Torin was surprised to say the least. Like his previous matches he’d started the third with a mad rush to the treasure room, making the briefest of stops to map out the traps before quickly stealthing his way across the monster infested room. For the first time he managed to get across the monster room without waking any.
It was also the first time he wasn’t alone in the treasure room.
For the first time since the tournament started Torin wasn’t the first to reach the treasure. Entering the room he found the other contestant with the treasure already in his hands. The two froze, neither expecting the other to be there, before suddenly bursting into action once again.
The other contestant, a small mousekin with brown fur so dark it was almost black, rushed back through the archway into the now clamorous room filled with monsters. His small size and quick legs let him dodge the raging monsters with ease as he dashed across the room. Entering the trap room he started to work his way through the traps.
His tactic was very similar to Torin's with the exception that he chose not to memorize the layout of the traps. It let him get to the treasure first but it also meant that he had to focus more on the traps so as to not trigger any. Sadly the extra focus on the traps meant less focus on what was happening behind him.
It meant that he never saw the arrow that embedded into his shoulder. He did see the pressure plate he fell onto, the one he had been about to carefully step over. He also saw the flames the trap triggered thanks to his excellent vantage point from right in front of the runic launch point. He didn’t see what happened after that though, thanks to the safety measures teleporting him out.
Torin breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the mousekin get teleported out. He had never, in any of his wildest fantasies, expected another person to be crazy enough to do what he did. Thankfully he wasn’t a Rogue, he was a Ranger. Rather than chase after the crazy Rogue he pulled out his bow, nocked an arrow, and aimed. After waiting for the optimal moment, when the mousekin was busy stepping over an obvious pressure plate, he fired. The arrow sped through the air, narrowly missing two monsters before embedding into the Rogues shoulder with just the right amount of force and at just the right angle to topple the small man over and onto the pressure plate.
From there the match was easy. Without an opponent Torin took his time to defeat all the monsters and disable all the traps before calmly walking back to his starting position, the slightly singed treasure chest in his arms.
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As the children wandered into the classroom they discovered that, rather than the usual cover teacher they’d been having recently, there was a new lady standing at the front of the room. Once all the kids had arrived and were seated she spoke.
“Greetings children, my name is Ms. Frenella, and I will be your new history teacher. Your previous teacher, Mr. Prompadeer, has sadly taken ill and decided to retire.”
The children understandably had questions and, as children tended to do, immediately called them out. Ms. Frenella simply waited patiently until they had quietened down before she continued.
“I understand you have a lot of questions but I am afraid that I do not have any answers. I am unaware of the details but I do know that Mr. Pompadeer is perfectly fine, despite the illness, and apparently took his sickness as a sign to slow down and retire. If you have any more questions then I am happy to try and answer them as well as I am able, but only after the lesson.”
There were a few grumbles but overall the children seemed to be accepting of that.
“Now, I believe that you have recently been looking at the formation of the guilds so as a refresher why don’t we have a little pop quiz?” The class groaned, or at least most of them did.
Ms. Frenella smiled. “Don’t worry, this won’t be going towards your grade so don’t worry about getting the answers wrong. This is more to let me see where you’re at so that I can plan the next few lessons appropriately.”
The children visibly relaxed, as Ms. Frenella knew they would.
“Okay, let’s start with an easy one. Which guild was the first to be formed?”
A few hands popped up but Ms. Frenella instead pointed at one of the boys that hadn’t raised his hands.
Torin gulped. “Uh, the Adventurers Guild?”
Ms. Frenella smiled, her face betraying a sort of kind amusement. “Not quite. While the Adventurers Guild is certainly an old guild, and a very popular one these days, they were formed much later on in the year 143 AS. Now, how about you, do you know?”
The girl she pointed at had seemingly been trying to shrink herself into her seat and appeared startled by the question. In a small voice she said “Um, uh, the Crafters Guild?”
“Oh, almost. The Crafters Guild is the oldest still around today but it wasn’t the first to be formed. In fact, it was actually the second, formed in 94 AS, and was formed initially to support the first. Now, why don’t you give us the answer.” Ms. Frenella said, pointing to one of the children who’d had their hand up from the start.
Erika sat up straighter, happy to finally be picked and a little annoyed that the new teacher had gone through the farce of picking the dumber kids first. “Well, we haven’t actually covered this in class yet, Mr. Pompadeer preferred to focus on the guilds still around, but it was the Guardians Guild, formed in 34 AS by Simon Scotsfitzgerald after an event dungeon gave him a Guild Formation Token, the first in recorded history.”
Ms. Frenella raised an eyebrow in surprise at the young girls knowledge on a subject that apparently hadn’t been taught yet. “Very good, yes. As Erika said, the Guardians Guild was founded in 34 AS and is the first guild to have ever been formed. The Guardians Guild was formed in response to the abundance of wild monsters roaming the wild at the time and was dedicated to the defense of towns and cities against these monsters.”
“With the clearing of the wild in 352 AS the Guardians Guild found itself without purpose. Officially, the guild was then disbanded, their duty fulfilled, but unofficially the Guardian Guild lived on as each of the members went ahead and joined the town guard. Since then, even though there is no official guild, those who join the town guard are considered honorary members of the venerable guild.”
“Now, does anyone other than Erika know who founded the Crafters Guild?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
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Gloria grunted as she was thrown across the arena once again. Her last match was not going well, not at all. Still, there was a smile on her face as she charged at her opponent once more.
Micahel could not believe the crazy woman was still fighting. He had knocked her down over a dozen times, trying to be as gentle as possible each time, but the darn woman kept picking herself up and throwing herself at him again and again, almost as if possessed.
Micahel knew she wasn’t possessed though. He came from a long line of Paladins and his father had taught him so much it would be all but impossible for a possessed to hide from his sight. No, this lady was simply too persistent and unyielding to give up. If it weren’t so frustrating Micahel would be impressed.
The woman, Gloria, was quite clearly skilled and certainly had the determination that would make her a great tank, but she was simply too outmatched by Micahel. He had been training since he was strong enough to wield a training sword and he’d had the kind of instructors that money couldn’t buy.
There was simply no way for the woman to win, yet no matter how many times Micahel proved that it seemed that Gloria either didn’t understand or she simply didn’t care. After throwing her clear across the arena Micahel decided that enough was enough. So far he had been trying to hurt his opponents as little as possible. The real goal was to defeat monsters after all, not people.
That being said, Gloria was too tenacious to resign and too slippery to be caught, so he would have to go for the kill. When Gloria next charged at him Micahel readied himself to attack, and to finally end this match. It was a shock therefore, when he suddenly found himself on the losing end of an exchange.
Gloria was starting to think about giving up when something changed. So far it had felt like Micahel had been toying with her, handling her as you would a child, but all of a sudden his entire demeanor changed. An edge of killing intent had appeared as Micahel apparently had enough.
It was a poor decision on his part. The intent to kill is one that is hard to come to terms with and few are naturally comfortable with the idea of killing another sentient being. It was why there was dozens more of the non-fighting classes than the fighting classes, something inside them balked at the idea of murder, no matter how it was dressed.
It was clear to Gloria that Micahel was one of those people. When he was simply trying to force her resignation he was confident and smooth in his movements. Now that he had changed his intentions from peaceful to murderous there was a hesitation, a stutter that slowed his movements as his mind subconsciously rebelled at the idea of killing her.
A lesser fighter might have missed it but Gloria had sparred enough with the demon trainer, who had zero compunction about trying to kill her, that she was able to both recognize the fault and take advantage of it. Slipping through the tiny gap she managed to duck under his mace and swing her own into his shoulder.
Gloria immediately leapt backwards to avoid a shield bash but she was happy to see a hitch when he moved his arm. She was thoroughly unhappy to see a glowing golden light flowing across his body and concentrate on the injury. Micahels next movements, rotating his shoulder without difficulty, proved what Gloria was really hoping wasn’t true.
“Oh, come on! A Paladin? Really? That’s unfair, completely and utterly unfair. I mean, of course you’re going to win. Stupid bloody self healing tank bastard. Well just you wait, one day I’ll also be a Paladin and then I’ll kick your ass all the way to Kumari and back.”
Micahel was taken aback. He had been surprised when Gloria o somehow managed to slip through his attack and land a blow but her reaction to his [Minor Heal] was a greater surprise. Yes, he was a Paladin and yes, it was perhaps a tad unfair to expect a normal Warrior to compete against him in this kind of competition but there was no need for the insults or the threats. He was just about to protest his treatment when Gloria began speaking once again.
“Alright fine, I resign, but you better teach me a healing spell as an apology. Honestly, how could you just go around with that kind of unfair advantage and ju-” Gloria disappeared through the exit portal mid grumble, leaving behind a mildly perturbed Micahel.
“Um, what just happened?”
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Torin pulled his head back from the archway, just barely dodging a throwing knife. “Look, I know you want to win, but could you please not aim for my face. It might not be the most attractive face in the world but I kind of like it the way it is and I just don’t think surgery by throwing knife would make it look any better.”
“Do you ever shut up?! Seriously, Rogues are meant to be sneaky, not snarky. What the fuck is the matter with you?” Kuài yelled, obviously not impressed with Torin’s banter.
“Well, how long do you have, cause that could take a while. Let me see, I think it all started with my father dangling me off a-” Torin was interrupted by another throwing knife rebounding off the other side of the archway and coming perilously close to hitting him.
Everything had gone so well up until now. He’d managed to defeat his last opponent with relative ease, securing his position as either second or first, and he’d kind of hoped that this match would follow the pattern.
It didn’t.
Starting the match with his usual mad scramble Torin managed to get to the treasure room before his opponent, as per usual, but was quite shocked at what he saw when he looked through his opponents archway. All the monsters in the room were immobile, much like the ones in the room he had just left, but unlike his these monsters were paralyzed. A better look revealed that each of them had a small throwing knife embedded in them.
And that was all that Torin saw before he leapt to the side, a throwing knife tearing through the air where his heart had been moments earlier. He immediately brought his bow to bear, nocking an arrow on it and pulling it to full draw ready for when Kuài came through the archway.
She did not, and it was obvious why. Torin hadn’t picked up the treasure before all this happened, leaving it sitting on its pedestal in plain sight of the archway. If Torin wanted to grab it he’d be skewered by a throwing knife before he got halfway. At the same time if Kuài wanted to grab it she’d have to go through Torin, who would happily put a few arrows through her.
Which left the two of them in a bit of a stalemate, both unable to make a move without potentially lethal repercussions. So, with no other cards left to play, Torin resorted to his oldest, most reliable and certainly most enjoyable tactic; talking.
“Oooh, almost. A bit to the left and you might have hit me. Try putting a bit of a spin on it, it might help. As my father used to say, it’s all in the wrist. I have to say, the man might be annoying, sadistic, goofy and oddly smelly. I mean the way he smells is odd, not the fact the he smells. Everyone smells, despite what people would have you believe, but the man produces the weirdest smells I have ever smelled. He once smelled like a funky combination of fish and whiskey, despite hating whiskey and not having eaten a fish in weeks. Honestly, the man is downright crazy and I have zero idea what on Terra he did to get mom to marry him, I’m guessing hypnotism, but he does give out some half-decent advice every now and then. Maybe that’s why mom married him. Nah, that’s ridiculous. I’m almost certain it was hypnotism, I just don’t know how he hypnotized her.”
Kuài was going to lose, and she knew it. She’d thought that her trait given ability to produce a paralyzing venom would give her an edge in the tournament, and to be fair it had gotten her to the final, but she had never thought she’d be in a situation like this, where she was going to lose to a guy who just. Wouldn’t. Shut. Up.
She tried everything, threats, bribes, pleading even, but nothing would get the infuriating piece of crap to shut up. In the end there was really only thing she could do.
“That’s it, I give up! Now please, for the love of all that is holy and good in this world, get me the fuck outta here and far away from this idiot.”
It would seem that the organizers heard her as a portal opened up next to her, which she immediately dove through. Torin looked on in surprise and asked, to no one in particular,
“Was it something I said?”
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Johann kept firing [Mana Bolt] after [Mana Bolt], his [Basic Mana Manipulation] working overtime to keep up the pace, but he had to face it, he had lost.