As I approached the gate, I pulled out my Bronze guild card. The guard there checked and said “welcome to the capital. Don’t forget to check in with the guild. They recently have had an increase in requests of all levels to deal.”

“Thank you.” I said “how do I find the guild?”

“He looked at me like I was crazy and said “Straight down the main road just like every city. Where are you from?”

“A small town, south of here.” Feeling a bit like a country bumpkin.

He just nodded and then waved me on.

Heading down the road I passed several inns, but decided to wait to secure a room until I had talked with the guild. They might have suggestions for me. That said I was about done with the boarding area. I wanted a private room now that I could start too afford it.

The guild was almost twice as big as the last one I had been in. It was busy inside as well. I got in line and had to wait a while to get to my turn. When I did a haggard looking receptionist didn’t even look up at me from something she was filling out and said “how can I help you?”

“It looks like they have you all burning it at both ends. What is going on?” I asked gently.

“Goblin horde several towns over pulled many of our adventurers and with that done the backlog of requests has to be worked through. We can use the help if you can take a request today.” She said continuing to fill out what I noticed was an iron rank request paper.

“I just got into town and would like to check my rank progress before I take a request. Can you help me with that?”

She looked up for the first time and straightened up and smiled. “Yes I will take care of that personally. May I have your card?”

I handed it over wondering why the sudden shift in attitude. Maybe they needed higher rankers too?

She took a closer look at it and pulled out a plate for me to put my hands on. I didn’t wait to be told what to do. She started writing down things only she could see and said “I see. You have ranked up to low Iron rank.” She looked up at me and smiled prettily. “It looks like you have purchased the water skill as well. Excellent. Even us humans can do with emergency healing and you will be popular when looking for a party. Hold on a minute and I’ll get you your new card.”

She ran off to one of the back rooms. When she got back, she brought out my new card and a needle.

“For the Iron rank and above your card is bonded to you. If you don’t touch it, it turns blank by the next day until you touch it again. That prevents anyone from using it other than you. It is also illegal to forge cards in every country so one way to prove it is a real card is for someone else to holds it for 5 seconds and the writing will disappear as well. We are the only ones with the magic artifices that can make cards. All you need to do is prick your finger and put a drop of blood on the card.”

I took the needle and did as she said. The card glowed for a second and then looked like a red card card. She picked it up and held it for 5 seconds as we both watched and the writing faded away.

“It looks like it worked!” She said happily. “The request board for Iron Rank is over there. My name is Electra and I will be your guild representative while you are here. I will be happy to help you!” She seemed rather happy and I was glad she seemed to have taken a liking to me. I nodded and thanked her and walked over to the board.

There were a lot of requests. I was looking for something that I could handle with my set of skills. To many of any monster and I could get over run. What I needed was something big, but in the one or two at a time range. Really, I would rather just go hunt monsters, but I knew that I could be sniping other jobs from people who got them legitimately from the guild so I decided that while I was in the capital, I would work like this. If I got tired of it, I could always just travel to a forest somewhere and work for a while. While I was thinking about all this, I slowly pursued things. I finally found what I was looking for. It was barely in the Iron Rank level. Any higher and it would probably silver. A level 40 Ogre had set up home about 5 miles from a farming community 15 miles from the capital. It hadn’t found the farmers yet, but the bronze adventurer who scouted it out said that it was only a matter of time. That sounded perfect. I grabbed it and went back to Electra’s line to wait. When it was my turn, she gave me a smile and said “find something?”

“Yes.” I said. “I also have 8 cores I need to sell and I was wondering if you could recommend a good inn that won’t cost an arm and a leg and a guild sponsored blacksmith.”

“Certainly. Why don’t we take care of the cores first. Just the cores or are there other materials as well?”

Oh, I forgot I have a Red Chuff and a lizard pelt to sell as well. Can I sell them here or at a leather worker?”

“We can take care of all of it. Let’s go back to the materials room.” She led me back to a processing area and said “You can put all of it on this table please.”

I opened my pack and opened my Inventory inside of it. I pulled out the 8 cores and two pelts and she looked over them. “When did you hunt this Chuff?” This isn’t processed to be preserved, but it looks fresh”

“It was just a few days ago on my way here.” It wasn’t a lie; except I was stretching the definition of the word “few” here.

“Great, the guild can give you 1 gold 60 silvers for the Iron Rank Cores and another 40 silvers for the two pelts. 10 for the Chuff and 30 for the lizard as it is used in leather armor. That is 2 gold even. Would you like to be paid in silver for gold or both?”

I thought for a minute. Let me have it in 1 gold and 100 Silver please. I am broke at the moment and need some silver to spend. Most place don’t take a gold for payment of small items.”

“That is true.” She said with a smile. “You shouldn’t be broke any more after this though. We have lots of jobs for you and now that you are an Iron rank you will make a fair bit more than you did as a Bronze.”

I smiled and followed her back out to the reception area and she counted out my money for me and I put it all in my pack (in my Inventory of course) and headed towards the Inn she had suggested to secure a room before heading out.

I found the Inn just a few streets over from the guild. It was named Martha’s Inn. When I went in it was obviously a well-run establishment. It was clean and tidy with tables and chairs to eat at and a pleasant looking woman in her 50s handling the front area. She looked at me as I came in and said

“I’m Martha. Room or a meal or both?”

“Both please. I’ll be staying for a bit. How much to pay by the week with a meal included?”

“Adventuerer?” she asked and when I showed her my card she nodded and said “Then you get a deal at 3 Large Coppers a night, and it comes with a meal. People come here to rest though so you will need to respect that and be quite after lights out. Food is until a few hours after dark. If you get in late from a job you can come in, but food will have to wait until the next day. If you don’t eat your dinner you miss out. Sound fair?”

It did and and I said as much. I handed her 5 Silvers and said

“let me know when that runs out and I’ll either pay for another week or head out.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She nodded handing over a key and I went upstairs to find my room. It was small, but clean like everything else and had a bed, a small table, chair and a wash basin. The outhouse was out back and there was a well out there as well. While I was in my room I decided to go ahead and level up. I was Iron rank now and there wasn’t any reason not to. I was going to stay at Iron rank for a while. Most people spent a decade or more at that level slowly getting stronger. I figured I could make plenty of money now and I had time on my side with my longer life span. There was no need to stand out.

Name: Jake Smithson

Race: Human

Level 20 (791%)

Age 25

Main Categories and sub categories displayed

Wisdom 11 (Mana 5, Mana Control 2, Knowledge 1, Mana Regen 3/10min)

Intellect 9 (memorization 3, recall 3, Speed of thought 3)

Strength 15 (Attack 10, speed 2, endurance 3)

Constitution 15 (Resist Poinsons 1, Vitality 8, Protection 6)

Agility 10 (control of movement 4, balance 3, learning new skills 3)

Will 10 (Discipline 4, Ability to overcome adversity 2, desire to win 3, resistance to charm or intimidate 1)

Charisma 19 (Good Looks 8, Luck 5, Communication 3, negotiations 1, leadership 2)

You can level up 7 levels. Level up now?

Yes. No.

You have 11 skill points.

Assign skill points now?

Yes. No.

Skills list: Analyze 10, Axe Mastery 2, Bow Mastery 7, Fire Magic 2, Injury Evaluation 2

Mana Manipulation 20, Night Vision 2, Space Control 15, Sword Mastery 3, Time Control 8

Tracking 10, Sword Mastery 3, Water Magic 4, Camouflage 10, Cooking 1

I chose yes for leveling up and did my imitation of a lighting bug for a moment reveling in the feeling. Then I looked at my stats and decided where to put my 14 Exp points. Speed had really held me back in dealing with humans in a non-lethal situation. I looked at the two I had recorded. The Bandit and Rolf. They both had speed and speed of thought high. Speed of thought about half of speed. Was that so they could keep up with the movement? That made sense to me so I put 10 in speed and 3 in Speed of thought making them 12 and 6 respectively. With time slow that would bring me to Rolf’s speed anyway. Still not going to help with overcoming his skill with a sword, but it was a start. That left me with one point. I put that in endurance. I figured that would help with speed as well as fighting. Plus I would be traveling a lot and with my Time Slow, doing it on foot made sense.

When I finished putting in my points my body changed. It looked the same, but all of the sudden movements took on a fluid fast feeling. I felt like moving normal pace was effortless. I tried doing a kick and I could follow it, but I could also tell that it was blindingly fast. At least it would be if my speed of thought wasn’t helping me keep up. ‘Oh… this is going to be fun!’ I thought.

I then started pulling out all of the gear I had taken from the dead bandits. The leader had had the best stuff by far. He had a solid sword and shield probably worth a couple gold. It would do for now. With my strength I wanted a larger sword with more cutting surface area that I could use against big foes like Ogres and than kind of thing. I would use the Axe for now though… or I had another idea as well I wanted to try out. The rest of the gear wasn’t great, but I had an idea for that was well. The leader had had 5 gold and 80 silver and some odd copper and large coppers on him. This upped my money quite a bit. I took the rest of the gear, bundled it up and put it in a corner. Then, I took a good look at my room so I would have a good picture in my mind of this specific room. Once I had that in mind I left for my job. With my speed much higher now, I made good time. It took me about an hour to run the 15 miles. I felt good, but a little winded. That went away quickly with some mana cycling. It wasn’t hard to find the Ogre. It was the brightest thing I had seen on my map. Even more so than the Red Chuff bear. I hit it with Analyze it first to see what secrets I could get from it then fight it to figure out where it was different.

Race: Ogre

Level: 40

Age 35

Attitude towards you: Hostile

Weakness: Fire

Main Categories and sub categories displayed

Wisdom 3 (Mana 1, Mana Control 1, Knowledge 0, Mana Regen 1/10min)

Intellect 3 (memorization 1, recall 1, Speed of thought 1)

Strength 5 (Attack 18, speed 1, endurance 1)

Constitution 18 (Resist Poinsons 1, Vitality 63, Protection 2)

Agility 3 (control of movement 1, balance 1, learning new skills 1)

Will 5 (Discipline 1, Ability to overcome adversity 1, desire to win 2, resistance to charm or intimidate 1)

Charisma 1 (Good Looks 0, Luck 1, Communication 0, negotiations 0, leadership 0)

Skills: Smash 25

Woah! Vitality was 63. He was getting more than one point per level in that. Attack was 18. Almost double mine. I was so used to being the strongest around it was a little bit of a letdown… But boy was I faster. I wanted to see if I was right about damage so I engaged the Ogre with my knife instead of my axe or my bow first.

I started with hamstringing him, but he didn’t even fall down. He just came at me. He couldn’t come anywhere close to keeping up with me so hitting me wouldn’t happen, but I couldn’t cause him any damage that lasted. Everything healed right away. The book said to fight with axe or sword in one hand and a fire brand in the other. I could see why. Unless you hit it with fire right away it just healed! Not just the vital stuff like the young one. No this was all the damage and right away. Even if I cut several areas at once they all healed within seconds. I was soon bored of that so I ran away and pulled out my bow. I used Instant Shot and took its head off. I didn’t run in to deal fire damage because I wanted to see if it would grow back. It did. It was the weirdest thing to watch it’s head grow back. It took about 10 seconds, but it did indeed grow back. Disgusted by what I had just seen I finally switched to my axe and took off its head and hit it with a Fire Ball. The only thing to harvest from an Ogre is it’s core so I did that and by that time I was full up on mana again.

I pictured my room and instatraveled back. I was instantly transported back to my room just like I had hoped! This is another reason I wanted my own room. In the boarding room, without privacy, I couldn’t jump back from jobs. This way travel out was slow, but back would be a breeze. I picked up my bandit gear and headed back to the guild.

When I arrived, it wasn’t too busy as it was after the morning rush and everyone was still gone out on jobs. Not everyone had instatravel to get back quickly. I went right up to the counter and since I didn’t see Electra I asked for her and the man I asked said

“She is out on her break. I can help you or do you want to wait. I’m the assistant guild master by the way. You can call me Jorgen. I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

“I’m just in today actually.” I said. “If you can help me that would be great. I finished this Ogre job. Here is the core.” I said putting it down on the counter.

He looked at it and said “It is a level 40 Ogre core. Did you do this on your own young man.”

“Yes I said. I haven’t found a group yet to party with.”

“I see.” He said giving me a long look. “That is some good work then. Let me see your card.”

I handed it over and he checked it and did something that made it glow. When I asked what that had been he said “Iron rank cards and above are bound to you. They register the last few things you’ve killed. It is a way to prove you have done a job.”

‘Well that is concerning.’ I thought. I would need to keep that in mind and not kill anything I couldn’t explain away based on my rank. Glad I asked.

He paused, looking at my card. “Jake Smithson…” He looked up at me “Aren’t you the new Guided?”

“Yes.” I said. “spent a fair amount of time in Large Fall, but am used to larger towns so I thought I would check out the capital.”

He nodded and finished looking at everything and said “I’ll let Electra know so that you can be notified when more show up. We can give you 20 silver for the core so with the reward you get 40 silver. Very good job today. Thank you for starting work so quickly after getting here. We need more go getter’s like you with all the jobs we have right now.” He then took a look at my bundle of bandit gear and asked “whats all this?”

“I fought some bandits a few days ago and this is the gear they had on them. I was thinking of donating it to the guild with the hopes you might give it to Bronze rank adventurers who need it. Is that something you can do?”

He smiled for the first time at that. “That is great!” he said. “I have just the people in mind. We have an orphanage here in town and about half the orphans come to work after they grow out of the orphanage ‘cause it is hard for them to get apprenticeships. This would be perfect for them. You are really ok with giving it to us?”

“Yes.” I said. “The guild helped me out when I needed it. This is my way of giving back.” He smiled again and nodded and I changed the conversation. “I was also hoping I could leave information on where I was staying. I believe Flare Elfwoods is going to be sending for me. Can I leave word about which inn I’m staying at or should I just check back in for messages?”

“Certainly. Clients often come in asking for specific adventurers they have used before. You can leave word if you know they will be coming in or check for messages.” He paused for a minute. “Did you say Elfwoods?”

“Yes do you know the name?”

“Who doesn’t? They are famous dungeon divers and Artificers in dungeon city. Only ones to clear the Gold Rank Dungeon there are the Phoenix Party and Elra Elfwoods was their leader. I don’t know Flare so she is probably young… as Elfs go that is. Elra is probably 500 now. Are you part Elf boy? You look it, but I don’t see much in the ears that way. Grandparents?”

“No. Just human. We don’t have elves on the world I’m from. People ask me that though.”

He nodded. “I’ll make a note in the message book as to your whereabouts and if someone comes in whomever they ask will check their first. Then they can leave a message or go find you at your inn. Where are you staying?”