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Guild Lists the Monsters Still Unslain; South Gate Guardians Top the List
The Adventurers' Guild has posted a list of monsters for which no kill has been reported. With world firsts falling one after another this month, the three guarding the South Gate head what remains.
"Challengers wanted for a world-first kill."
A notice has hung for several days at the Adventurers' Guild headquarters in Crossroads. Its title reads "The Blank Record." Monster names are listed beside the places they appear, and next to each is a column that remains empty. The column is for the name of whoever slays that monster first.
Investigating monsters is one of the Guild's chief duties. Reports from adventurers are indispensable for learning how to handle an attack and where a creature's weaknesses lie. In honor of those who bring down a monster, the name of the first adventurer to slay each kind is kept in the Guild's records.
Since the start of this month, those records have filled one after another. The undead of Hollowdell, the ogres of the roads, even the golems of Lapis Valley gained names in under a month. What Guildmaster Hald Berg pinned to the board just inside the entrance, however, is not a list of those achievers. It is a list of monsters that have been sighted, yet for which not a single kill has been reported.
"It is time we got serious about this investigation. Even at some risk, I want our adventurers to go after these kills."
The Three at the South Gate Lead the List
At the top of the list stand the keepers of the old capital's South Gate. Before the lone surviving gate pillar, armored shadows still pace their rounds in strict order: the Phantom Knight, a ghostly knight; the Laurean Guardian, a guardian statue of the old empire; and the Laurean Gatekeeper, the named colossus that blocks the gate itself. The South Gate is known as one of the most dangerous areas in the basin.
Next after the South Gate come two creatures that dwell on the outer fringe of the old capital, north of Dolgan: the Gargoyle, a winged stone figure of the Outer Wall, and the Laurean Automaton, a magical machine of the Undercroft. Neither has been reported slain.
It is Dolgan's smiths who are watching those two columns. Imperial alloy is essential for the heavy armor of the United Kingdom of Eisen, but its formula was lost long ago, and the only way to obtain it is to recast fragments that have broken off the old empire's statues and machines. "Someone's already brought down a treant in Blackoak Forest, but nobody will lay a hand on the stone figures of the Outer Wall," one master grumbled in front of the forge.
The Guild says it will issue a bulletin in the Alva Dispatch as soon as any column on the list is filled.