Chapter 4: Rui (part 1 of 5)

  "You do realize we're adventurers and not movers, right?"

  Chua Yap-Boon—or Boonie as he preferred to be called—yelled out as he rummaged through my belongings. He was a short, wiry man with strikingly large, round ears. As he squatted next to my packs and poked at their contents, I couldn't help but be reminded of a monkey—a thought that I immediately decided was best kept to myself. I yawned for about the twentieth time this morning as I reflected on the choices that had led me to perform manual labour at the crack of dawn as I began my precious week off.

  I was back in the courtyard of Silver Crane Agency. I had been instructed to arrive 'at five in the morning, packed and ready to go' so naturally, I was already here at four. An overnight porter I had hired helped me transport five rucksacks that I had packed to their brims and dropped them off at the front entrance to Silver Crane, only for us to find that the door was locked. The porter left in a hurry and I was left sitting on one of the rucksacks, wondering if I had to wait a whole hour to be let in.

  It was then that Boonie unlocked the door and poked his head out. He helped me carry the packs inside and onto the courtyard, all the while making fun of me for bringing so much baggage. In other words, my adventure was off to a great start.

  Presently, Boonie seemed to have found something in one of the rucksacks that caught his interest and he pulled it out. It was a metallic cube that took up the whole of his palm.

  "What's this?" he quizzed me while looking into the pack he had pulled it out from. "Is this whole sack filled with this stuff?"

  "That's uh... I guess you could call it a portable magnet source."

  He looked up at me, smiling widely but clearly uncomprehending.

  "They're used for imaging. I'm a Radiologist by trade."

  He shook his head, still not following.

  "You know when you go to the hospital and one of the doctors there kind of... takes a picture of your injury? Let's say if you broke your arm, they can see where and how the bone is broken so the bone doctors can set it properly?"

  "Oh, that!" he perked up. "Those are doctors? I always thought they were nurses or something."

  I nodded in defeat. It wasn't an uncommon misconception, and I'd heard this comment or its ilk numerous times already in my young career. Boonie then turned his gaze back on the cube, turning it this way and that in his hand. "What's that got to do with this thing, though?"

  "Well, us Radiologists, we're Aurum-attuned. In the hospital, we have this block of magnet," I gestured in the air to depict a rectangle about ten times the size of the one in Boonie's hand, "that we amplify and direct its signals to the... well, I won't bore you with the details. The point is we need a source of magnet to help us make the pictures. I cut these blocks myself to bring on this trip. I thought maybe I could make myself useful if anything... you know, happens on the road. These cubs aren't big enough for making the actual vellum scrolls you get in the hospital, but I would at least get a look of the injury in my head. Might help your Medic out."

  "Right," Boonie nodded along and started casually tossing the cube into the air and catching it. My heart leapt to my throat. Theoretically, the magnets would still function if they were scratched up a bit, but still, they were expensive to source and I had paid for this batch out of my own pocket. Oblivious to my horror, Boonie continued. "Why'd you bring so many, though? Think we plan on getting hurt a lot on this quest?"

  "No, I didn't mean it like that," I stammered, worried that I might just have offended one of my adventurer guides in record time. "I just like to be prepared. Didn't mean anything by it."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Okay, so thought we needed your help preparing for the quest, is that it?" Boonie said all this with a smile that never left his face since the moment I met him. Being in his presence was beginning to unnerve me. I didn't know what to make of him. It didn't seem as though he was taking offence, but the interaction felt oddly confrontational, something I certainly hadn't prepared for.

  I was saved from having to invent another awkward answer by the door to the front office swinging open behind us. Out walked a dark, slender woman wearing the same silver tunic with red trims as Boonie's. As she walked toward us, I was immediately taken with her confident posture that made her seem taller than she was. Her dark hair was tied up in a simple bun but she let wavy loose strands dangle by each ear, framing her sharp cheekbones and large brown eyes. She was beautiful. I felt more nerves grab hold of me, but this time for a much different reason.

  "Hello. You must be Ruihong," the woman said with an understated smile and extended her hand. I hastily wiped the palm of my own hand against my pant leg before returning the handshake, hoping that the gesture hadn't been too obvious. It wasn't just her looks that instantly appealed to me; there was also a regal air to her that commanded immediate respect and attention. To me, she seemed the embodiment of the model adventurer renowned in songs and storybooks. "I'm Prisha Kumar. I'll be leading this party."

  "Pleased to meet you," I hoped that I didn't sound as shaky as I felt. "And please, call me Rui."

  She nodded toward Boonie who was still fiddling absent-mindedly with one of my magnet blocks. He in turn raised two fingers to his temple in mock salute, still wearing that inscrutable smile. It came as somewhat of a relief that his odd behaviour didn't seem to shift at all in his leader's presence.

  "I see you've already met our Daoshi," Prisha said, facing me again.

  "Yes. Boonie's been helping me with my baggage. It seems I was a bit over-eager with my packing," that was definitely a good place for me to stop, but my next words tumbled out before I gave myself the chance to catch them. "Wait, Boonie's a... Daoshi?"

  As soon as the sentiment left my mouth, I looked in vain for a hole to hide in. Surely, if I hadn't offended him before, this had done it. It was just that he looked so different from the Daoshis I'd treated in hospital. I scrambled to salvage the situation. "Sorry, that's not... I didn't mean to—"

  "Didn't mean anything by that one neither, eh, doc?" Boonie's smile never faltered, and his tone remained ever cheerful. I began to wonder if he might have muscle contractures that froze his face in place. "You sure like to keep things close to your chest. Go on, tell us what you did mean."

  What I meant was that almost all of the Daoshis I'd come across were burly men who looked like they could take a lot of punishment. As the primary vanguard for most parties, their weapon of choice was the hefty quarterstaff, the long arc of which allowed them to harry Maladies and keep them distracted. I imagined the quarterstaff most Daoshis used would be at least twice Boonie's height. I just couldn't picture him swinging it around with any amount of dexterity or authority... although his physique did remind me of a certain Monkey King in one of the oft-told legends, and that character had also favoured a magical staff. In any case, I would be a fool to relay all of these thoughts unedited.

  "I... please don't take this the wrong way," I stammered again, which seemed to have become my default mode when speaking to Boonie. "I've seen and treated Daoshis in my line of work, and physically, they all seem to... fit a certain archetype. I apologize for showing my ignorance. Really, this is all new to me and—"

  "Aw, don't apologize, doc," he yelled brightly, giving the magnet block one last toss before placing it carefully back into my rucksack. He stood up, though the effect wasn't very noticeable. He slouched over to me and raised a hand. I flinched—shamefully—but he only patted me genially on the shoulder. "I was ignorant about your job too, but you explained it to me. And now you know that scrawny bastards like me can make a Daoshi. I'm sure we'll get to learn a lot more about each other on the road."

  He turned around abruptly and slouched away without waiting for a reply, heading to the opposite of the courtyard. I had expected wrath, perhaps even felt it justified, and this apparent reversal to hearty camaraderie confounded me further. I instinctively looked to Prisha, whose understated smile also hadn't changed since she had introduced herself. Did every Silver Crane adventurer each have one permanent facial expression?

  "Don't mind him, Rui. He's sweetheart once you get to know him," she said, and I believed her immediately. Her words were soft yet carried authority. I couldn't help but hang onto her every word. "And in case you were still wondering, yes. He is an extremely capable Daoshi. You're in good hands here."

  That made me feel worse than ever. How had I managed to score myself the opportunity to work with some of the best adventurers Temasek had to offer and—within minutes of meeting them—somehow given them the impression that I was doubting their abilities?

  "Come," Prisha put a gentle hand on my arm, causing butterflies to explode in my stomach. In my head, I screamed at myself to get a grip and stop bumbling about like a schoolboy. "I'll take you to the tea room. The rest of the party should be joining us shortly."