Two days after Ochi cleared them for quests, Vittorio and Gloria were summoned to a meeting room off of the main hall. Unlike the room Vittorio and Ulberto had used for training this room was quite sparse - clearly more meant for assignments than discussions. There they met Ermes.
"You'll be tagging along on a quest today", he said. Seeing their excitement, he continued: "Don't get your hopes up. This is as basic as it gets, you're unlikely to do any fighting, and Ochi wants you to see the other end of the adventurer spectrum. Nuno, Pachakutek and the others are a solid, serious tier 2 team. The people you'll be going with today are people who either can't find a team or have lost their position on one. Learn the right thing from working with them, alright?"
The three of them chatted a bit for a few more minutes until there was a soft knock on the door. It turned out to be a short, stocky man with long brown hair.
"Oh no! Am I late? I'm so sorry Ermes!"
"You're early as always, Tito", Ermes said. "I was just clearing some stuff up for these two tier 0s who'll be joining you today."
The man sagged with relief. "Oh good, I was worried when I heard voices."
Despite Glorias earnest attempts, they could not get Tito to join in on the conversation. Just after the meeting was supposed to start the door slammed open. A tall woman in heavy armour and with a massive shield strapped to her back stepped in. "Get the fuck out of my way, common-er" she said to someone behind her who laughed uproariously. She then turned to Tito. "You're in my seat, piss-in-your-pants-ant." Tito shot up out of his chair and took one two seats over. "That's mine too. Just stand in the corner." He did.
Behind her came another woman, still laughing. She wore a chainmail shirt, long armoured gloves, and no helmet, revealing short-cropped light-brown hair. Over her shoulder, she carried a spiked club. She slapped the angry woman on the back. "Piss-in-your-pants-ant! That's a good one, Olivia!" She looked over at Tito. "Relax man, she's just messing with you, sit down."
The first woman, Olivia, gave Tito a dark look. He remained standing.
Ermes looked furious. "You've already been quest-suspended once, Olivia. Start acting like an adult, and a decent person for that matter, or you'll be cut off again."
Olivia looked annoyed. "Ah, whatever, he's not worth it. I'll be out of here as soon as that elf starts letting people know my class."
"No patron is going to recruit you when you can't work with other people, as I've told you many times."
Olivia rolled her eyes. The mood was bad, to say the least, and everyone sat in silence for several minutes until a seventh figure wandered in.
"Ah good, you're here. Don't have to wait." Another woman, she was dressed in leathers and was twirling a wand in her hand. Her pale skin shimmered gently, and Vittorio saw elven ears poking out of her messy hair.
Ermes stood up. "Right, everyone's here. Standard sewer run, most of you know the drill. For those who don't", and he looked over at Gloria and Vittorio, "the city pays us to send a group into the sewers every few weeks just to make sure everything's good. Olivia's the main defender, Tito's your healer, and Esther's in charge. Thi-"
"What?", Olivia said. "Why's she in charge? She's a [Brawler]!"
"Because she's done it plenty of times before and won't get lost", Ermes said. "As I was saying, this is Gloria and Vittorio. They'll be tagging along. Gloria's secondary defender and Vittorio is ranged attack and support."
Olivia groaned. "And we have to babysit? C'mon Ermes!"
"You have your assignment. Do your jobs." With that, Ermes left.
Olivia groaned again. "Come along, kids. Keep your mouths shut and stay out of my way."
It turned into an aggravating, disgusting afternoon. The sewer was mostly hewn out of the rock under the city and consisted of a deep channel of filth with a narrow walkway beside it and an almost claustrophobically low ceiling. The group walked mostly single-file for hours except when there were various side rooms that nobody knew the purpose of, where they would briefly spread out to look around. Vittorio avoided the smell thanks to Cleansing Passage:
Cleansing Passage
Impurities in the air cannot enter your body.
But there was no avoiding walking in the muck. Worse, at least to him, was the company. Esther kept talking, loudly, often making jokes at others' expense and then shoving them, often to the point of almost knocking them into the sewage. Any time she spoke up about where to go Olivia would curse her out, more than once walking off the wrong way, talking about how she wasn't going to listen to "common-class trash". The mage, Franca, several times suggested just leaving and saying they'd done it. Tito proved to have an excellent skillset for the job, [Purifier] being a healing class all about cleansing toxins and diseases, and he could also get rid of the worst of the filth on the walkway. He was, however, terrified. Practically every time there was a noise he would either freeze up or back into Vittorio behind him.
In the end, nothing happened. They walked and looked but saw nothing but dirt and poop. For this, the four tasked with it were paid a silver coin each, while Gloria and Vittorio just got a lesson in how to be bad adventurers.
Except Ermes told them that was only part of the lesson. The other part was just seeing how it's done: If you don't have a team - which, of course, they didn't - Ermes or Ochi would set one up. The basic roles of primary defender, secondary defender, healer, and leader would be assigned by them to avoid confusion and infighting. The difference between primary and secondary defender varied depending on the assignment but typically the secondary would cover the rear and provide extra support to the more vulnerable members of the group while the primary held the line.
"From now on", he told them, "when you're available to tag along, you're expected to be in the main hall. We won't go looking for you. That's just how it works: That's where the quests are and most people with nothing better to do hang around in the hall waiting for something to come up."
Vittorio talked to Pachakutek about it, and she strongly - well, strongly for her - advised him to be in the hall as much as he possibly could. It would look good to Ochi and he'd get to go on real quests sooner if he did. Heeding her advice, Gloria and he set up in the hall with a deck of playing cards. Others would join them now and then, some for just a few games, some for several hours. Vittorio found that if they sat near the door he could pay the price of {The Still Wind} by keeping the wind from blowing the cards away. It was also decent practice for Suspend and his reactions.
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Finally, after almost three days of waiting and an incalculable number of games, they were interrupted in the middle of a tense game of Seek the Lost. Vittorio had noticed Ochi talking to a mage of some sort who had hurried into the room, and unusually they'd talked right there by the desk rather than retreat to a meeting room.
"Alright, listen up!", she called out after they were done. "Time-sensitive, high-priority tier 1 request. Gloria and Vittorio, you're up. I need a mobile defender and a ranged striker who can deal with heavy natural armour. Someone find Tito Duelist for me, please."
A number of people stood up, while some others hurried out of the room. Ochi looked out over the standing faces.
"Alexandria, perfect. And... Michel. Thank you all."
Gloria and Vittorio joined the two named at the desk as the others sat down, everyone in the room now quietly watching what was going on. Alexandria was some form of archer, with a longbow and quiver on her back and a pair of long knives on her hips. She had short, spiky, red-tinted hair and a very serious look on her face. Michel wore a strange getup of leather covered in strips of wood, and on their left arm there were bucklers on both the upper and lower arm, while their right held a long staff. Their skin was very dark, their shoulder-length hair tied in braids. They gave a friendly wave and looked very curious.
Tito, the same healer as in the sewers, came running less than two minutes later. He stammered out apologies but was silenced by Ochi telling him the request just came in.
"A poisonhide crocodile has been spotted outside Conzaco, a town a day east. The monster is in a tributary of the Tremi and the poison is spreading. There have been at least five deaths, three from trying to fight it as well as two from the water along with any number of animals. The locals have been told to avoid the river but it is a drinking source. Time is of the essence.
"Michel and Gloria are your defenders, their job is to keep it busy. Do not engage it unless you have to, just distract it. Tito is your healer, anti-poison specialist. Alexandria, you're the leader and primary damage. Vittorio, help keep it away from the defenders. Damage is secondary.
"After the crocodile is taken care of I want you to visit the nearby towns and see if they have need of Titos aid, as well as traveling downstream for a day to purify the water. All clear?"
It was. Due to the urgency, they set off immediately to the sounds of well-wishes from the others in the hall. Alexandria took charge right away and led the group through the inner city, the gate, and the outer city, and then left the road and headed cross-country. She told them she'd been there before and knew the best way, and she had a skill to aid with travel. True to her word she led them unerringly and quickly to the town - though it still took a little over five hours. A modest river lay between it and them, and Tito confirmed it was the right waterway as he could sense the poison in the water.
As the only bridge nearby lay well off in the wrong direction, Vittorio used Path of Air to very nervously cross the river and check in with the townspeople. After making sure nobody needed Titos help right away, he returned to the group the same way.
They headed upstream, Tito periodically casting a spell to purify the river. Thanks to Alexandrias travel skill it did not take them long to narrow the creature's location down simply by finding where the water became mostly clean. They placed themselves in a loose cone shape: Michel and Gloria nearest the river, Vittorio and Alexandria further back, and Tito well away from danger. Alexandria was responsible for finding the monster, angering it, and finally putting it down - a lot of responsibility, but it suited a [Hunter] well. They moved slowly along the river as Alexandria and the two defenders scanned the water until eventually Michel held up a hand. The [Druid] slammed their staff into the ground and the surface of the river exploded.
Charging out of the water was an enormous, slimy-looking crocodile, its long, narrow jaws open as it hissed and headed for Michel. A Stumbling Hex bought them time to get away as an arrow struck the inside of the monster's mouth, causing it to snap it shut. Getting up it turned towards Alexandria but was then distracted by Gloria yelling and stomping towards it. The crocodile kept turning to face this new challenger as part of its back began to sizzle from one of Titos spells. He'd told them about it on the way: His class was all about removing poisons, diseases, and debuffs, and could use that to attack monsters that used poisons or disease. The spell essentially burns it away from the monster, not just reducing its danger but potentially causing harm.
An arrow pierced the dead centre of the now-weakened portion of its hide, soon followed by a stabbing root sent by the [Druid] Michel. Once more the monster turned and as its maw gaped towards him, Vittorio saw an excellent opportunity. He'd been practicing all day as they traveled, and now he formed a Suspended circle of air tight around the midpoint of the crocodile's upper jaw. He wasn't expecting it to hold for long, but immobilizing it in that position for just a few moments could be enough.
"It's held!", he called out, having told Alexandria his plan beforehand. She activated skills to let her shoot faster as Vittorio joined in with Wind Weaponry. The creature was tough but unprepared for a barrage of attacks against to roof of its mouth. It died before it managed to destroy the air construct.
It was a short, efficient fight, but it had been stacked in their favour. Vittorio did not doubt that things would have gone much, much worse had they not been as well prepared as they had been. Cleanup took a while as Tito needed to cleanse the body until poison stopped seeping out of it, and once that was done they all teamed up to roll it on its back before Gloria cut its belly open. Vittorio had not known that corpses could explode and had been happier without that knowledge.
Alexandria said there were uses for crocodile skin but the cleansing had damaged it too much to be worth the effort, so they left it there to be eaten by animals. Then they headed downstream again, Tito once more purifying the water now and then until they reached Conzaco. Nobody needed healing thankfully but they wouldn't make it to the next town before nightfall so they checked into the inn - or at least they tried to. The [Innkeeper] let them stay for free as thanks, and she and Gloria struck up a lively conversation about the innkeeping business.
The others settled down for dinner together. It was stew. Vittorio wondered if he should go see Master Kahe.
"That Suspend's interesting", Alexandria said. "How strong is it?"
Vittorio thought for a moment. "I have no idea how to put that in words."
Alexandria snorted a laugh. "Yeah, that's fair. But it seems good! Got any restrictions or something?"
"Not really, but it's pretty hard to use. I need to know exactly the shape I want and where it should go. Might not sound too hard but it is. I only have two shapes I can make reliably, and making different sizes is an effort. The ring-shape I made today I practiced for hours while we walked, and if the crocodile hadn't stayed still like that I probably wouldn't have been able to place it right."
Alexandria nodded. "You're still low tier 0, right?"
"Level 4."
"Right. My advice is to keep working at it, like a lot. That's the kind of skill that'll make people want to work with you. Look at me: Ochimaranthe didn't pick me because I was the best or highest level striker who volunteered but because I have a travel skill and have taken the time to learn the area. Things like that matter a lot." Michel nodded
"Ochimaranthe?", Vittorio asked. "I thought her name was Ochi?"
Alexandria actually blushed a bit. "She usually goes by Ochi, I just... I just think it's a pretty name."
"It is!", Vittorio agreed quickly, hoping to make her less embarrassed. "Speaking of her, do you know what's up with her hair?"
"The way it shimmers? I know, isn't it gorgeous? It's an elf thing, all elves sort of glitter a bit."
"Skin, hair, eyes, or nails", Michel said. They hadn't spoken much, having spent a lot of time investigating the stew. "One or more glitter on all elves."
"Nails?", Vittorio asked, his eyebrows raised.
"Nails", Michel agreed. "Looks a bit strange, but not bad. Flashy."
"And you!", Alexandria said to Tito, changing the subject. "Great work today, Tito. Couldn't have done it without you." The others chimed in, agreeing.
Tito looked uncomfortable with the attention, but pleased. "It was nothing special. Anyone else with my class could've done it better."
"You seeing anyone else with your class here? You are. You did your job, you did it well, and you did things none of us could ever do. That makes you a damn fine member of the team as far as I'm concerned." Again, the others agreed, Michel going so far as to give him a friendly pat on the shoulder.
The next day they continued downstream but found no people in need of help, and the poison in the water had dispersed. They got back to Pogna late that evening, at which point Ochi had a private chat with Alexandria. As Gloria and Vittorio returned to the hall the day after for some more riveting card games, Ochi told them they were good to start joining quests for real.
Once more, Vittorio was reminded that chainmail was not hug-friendly.