They had chicken that night.

His whole family was there to celebrate. It was a happy night, everyone was singing his praises as well as lifting him up and spinning him about.

He had to demonstrate his Skill for all the adults to see, and they all laughed and clapped as he made the golem Groblo waddle around the table for them to see. The boy was also cautioned against using any of his new Status points, they said it was important to save them. The boy had been told the same thing for several years now, and he’d hardly spent any of them.

The next day his father begged a day off of work and his father took him into town. It was the boys first time away from his neighbourhood, he’d always been told it was too dangerous in the past. They had to stay on the side road, which ran next to the main road. The main road was where all the carriages and high levelled individuals travelled and his father told him to never walk on the main road, there was always the risk of a high-level courier trampling someone in the way.

They reached the marketplace soon enough, which was a much larger and grander version of the one they had in their neighbourhood. They had normal foodstuffs which came from farmsteads, but they also had so much more.

There were actual magic items on display, just like the ones Tan’s father had. They had exotic monsters in cages and stalls piled high with mysterious glowing substances. Unfortunately, the boy’s father seized him by the hand and pulled him over to the side. The boy’s father never took him anywhere fun.

The boy’s father pulled him to a stage on which several other boys and girls stood. Over the stage was a mounted sign displaying the world ‘Apprentices’.

Each of the boys and girls stood there with a sign around their necks. It wasn’t until the boy got his own sign that he realised what the signs showed. They were all Skills. All of them were here to become Apprentices the boy realised. He started to look around to see what Skills the others had, but his father roughly grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Listen here, Troy. The family has decided to purchase an Apprenticeship for you. You will be obedient and you will listen carefully to your Master. This is an honour for both you and the family Troy. Make us proud.”

Troy nodded to his father once. His father nodded back. Troy had always liked that about his father, he didn’t need to use too many words when they spoke.

They stood there for many hours as the children which stood there were gradually spoken to and taken away. Sometimes they haggled over the price, sometimes they argued and in one case it broke out into a fight that ended up hurting a child. Troy’s father had joined the group of parents that had collectively shouted that man off of the stage.

The day passed with several interested parties coming up to his father and talking with him but he either said they weren’t interested or said they were looking for a better offer and the other party walked away.

Troy was a little confused why his father kept on turning down Grocers, Merchants and Builders like himself, but then as soon as a hooded individual showed up and went to talk to another parent he went and introduced himself almost every time.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Troy didn’t have the Perception value to listen in on their conversations, but he did get it to increase over the day, while he was listening in.

It got to the end of the day and Troy’s father was looking considerably worn out. His father didn’t tend to talk much, like Troy, and so he came away from every conversation looking a little more tired than the last.

The sun got lower such that Troy was forced to shut his eyes as he stood on the stage. He could hear the sound of the marketplace closing for the day, animals grunting as they pulled the carts along the streets. The shuffling of the few children that hadn’t yet been picked was deafening to his new ears. There was one girl softly crying in the corner of the stage. Troy had seen the girl’s mother slap her earlier, he wasn’t sure why.

The light was falling lower still and Troy was getting a little worried now. They had no street lamps in their neighbourhood and his father had no skills or Aspect that would help to light the way.

His father walked over to Troy’s part of the stage, accompanied by another man. The man had dark grey robes on, similar to those worn by the various men and women that had accepted apprenticeships from children throughout the day.

“I can introduce you to him, but I make no guarantees on his availability nor his willingness to take an apprentice.”

“We would, of course, compensate him for taking our boy as an apprentice.”

“Good, well I owe him a favour, and if he gets an Apprentice out of this then hopefully we can finally be even.”

“Thank you again for this opportunity, sir. Ah! This here is my son. Troy.” Troy was nudged by his father, and he realised that he would have to bow, like when he met the priest and his fathers boss.

The old man, this one with grey in his hair, looked Troy up and down before rubbing his chin and nodding to himself.

“He’ll do.”

~

The old man was a mage it seemed.

This was immediately obvious to Troy when the dim streets that they walked were lit up by a flick of the old man’s wrist, resulting in three pale orbs of light that sprang into existence alongside them as they walked.

Troy just stood there with his mouth open wide in awe as he watched them appear. His father had to roughly nudge him along before he remembered he was supposed to be walking. From his father’s expression, Troy could tell he was worried that Troy had somehow offended the mage.

They continued on with the mage leading the way at a brisk walk that Troy had trouble keeping pace with at first, but his father saw he was flagging and picked him up into his arms for the remainder of the journey.

Eventually, the group arrived at a compound in the Nobles District. The high walls and thick, metal gate that made up its front gave off a sinister air, although that might have just been the night making it look scary. Everything looked scarier at nighttime.

The mage knocked several times, each hit making the door boom and shaking Troy’s whole body, even through his father, who stood a cows length back from the mage.

The group just stood there for several moments as they all waited for the owner of the compound to exit and greet them. After a few minutes and no response, Troy’s father hesitantly spoke up.

“It’s late after all … should we come back at a later day?”

The mage just grunted in response and Troy’s father quickly fell silent.

Soon after the door creaked open and a red-faced older man, older than the mage who had accompanied them there, faced them.

“Yes? I was in the middle of an experiment and I-. Hello Liar. Why the hells are you here? At night? I thought I made it clear last time we spoke that-”

“I’ve brought you an apprentice, Nigel.” The mage interrupted the old man who was working himself up into a fury, Troy had seen the signs before in his mother. The mage gestured behind himself at Troy and his father.

The old man peered his head around the mage and looked at Troy intently, he seemed to be muttering something under his breath, before apparently seeing something he liked and nodded to himself. Troy noticed he had yet to step foot outside his doorway.

“The boy? Yes, he’ll be fine. Nice Skill, good stats for his age. Yes, he’ll do nicely.” Troy was taken aback, he didn't know you could look at other people Status.

“I was also hoping that you would consider coming to dinner tomorrow night, Lyla is cooking-”

“I don’t have time for your shit Liar.” The old man cut off the mage with angry words and a snort. The old man then had a brief conversation with Troy’s father in which the old man must have spoken less than five words. Then gold was exchanged hands, Troy’s parent’s savings over the last several months, and Troy was pulled along into the shadowy compound of this stranger that he’d not even told his name.