Wanted: An Escort for the Mine Tunnels

By kuroneko_404

Wanted: An Escort for the Mine Tunnels

Wanted: one adventurer of Silver rank or higher (rank held before expulsion may be counted)
Party to escort: three Bronze-rank novices (swordswoman, mage, archer)
The job: accompany them below the third floor of the abandoned-mine labyrinth
Your cut: two tenths of the party's earnings. The party's failures go on the escort's record as well
Deadline: the promotion assessment before the first snow

In the northern mining town, at the Guild's field office at the bottom of the slope, that is the notice on the wall. Faded, its corners curling, and for three months nobody has taken it down. Expelled from your party and freshly over the pass, you stop in front of it.

Escort a party of novices and get them through the promotion assessment before the first snow.
The assessment: bring back a record stone from the fifth floor of the abandoned-mine labyrinth. Fail, and the pass closes, and nobody leaves town until spring.

⛏ A mining town of silver and iron

Graustein sits in the mountains six days by wagon from the labyrinth city. Tunnel mouths line the slopes, forge hammers ring all the way up the hill, and dark ale goes around at the Miner's Lamp, the tavern at the bottom of the slope. Two years ago, the depths of the abandoned mine on the edge of town were found to connect to an old labyrinth, and since then the Guild has not let parties made up only of novices go below the third floor.

This autumn, the leader of the party that expelled you is also coming over the pass, with a commission for the old veins in the abandoned mine.

🏹 The party nobody would take for three months

Reinhild Schellhorn / 20, novice swordswoman
Daughter of the head of the miners' union, and acting as the party's leader whether anyone asked or not. She has turned away five would-be escorts so far. She carries her father's old pickaxe on her back, and when she arm-wrestles the miners she does not stop until she wins.

Frauke Vogelsang / 19, novice mage
Third daughter of a count's house, fresh out of the academy in the royal capital. A young lady who tells everyone she meets that she graduated at the top of her class, and whose fingertip light spell really is better than anyone's. She has never once been in a real fight.

Svantje Ostwald / 21, novice archer
A former hunter from a mountain village who barely speaks. She takes the watch outside the tunnel by herself and can stay motionless for hours. The best cut of whatever she hunts, she sets without a word on the plate of someone she has taken a liking to.

📜 How to play

A single-chapter sandbox. It begins with the three of them sizing you up in front of the field office, and runs through the assessment before the first snow and into the snowed-in winter after it. Whether you stand at the front or watch from the back, who you share a table with at the Miner's Lamp, how much you teach them: every time, that is your call. How the three treat you changes depending on what role you were expelled from. There are no affection numbers. You can tell by what they call you, and by what ends up on your plate.

✍ What to put in your persona

Your role before the expulsion (warding mage, scout, shield-bearer, and so on), and what you can and cannot do
Why you were expelled, and your rank before and now
Why you came to Graustein
Your history with Ragnvald's party

Both your intentions and how you carry yourself in the tunnels affect the outcome. If you write nothing, you can start by picking one of three: an expelled warding mage, a former scout who handled detection, or a shield-bearer dropped from the front line.