Jeeves mocked them, at first, 'til one nearly bit his nose off.  The mental scene drew forth a hearty chuckle as the elder warrior wandered through farmers' fields, savouring the scents and scenery laid out before him.  It had been so long since wanderlust had last claimed him.

"Damn!  This quest doesn't have a time limit, does it?!"  Summoning the details in his UI afforded a sigh of relief.  Expecting to be winded for wandering so long in his heavy bronze plate, it was good to know that not all had been lost.  Fatigue failed to claim him, though his regalia felt severely dated by comparison to some of the newer toys he'd seen players bringing into his shop.

"I'll need to do something about that, eventually.  First, let's get me back into my shop.  The rest can follow."

Eager as he was to return to his beloved, the allure of nostalgia soon claimed him, setting him adrift in the rolling hills and valleys on the outskirts of the floor.  Wide green fields and pastures littered the landscape.  It felt strangely like returning to the lands of an artificial youth - one thought forever lost to an oblivion of despair.  Clouds floated overhead, casting shade like blotchy bad memories over the landscape.  Like fate, they could not be avoided.  The good and bad of his own fractured past caught up with him: early battles with boars, Tython's first epic costume fail, and the time that Miri had enthralled a pair of swans at the edge of Old Pete's pond for nearly an hour, by song alone.  They'd been present for the battle with Grath, though their contributions were of little consequence.  Others had been more focused on advancement.  The Madrigal had been conjured around that time, and remained in its infancy.

It took little time to find the fields that would produce what was required, but Quaestor was picky about his ingredients and always had been.  Most ship cooks mashed together anything they found, much of it questionable, or else boiled it until all taste or hint of original identity was unrecognizable.  He had always held himself to a higher standard and earned the love and loyalty of this shipmates for it.  So had it been for his kin in their first forays into this magnificent, murderous cage.  They'd held strong, even thrived in the early days of SAO, despite the chaos and uncertainty.   They had each other, and that had always been enough. 

"Where might we be now, if we'd never been parted," he asked the clouds and the breeze, as if they would somehow grant him meaningful answers.  Truly, he was just grateful to have his Miri back, and the others too.

It took a while to find the right place.  Quaestor's forays beyond the bounds of Angel's Point had been rather limited since the Madrigal's decline.  Hours were lost to wandering the streets and plazas of the Town of Beginnings until he finally found his destination.

"Oh, sure, this one opens with no trouble," he muttered under his breath as he entered the establishment.  "Ah!  Good lady!  Nice to see that you're in.  I was hoping that you might be able to-"

"Can't," barked a slender blonde, beauty as she spun past him carrying three different platters to a nearby table of drooling patrons, half of them staring at the meal.  The rest had their gazes firmly locked on her.  Coy winks and sultry smiles would ensure ample tips, even as she turned back to the new arrival.

"Sorry!  So sorry.  We're terribly swamped today.  The place is full.  You'll have to... Quaestor?!"

"Aye," spoke the mirthful man, a twinkle of pleasure in his eye at her recognition.  "Good to see you again, Maggie.  You haven't aged a day!"  

Laughing, she guided him to the kitchen, where they could talk with more privacy.

"What could possibly bring you back to my humble establishment?  You finished your training ages ago.  Not that I mind the visit."  Dishes and cookware clattered as she rushed to fill more orders.  "Sorry, it's impossibly busy today and... drat.  How am I out of eggs and vanilla.  This can't be happening.  Go on, Quaestor, I'm listening, I swear."

A brief explanation provided, Mags nibbled on the end of a wooden spool as she pondered the possible explanations.  

"I'm not much good at this sort of thing, but maybe if you helped me out again, it would open some old doors once more?"

"I'm at a bit of a loss, but it seems work a try.  All my old skills seem to have faded away.  Guess I'm starting from scratch!"

"What do you mean 'inaccessible'?!  I've been tending this shop for years!"

Flustered and frowning, the normally chipper and friendly man had soured on the spot when a system error spawned in the window to his own treasured venue: Quaestor's Quisine.  Despite the strength of his grip and vigorous shake, the damnable knob wouldn't budge so much as a fraction of an inch.

"I was in here last night!"  A furrowed brow signaled trouble for anyone found or deemed to be responsible for this nuisance.  As good-natured as he was, nobody messed with his kitchen.  Rapid inspection discovered no tells of tampering, nor any evidence that someone was playing a prank on him.

"Miri, love," he bellowed up to the open window on the floor above, "did you happen to lock the shop door last night, after I'd gone?"

A bewildering mop of crimson hair bobbed out, overhead, backlit against the ever-present white haze of sky on the thirteenth floor. 

"What are you on about?"

Their banter, barely begun, was interrupted by the spontaneous appearance of letters on the restaurant's barred entry.

Quaestor's thick, chestnut-coloured mustache twitched, twice.

"Don't worry about it, dearie.  Just a glitch.  I'll get this sorted.  Back in a few!"

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Quaestor | HP: 20/20 | EN: 20/20 | DMG: 4 | MIT: 6 | THRNS: 9

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