When Three woke it was to a world he did not remember seeing, a vast blue opened up before his eyes, stretching further than even his enhanced eyes could see. For a moment he just lay there, marveling in this never before seen sight, then he heard a squeal, something flashed from the corner of his eyes as he felt like a hammer hit his stomach. He coughed, struggling to take a breath as he looked at the offender. Sumi sat on his stomach looking at him with sparkling eyes, she sat back a bit and signed to him while giving him a gentle smile
[I’m glad you woke up, how are you feeling?] A flicker of yellow rippling over her skin.
[I feel great now that I can see the outside world! It means we did it right? What's all that blue!] He asked with his jaw slack as he stared at the seemingly never ending blue expanse.
Sumi’s skin turned decidedly orange as she helped him up. [Welcome Three, to the real world!] she said spinning around gesturing at the vast area surrounding them.
All around him were things he had never seen before, he looked below his feet at the strange green softness that was tickling them. He experimentally lifted his feet up and down and marveled at how the small green things bent below his feet yet refused to break the sensation of the thin green stalks underneath his feet was something he couldn't even begin to describe. He dug his toes in, feeling the dirt beneath it. He grinned and looked around, gazing at the tall sturdy looking things in the distance, with a skin of brown and covered by even more green, then he looked back up into the sky marveling at the sheer vastness of it, then he saw something white and fluffy floating overhead he stared as it slowly floated by. Then further in the distance he saw gray things sticking up towards the sky making even the fluffy things flow around them.
Then he gazed at his friends who were all staring at him with a grin.
He blushed [What?]
Yinta grinned at him and threw her arm around his shoulder, he marveled at the somewhat rough sensation of her skin. It resembled the sturdy looking brown things in the distance, trees. [Welcome dear brother, to freedom!]
Valana stood up grinning, her chest expanding as she sucked in all the air she could, then howled at the sky. The rest grinned and joined her with their own howls, Three howled at the sky listening for the first time to anything beyond the crackle of magic, or his own skin grating against rock. Then Klostum tackled him to the ground and they started wrestling, enjoying the physical contest, and the fact that they could actually touch each other now. Soon enough the rest piled on as well and it was a free for all wrestling match. After a while they started breathing heavily and collapsed onto the grass. A grin so wide it was hurting his cheeks spread over Three’s face. They just lay there for a while nearly piled on each other staring at the sky. Then Jer stood up and looked at them.
[We still have to figure out what we are going to do next]
Fliít leaped up performing some acrobatics. [Don’t be such a spoil sport Jer!, we go wherever! We do whatever! Lets just walk and see what happens!]
[I would prefer having an actual plan so we can..] Jer stated
Strem put his arm around Jer’s shoulder, [stop worrying you old fuzzy bucket, for now lets just walk in the opposite direction as that blasted mansion and see where we end up, its not like we know were we are going anyhow!]
The rest nodded, Klostum gave Jer a pat on the back almost leveling the poor boy, [Forward we go for there is nowhere else!]
Jer sighed in exasperation but followed them regarddless as they headed towards the gray things in the distance.
[So what happened after I turned off my mana? My memory is blank from that point onward, I just felt... agitated] Three asked.
The others glanced around. Valana scratched at her chin. [Well you changed, then you splattered hags all over the wall, by the way the main hag was your mother.]
Yinta smacked Valana on the back of the head. [Show some delicacy you mut!]
Valana growled, [Who are you calling mut!]
The two got into a fast signing contest as they argued, interrupted by a question from Three. [What is a mother?]
Everyone froze as he asked the question, they all scratched their chin or head. [Doesn’t really matter] Klostum answered as he patted his back. [Because of you we managed to escape and you even squashed some of the hags, now we walk.]
Three shrugged then nodded, and turned his gaze over to the large gray in the distance. He wondered what they would find there, with a jerk of his head Three remembered something.
[Do you guys know how to make sound and sign?]
[You mean this?] Strem asked, he made a squeaking sound, The ethereal boy almost flinched at the sound then massaged his throat, after a few tries he finally got a proper word out.
“You mean like this?”
Three nodded, [I don’t know what you said but yes that]
The others froze for a second and stared at him, then Sumi gingerly asked [Do you not remember how to talk?]
Three answered with a scratch of the chin, [I don’t remember anything other than the cages and you guys.]
The rest shared some glances then Sumi grinned, [That gives me something to teach you! Keeps me busy!]
They did exactly that while walking, the group started teaching him the words that were connected to the signs and images in his head. It took some time before he understood HOW to make the proper sounds. The words where there in his mind, somehow just beyond casual reach, with a bit of effort he could bring them to the tip of his tongue. It would still take him a good amount of time to become fluent but they had more than enough time now and the rest enjoyed teaching him how to talk, they enjoyed being free even more. Relishing the movement, the feeling of exertion, the stretching muscles.
Jer suddenly changed the subject [Did you guys check your perk list, we probably weren’t conscious enough to keep up with the announcements it’s probably been years seeing how we have grown, so who knows what happened to our skills and perks]
Three gave Jer a blank look, he vaguely remembered something about receiving skills and a perk but he couldn’t really remember what they did.
Jer saw his confusion [Just think about yourself and the things you can do it will give you a list of skills and perks, normally children at the age of ten get summoned to the nearest adventurer’s post, mage’s guild or warrior’s school. That opens up the status menu, including all kind of information about yourself, they also use it as an identifier and the government uses it to keep count of the amount of citizens.]
Three nodded that he understood and Jer continued his explanation of how the system worked. [Skill’s are something that grows with you, for example someone who hits people with his fist might get the skill bare fist fighting, if he gets better at it the skill will level with him up to a maximum of a hundred, every twenty-five levels the skill alters a bit, gaining a bonus. If you actually manage to reach the maximum level, the skill evolves into a new skill. Once you gain your status you also gain a base level, starting at level one. At level ten,twenty-five,fifty seventy-five and a hundred you get the choice to evolve a skill of your own, lesser mana manipulation can be involved into greater mana manipulation for example. The skill levels you have aren’t reset if you evolve this way, they are divided by half instead.]
Three was having trouble remembering all of it but he thought that he understood what Jer was talking about. He though Status to himself and watched his own list open.
{Skill : Lesser-regeneration, : Skill level 84}
{Skill : Pain-tolerance, : Skill level 63}
{Skill : Tough-body, : Skill level 72}
{Skill : Iron Skin : Skill level 81}
{Perk : Mana-sustenance}
{Perk : Battered Body }
{Inheritant-Core - ?????}
He blinked at the notifications and told the others what he saw, Strem reacted [Yea all of us have the same four skills, although your regeneration is the highest, our Pain-tolerance is higher than yours, probably because the hag preferred to physically torture you instead using the pain spell]
Fliít followed up [We have the same perks aswell, including the Inheritant-Core, I don’t know what it actually is but its probably the thing they pushed inside our body that changed us, ours are of unknown origin just like yours.]
Yinta added some more information [You can also focus on one of the perks and it will give you more information, you should do that to all of them to see what they do]
Three nodded and focused on the first Skill
{Skill : Lesser-regeneration, : Skill level 84}
{This Skill speeds up the regeneration of your body.
{Level-25 Acquired : Disease Immunity added
{Level-50 Acquired : In-combat Regeneration added
{Level-75 Acquired : Smaller extremities can be regenerated}
{Skill : Pain-tolerance, : Skill level 63}
{This skill decreases the amount of pain you feel from wounds
{Level-25 Acquired : Localized Pain Removal}
{Level-50 Acquired : Pain-Transferal : Self}
{Skill : Tough-body, : Skill level 72}
{Increases toughness of bones,organs, and muscle tissue
{Level-25 Acquired : Dense Skeleton
{Level-50 Acquired : Internal Shock Absorption}
{Skill : Iron Skin : Skill level 81}
{Toughens the skin, the higher the level the tougher the material.
{Level-25 Acquired : Leather Skin
{Level-50 Acquired : Wooden Skin
{Level-75 Acquired : Bronze Skin}
{Perk : Mana-sustenance}
{This perk absorbs a portion of the users mana to replace food sustenance
when other sustenance is not available}
{Perk : Battered Body }
{Your body has seen more abuse than most, for surviving
thus far you receive a 50% bonus to total health pointsl}
{Inheritant-core : ????}
{Information unavailable}
It took Three a while to read everything, strange enough even though he did not understand some words or what things did the meaning of it came to him regardless. Pain-transferal : self for instance meant that he could take the pain someone else felt onto himself for as long as he touched said person. The list gave him a lot to think about as the group slowly headed further towards the tall gray, meanwhile discussing with each other about skills and perks.
They had traveled a week orso before coming across a road. Then another two days of travel in the direction furthest away from the hags mansion. Finally after crossing the umpteenth hill Three saw something he had never seen before, a scattering of buildings surrounded by a wall, In truth it wasn’t a large village but neither was it a small one, it was large enough to house about three hundred families and the wall was about sixteen feet tall. He could even make out some men standing on ramparts near the gate.
Strem looked down on the village “Well lookie here, we finally found some civilization, and we got lucky they even have an adventurers guild!”
They had been traveling for a little over a week now, the first night beneath the naked heavens had been something magical to Three, those glittering beads of hope and dreams called stars shining down upon him. He felt showered in the favor of some older greater beings than himself, they had lain on their backs in a circle heads together watching the stars speaking of dreams, and the vast stretch of sky that belonged to the gods. The week and a half had been productive for Three at any given time when they were traveling there had always been someone at his side teaching him words and the meaning behind them, slowly but surely he had gained some mastery in it although he was still not at the level were he could speak properly he could at least somewhat understand what people were talking about.
One of the funnier things to happen in the past week was a moment when Kolstum had referred to Three as Eltoo, causing everyone to look at him in confusion, who is Eltoo they had asked. Kolstum had looked at them in surprise and made the symbol with his hand, then pointed to Three. “He is Eltoo, he did not know his name so I named him after one of the bravest warriors in the history of my family.”
Three stared at him with an arched brow, [I thought you meant the number three?]
Kolstum stared at him in apprehension, “Why would I name you after a number?!”]
Then Strem interrupted, “You know what Eltoo sounds like? A pigeon! A Royal one at that!Eltoooo Eltoooo.” He said imitating a birds wings with his arm, “Eltooo Eltooooo”
“My ancestor is NOT A ROYAL PIGEON!” Kolstum's face heating up, blood rushing to his face.
Fliít chuckled, “Guess he must have been a royal cock then, Eltoodilidoooooooo!” She screamed at the air imitating a cocks cry.
The rest collapsed in laughter as they saw the face that Kolstum made to that, he struggled to speak as Fliít ran circles around him shouting Eltoodilidoooooo!
In the end Three decided to keep the name Three and not become a royal cock, amusing as that would be. He smiled at the memory as they got closer to the gate, armed guards came out on top of the gate bows drawn as they warily eyed the group that approached the village, in all honestly he couldn’t blame them, most them didn’t resemble humans anymore. Jer stepped forward to do the talking with his hands up, “Could you let us in we wanted to head to the Adventurer’s guild.”
One of the Guards leaned over the gate and took a good look at Jer then swept his gaze over the rest of the group. “Some of you don’t look human nor do any of you resemble a civilized race I have heard of, who says that if I let you in you won’t go around harming people. We see some weird monsters and the like out here. You could be one of em' shape shifters tryna be human!”
Jer spread his arms in an attempt to appear non threatening, “We simply want to get our statuses recorded and want some information about the area, we have been traveling for a while now yet we have no idea where we are, as for the changes you see on our body are the effects of a perk, I’m sorry but its not something we can prove without a status plate, and that is why we need entry!.”
The guard scratched his head sweeping his gaze from one to the next he glanced down as someone talked to him. He frowned but turned back towards them. “Would you guys agree to an armed escort to the adventurers guild until we get your status checked?”
Jer smiled at the guard, “That would be fine, thank you.”
The gate opened and twelve guards stood at the entrance waving them inside, the formed a circle around the group as they headed deeper into the town. The guards kept some distance from the group to be able to utilize their weapons in time in case we tried anything. The villagers stopped and stared at the odd procession as we made our way further across the rode, kids were pointing at us and mothers walked their children further away from us, it was a hurtful sight to see for all of us. It seemed to affect the girls the most, even the usually jovial Fliít had a small frown on her face and was looking down at the dirt. Kolstum drew the most stares, even now he was easily half again the size of the largest guard.
After a few minutes of walking, we finally reached the Adventurers post, it was a mainly wooden building with a solid stone foundation, three stories tall and identifiable by a sign of a staff, a bow, a dagger and a sword. They entered the building stepping into what Three assumed was the reception area Kolstum had to really bend down to fit through the doorway, inside it was mostly a larger open space with three desks on the left side of the room with signs that he couldn’t read, and another three desks on the other side of the room with even more signs he couldn’t read. Of course the fact that he couldn't read at all played a large roll here.
One of the guards stepped forward and walked over to a receptionist having a brief conversation with her before returning to us, “Which one of you wants to go first, if your story checks out we will go back to our posts afterward.”
Jer stepped forward taking the lead as usual. “I will.” He glanced back to us giving us a nod and stepped forward.
-Maia the receptionist POV-
Maia was having another simple yet boring day at work as usual, the drone of everyday work was numbing her mind. She had been appointed to this post far out in the boondocks so nothing interesting really happened, or so she thought when a large procession suddenly entered the office, a group of guards was surrounding something and she saw what seemed to be a huge teenage boy sticking far above the guards she stared at him in awe for a moment before one of the guards approached her. She recognized the guard, it happened to be guard captain Tulo, he came around often enough, one of her regulars was his daughter, when the captain spoke she was snapped out of her thoughts.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Maia, these people claim to have a perk that has granted them these... peculiar appearances, they wanted to have their status cards issued and to be safe we accompanied them to take a look so we could confirm their story, would you mind helping us out?”
“Sure, of course, no problem! It’s my job after all.” She hurriedly answered.
Captain Tulo nodded and headed back to the group, she saw him ask them something and one of the group answered. The captain walked back to the desk with a young man in tow, and the poor boy was absolutely drenched, she wondered if he had fallen into the well or something, maybe in the nearby river? She should get him a towel she realized and she ran back into the store and came back. The captain and the boy both staring at her, the boy even looked a bit hurt.
“I’m so sorry, and you're so wet! I didn’t have a towel on hand so I went to grab you one. Sorry it took so long!”
The young man stared at her for a moment before he burst out laughing, “It’s quite alright, thank you for your kindness, but I am afraid a towel won't solve my... problem, I’m not actually wet because of any outlying circumstances this drenched look is permanent I’m afraid.”
She looked at him tilting her head sideways confused, the boy wasn’t that tall although neither was he short perhaps 5,10 , short blackish hair plastered to his skull simple linen cloth shirt sticking to his body that was, “oh my,” she thought, “he is quite... toned.” Snapping back to attention she looked into the young man’s eyes.
“Oh.” She dumbly mumbled, before recovering. “Right well this is the status plate!” She said pushing a small metal tag towards him, “I just need you to put a drop of your blood on it, then I bring it to the press and boom, done! The captain also told me about the circumstances, normally the plates are private but we would need to check the plates of you and your friends if that is alright with you?”
Jer nodded, “That is perfectly fine.”
She handed him the tag and a needle, he pricked his finger and let a drop of blood well up and drop onto the tag. She took the tag from him brought it to the press, put the tag in pulled the lever, the usual crackling of whatever magical energy the device ran on and she pulled it out and headed back to the desk and put down the tag. She looked over the tag together with the young man and the captain
Name : Jer Summalfren
Age : 17
Lvl : 1
Occupation : N/a
Class : N/a
{Skill : Lesser-regeneration, : Skill level 64}
{Skill : Pain-tolerance, : Skill level 84}
{Skill : Tough-body, : Skill level 66}
{Skill : Iron Skin : Skill level 69}
{Perk : Mana-sustenance}
{Perk : Battered Body }
{Inheritant-Core - ?????}
She stared at the tag, eyes wide. The captain looked just as troubled as her. She couldn’t help but ask, “What happened to you? How did you get these skills and perks?!”
Jer looked at her pinching his nose, brows drawn down over his grey eyes “Lets just say that we did not get these skills, perks or bodies of our own volition, its a story we would currently prefer to keep to ourselves.”
The captain looked at tag flexing and unflexing his hand, “Do your compatriots have similar skills and perks?”
Jer glanced at the stern man, “Yes sir.”
“Then I am afraid I cannot just let this go, the things that would have to be done to you and your friends for this to happen is not something I can turn away from! By our laws and my very sense of justice something has to be done! My kingdom sure as hell wouldn’t stand for whoever did this to get away unchallenged!” The man said clenching his jaw.
“I understand the need for you to do your job sir, but we ourselves do not know the group or their names, we could only tell you a single persons features. I speculate their power to be well beyond average, we do not know where they come from or which group they belong to, they might be royally sponsored for all we know, making ourselves widely known this early would leave us defenseless should they come looking.” Jer answered.
“The guard would protect you!” The captain answered with a voice full of resolution.
Jer clenched his jaw staring down the captain. “This is our own problem, we will have our own justice. You have no proof to act upon nor will I give you any. This is our war to fight captain and I intend to fight it well.” He softened his features, “Regardless the information we have would do you no good if they are even remotely as dangerous as I expect them to be you will find nothing based upon what has already happened.”
The captain begrudgingly nodded his head, and made his way back to the group, he barked an order to his guards and they headed back out the door. The man was clearly frustrated but Jer knew he had no ground to stand on. Maia was still sitting there trying to process what she had just heard and seen, before she could worry about it more her thoughts were once more interrupted. “Madam, is it alright if my friends get their tags as well?”
“What?” She asked blinking, “Uh, yes of course!”
The first to step up after Jer was another young man named Strem, now he was strange to look at. His very skin was translucent, and his eyes glowed, she was pretty sure they glowed! And his HAIR! It floated, like he was underwater, and it was WHITE, like not the old people silver, but an actual white, like Ivory Ore once it was melted white. He was about as tall as Jer had been but a good deal thinner, she tried to do her job like a proper professional yet couldn’t but stare. A glance at his tag told her that this poor boy had gone through a similar experience as Jer. Once she handed him his tag the boy added with a wink, “Thanks for the effort, OH blooming rose, if all guilds have such lovely ladies as you working at the reception then I shall have to visit more often!”
Maia was to stunned by his words to even react as he walked away, the next one to step forward was a girl that was just as strange as her predecessor. She had bark for skin, making her skin a darkish green, it looked as if it was bark covered in a thin layer of fresh moss, her hair was like grass, but not at all green, it was pale, almost silvery but without that silver shine to it, very strange, she wore her hair in a loose braid and there were flowers pinned in her hair making her look a bit like how she imagined a dryad to look like. The girl really had a noble presence to her, carrying herself with natural grace. She gave her the tag, and saw that her name was Yinta. “I’m sorry about that flirtatious fool, he really has no sense of etiquette.”
“That's fine!” Maia quickly answered. “I’m used to it!” She flinched mentally almost as soon as she said it, she felt like she was bragging, but the girl just took it at face value and nodded.
The next girl to step forward was hairy, hairy might not be the right word as this did not seem to be the same stiff hair she had seen on some particularly hair adventurers, she had the weird urge to run her hand over her head, the girls hair was matted and untended giving her a wild appearance. Her eyes glittered a near golden amber color She wasn’t much for conversation it seemed, as she simply took the needle dropped a bit of blood on the tag, waited for her to return it then walked away.
“Sorry about Valana,” A deep voice said “She is not a sociable person, only with us she feels somewhat at ease I guess.”
She looked at the person the voice had come from, she expected to stare into his face when she turned instead she ended up looking at his stomach, she leaned back to look at him, then leaned back some more aaaand a bit more, before she finally saw his face, this boy had to be at least ten feet! He was tall, seemed armored plated, but at closer inspection it seemed that was his skin. She looked back at the boys face only to find that it was surprisingly, child like. His face still had some of that baby fat that rounded it out, he was surprisingly cute despite his size. She gave him his tag after telling him it was alright, she was polite compared to some of the people she had to work with.
The next one to step up was a cute looking girl with blond hair, she had a loose pony tail, with her bangs falling down at both sides of her face, She near bounced up to the desk. “Hi!” She said, eyes glittering as she gave Maia a dazzling smile,
“Uuuh hi?” Maia said, slightly overwhelmed by the girl's energy.
A ripple of orange ran over the girl's skin, Maia had to blink to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. “So now I have to do the blood prick thing right? I wonder if it hurts, I bet it hurts, probably doesn’t hurt so much as a knife though! A knife really hurts, but spells hurt more, so its fine!” The girl kept babbling about this and that, as Maia got her tag made and gave it to her, the girl's name was Sumi apparently. She bounced off back to her group, talking animatedly with the others.
The next one to step up was a tribal looking girl, with one side of her hair shaved and the rest falling loosely over one shoulder, her skin was slightly dark as one might become if they worked their lives in the blistering sun, her eyes shone with a fiery red. The girl did not say much and simply smiled politely as she took her plate and headed back to the group. When she walked away Maia gaped in awe as she saw sparks and flashes of fire travel through her hair and across her body.
The last boy to step forward had middle long hair, blacker than anything she had ever seen. His skin was as white as Strem’s hair, his eyes unnerved her to be hones, no eye white, no pupil no nothing, just black. The boy stepped in front of her and just stared. She handed him the needle and the tag, the boy just stared at them and then back at her. “You need to drop some of your blood onto the tag.” The boy kept staring from the tag and needle back to her then back to the needle, he turned around to his friends but Jer was already on his way. “Sorry madam, he doesn’t know how to speak properly yet, he understands some of what you say but doesn’t know what to do with it yet.” Jer made some strange movements with his hands toward the boy, causing the boys eyebrows to raise. He dropped some blood onto the tag, and she took it to the press, and thus the last plate for their irregular band of misfits had been made.
Three looked down at the status plate he had been given, then back to the confused receptionist. She was telling him something about the status plate, but he couldn’t understand so he looked over to Jer. Jer explained to him that there were some things she didn’t understand about the status plate, Three couldn’t read what it said anyways so he let Jer take a look.
Name : ???
Age : ???
Lvl : 1
Occupation : N/a
Class : N/a
{Skill : Lesser-regeneration, : Skill level 84}
{Skill : Pain-tolerance, : Skill level 63}
{Skill : Tough-body, : Skill level 72}
{Skill : Iron Skin : Skill level 81}
{Perk : Mana-sustenance}
{Perk : Battered Body }
{Inheritant-Core - ?????}
Jer took a look at the status plate and frowned, “Well his age is the same as the rest of us, as for his actual name neither us nor he himself knows what it is, we have taken to calling him Three and he refers to himself as such.” Jer signed what he was telling the receptionist at the same time to Three so he could understand what they were talking about.
Maia nodded taking out a strange device like a needle but larger, She pressed the point of the needle to the status plate and Three watched with interest as the needle-shaped the metal on the plate, Jer explained that she was adding his name and age. Three nodded and smiled slightly as she gave him the status plate, now including his name and age. He ran his thumb over the plate, a content smile on her face. She then spoke to Jer about some other things, Three couldn’t understand them anyways so he headed back to the group. It took a while for Jer to return, he had a thoughtful look on his face.
[I think we should split up] he signed.
The rest stared at him frowning, a lot of people disagreeing at the thought that they should separate, they felt safe and comfortable as a group and saw no reason to change that.
[Let me explain,] he said stroking an imaginary beard [the hags know of us as a group, and the eight of us really stand out, we stand out even more when we are together as a group. We need to gain some strength in order to properly defend ourselves should they come back. We need to make connections, allies and hopefully even friends, most importantly we need information, if we spread out in different directions away from the hag lair, it would be harder for them to track us.]
[I don’t really want to split up but I get what you’re sayin] Fliít answered, [Well at least tell us how you plan to split up, in 2 groups, 3? 4? Each on their own?]
Jer shook his head, [I plan to split us up in pairs, I’d like to avoid putting girls together, we might be very hard to kill but we have no offensive capabilities or strength what so ever, besides our natural abilities. The girls are pretty, and a lot of people would consider making coin from it, some might prefer to have, fun… , so I’d propose one of the girls be paired with one of the guys.]
Three, pulled on his earlobe, [I still don’t want to split up, I barely understand anything, I can’t read or write,]
Jer nodded, [Actually I had already thought out the pairs, Three and Sumi would stay here in the village, learning from the nearby Adventurers post, I heard they have a competent mage here, there is also a small chapter of the warriors college, giving you guys the opportunity to learn. The other pairs would leave the village, Kolstum and Fliít would head to the east, Yinta and Strem to the west, Me and Valana to the south.]
Strem stretched his back, folding his hands behind his head. [I don’t mind setting out in pairs that much but I still don’t understand why you think it’s necessary.]
[I assume all of us want to go out exploring,] Jer answered [The best way to do that would be to join an adventurers team, these teams consist of five members, meaning as a group we are too large for one team, if we did make a team composing of only our members, I fear we would become infamous within a short amount of time.. If we join teams in pairs we will learn different things from different people, the goal is to make the people in our respective teams our allies, if we grow together with our team we will grow stronger, not just us but our potential allies as well, meaning the hags won’t have to go after just us eight but twenty trained adventurers in total. Perhaps most importantly, it's just a feeling i have. I have had the feeling for a while and tried to think about it logically myself. I give you the same answers i found for myself. It's necesarry, although i couldn't tell you why]
[Alright,] Yinta said folding her hands, [You have convinced me, there are probably multiple other reasons you have for doing this that you won’t tell us, but we shall rely on your intelligence as we always have]
The rest of the group grinned and nodded.
[We should at least meet each other every so often! Perhaps in this village every month?] Sumi quickly added.
Kolstum shook his head, [Every month does not seem feasible, every six months might be do-able however. We could always meet in the whiteroom whenever we want so even that might not be necessary, meeting up once a week or month to check on progress in the white room might be a good idea however.]
The rest agreed, now they realized that even if they did split up and moved different ways that they would not be as far apart as they had thought at first, the whiteroom was indeed always available to them. Because of this they split up without any further ado as they each headed in a different direction, Sumi stood next to Three as she waved them goodbye, Three turned back to the Adventurers Post, Before he completed the turn Sumi hopped on his back and put her head on his shoulder. Sumi barely weighed anything, with her new cloth body he doubted she weighed more than thirty pounds, That and he himself was rather tall, 6,6 the only reason he didn’t stand out so much was because Kolstum had been large on an entirely different scale.
“So, what are we going to do?” Sumi asked
[Join team] Three answered. Sumi giggled at his response, “Well you’re right, then let's go back to the receptionist lady and ask her how we do that.
Three nodded, returning to the building with Sumi on his back, he walked up to the receptionist, letting Sumi do the talking.
——Maia POV——
Maia was still reeling from today's events, her stomach in turmoil because of the information on those status plates. She realized that each of those kids had to have been excessively tortured to get skills like that, she had never even HEARD, of anyone with a regeneration skill above fifty. Those kids had a strong defensive set, she pictured them as adventurers and realized they would be very hard to kill, even if their offensive skills were severely lacking at the moment, she assumed that even a rank D team, could overpower the group simply by the advantage in levels and stats. Thinking about stats she realized another odd occurrence, they were all still level one, their stats had not even been unlocked yet, they had to level up at least once first. She wondered what kind of stats they had.
She blinked as the tall dark-haired yet so very pale young man came in through the door, she had somewhat noticed that the group of them was splitting up, yet she had not assumed they would be back so soon. She straightened up ready to do her job when her mental state was once again knocked off balance, by the cute dazzling smile of Sumi who was peering over the dark boy’s shoulder.
“Maiaaa,” Sumi said in singsong, “We need to join a team, preferably a nice team, with fun members, positive energy! We don’t know how, or what to do, or how, so we came to ask!”
Maia gave her a smile, “Well since the two of you haven’t reached level five yet you would have to go to the warrior's college first, normally you would have to choose between either the warrior’s college, the hidden camps, or the mage’s guild. But this village is on the smaller side so the mage appointed to this outpost moved in with the warrior’s college if either of you want to go to the hidden camps you would still have to contact the warrior’s college.”
“So how do we get to the warrior’s college?” Sumi asked.
“Just head out the door to the right and keep walking down the road, you will recognize the college when you see it.” Maia told them, before she had even completely finished her sentence Sumi was pulling Three towards the door, the slightly intimidating young man surprisingly turned around before he left and waved her goodbye. She blinked before quickly waving a goodbye of her own.
Guess you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, the boy is surprisingly polite. Well I’m interested in what they will get up to I’ll make sure to keep tabs on them! Maia said sinking back into thought.
—— Three POV ——
Sumi was holding his hand and dragging him down the road, the glances he got from the villagers was still somewhat unnerving, but they were no longer hiding their kids so he would count that as a win. The village was indeed not that large, compared to the stories he had heard from the others about cities larger than the eye could see. He had never seen this many people out and about before today, he hadn’t seen any other people other than his friends and the hags actually.
A few minutes of walking down the dirt trodden road through the rustic, yet well crafted wooden buildings and they ended up at a much larger building, with a lot of open space around it. He was pretty sure this was the warrior’s college he had been told about. Sumi kept dragging him straight to the wooden door, he had wanted to knock as it was the polite thing to do, but Sumi seemed to have other ideas, being patient not one of them. She pushed open the door and marched in. Three followed behind her only to enter a room, with a bunch of other younger people. Children ranging from ten years old to teenagers past their twenties were sitting paying attention to a short, squat man with short black hair and sharp dark eyes.
Sumi ,having no tact what so ever walked up to the group staring at her and announced. “We are here to join a team of adventurers! Who wants to team up with me and dark and brooding?! How do we team up, actually what does a team do, what does an adventurer even do.” She stared back at Three, “Why are we doing this again.”
Three massaged his temples then signed at her, [allies and information].
“Ooooowh right!” She said clapping her hands in realization, “So how do we do that?”
The man with sharp eyes looked at her, “A good start would be introducing yourselves. I, for one, am Cilestius, the head of this college.”
“Nice to meet you I’m Sumi!” Sumi said giving the man a wave, “And this overly-large-and-scary-but-secretely-very-nice-guy here is Three, he doesn’t know how to talk very well yet, but I’m teaching him!”
“Yes you do seem to be well versed in the art of speaking.” The man said, gaining chuckles from around the room. Sumi didn’t even notice the jab at her expense and simply took it as a compliment nodding enthusiastically. “Regardless, if you would join the rest, we are having a short meeting before we return to our duties.” Three not understanding the words but understanding the man’s body language, nodded.
“OK!” Came the energetic answer from Sumi.
Sumi headed and sat next to a somewhat older seeming girl with a dark, braid drawn over one shoulder. She gave the girl a dazzling smile and introduced herself. The other girl answered with a kurt nod and a nice to meet you. Three walked over and silently sat down next to Sumi, keeping his eyes on Cilestius. The meeting what little he could understand from the words, was about the results of last week and what the groups should focus on next week. The meeting went by rapidly with Sumi being surprisingly quite and paying close attention to the man’s words. When it finally ended Cilestius called them over with a gesture, he also called over three others. They followed him further down the hall between various training areas, ending in what Three assumed was the man’s office.
Cilestius sat down at the desk and faced the group, “Status plates,” He said holding his hand out towards Sumi and himself. They handed the plates over and the man glanced at them, eyes widening slightly then narrowing as he read through their status.
Then the man smiled, “You have come at the right time!”