Visiting the guard offices went smoothly thankfully, the receptionist Glenda had the packet of paperwork waiting for me, and I was able to be back home with a short walk. Entering the house I realised both my parents were home already, with their boots next to the door.

“Hey honey, how did it go? Are you joining me or going to work on a tan like your father?” Quickly hugging both parents before leaning against the bench, unsure how to deliver the news.

“Actually I sort of ended up with a combat card, Raz gave me some information on the guards, it only has a healing skill but yeah, no crafting or farming in the near future it seems”. As I stared at my feet, unsure how to handle disappointing my parents that their only child wasn’t taking up either of their crafts. As I made my way to my room leaving assurances of how proud they are their little girl is becoming a healer, one of the more respected and well paying jobs, I didn’t have it in my heart to tell them it wasn’t actually a healing specialised card.

Sitting down at my desk to read through the information the guards provided I realised this was it, whatever I decided I was likely to leave home in a matter of days and this would set the pacing of the rest of my life. While I could leave the job if I didn’t enjoy it, once I had bound a class card to my core along with my core card I would only be able to replace it with a higher tier class card, which can get expensive if you don’t upgrade your own card instead. Deciding to just dive into it I started reading through.

It was mostly the standard stuff for any job as far as I was aware, requirements for the job, hours, pay, but unlike the part time jobs I had done in the past these also offered professional training in my class and a related class card.

Job offer: General Healer - Yearly contract renewal Class Card: Healer (Common). Grants access to stats, resource pools, and improvements to healing skills. Can only merge with healing capable core cards. Pay: 350 silver a week, plus boarding. (pay may increase based on post trial period review) Requirements: This position requires the ability to handle immediate minor injuries and treat major injuries long term. This comes with a posting in a village, town, or city post the trial period of three months. Requires at least one healing skill with the ability to handle common minor injuries, such as the skills “Heal minor wound”, “Healing touch”, “Healing word”.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Job offer: Combat Healer - Yearly renewing contract Class Card Combat Healer (Common). Grants access to stats, resource pools, and improvements to healing skills. Can only merge with healing capable core cards. Pay: Pay: 500 silver per week, plus five copper per combat likely deployment per day. (pay may increase based on post trial period review) Requirements: Requires fast acting healing ability of at least uncommon quality and to pass a combat response exam.

Job offer: Wilds Healer - Renewal every six months Class card: Wild Hunt healer (Uncommon) or Wild lands healer (Uncommon). Can only merge with Uncommon or above core cards. Both grant access to stats and resource pools. Pay: 1 gold per day when deployed, 500 silver per week when not deployed. (pay may increase based on post trial period review. Not accessible until banking resources are present in new settlements) Requirements: Skills must be capable of handling high level injuries. Requires Uncommon Core Card at minimum. Must be combat capable and may be required to fill a combat role in emergency or on agreement with overseer.

There was even a clause for if you became over qualified or ranked up your card, you could apply for new more advanced positions within the guard or request a pay assessment if you were capable of doing more work. While being a general healer sounded like a way to stay close to home, and a combat healer would get some reasonable early levels to help get stronger, I already knew there wasn’t much choice and I had to go with wilds healer. Everyone heard stories about how new villages were formed, even the farmers had to be of uncommon quality or above with matching class cards, and the pay was amazing. With one gold a day I would be making a difficult to imagine amount of money, there was risk in return for it sure, but with that kind of pay it's easy to see it as worthwhile while providing my skill was passable.

That night I fell asleep dreaming of my skill, and wondering how without giving me a class card they were going to test my core skill, it's not like I had access to mana without one.