Markus looked around the city he found himself in and took a deep breath of the air before regretting it and coughing from the smell of smoke and poor plumbing, though, thankfully, the second thing was something the city appeared to be working on if the people walking around in gray jumpsuit uniforms were anything to go by. Deciding not to wait around forever, he began to make his way in the direction that he'd been pointed to after he woke up in the Temple of Brandi, Goddess of Humans.

As he walked toward the Barfing Minotaur to meet up with his friends, Markus took in the bustling sights of the city around him as the new players like him went about their business, many of them wide-eyed and a little slack-jawed, while the NPC citizens took note of the newcomers and attempted to make sense of where they had all come from. He even saw one rather uncomfortable looking Panther Beastkin walking away from a group of drooling Human players that were all exceedingly ugly. Luckily for that Beastkin, she saw a larger group of Wolf and Bear Beastkin making their way through the street and was able to disappear from the player's sight easily.

Deciding to leave whatever weirdness was happening for later, assuming he saw it then, Markus continued down the cobbled streets, between the half-stone/half-wood houses that made up the so-called Middle City. The further he went down the impressively constructed streets, the more he saw. Little blue Gnomes scurried between legs and under carts alongside equally small, green Gremlins; Goblins haggled with Humans and Orcs at street stalls for a discount on the cheap grilled mystery meats on offer; Elves seemed to glide gracefully through the crowds before disappearing into shops or alleys; Dwarves argued with anyone in earshot, often another Dwarf; and Beastkin carried heavy loads through all the chaos with ease and practiced movements before setting them down on carts. Eventually Markus was forced to stop and perform the action that all tourists hate, ask for directions from the locals.

"Excuse me," he said to the Orcish stall owner he had chosen, "can you point me toward the Barfing Minotaur tavern?"

"Suppose I can," the Orc lady nodded easily enough. "Problem is that I can't give directions to someone that doesn't buy anything."

"I'll take that kebab there with the veggies," Markus pointed. "How much?"

"Two coppers," she said, extending the skewered meat and vegetables out to him as he offered the coins. "Minotaur is that way. You go down three shops and turn into the left alley. You'll see the sign at the end and you're there."

"Thanks," Markus nodded as he stepped away and bit into the meat on the end of his skewer. The explosion of spices on his tongue was wonderful and before he knew it he had finished off the last of the skewered treat as he stood in front of the alley in question.

"Great job, Mark," he berated himself, "nothing bad's ever happened down a dark alley like this. All I need to finish becoming Batman down here are my parents and a mugger."

Quickly Markus stepped into the alley and moved through the surprisingly clean area between buildings before he saw the swinging sign above a door at the alley's end. Painted with bright colors was the visage of a minotaur vomiting into a bucket.

"Guess this is the place," he said, approaching the door and stepping inside.

The first thing he noticed was the floor, polished from countless steps crossing it and years of vigorous mopping and cleaning to remove spilled drinks, food, or vomit and blood from the floor before it stained. The tables were scattered across the floor haphazardly enough to look random, but far enough away from each other to offer privacy, and all appeared to be made of rough wood with varnish that had barely dried. There were no chairs Markus noticed, only heavy looking benches and flimsy looking stools. A fire's coals settled in the hearth as a spitted animal, deer or cow he guessed, rotated slowly over the hot coals and slowly roasted to perfection. Sitting at the bar were his friends waiting for him as they talked with the pretty Elvish girl that tended to the three, now four customers.

" - so then Mark looks at the two guys and says the most cliche thing ever, 'You want some of this too?' he asks them," Axel said animatedly to the girl who wasn't paying more than polite attention to him. "Both of them ran like he'd asked if they wanted some of his uncle's fire chili!"

As Axel cackled at the old story, Markus approached his three friends and sat next to them before speaking up.

"Hey, guys. Have fun finding the place?"

"Mark!" Axel greeted him happily, sloshing a little of his drink as Pear offered his own empty tankard to the bartender. "Glad you could join us! Pear's been drinking like there's no tomorrow and I'm a little worried."

"What happened, Pear?" Markus asked.

"My helper threw me off a cloud and forgot to have me put a name in," the smallest of his friends answered him. "Thankfully, one of the Watchers caught me and gave me the chance to pick a name, but after that, he dropped me too."

"Are you sure that you should be drinking so much?" Markus asked as the Elvish bartender set another full tankard down in front of him.

"You know that I always outdrink all of you," Pear pointed out as he raised his tankard to his lips. "Not like I've had enough yet to do more than buzz me."

"What about a drunken debuff?" Jim asked. "You don't have one of those?"

"Not yet," Pear said as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "I'll let you guys know when that hits."

"Well maybe you should slow down anyway," Markus more ordered than suggested. "We don't need you blowing through your starter cash."

"Or ours," Axel added.

"Fine," Pear said. "This'll be the last one."

"What's the tab up to?" Jim asked the bartender.

"About five irons for all of you," she told him.

"Pear, I hate you," Axel said with a sigh as he put his one iron coin on the bar soon followed by Jim doing the same.

"I only have eight coppers," Markus said as he put his coins down as well. "Even with that, we're still in the hole."

"We can take some sort of collateral until you earn the rest of the money," the Elf told them as Pear quickly finished his last drink before the others could take it away from him. "Do you have anything that can cover your tab?"

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"Just starter gear," Axel told her. "Pretty sure that's not worth a total of one iron between all of us."

"Magic stuff like that staff are expensive enough," the Elf said, pointing at the large hunk of wood that was slung across Pear's back. "Shouldn't take you boys long to earn an iron and change, so I'll hold onto that until tomorrow evening. After that, you officially give up your claim on it and I can sell it. Deal?"

"It's my staff," Pear protested.

"Deal," the other three said before anything else could happen.

"Don't suppose you can point us in the direction of some work?" Axel asked with a smile that might have been charming if not for his larger canines.

"The Hunter's Guild is always taking in anyone they can," the bartender said easily. "They offer bounties on monsters and beasts that pay okay enough. They also have bounties from the Alchemist's and Mage's guilds for certain plants or guard work. Everyone in the city knows that if you need an odd job done, you go to the Hunter's Guild and pick up one of their wannabe mercenaries."

"Cool, we'll head there now," Axel said, grabbing Pear's arm. "Right after he gives you his staff."

"Why do I have to give up my staff?" Pear asked. "All I did was drink! You're the one that talked her ear off!"

"Pear, buddy," Jim said placatingly to his friend, "you're the one that drank six tankards of the ale. Axel and I only had one and Markus didn't even have any."

"We'll get your stick back soon enough," Axel assured him. "We just have to go to this Hunter's Guild and grab some jobs. It'll be easy and we'll get paid quick enough."

"Fine," Pear said with a long-suffering sigh as he slung the staff from his back. "Pick on the little guy and make him give up his starter gear."

"Like Axel said," Markus assured him as the Elf took the staff, "we'll get it back soon. Who should we ask for when we come back with the money?"

"Willow," the Elvish woman answered him. "Willow Stouthammer."

"Are you the owner's wife or something?" Jim asked curiously, with all his natural tact of none.

"Or something," Willow smiled at him before turning away and making her way to the door that led into the rooms behind the bar. "Have fun now, boys!"

"And just sign here saying that you understand that the Guild is not responsible for loss of life, limb, property, or wealth," the energetic Gnome said happily pointing at the necessary line on all four contracts. "Will you gentlemen be forming a party together or will you be moving alone?"

"Alone," Axel said before the other three could answer. "We're all friends but we can't stick together with what we're planning to do."

"And what's that?" the Gnome asked curiously as he stamped the documents that marked them all as new members of the Hunter's Guild.

"We're all competing with each other to get to the top," Axel said with a smile. "Anything goes on the way, but we don't want to throw our friendship away if we can help it."

"That's sweet," the Gnome said. "Most people that set such lofty goals tend to destroy their friendships in the process because someone keeps trying to take the money and buy reagents for their experiments and someone else keeps asking for new equipment to keep up with the beasts and monsters. It's always better to divide friendship and business in my opinion."

"Now," he said, hopping down from the stacked books he had stood on in the chair at his counter, "Let's give you gentlemen the grand tour."

As the tiny, blue man trotted out from behind the desk, he approached Axel, the tallest of the group and looked at him.

"This is always a tad embarrassing, but would you mind terribly putting me on your shoulders?" he asked the Wolf Beastkin.

"Uh, sure, I can do that," Axel said before kneeling down and grabbing the two foot tall man. "What's your name? Where to first?"

"The board over there," the Gnome told him. "And my name is Inkfingers."

"Cool name," Pear said. "How do Gnome names work? I'm curious."

"Like anyone else's," Inkfingers said. "Your parents give you one and then you go into the world and spread it around."

"So your parents named you Inkfingers?" Markus asked.

"By the Pantheon, no!" Inkfingers said with a laugh as they approached the board he pointed out. "They named me Janus and I earned the name Inkfingers because I was always spilling ink when I first joined the Guild's administration team. Always had ink staining my hands in those days."

"Now, this is the Local Job Board," Inkfingers told the four of them after he'd finished laughing. "Each Job on this board is one that someone from this city has offered and you can choose one, perhaps two if you're going to be in the area of another and one of the secretaries signs off on it. Each of these Jobs has been vetted by the Guild and we can guarantee that you will receive the offered reward. That board there, is next."

Axel led the way to the board that stood next to the Local Job Board and stopped in front of the much smaller and emptier board.

"This is the World Job Board," Inkfingers told them. "The Jobs you'll find here are more difficult and cannot be guaranteed to be close to the city of Hero's Crypt. Each of these Jobs has been offered by a kingdom or lord and has been deemed to be either too difficult or too far away from the offering party to justify being on the Local Board. Unlike with the Local Board, the jobs here can be accepted by multiple parties and we can't promise the rewards to any one party. Instead, the reward must be collected from the offering party with proof of the Job's completion. Usually the Job will tell you what will be accepted to mark the Job's completion. Questions so far?"

"If you take a Job from the Local Board, does that mean you can't take one from the World Board?" Jim asked.

"Not at all," Inkfingers told them. "In fact many of our higher ranking members use the Local Board to fund their trip to the location for their World Job."

"Does being in one Guild mean you can't join another?" Pear asked.

"Usually, we get that question much earlier in the application process," Inkfingers said with a smile. "The answer is 'no.' You can join any other Guild while a member of the Hunter's Guild and for the most part the other's don't care if you're a member of our Guild or not. In the case of some, you won't be able to become a higher ranking member, but if that happens and they want you to move further within their organization, they'll tell you and make sure you know that you can move higher if you leave us. Why, the current Guildmaster of the Mercenary's Guild used to be a high ranking member of our Guild before he joined them."

"Now, over to that board there, please," Inkfingers said pointing to the board in question for Axel. "This is the Bounty Board. Unlike the Job Boards back there, this one is where reoccuring Jobs are placed. Here, you'll find Jobs for common reagents that Alchemists use for their potion crafting, such as Goblin Eyes, which are used in Healing Potions. Lovely flowers those. You'll also find the Jobs that are used to cull dangerous animals and monsters. Like the World Jobs, you'll be required to bring proof of the Job's completion and you'll find the necessary proof on the Job's page. Anything else?"

"Then, back to my desk," Inkfingers said, pointing again. "Please don't put me down on the desk. Those scuff marks are hell to clean off the desk."

As they approached the Gnome's desk, Axel stopped and set him down in front of the desk and the four of them watched the tiny, blue man disappear at a brisk trot around the desk's corner. Before long they heard his voice cursing, before they saw a small ladder extend upward next to some drawers and Inkfingers began to climb. With a vicious kick of his foot, he opened a drawer and grabbed four tokens before carefully making his way down the ladder. Absent-mindedly, an Elvish secretary pushed the drawer closed as he went by.

"Here you lads are!" Inkfingers said as he pulled himself into the chair at his desk. "Four Wood rank tokens. Once you've earned enough merits to advance you'll earn your Copper tokens and be tested. Come back often and keep choosing jobs to complete."

"Thanks for the help, Inkfingers," Markus said with a smile. "Have a good day."

"Ohohoho, if you smile at me like that too much I'll blush," Inkfingers said with a smile of his own and a wave. "You especially be sure to visit. And bring your Wolfish friend with you too."

As Axel and Markus both began to blush a tad at the Gnome's forwardness, Jim and Pear began to snicker and dragged their friends away before they began to viciously tease them.