“Fine, just be quick. The boss has a meeting in about 15 minutes and I doubt he wants to make them wait.” The dark skinned guard took a key from his back pocket and unlocked the door.
The three quickly entered and were greeted by the sight of a human man in his mid thirties with short brown hair and a beard sitting at a desk counting silver coins. “Welcome back Auria, did you learn anything about our mysterious" hero "?”.
“We observed him at the market in the Upper East district again today where he continued to report any members of the organization he could see to the guards. Thankfully there were far less making the rounds today in that location so we had far less losses.”
“Did you find anything about his personal life yet, such as his name or if he has any family here in Antium?” The man smiled as he finished the question.
“All we found is that he is a part of the mages guild.” “What!” The man shouted.
“Sir I am sure with more time we can-” The man cut her off “Forget about that! If he becomes a proper mage he will be able to decimate us and destroy everything we have built here.” Auria was confused by that exclamation. Even if he was receiving magic training he was still likely to be just a novice at best, they should still be able to get rid of him like they have with all the bureaucrats that stood in their way.
“I will need to work something out with the Red eye cult. You three can return to your duties, this has become far more dangerous than we can handle on our own.” The man tossed all the coins he was counting before into a random drawer and took out a quill and some parchment. The three bowed slightly and exited the room.
“So I guess it wasn't good news.” The guard looked to Auria as the group closed the door behind them. “No it wasn’t.” Auria turned to walk away. “So what was it exactly?” The guard smiled as Auria stopped. He could feel the anger in what she said next. “A mage is messing with our lower ranking members.”
“Well that isn’t good at all now is it?”
“No it is not.” Auria tried again to walk away.
“I suppose it is unfortunate that you are unable to do anything about him in that case.” He let out a fake sigh. “Looks like we're gonna need to find someone more competent than you to do it.”
Auria tried to ignore the comment he was making and rushed out of the hallway followed by the human and elf. Auria went right up to the barkeep and almost shouted “Give me the strongest thing you got!” As she slammed several silver coins on the bar.
Several drinks later Auria and the human and elf were seated at a table. While She had almost had six drinks already, the other two had barely touched their drinks.
“Hey Auria, are you ok?” The human asked as she chugged the last bit of her alcohol.
“Yeah I'm good, why?” Auria’s speech was starting to slur and she was having difficulty keeping her head straight.
“I don’t think someone who is “good” would be drinking as much as you are right now.” The elf chimed in showing the displeasure in his voice. “I think you should slow down.”
“Oh fuck off Folwin, I didn’t ask for your stupid elven wisdom ." Auria downed the rest of the mug. “I'll do whatever I want with my own money.”
“Ok I think you need to calm down Auria.” The human man stood up. “Clearly what that asshat Dionysius said about you being incompetent got to you.”
“Fine, that fucking ass hole has been like since he became the bosses second in command. He always goes after me, even when it wasn’t even my fault.” Auria brought out one of her daggers that she then used to stab into the old table. “No matter what I do he always has something to say, and it is never positive.”
“Have you tried simply ignoring him?” Folwin said as he removed his cloak as it had some alcohol on it.
“I have tried everything. The only way I can think of getting him to stop is to get rid of that mage and bring the evidence to the boss.” The three sat at the table in silence for a few moments.
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“That is a very risky thing to do, Auria.” The human man looked in her eyes as he spoke. “He may not be a wizard but he can still cast magic, and the simplest of spells only require a small flick of the wrist to cast.”
“I know, I know.” Auria sighed as she leaned back in her chair.
“And on top of that he was wearing plate armor and had a longsword at his hip. That probably makes him a mage knight, the embodiment of defense and the perfect counter to a rogue or thief.”
“So what you are saying is that we do not stand a chance against him.” Auria sat up and started rubbing her temples to relieve the stress she currently felt.
“I never said we didn’t have a chance.” Auria and Folwin looked up as the man continued. “But we can’t approach this as thieves or rogues. We need to approach this as an assassin, we need to use our heads and instead of finding an opportunity to kill him we need to make an opportunity and strike quickly and disappear before anyone can notice us.”
*********
“Now that we are done with the demonstration of what you will have the opportunity to learn here now that you are members of the mages guild, it is now time to walk you through enrolling in courses to further your magical education and in the future become certified in fields of magic.” Aiwin reached into his bag and pulled out several pieces of paper that floated over to each person. Arthur started looking at the papers the moment he received them, the papers detailed all the courses that a member of the guild can enroll in along with the prerequisites and recommendations.
“Now since none of you have any magical skill above the Apprentice level I will recommend that you attend classes for the 4 evocations until you are at the level of an Evoker with all 4. Learning magic outside the evocations is much harder because you are not mixing the mana with any elements, you are just giving the mana itself instructions on what to do. This makes it much harder to do because you can’t see mana itself like you can with fire or water.”
“T- teacher.” A timid voice spoke up from the back of the room. Everyone turned to see it was the spider person and based on the voice it was a he. “I have a question.”
“Of course, what is it?” Aiwin asked with a smile recognizing his species. ‘Not many of his people leave the underground. He must be one of the few that have in the past 100 or so years.’
“I heard before I joined the guild that there would be opportunities to earn money. How exactly does that work?”
Aiwin smiled. ‘Of course he must be worried about money, he likely doesn’t have much in that way of savings.’ “With a proper education your magical skills will rapidly improve and the guild will have tasks that you can do for some extra money if you need it. The tasks won't be all that exciting at first but you will earn enough to eat a decent meal everyday, and for those without permanent residency and below the rank of Conjurer there are dormitories provided by the guild in larger locations such as the one here in Antium.”
The explanation appeared to help the spider person calm down a bit and Aiwin continued. “When you become certified for something such as healing with an excellent skill in restoration magic you can also earn money from providing services related to that depending on the certification. Now I will be giving you a few minutes to look through what is available and on the last piece of paper you will be selecting what course or courses you want to attend, after those few minutes I will come around and make sure you are happy with your selection.”
Arthur looked at the options that were available to him. ‘I have hit a sort of roadblock when it comes to both geomancy and hydromancy, since the expedition only hydromancy has increased in level. Perhaps if I spend some time learning even just the basics pyromancy and aeromancy I will become better at magic overall and see what exactly I am doing that could use improvement.’
Soon Arthur was visited by Aiwin who asked about Arthur's choice of courses. “I think I am going to take the basics of pyromancy and the basics of aeromancy courses.”
“A nice choice, are those the two you haven't learnt yet?”
“Not yet, since I have hit a roadblock when it comes to geomancy and hydromancy I decided I should try and widen my skill set and at least learn the basics, who knows they might help me overcome that blockage.”
Aiwin smiled. “That is an excellent way to think, many would simply bash their heads against that block hoping that they will overcome it. I believe you are on the right track.” Aiwin turned to talk to another about their choices.
After about an hour Aiwin had spoken to everyone about their choices and had everyone come up to the front of the class and hand over the piece of paper detailing their choices. “I will be taking these directly to the administrators so they can work their magic and get you all enrolled into these courses, oh and one last bit of info before I go. These courses will be covered by guild but any that you enroll in from now on you will need to pay for out of your own pocket or if you become someone's apprentice they will if they don’t just teach you themselves.”
********
A few hours had passed since the orientation happened and Arthur was walking around the mages guild looking for the place where he could do some of those tasks for a bit of extra money. For the time being he did not have any means to earn any so every little bit would be helpful.
Arthur entered room six and inside he saw a familiar face talking to someone behind a counter. “Hello again Calavia. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Arthur smiled as he walked up to Calavia.