Joining the Ranks

The man that was acting as my guide bent over and picked up the red crystal from the notch. "Ok, let's go see how you did." And with that comment he motioned me to follow him. We moved back into the front most building but took another path. He took up his tour guide routine again and pointed out different areas. They had side rooms set up for different professions you could rent by the hour. He mentioned that one of the other buildings had a similar set up for skills, while another was set up for magical practice. The last building was the dorms. It acted as a cheap inn since most were always on the go and didn't have a place of their own. He led me into an office and sat behind a cheap desk. I sat in the chair opposite and found that my tail was pretty sensitive. I shifted about until I was more perched on the edge of the chair than sitting in it.

He simply waited and once I was ready, placed the crystal into a tiny bowl. For a second nothing happened but slowly a screen appeared above it. It was pretty simplistic and just displayed a few lines.

Scouting: C

Melee: E

Ranged: F

Resilience: B

Magic Power: SSS

Spell Craft: B

Talents & Abilities used: C

Rank: B++

He read it off. At the beginning, his voice was normal as if the results were to be expected. He gave a nod of appreciation at my resilience score but I saw his eyebrow raise in surprise when he began reading magical power. He stuttered a little but kept reading. He finished reading it, gave me a look and said okay your valuation is a B++ but I don't think you should actually use that rank. You don't have the skills to back it up and you may put yourself into a terrible situation if you take on B-rank quests. It's up to you. But I recommend you don't take anything higher than a C-rank.

He then went into describing how the quest papers worked. Each paper held at least three pieces of information; difficulty, type of quest and pay. The difficulty or rank of the quest was represented by the color of the paper. For example, F-ranked quests would be on white paper while anybody with a guild crystal could take it up. Where E-ranked would be on yellow paper and adventurers with a white crystal couldn't take them on. The papers and the people's crystals usually matched so it was pretty easy to know which quests you could take. For me, I could do white, yellow, orange, red and green with the difficulty going up in that order.

The next piece of information was the type of quest. On every paper, there was a symbol on the upper right-hand side that indicates what kind of quest it is. Eight different ones were pointed out to me as we passed by them. In the lower-left corner was the reward or amount you were to receive. Rewards were usually in coins but could be items or even knowledge which was represented by a scroll. That was the three that were guaranteed to be on the paper but there could be more. For example, the center generally held information about the quest. It was common to see pictures of wanted men or beasts there. On the upper-left held a symbol to indicate if it was a single person quest or meant for a group and on the lower-right was a number indicating how many days it should take including travel. He did warn me that the guild let people take on any mission at their level but group quests general raised the rank by one if you wanted to try and solo it. Failure meant a hefty fine and in the case of your death they would reclaim your equipment as payment.

He then went into how the buildings were laid out. We were in the main building which was where quests were given and handed out. The floors held different ranks. An example of this was that the first floor held only 'F' 'E' and 'D' Quests while the second floor held 'C' and 'B' levels and so on.

He then scooped up the Crystal from the bowl and handed it to me. I noticed that the red color had changed to green which, from what he said, represented a B-ranked adventurer.

He also mentioned the rules of the guild. They basically boiled down to not to being a jerk or a criminal. They would stand on your side as long as you didn't break the kingdom's laws. Since laws didn't apply when you were in a dungeon, they stressed that I now represented the organization so any "extremely" bad behavior would cause me to be expelled.

I gave my thanks and as I left the office he gave me a couple more warnings; to be careful, if something sounded too good to be true it was probably more dangerous than I think it is, and that I should get some combat training since I was seriously lacking in that area before walking me back to the main room.

I was left to look around as he went back behind the desk. I then spent the next half hour looking at the quests on the first floor before deciding to get some combat training like he advised. While the school did teach us weapon skills, I didn't want to advertise I was learning new ones. I spent the next half hour trying to find the best teacher for short swords. The man I found was called Dreamer. His fees were expensive but claimed to be able to teach me any skill, on his list, to a basic level in less than an hour. It cost five gold and after I gave it to him, he lit enough incense to cause the room to become smoky due to the fumes. He sat me on a cushion and I fell into a trance like state. I could still tell what was going on around me but I also began to see visions of me sparring with him. What seemed like days of fighting along with types on how to move while using the sword were learnt in the time he said. It is a pity that he didn't offer other weapon skills. I would have paid to learn how to use the knives I had in my storage ring.

I went back to look at the quests while thinking about some of the issues with our plan. I still had to figure out a few things to pull this off. The two main issues that bothered me were; how to change without being noticed and how do I juggle both school and a side job as an adventurer. Today Bella and Lilly helped cover for me and got me out of the school unnoticed but they were known to be my friends so when they couldn't find me they would be the next likely people to look for. At least, I thought so. In the end, I selected a Locate: Herb mission that was a little outside of the city. Since the capital was a port city there were also quests for things within it but further out than I could swim. I wasn't going to do them, I was just shocked that they were even on there. I tended to forget that the sea could be a place to gather ingredients.

I took the paper back to the information desk. It was only an E-rank quest so it wouldn't be hard just time consuming. I just had to go to the location where the herbs grow and then to the Trader's Guild. It was a half-day there and a half-day back plus any time it took to gather the herbs. The reward was only a silver but I figured, I could use any extra herbs I find to offset the low reward. I was given a week to finish it.

As for the problem of where to change, I decided to rent a cheap apartment near the Adventurer's Guild. I saw an advertisement near the door as I left. It offered cheap apartments for only a silver a month. So before I ran back to school, I went to take a look. When I went over, I met the landlord. He was an average looking man. The type that was bland and tended to just be overlooked. I know I wouldn't have noticed him if he wasn't leering at me. The apartments weren't anything more than a room but it would do. The building held over twelve more occupied rooms which would help to cover my tracks. It also had a front and back entrance so I could enter one way and exit another. Sadly, the one silver cost was for humans only. Beastkin had to pay three silver a month. Although he offered to knock off some of the rent for "services". It was something I had witnessed while walking around to get use to my forms. Vendors would jack up their prices simply because I wasn't human at the moment. I almost punched the first vendor that pulled that on me. Even if I had a lot by this world's standards being treated unfairly was annoying. I would try elsewhere but time was an issue. The 'service' offer was new though. Still, I could ignore this idiot since it would give me a place to change and in an emergency a place to fall back to so I paid him the full price.

I would look for another place when I had the time. I still needed figure a way to get more time. Perhaps I could join a group that has a teleporter to remove travel time?