Origin of Worthlessness

Origin of Worthlessness is the first Arc of the Burning Embers novel, it contains 8 chapters including the Prologue and Epilogue. It recounts the tale of the creation of the guild Azure Stars and introduces the reader to the main characters Sean, Nat, Finrod, Vector, Cookie, Lediga and Luuk as well as minor characters such as Fudge and Raethis. This Arc is told entirely from Sean's perspective.

Prologue
In the Prologue, Sean is rudely awakened by his mother as he is supposed to be heading over to Nat's house to meet up for Nat's birthday. In addition, it's the day that Nat has decided to register as an adventurer and Sean wants to discourage him. After a quick bite he heads over to Nat's house, bumping into a lady who calls him a "shut-in NEET". When Sean finally meets Nat he already has his letter of letter of entry to become an Adventurer. Realizing he can change his friend's mind, Sean compliments him on his success halfheartedly and prepares to head home, but Nat grabs him and convinces him to form a Guild with him.

After some convincing, both head to the local Guild to register, they both pay the fee and are given an Adventure Card which they scan to discover their stats. Sean's stats are pretty measly and as a result his only choice is to become a Scholar, a master tactician which provides a lot of utility when exploring but lacks in combat skill.

Chapter 1
The arc continues with Chapter 1, Sean is infuriated by his stats and the class he has been given and decides to go check out the quests with Nat to get his mind off it. Before heading off they run into Lediga and Cookie, the former gives them some advice and teaches Sean the skills Taunt and Basic Swordsmanship, explaining that Taunt will be an easy way to set up targets for Nat. The decided to meet at the gear shop in 30 minutes so Sean swings by home where his mother is waiting for him with a nasty surprised: he is being kicked out of the house!

20 minutes later, Nat meets up with a fuming Sean carrying his stuff at the gear shop. There they buy some equipment, mainly an overpriced worn out bow for Nat and a sword and some leather armour for Sean before adventuring beyond the wall to complete their first quest: Boar Slaying.

In a meadow by a herd of boar, they both devise the plan to use Sean as bait while Nat shoots at the boars from above. The plans starts off fine, Sean activates his Taunt skill attracting the nearby boars and Nat snipes them out, however, they both fail to grasp the range in which Taunt takes effect and Sean suddenly finds himself pursued by a lot more boars than Nat can snipe. Thankfully the two are rescued by Finrod and Vector before they are run down and killed.

Chapter 2
In Chapter 2, Finrod and Vector introduce themselves and invite Sean and Nat to their guild. Sean refuses outright and drags a whining Nat back to the city guild to collect their reward. There they meet Lediga and Cookie once again, Lediga asks them to join him on a goblin hunting quest which the two agree to. All four of them head into the forest, with Sean protesting that the forest is infested with monsters and that they should turn back. They then come across a camp of approximately 20 goblins, which Lediga instantly charges into, sword swinging.

The situation goes wrong quickly as Sean gets separated from the group while trying to Taunt some goblins, Lediga is getting clubbed by the goblins, Nat is frozen in fear. Realising they're quite outmatched, Cookie steps in, casting Bind on a group of goblins and vanishing a group at running after her. Sean comes back just in time to save Nat, with the situation quite dire Sean casts Blinding Fog with hopes of being able to escape, leaving Lediga behind. However the backlash from the mana-hungry ability causes him to faint. Thankfully they are once again saved by the intervention of Vector and Finrod.

Chapter 3
Chapter 3 opens with Sean screaming at Vector and Finrod for burning down a significant portion of the forest in their rescue attempt. Vector, who is completely out of mana, drains some from Finrod to be able to cast Flood and extinguish the fire. Vector goes overboard as usual and almost drown the lots of them, leaving Lediga in a critical condition. Finrod is forced to give Lediga some of his dragon-knight blood to stop him from dying before they can get him to a healer then the group makes their way back to the city. Vector argues for a while with the Guild receptionist who claims that the damage dealt to the forest far outweigh the rewards before Finrod drags him way and pays for all the damages. Once again, Finrod extends his invitation which Sean refuses, but Nat convinces him to accept by appealing to his more mischievous side.

After a tense altercation, Finrod also convinces Lediga and Cookie to join up with them, meeting the minimum requirement of members to form a guild. They'll need a headquarter and Finrod has his eyes set on a haunted castle but first they'll need an Exorcist to cleanse it.

Chapter 4
They make their way to the church in Chapter 4 with the intent to recruit an Exorcist. But first the newly formed Guild sits down to discuss their Plan and to have some drinks. Sean is beginning to feel the effect of his lack of sleep but his thoughts are interrupted when Cookies jumps at Vector's throat for calling her a "little girl", much to Finrod's amusement. Nat brings a bit of calm by asking once again about the plan, while they discuss how to cleanse the castle Finrod finally snaps out of his own world and after being brought up to speed and offers an idea on how to acquire one. The plan is to trick the local church of Kyri into providing one for them, for a second Sean is taken aback by Finrod's deceitful ways but goes along with it anyways. The trick is to pressure the church into giving up their exorcist by using Vector's family name. However, they are surprised to learn that the church is supported by the Des Toridae family, rivals of the Von Maximus.

The priest instantly changes attitude, becoming quite smug but accidentally letting slip that they make people pay for confessions, something outlawed by the state. Finrod comes out of the shadow with the information in an attempt to make the head priest crack, however they are disappointed to find out that the church does not currently have an Exorcist. However, Sean suspects that to expose the corrupted church of the city was Finrod's plan from the start.That is when Sean first notices Luuk, a hooded figure in a silver cloak. As Luuk is an exorcist Finrod extends an invitation to the guild but the elf is quick to clear up this misunderstanding, he will offer them his services but in exchange for a rather steep fee. And with that the guild and Luuk set off while Sean comes to the conclusion that you really can't find a decent person in the church.

Chapter 5
In Chapter 5, Sean is trying to hang on for dear life as his horse tries to throw him off for the fourth time while they ride down to the haunted castle. He once again asks Finrod if they can just go on foot but Finrod refuses, undead are not the only danger around here. To prove his point he asks Nat to use Farsight, with which he spots a camp of goblins, some slimes and some boars. As Vector and Cookie bicker again Luuk sighs in despair, but Finrod quickly refocuses the party by exposing his plan. Vector and him will remain as backup while the others go around the castle and clean up the surrounding enemies. As always Sean struggles quite heavily with this part seeing as he is not fit for combat and even less for horseback combat. Sean is eventually thrown to the ground by his own mount and surrounded by goblins. He unleashes his ability Blinding Fog and, fighting through the fainting sensation, swings his sword killing a few goblins. The ability times out and Sean is once again surrounded by goblins ready to bash his head in. Suddenly a huge creatures barrels into the fight and sending the goblins fleeing: a linotaur!

Vector comes just in time to save Sean using a powerful fire attack only to discover that linotaurs are resistant to magic. Finrod is the one that must take on this foe, a chance for Sean to see his fighting style for the first time. The linotaur and Finrod duel for a while, the linotaur attacking relentlessly and the dragon knight dodging with ease until the linotaur draws a second blade and finally manages to land a blow on him. Content with the battle, Finrod destroys the beast with a single sword strike. When Finrod and Sean regroup with the rest everybody has done their part, the enemies around are dead and Cookie reports nothing suspicious in the house. But Luuk is quick to correct her, there are indeed evil beings within the castle.

Chapter 6
Now that the surroundings are cleared, the party can start cleaning up the castle itself in Chapter 6, for that Finrod decides that they will all sleep in the castle while Luuk patrols around and purifies the place. Sean is unable to sleep, the presence of the undead making the castle significantly colder than would be expected of the season. Sean gets out of bed intent on taking a stroll when he hears a noise behind him, turning around he is faced with a spider-shaped ghoul, as Sean is arachnophobic he doesn't think twice and runs for his life to Nat's room where they both barricade themselves. Nat has a short meltdown before Luuk arrives and purifies the beast, noting that this detour from his regular patrol route would cost them extra. Luuk tells them to go sleep in the main hall where everyone already is. There they meet Cookie who was chased by zombies and a terrified Vector who shrieks everytime an undead scratches the door. Cookie tries to escape through the window to warn Finrod but accidentally draws in a swarm of bats, in a panic, Vector casts a spell which cuts down their barricade, letting zombies enter the room. Sean, who has remained relatively calm, starts by getting ride of the bats by casting a Torch out the window, the light loving bats all follow it and leave the room. He then casts Soundless Step to get behind the zombies and then uses a broken chair leg to make sound and lure the zombies out. He chucks the chair leg through a trapdoor and all the zombies follow. Sean is exhausted he hasn't slept in over two days and is continually hitting his mana limit but he still manages to make it back to the main hall.

Luuk and Finrod finally arrive too and that's where Luuk breaks the bad new: the castle is too heavily infected, to purify it completely he will need to cast a complex Cleanse Area spell, which will leave him vulnerable and cost them extra. Finrod agrees to the deal and they get set up as the rest of the party guards him. A horde of undead comes after them with, all the way at the back, a necromancer! Finrod immediately begins hunting the necromancer while the rest of them are immediately overwhelmed, ill-equipped to fight undead. Sean is dog piled by a horde of zombie but thankfully Cookie saves him by casting Bind, however they are becoming exhausted and none of the undead horde has been stopped yet. Luuk finishes his ritual just in time, destroying every nearby undead. Finrod is unable to catch the necromancer and returns empty handed and red eyed, to which Luuk suddenly realises that Finrod is a dragon knight. That bit of information changes everything as Luuk puts it "A dragon knight in your team equals great profit!" and so decides to join the guild.

Epilogue
With everything resolved, the Epilogue opens with Nat wanting to go on a quest and the rest of the guild minus Finrod fighting over who gets to use the couch. As Lediga returns he claims the couch as his own through a duel of rock-paper-scissors with Sean. Finrod and Vector are about to leave for the magic shop and Sean asks if he can join them, to which Finrod says yes. They make their way to the magic shop which is owned by Fudge, Fudge seems to know Finrod well as he even calls him "Fin", making Vector quite jealous of the attention he's getting. Fudge returns with the magic item that Finrod requested: an unspecified amount of Communication Rings. When they return to the castle they are greeted with an unpleasant sight: Raethis Des Toridae has come to reclaim his castle.