Role

Chapter 39

Clock Skew, or A Primer on Giant Adventurer Ageing
Added Fri Sep 22 11:18:08 2023 at level 51:

Vaskal retired from adventure, and most others spoke of him as if he were
well and truly dead, a corpse in the ground. Yet he was alive when he turned
up at Viera's door after his retirement. But, the law of mathematics and how
adventurers age has finally caught up with Viera.

Viera realized. She only ages when she adventures, but fire giants age
exceptionally quickly when adventuring. A human could spend ages adventuring
before gaining 1 year of age, but a fire giant only needs to be around for
just over a hundred hours adventuring in Thera and would gain a year of age.

This realization came as a rude shock when one day Vaskal came in looking
horny: Famous wife, it me birthday! Vaskal then looks expectantly at his
wife who has just about started her menopause. Viera isn't particularly nice
when she doesn't want something herself, so there's some to-and-fro
negotiation before Viera settles on a deal: Ya mate Vaskal when my birthday
you take me nice holiday to Hillcrest and call me like your queen ya.

Vaskal frowns, his thuggish brow furrowing with a sudden flash of
intelligence: But last five birthdays Vaskal have, Viera get ten years older.
After come back one adventure, one year older, make celebrates for Viera.
Then more adventure, more year, more celebrates.

Viera sinks into a frown herself, the negotiations forgotten. This mystery!
Did Ladies Baerinika or Azorinne curse her because they judged her red aura?
Cursed her to make her suffer from quicker age so she would die long before
her husband?

She is very smart for a giant mind you, but not so smart as to have an
intuitive grasp of numbers. It took a week of working it out on paper before
she found out, to her horror, that the rules for adventurers are different
from denizens.

This narrator will spare you the arithmetic, since in the writing of Viera's
story we are a fan of sparing the reader all of the juiciest details. The
calculations work out to approximately Viera ageing twice as quickly given her
frequency of adventuring times in Thera.

And this is why Viera will also retire and live the rest of her life out
peacefully with Vaskal. Goodbye Thera!