After about twenty or so minutes of waiting in the line, Arthur finally made it up to one of the clerks at the front desks. “Hello sir, how can I help you today?” The woman at the desk greeted Arthur with what was most definitely a standard reply that Arthur heard her say to everyone who approached the front desks.
“I have a recommendation to join the mages guild.” Arthur presented his recommendation from his bag and handed it to the woman who then, like at the royal treasury, held the paper over a gemstone thing that scanned the document.
After returning the document to Arthur the woman looked through a large log book, when she found what she was looking for she copied it down on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “In two hours from now there will be an exam for several people who have scheduled ahead of time, since you were recommended you can join with this piece of paper. Just be sure you show it to whoever is running the exam.”
“Thank you.” As Arthur turned to leave he heard the woman say: “I can help whoever is next.”
Arthur quickly exited the mages guild, he was more than thankful to leave the long line. ‘I cannot imagine what it would be like to work as one of those clerks day in and day out. I can feel the stress just radiating off of them.’
To avoid thinking about how terrible it would be to work as a clerk in a guild, Arthur decided that for the next two hours he would take a walk around the city. Arthur first found the large map of the city from before and used it to find all the places he thought would be interesting. The first place to visit, the market.
The market was loud and bustling with many people moving merchandise to and from all over. Although one of the major things that Arthur did notice was the amount of people that were or were trying to steal. Several people were attempting to slip some coins from unsuspecting people while they were either distracted with something else.
Arthur of course did the right thing and shouted out: “Thief” while he pointed at them, several were caught. One case in particular was with a short elf wearing a dark green cloak who swiped a purse of coins from a wealthy looking commoner. When Arthur called the elf out they went running quickly escaping the guards, but not Arthur who followed. After a minute of running the elf thought they had lost their pursuer only to turn to look and see a large human in full plate armour running at full speed with an angry look on his face.
The elf let out a small shriek and immediately tried to run at full speed, but Arthur had been trying a new trick since he began pursuing the elf. He would raise a bit of the dirt in the path the elf was running in to try and tip them, up until now he had not been successful.
The elf tripped on the dirt and fell face first onto the ground dropping the purse of coins in the process. Thankfully the purse was closed so the coins did not spill everywhere. Arthur quickly closed the distance and restrained the elf. “Let me go you asshole!” The elf shouted in a very high pitched voice.
‘Don’t tell me this is a child.’ Arthur felt a bit of annoyance at that discovery. “Where are your parents child?” Arthur used geomancy to bind the child's hands behind his back and went down on one knee to the child's face as he spoke.
“That's none of your business ass hole!”
“Fine you don’t need to tell me-” The child was a little confused by what the man was saying. A second ago he was quite keen on figuring out his identity and now…”-but the city guard will be far more interested I would think.”
‘Oh shit.’ The human was going to turn him in to the city guards. “H- hey now, you don’t need to do that. I won't do it again I promise.” He needed to get out or the boss wouldn’t let him off easy.
“I think it is far too late for that.” Arthur looked over the young elf’s physique. He was clearly well fed and showed no sign of any malnutrition, and even the cloak he wore was in good condition. “You clearly don’t need to be stealing but you do so anyways. I expect your parents to be quite upset with your behavior.”
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‘The parents need to get their act together if they don’t want their child to become a career criminal. He is already quite skilled in thievery as shown with how he stole from that man without him even noticing.’
The elven child was silent during the walk to the guard house and clearly was dreading what would happen when he got there. When they did arrive Arthur had to give a brief explanation as to what happened and handed over the purse, the guards there thanked Arthur for his help. “Thank you sir, but we can handle it from here.”
Arthur looked at a large sundial that was in the middle of a large intersection and saw that almost two hours had passed so he may as well start walking to the mages guild and just wait for a few minutes there.
By the time Arthur had returned to the mages guild the lines had shrunk considerably, now only about a fifth of the size as they were before. ‘Everyone must have wanted to get what they were doing out of the way. They must have jobs or something all day.’
Only a few minutes had passed while Arthur waited on a bench that was located in the reception area when an elven man that wore a grey cloak with an eye insignia and matching grey robes placed a sign near a hallway where everyone in the reception area could see. The sign read: “Mages guild entrance exam Have your papers ready” with an arrow pointing further down the hall.
Several people of various races all stood up and began to walk towards the hallway to the exam. Most were humans and elves with a handful of dwarves mixed in, but some were completely foreign to Arthur. Such as one that appeared to be a hairy black spider humanoid who kept its hood up the whole time it waited.
Arthur followed and the hallway quickly went underground, there the halls were made from stone blocks that were white in colouration. Soon another sign pointed to an open door on the left side of the hallway that led into a large room that could easily fit over one hundred people. The room had several tables where the examinee would officially sign up to participate by showing their documents that proved they had applied. Arthur joined a random line and when he got to the front and after he showed the proof he was permitted to join he was given a piece of paper, some ink and a quill to answer some question. The questions were solely based on what types of magic he knew and when he started and if he had any teachers and so on, Arthur quickly answered them with his hydromancy using it on the ink to quickly write everything down.
Arthur was then told to go farther into the room and wait for further instructions. While Arthur waited he engaged in a few conversations that were mostly about what would happen in the exam itself. A few of the more noteworthy theories were that there was going to be a competition and the top half or so would join, another was that it would be based on one's own magic skills and a display of them.
Soon the elf who placed the sign outside the hallway stepped into the room and walked to an area without anyone, the floor he stood on rose up making a stage that got everyone's attention.
“Thank you everyone for joining us here today for the mages guild entrance exam. We have taken note of each of your current magic skills and the exam will be catered roughly towards your skill set, but this does not mean it will be easy. You will be pushed to the limits of your skills and if you join the mages guild you will be pushed farther. Now each of you will be called up in groups of about 10 at a time where you will face an instructor in one on one combat, the objective is to either defeat your instructor or survive for as long as you can. The instructor will be testing what you know and how you apply it, physical attacks will not be allowed as we are testing your magic skills not your martial skills, that is better suited for the mercenaries guild.”
Not even a minute after the elf finished his speech the instructors started calling up examinees to take their exams. Arthur paid close attention to what was happening with each test. One of the first things he noticed was that both the instructors and examinees were standing in these circles carved into the ground, when the examinees were forced out of the circle the exam would end and another would be selected. The second thing Arthur noticed was that the instructors would use the same amount of elements that the examinee knew, those that knew one only faced one, those who knew two elements faced someone using two, but so far none had shown knowledge over three or more.
Soon it was Arthur's turn to take his exam, the instructor who called him up was a female dwarf who wore a grey robe like all the other mages he had seen. The instructor led him to a circle where she explained the rules. “We will be trying to force each other out of our respective circles, if you force me out you will definitely pass unless you cheat, if that is not an option you will need to try to last as long as you can and if I like your performance I will pass you. Do you understand?”
“Yes I do.” Arthur prepared his magic and waited for the dwarf to make the first move. After a few seconds she conjured a fireball that she launched towards Arthur. Arthur quickly countered with a large shield made of conjured stone that he hid behind. For a few seconds the smoke from the explosion blocked the instructor's view and Arthur took the opportunity to propel a few small stone darts towards her from several directions to test her ration speed and defense.