5 Ch 5 1st day of class

Matthew was looking forward to the first day of class, apparently it would be a sort of sorting ritual to determine if one was more suited to be a mage, a warrior, a scout or even a warlock. On the one hand it felt like a scene from his favorite novel. But on the other hand there were no "houses'' unless you count noble, common, and grayshirts as houses. Samantha on the other hand was busy reading up on the rules of the grayshirts to try to find a way to wear some pink or purple. Alas she realized. All she had to look forward to was dark blue, black, grey, or white.

Matthew knocked on Samantha's dorm room, another grayshirted girl answered the door, "Yeah? Some of us don't have PT today and would like to sleep in!"

The upperclassman barked out at what seemed to be noone… she swore she heard a knock on the door. Then she looked down and saw a little kid with the most pinchable cheeks who said, "I didn't mean to wake anyone, I was coming to see if Samantha is willing to walk with me to class."

Most of the dorm rooms are separated by age and gender as the young people needed more and different supervision. Everyone was assigned a guardian to confide in and to help them figure out any issues that may arise from schooling.

Samantha walked around the corner with a grey bow in her hair. Matthew thought it looked very nice and they went off to the sorting class.

When Samantha and Matthew arrived at the grayshirt sorting event they noticed there were a few older grayshirts here too. In fact one that looked 12 currently had her hand on a crystal ball, she was handed a slip of paper and one look at it made her start bawling. But as time went on this was not only was this not a rare event it was actually the norm for any child over the age of 7…

When it was finally Matthew's turn he walked up to the orb and set his hand on it. He felt like someone was staring deep into his soul. And it was over almost that quick, he was handed a piece of paper and patted on the back by a kindly old teacher. "Amazing potential kid, you have your pick of the litter, remember to let your guardian know by the end of the week what you have decided now run along."

Samantha's turn came up, unlike everyone else for some reason the orb shifted colors to be a deep pink. Which Matt thought was quite strange as noone else's crystal ball reading changed colors. "Oh this must be wrong. It says here you are a first circle mage already!"

"Oh I didn't realize it would be an issue…"

"Little miss, don't lie to me, how did you trick the ball? That should be impossible."

"I didn't 'trick' anything ma'am, I have been training with my Papa since I was able to speak"

Somehow this caused the most commotion, Papa? What kind of dad signs their daughter up for the grayshirt duty?! Some of the older kids felt for her since they had parents until recently too. Many older children started crying… they were corralled by some of the guardians hiding away at the edges of the room. Suddenly one of the guardians spoke up "Oh her father is still alive, he just threw her in here as punishment for something."

Samantha, who seemed to be just a beam of light and sunshine at all times suddenly changed like dynamite just exploded. She suddenly was curled up in a ball on the ground crying and screaming, "Father hates me for being alive. He wanted a boy, I tried, I tried..I tried.." Curled up in the fetal position repeating a mantra of "I tried" over and over again. A boy from the side ran over and knelt down and comforted her to the best of his ability all the while staring at the bitch who thought it was ok to say such a thing.

Lucinda had stepped in it now… first she asked the baron about his dead wife, then made his only daughter break down. Maybe it is time to move in with the nomadic tribes to the south… The desert seems like it would be nice this time of year… but maybe… Why had she reacted like this? "Was my lie to try to harden her up in the eyes of the other students actually on the money? But he said she joined the grayshirts on her own?!" Lucinda thought to herself. "Meanwhile that little boy is staring death directly at me, it is a good thing looks can't kill or I'd have died twice in the last 24 hours alone."

Matthew burned this witch's face into his mind. She would pay dearly for hurting that poor little pumpkin! After a while the only ones left in the room are Matt, Sam, and Lucinda standing around awkwardly. "Why are you even still here you wench?!" Matt barked out suddenly as he couldn't contain himself anymore.

"I am so sorry," Lucinda immediately breaks down herself, "I wanted to make Samantha look like she wasn't someone the others could mess with… I had no idea… I am so sorry Samantha… I had no idea Baron Kincaid…"

"DON'T YOU DARE BRING PAPA'S NAME INTO THIS!" Suddenly Samantha is full of fire and in fact at the end of each of her fingers is a flame, "DON'T EVER SPEAK HIS NAME IN MY PRESENCE AGAIN!" She launches all five level one flame bolts at once.

Lucinda being barely a level one mage herself soils herself in the second or so Sam was still screaming. After the smoke clears there are five burned gouges out of the solid brick wall behind Lucinda and her clothes were only worse for wear because of how scared she was. Meanwhile Matthew is trying to puzzle together a backstory in order to trigger some kind of quest or something. Lucinda falls to her knees and weeps as Samantha stands up, wipes her face, and whispers to Matt "You have to take the mage profession and stay with me at all times, that can never happen again."

Expecting a quest popup or something, one actually shows up.

"Take on the mage profession and follow Samantha until she releases you from service.

Difficulty: SSS

Rewards: Variable

Failure: Leave Samantha's side without permission for any length of time longer than an hour

Success: Samantha releases you from your vassalship.

Extra: Until released Samantha can call you from anywhere even beyond the grave to help her in her time of need.

Upon acceptance your relationship with Samantha will increase by *error*

Matt has never seen a quest before… this one seems… Harsh… and what is with the"error"? He hesitantly clicks accept and then. He is immediately logged out.

Matt ripped his VR helmet off and sighed in relief. He didn't want to have to actually live 10 more years there… "those devs were messing with us." Meanwhile all around the country alpha testers were getting booted for "unexpected maintenance". In an office of the game company the head of the company slowly pulls off his helmet. "I went in to solve bugs in real time but I couldn't find the error.. Weird. But I definitely had some fun roleplaying as a king." He smiles weirdly.