<~> Chapter 209For the first time in a long time, there wasn't much to do after lunch. For the most part, we were just waiting for things outside our trol to move around us. Normally, I would think that being in this kind of situation would cause me ay but instead I felt rather rexed oddly enough. My friends and I lounged around the guest building in the embassy. Man and Torien had calmed down a little since lunch but they were still on edge. Since we weren't really doing anything though, they had mao settle into rexing and chatting with the others which felt like a step in the right dire.

  Sometime ie afternoon, Tarkliurned with an older human man. He retty tall and muscur and looked gruff, if I saw him oreet I would guess him to be a retired adventurer.

  "Lilith!" Tarklin called out. "I asked some questions around the guild and found out that this is the guy that you're here to meet!"

  I walked up to the two and the human nodded. "Name's Korrim of the cartography guild. You have a letter of introdu for me?" he asked.

  "ht, the letter." I had pletely fotten about that. "Let me go up to my room a."

  I pulled Mimi upstairs with me so that I could dig through my trunk and find the letter of introdu Raksha'va had given me all the way ba Traehall. I was relieved to see that the letter of introdu was still in good shape and the seal was still intact. I kissed Mimi on her cheek a back downstairs to hand the letter over to Korrim. If I recall correctly, Korrim was the head of the cartography guild, so Tarklin mao get him to e down here himself rather than a random receptionist or something.

  "Here it is," I said, handing over the letter.

  The man ied the seal before breaking it and reading over the letter. When he finished he gave me an appraising look. "The guildmaster in Traehall says you would do well as a cartographer. Especially for dungeons. She says you have good draftsmanship but I'll have to be the judge of that." He looked back down at the letter and skimmed it again before nodding. "I have a few things in my bag here, let's get started right away. I'd like to see how well you copy a map without any instru first, see where we o focus with you. You'll be trained as a field mapper, your maps don't o be perfect but they still o be accurate enough that they're useful."

  I nodded. "That's about what I expected. we do it here, at the table?"

  He snorted in response. "Well you have the right mi for it. If you would have whined about not having a proper drafting table I would have made fun of ya."

  I grinned. "We're adventurers, we gotta make do with what we have, right?"

  "True enough. Here, I have some tools you borrow for the task. You'll o buy your own tools from the guild ter. It's part of the test to see which tools you think are useful so I won't be expining what they're all for. This here is a travel pne. For the work you'll be doing, the maps will be sized for this."

  Korrim pced some tools oable and I reized nearly all of them at a ghe 'travel pne' is just a hard and ft surface to write on, a bit bigger than a clipboard, but all of the other tools were sized to match it. There was a T-square, a triangle, a straight-edge ruler, a pass, a few curve guides, a plum bob, and two tools I didn't reize. All of them were primarily drafting or measurement instruments. When he was finished ying all of the tools out, he spread a small map oable and cmped a bnk sheet of paper to the pne using two metal brackets to hold it in pce.

  "Alright. Your assig will be to copy the map onto a new sheet of paper. This is primarily a draftsmanship test. For most everything else, you just use a reference guide to learn as you go, but draftsmanship isn't something you just learn ht." He punctuated his statement by pg a dip pen and a bottle of ink above the pne. I had been hoping to start with something less perma but it seems the test won't be that fiving. Not that I have seen any graphite pencils around.

  Tarklin cleared his throat. "Well, it seems you have everything under trol here. I'll be back ter tonight to talk to you. Have fun with your cartography training!"

  I ughed and gave him a wave. "No problem. Thanks fing for Korrim to e here to the embassy. I appreciate it."

  Tarklin gave a short bow. "It's the least I could do. Until ter."

  Oarkli I noticed that most of my friends had e to watch me take my test. Korrim looked over them with a slightly curious g it didn't seem he was bothered by the little audience I had going. I'm not the type of person who gets embarrassed about drawing in front of others though so it didn't bother me either. I decided I would start with the straights first, just so that I could get a feel for the T-square and triangle.

  For the bell, I spent my time meticulously copying every detail of the map I could. The hardest parts were the free hand squiggles in pces but I made a point to measure the space they took up and copy them as closely as I could. Eventually I had finished up and passed the pne over to Korrim to be judged. He took it and carefully looked over the copy of the map I had drawn. I swear I could see his lips twitch up in amusement a few times but I wasn't sure art of the assig he found funny.

  "Well, Miss Lilith. From looking over this copy I say two things. You have amazing draftsmanship abilities... and you don't know the first thing about maps." He suddenly started ughing before pointing at a spot on the map that I had spent a while on. "This here wasn't an accurate wall, it was just a scribble to indicate that it was a rough cave. I sidered stopping you but when I noticed you were trying to copy it perfectly oo one, I wao see how well you would do. Pretty well, even your freehand skills are impressive." He poi another spot that I had spent a while on. "This part you copied is a signature, if you were taking a fery test I would say you would have aced it." I blushed a little in respoo that... Now that he poi out, I could see how that... scribble could be a signature, but I hadn't realized that when I was w on it...

  "The good news is that I don't o teach you any of the hard stuff. I just o quiz you on a few of these other tools and lend you a reference book until you memorize the tents." He picked up the plum bob. "What is this for?" he asked.

  "That's a plum bob, you use that to find the vertical line going straight down, and you use it to find the angle of ines," I replied.

  He ughed. "You're very strange. You know how to use all of these drafting tools perfectly, but you don't know even basic map markings. You even know what this is. Most people who only read maps have no clue what this is for. How about this?" he asked holding up another instrument.

  I shook my head. "No clue what that one is for."

  "Hmm... This tool is used for measuring ambient may. It's particurly useful in dungeons where you'll be doing most of your work. Are you able to use magic at all?" he asked.

  "I ."

  "Good, then take this and supply it with a little bit of mana," Korrim said, handihe tool.

  It looked kind of like a TV remote, but instead of buttons, it had little iions on it. I pushed some mana into the devid the lowest two iions lit up in white.

  He nodded. "Good, that's a two. Retively low may, not unon in a city." He poio a fe markings that I had copied over without knowing what they were. "These are may markings. These are only ever sidered semi-accurate sihis sort of thing ge a lot in dungeons but it's worth noting down still because the ratios usually hold true. An area higher than other pces in the duends to stay that way. Not always, but usually."

  He pulled another map out of his bag. "This map is ohat I only ever use for training purposes. It has every possible map marking on it, so I will be able to quickly run through them with you before leaving you with the reference book. I don't have much time left for you today but if you copy this map perfectly and have it delivered to me tomorrow, as well as pass a measureme, I'll give you a field mapper certification at the cartography guild. That will be plenty for what you o satisfy the guildmaster of Traehall."

  "Just like that?" I asked. "I expected that all of this would take a lot longer."

  He nodded. "Normally it does. Sometimes months longer, but that's if you're starting from scratch. I don't know what you used to do but you're an experienced draftsman, you already have mastered most of the hardest parts of the trade. I still o make sure you do your measurements properly but assuming that you are half as good at that as you are at your draftsmanship, it shouldn't be an issue." He took a book out of his bag and pced it oable. "This book also has a se for measuring. Normally I would test that too but based on how little you know about map markings, I assume you don't know any of these measuring teiques either. That's not a problem though, just read through this book, copy this seap, and I'll have a measuri ready for you ime we meet. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

  "Sounds good to me. Thank you Korrim," I replied.

  He waved me off. "Don't worry about it. Frankly, I'm happy about this. Usually guild deals are a pain in the backside. Assuming you don't have any trouble measuring, this will have been one of the easiest guild deals I've ever done. For ohey sent me someoh actual potential and not someoh a hope and a prayer that they'll be useful." He ughed. "Saves me a lot of effort."

  He stood up and started colleg his tools. "Ah, one more thing. It'll be ten gold for a full set of draftsman tools. Do you o pay that o or...?"

  "Ah, no. I have ten gold for that. Give me a moment."

  I walked over to Mimi who already had my gold pouch ready for me. I ted out ten gold auro Korrim with it. He quickly ted the gold before putting it in his own pouch. He then wrote me a handwritten receipt. "I'll have a set of drafting tools delivered here as soon as I return to the guild. Get this map copied tonight and we finish this up quickly. e by the cartographer's guild and I'll make sure to test you myself."

  I nodded. "Sure, no problem."

  Once he finished putting away his stuff he gave me a wave and headed out of the building. Once he was gone Bel sat dowo me. "Looks like that went well. Watg you work like that was impressive, you always look so happy when you're drawing."

  I smiled and nodded. "I am. I love it, even more teical work like cartography involves. Do you want to draw a little together while we wait for my drafting tools to be delivered? We haven't had a ce to do any more of that since we left Goldeh."

  Bel smiled. "Sure, I'd love to."

  While the two of us started drawing with our colored chalk, I got lost in thought. I retty relieved with how easy all of that had been. Well, the drafti itself wasn't easy exactly, but not having to spend a lot of time w on cartography befetting enough to satisfy Raksha'va was nice. Maybe I wouldn't be stuck here in the capital for much longer after all. There was still some stuff we're going to o worry about in the few days but this was a majh spot that got id to rest. I was oep closer to expl more dungeons aing the adventurer's guild off my back. Hopefully, those dungeons will go better tha one did.

  Saine

  Hello! Lilith finally ticked off the part of the mai she had been stu fes! After more than two entire books. She's almost as bad as I am! I have 160 hours in Skyrim, not ting the time I spent modding it, and I've never even gotten farther thaing the greybeards! In a lot of ways the quest was just an excuse to head to the capital, but I'm pretty happy with how things have gone so far. The Goldeh arc was very important for Lilith's character development and it's one of my favorite parts of the story so far so I don't mind that it's taken this loher way, I hope you tio enjoy the ride! Thanks for reading!

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