“Come now, Sir Markus,” Rankins encouraged his opponent as he rolled onto his back, “stand up. We’ll keep trying until you get this one.”
“I just need a minute,” Markus panted as he touched his aching ribs. “That last hit was harder than you meant it to be.”
As Markus recovered from the shield bash and throw that Rankins had executed against him, he tried not to let himself be nervous for the next part of his day that loomed over him like a specter, interviews.
“If you’d like to continue our training match, then I’d advise you to stand up now,” Rankins told him. “If you lay there much longer, then we’ll be forced to end this here so that you’re not late to your appointments today. That will leave us both enough time to at least clean the sweat from our faces.”
“You’re right,” Markus groaned as he pulled himself to his feet and grabbed for his fallen sword and tower shield. “Let’s try that last move at least one more time.”
“Very well,” Rankins said, taking a starting position for their sparring. “Whenever you are ready, Sir Markus.”
Hefting his sword and settling his shield, Markus stepped forward and approached the other man slowly before breaking into a charge and crashing their tower shields together and driving Rankins back a step.
As Rankins found his footing and pushed back with his own shield, he thrust his sword forward, reaching around both of the shields gracefully to smack the blunted tip of his training sword into Markus’ chest.
Not to be outdone, Markus gave room between their shields before thrusting his forward and breaking Rankins’ stance and driving the other man off-balance as he drove the tip of his sword forward and into Rankins’ gut, knocking the man’s breath from his lungs and doubling him over for Markus to touch his sword lightly to the back of his neck.
“Excellent work, Sir Markus,” Rankins wheezed. “Your first victory.”
“Sorry about the hit to your gut,” Markus winced as he dropped his sword and reached to help Rankins to a nearby bench. “I wasn’t trying to make you lose your breath.”
“It’s no matter,” Rankins waved his concern away. “Sir Nargen and Instructor Rook would both tell you to remember the effectiveness of such blows for true opponents. Of course they would only tell you this after you had suffered the effects yourself, repeatedly.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Markus assured the man as he steadied his breathing and prepared to stand.
“Now,” Rankins said, “common courtesy for using any of the training yards as we have is to clean them when we are finished.”
“Then let’s get started so we can get to some water quicker,” Markus said as he began to remove his gauntlets from his hands. “If we’re fast, we might be able to do more than take a drink and wipe our faces.”
“So you’re Markus?” the large Bear-man said as he examined Markus sitting at the table across from him.
“That I am,” Markus nodded. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Yogi,” the man said. “What Party positions are open?”
“I’m keeping most of them open so that I can hear what parts everyone else wants to play before I start choosing who I want to Party with,” Markus told the man. “Even then, I’m willing to consider you for another position if the one you’d like is taken.”
“Cool,” Yogi grinned, his round, furry ears wiggling atop his head. “I think with my size everyone else would try to make me into a tank, but that’s not what I want to do. I want to use a greatsword and be a DPS.”
“Greatsword, DPS,” Markus nodded, speaking as he wrote a note down. “That’s great, I’m set up to be a tank, so having a pure DPS like that would be very helpful. Have you ever done any sort of martial arts? Boxing, Kung fu, Taekwondo, HEMA?”
“Nope,” Yogi shook his head. “Looked into boxing a while back, there’s a gym near my apartment that’s pretty well known for it, but it was too expensive for me to start.”
“That’s alright,” Markus assured him. “I have some connections that I can probably use to help you learn your weapon in-game. Any plans to start a side profession?”
“I was thinking about looking into cooking,” Yogi said. “I love to eat and I never have the money to try out all the recipes that I want to make, so being able to recreate them in-game would be awesome!”
“Play any sort of sports in school? Join a club?” Markus asked, making more notes.
“I was on the baseball team in highschool,” Yogi nodded. “JV, so the coach made me and the others warm the bench, but when we practiced, he’d rotate us all through our positions in case someone got hurt and they couldn’t play for a bit. I was the catcher.”
“Anything else?” Markus asked, his pen moving across the paper.
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“My prom date was into theater, so I joined the school play, Romeo and Juliet,” Yogi admitted. “I was put on the set team, making the backgrounds and making sure the lights worked and the costumes were in good condition.”
“This is great,” Markus told him as he finished writing notes. “I’ve got some others that I need to talk to, but if you’ll give me your contact info, then I’ll get back to you. Any questions for me before we go?”
“Why did you have us come meet you in a church?” Yogi asked. “Trying to be a Paladin?”
“No,” Markus chuckled. “It was just easier to have you guys come meet me here while I’m trying to do some stuff for them, than it was to go to you at a tavern or the Party Square.”
“Between the two of us,” Yogi grinned, “I think your spot’s better. Has some privacy so we don’t have a dozen people screaming at us and trying to either take my place in the interview or to pull me away. Makes it competitive for the ones that are trying to play as what they look like, but it’s just annoying for guys like me that they’re shoe-horning into a role without our say-so.”
“That does sound bad,” Markus winced. “I’ll be in touch one way or the other, in the meantime, why don’t you take a minute and listen to what some of the priests have to say. I promise it’s not a pitch to join the church.”
“If they’ve got snacks, I’m there,” Yogi laughed as Markus led him to the door and waved him off.
“Next,” Markus said, looking at the players resting on walls, benches, and the floor waiting to talk with him about joining his Party.
“So, as I was saying,” the armored man said excitedly to Markus, “if you join our Party as the Main Tank, we can guarantee that you will have a full 15% of the monetary value of all dropped loot and first pick of dungeon gear. What do you say?”
“It sounds great,” Markus said with a smile. “Unfortunately, I asked people here so that I could interview them for joining my own Party that I’m starting, as well as to make some connections if my first picks don’t work out. Not to hear the pitches of already formed Parties. Thank you for your time.”
“18%,” the man said firmly.
“Please see yourself out,” Markus said, his smile dropping.
“If I go 20% then I can’t guarantee the first pick of dungeon gear,” the man said.
“Sir Harold, would you please escort him from the room?” Markus asked the armored Paladin that stood on the wall next to the door. As he spoke, he marked through the name he’d written down on his notes and made another note beside it.
“You won’t find a better deal!” the man said, raising his voice as Sir Harold grabbed him firmly by the shoulder and began to pull him from the chair. “When you come crawling to me for this deal, all promises are gone! Do you hear me? Gone!”
As the Paladin pulled him from the room, Markus watched impassively until the door closed. As the sounds of the man’s yelling faded down the hall, he took a deep breath and sighed, massaging his forehead for a moment before taking a drink of water and recentering himself.
Steadied, Markus stepped to the door and poked his head out into the hall that was now much emptier nearly three hours after he’d started.
“A reminder to all of you remaining,” he said, raising his voice slightly to be heard, “I am not searching for an established Party to join, I am looking for potential Party Members. If you are here to make a pitch on behalf of a Party then please do not waste either of our time and remove yourself from those left here. Thank you. That said, if the next person in line would please join me.”
Stepping back into the room, door opened as he waited for the next person he would interview, Markus tried not to sigh as he heard at least one group of people leave the hall.
“And both of you are looking to join the Party as ranged DPS?” Markus asked the two Elvish women sitting across from him.
“That’s right,” the one on the left said. “My sister will learn magic, and I’m using a bow.”
“Do you think you’d be open to learning to use daggers or a shortsword?” Markus asked her. “To be safe if something ambushes both of you and the frontliners can’t get to you?”
“I would,” she said with a nod.
“Excellent,” Markus said, making another note. “And what sort of magic do you plan to specialize in? I have a friend that said he’s learning Elemental stuff and another that’s picked up some Runic stuff and they both mention that there’s also another type or two.”
“I was thinking of learning both Elemental and Runic magic,” the woman on the right said. “I’d specialize in using Fire, Earth, Death, and Light magic for the Elemental side and support based magic for the Runic side.”
“That sounds great,” Markus said with a nod as he made another note. “And as a purely hypothetical, if I only had room for one of you in the Party, would you turn me down or would you agree to join?”
“Turn you down,” they both said simultaneously.
“We started this game together,” the woman on the left said. “We don’t want to separate just because someone couldn’t work with both of us.”
“I can understand wanting to do this your way,” Markus nodded. “Thank you both for your time. If you’d like to trade contact info, then I’ll reach out one way or the other.”
“Thank you for your time,” the woman on the right said as she stood and extended her hand to Markus, sending her message ID with it.
As Markus saw the two women out the door, he sighed heavily and leaned against the frame for a moment before straightening himself and calling for the next person to join him.
“You’re doing pretty good for yourself it looks like,” a familiar voice called to him as they entered.
“Stella?” Markus asked, looking at the Halfling woman. “It’s great to see you!”
“It’s great to see you too,” she said, returning his grin. “When I heard that you were interviewing people to join your Party full-time, I figured why not, and came to see if you’d like to have me again.”
“I’d like to say yes,” Markus said. “Unfortunately, I do have to make sure that I’m fair and give everyone else their due.”
“That’s fine,” Stella shrugged amicably. “We both know that none of the others have rogue training from Royal Instructors.”
“That’s true,” Markus said. “And it puts you ahead of the pack by a huge margin. The big question is what kind of rogue are you playing as. Are you a thief? An assassin? A thug?”
“A bit of all three,” Stella told him. “My instructor made me practice my stealth and fighting as much as my trap-making and disarming. I won’t be a good thug if that’s what you’re looking for though. Have you seen me? I’m adorable.”
Laughing, Markus sat down and launched into his other interview questions as he took notes and caught up with his friend in between questions.