After asking for some directions they soon found their way to the adventurers guild. It was built somewhat on the outskirts of the village, adventurers were known troublemakers so the village did not want the building in the center. The building itself was nothing out of the ordinary, a two story wooden building, the same size as any of the nearby houses or stores. Jace entered the building and glanced around, it wasn't hard to find the stereo typical notice board with all the requests pinned on them. Unlike he read in most isekai novels the building itself did not come with a bar attached. It made more sense this way, after a little asking around he found out that the adventurers guild did have its own line in attached inns. Where adventurers could hole up and get a drink after they risked their lives on whatever request they decided to accept.
After he was done studying the building he glanced around at its inhabitants. There were a few armed and armoured individuals hanging around the board and a few were talking with the receptionists. He saw a noticeable lack of robes however. Maybe mages weren’t as common as he thought they were. He walked up to the receptionist, Weira trailing slightly behind him as usual. He smiled at the young woman, she was attractive. A modest village type beauty.
“So I have a few questions, first of all and this is mostly personal curiousity. Are mages a rarity? I haven’t seen many people walking around with robes or staves.”
The receptionist blinked with her brown eyes. She stared at him for a few moments. “Why in the name of the twelve gods wouldn't they wear armour?”
Jace went slack-jawed. He tapped his chin and thought for a second. “Because metal interferes… with… maaaggggiiiic???” He answered with a hopeful tone.
She smirked, “Never heard anything about metal interfering with magic. Most mages don’t have much in the way of protection so they tend to wear armour that is on the heavier side. A single surprise attack would catch them off guard otherwise. There are a few who indeed wear lighter armour or even robes. But most of them are specialised around speed or simply aren’t combat oriented.”
Jace stroked his chin, “That makes sense, guess things aren’t all the same. Thanks for the answer!” The receptionist nodded politely. “As for my next question me and tall, blond and scary over here wanted to sign up as adventurers. I was wondering how that worked and what we needed to do to get accepted.”
The receptionist started talking with a somewhat bored look in her eyes, she’d probably done this hundreds of times before.“The procedures are rather simple, you give me your name and we put you into our system. The system will save your information and will add it to a couple of tags that you will receive upon registration. You will have to pay for registration, a modest fee of five silver. You will be granted the standard starting tags.”
Jace nodded along but interrupted for a quick question, “You say standard tags, do they differ per person?”
“Yup, there are different ranks of adventurers, the guild is a continent wide spread organization and we need rankings to determine if our people are up to the request they are trying to take, this minimizes casualties. The ranks go from, iron, copper , bronze, steel, silver, gold, platinum, mithril, adamantium and finally white steel.
“That’s a lot of ranks. How does one improve their ranks and how powerful are these white steel adventurers.”
The receptionist smiled and leaned forward, “First the answer to the more boring of the two questions. You come back to this here building or any other Adventurers Guild establishment and ask to take the promotion test, you need to have accrued, that means gathered.
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“I know what accrued means.”
“Right, well, after you have accrued the necessary merits you can get yourself promoted. You can go for promotion after you have completed five requests of the rank you currently hold.”
“Understood, and now you get to do the fun part.
The receptionist grinned, her eyes started gleaming. “And now I get to do the fun part, White Steel adventurers are in an entirely different league. They are more powerful than a dozen adamantium adventurers put together. Unlike the other ranks you cannot simply be promoted by the guild after a simple test. You have to earn the reputation to be a white steel adventurer. Take Orgavard the Slayer of Dragons for instance. You can tell how he got the white steel rank by his very title. Most of the White Steel adventurers have earned titles and that sets them apart from the others.”
“How many white steel ranked people are there currently?”
She smiled and started counting them off on her fingers. “There is Orgavard the Slayer of Dragons, who I mentioned before. Then we have Animal Emperor Emirala, who unlike how easy the name flows is a huge man. Furthermore we have The White Maiden, no one knows what her real name is. Sword Saint Tollo, Bulwark Grommli, The Pyre of Flames, weird title that. Then we have two of them who people aren’t sure are still alive. The Wandering Traveller, another weird name but I guess people like that. Then last but not least, Trishla Hillmorr The Slow March of Death.”
Jace almost choked as he heard the last name, he heard the clatter of a dropped halberd behind him. The receptionist stared at them with narrowed eyes.
“What?”
Jace did his best to regain composure, “Uuuuh nothing, I was just surprised by the title of last one.”
The receptionist nodded sagely, “Trishla is on another level even compared to the other white steel adventurers. This one time, she had heard that a king publicly denounced her as an evil and demented woman who was not worthy of her rank. Trishla, I lie to you not, simple walked into the city at a leisurely pace and slaughtered her way through the guards, royal guards and anyone else who tried to stop her and cut of his head. She then took the head with her and said, ‘Demented woman that I am, I guess i’ll need an extra head so I can remember things better.’ She is my IDOL, she is soooooo cool. No one messes with the Slow March of Death and lives to tell the tale.”
Jace glanced at Weira who was as bug eyed as he was.
“Well uhh… thanks for all the information. Could you sign us up? I’m Jace, don’t really have a last name and this is.. Weira uuuhhh .. Hillmorr?”
The receptionist froze and stared over his shoulder at the woman behind him. Weira punched him in the shoulder and glared at him.
“Don’t give me that, I’m not lying about this, you took gran’s last name I know you did! Your mom was her adopted daughter or someshit.”
Weira punched him again, the receptionist was still staring at her with jaw wide open. Jace gently put a finger under her jaw and pushed it closed. “Sooooo, could we get those tags?”
The woman's eyes zapped from him to Weira and back. “Yea uh sure, just give me a second.”
The woman staggered back behind the counter and pulled out two tags. Both of them iron, she carved his name into the tag and then with shaking hands started carving Weira’s name. She took extra care on her last name to make sure it was done beautifully.
She handed Jace his card and then reverently handed Weira hers.
Jace frowned and scratched at his beard. “What makes you so sure that it’s the same Hillmorr? Could be someone with the same name.”
She glared at him and folded her arms, “As if anyone has the balls to use her name, a noble family even changed their last name so they wouldn’t offend her. Or be associated with her, she made quite a few enemies after all.” She sniffed, “If you uhhh… see her sometime could I trouble you for a souvenir of sorts.”
Jace shrugged and dug around in his backpack, he pulled out a small piece of parchment. On it was written,
Jace,
Don’t forget to bring the eggs for dinner!
Trishla Hillmorr.
He handed it to her and she stared at hit with wide eyes. “Why does she sign these notes?”
He shrugged, “Haven’t the foggiest, she leaves these notes all the time when she needs something done.”
He saw the receptionist stare at the paper and heard a barely audible murmer. “I want to someday get one of these saying, dear Amira, please don’t forget to slaughter the orc horde before you come home for dinner. How cool would that be.” Jace heard a soft squee and left the receptionist with her fantasy. He walked over to the request board and glanced at Weira, “What do you think we should pick?”