Marc followed the signup human, apparently named Jake, and Jacky followed behind. After confirming that his name is, in fact, not Guy, he asked her where she got that idea from. Apparently, Helen told people that he was called Guy.
Which meant that he'd need to tell Barry, Nico, Fray. . . Helen herself, probably.
Whatever, the thought. He was, officially, Marc now.
They walked up to a large stone box that opened as Jake waved a hand.
“Just step on inside and we’ll get you scanned up.”
Marc did as was asked, putting his bag to the side.
The door closed, and the inside of the box had a dim blue glow. He waited for the feeling of a spell being cast, but there was nothing Marc held his breath, bracing for the sensation.
Then, the door opened, less than a minute later.
“Alright, you can step on out.”
Jake handed Marc a small, approximately smartphone sized tablet of blueish stone.
“That’s your Adventurer’s Sigil. Most of our allies have a way of identifying themselves, but since you signed up with us, you get the brick. If you flick it in your hand it becomes a ring, then you can just flick it again to show it.”
He looked down at the brick.
MARCUS
WANDERER
Level 5
Echelon 1
“Huh, neat. Can I get it to show anything else?”
Jake reached out, took the stone tablet from Marc, and flipped it, before handing it back. “It has two sides.”
RESILIENCE - SUPERIOR
FOCUS - MODERATE
MIGHT - GREATER
FINESSE - LESSER
LUCK - INFERIOR
Marc looked at it, then concentrated to resummon his own character sheet.
NAME: Marcus H. Green
RACE: Outsider
CLASS: Wanderer
LEVEL: 5/50 (23%)
ECHELON: 1
HEALTH: Superior
ABILITIES:
RSL - 23
FCS - 19
MGT - 17 (+4)
FNS - 12
LCK - 6
“Good to know”, he said, dismissing his own tablet. Looking around, he realized that no one else was waiting to get into the stone coffin. “Hey, do other people need to use this?”
“Nah, we only do it for people with weird stuff in their forms. Wanderer isn’t a known class, and Outsiders are generally issues around here.”
There it was again. He’d heard Outsiders were issues before, but he still didn't really know what they were or why they were issues. Jake, at this point, continued, “So, you have free run of the place, except the obvious stuff. You’re new, so try and remember the rules.” He pointed off to the side, at a tapestry with the rules woven in. After this, he walked away.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Marc walked towards the tapestry.
RULE 1 - DO NOT STEAL FROM OR ATTACK THE SOCIETY, ITS MEMBERS, OR ITS ALLIES
RULE 2 - IF YOU CANNOT COMPLETE A MISSION, REPORT SO
RULE 3 - DO NOT LIE TO THE SOCIETY
“Are these really all the rules?” He asked Jacky.
“No, but they are the important ones. Breaking any of these will get you thrown out.”
Now, Marc was thinking about what to do from here.
Despite being, technically, a member of the Adventurers, since he had not accomplished a certain level of mission, he couldn’t get a room in the building for the night. At least, not a free one, and with Marc’s current financial situation, namely, being flat broke. . . He really needed that room to be as cheap as possible. Luckily, he could start going on Open Hunts, which were identical to hunting culls back home. And they paid.
He saw Lloyd walking over to them, the Human they’d made something of a friendship with in the waiting period.
“Heya both, got Marc scanned? By the way, what does the Wanderer do anyways?”
Marc resisted facepalming, “I don’t know. Same with how I don't know what Farlanders do in general.”
Jacky looked at Lloyd, “That’s a good part of the reason I’m sticking around today actually. I want to study that. There’s a lot of questions and no answers. I think Wanderer might just be something that happens at the boundary, and since he’s a Farlander, he’d need to go through to be here.”
Lloyd nodded along, eyes glazed over at this talk. “Yeah, sounds right. Anyways, Marc do you have any idea what you want to do for your first quest?”
“Oh, that’s the qualifying thing?”
“Yep! I saw there was a Bunneyhawk nest that was growing out of control. How does that sound?”
“You're asking me to join you?”
Excitedly, Lloyd nodded, “Yeah, might as well since we're both similar levels.
Marc recalled hearing about these things, “Aren’t Bunnyhawks massive bees?”
“Wasps, yeah!”
“I think I've encountered enough giant insects to last a lifetime.” He shook his head. He had been asleep properly for exactly one night and already he was tired of the nightmares involving the spider.
“You'll have to fight some eventually,, but alright. . .” Lloyd trailed off. Marc decided to interject here.
“You can go on things without me you know. If you want to take care of the wasps, feel free.”
“Well, it's mostly that I’m not exactly the most hardy of fellas, so I'd rather have at least one other person to share the enemies with.” AKA he wanted a meat shield. Or a Tank, going by RPG terms. Lloyd seemed like a fine person, but Rogues tended to have some ulterior motive. At heart his was obvious here.
Jacky smiled, “You two realize you can just go out open hunting. There’s what, three phases to joining the Society?”
There were. Marc had been told that once he signed up, he got his sigil, basically proving that he went through the paperwork, but in order to actually get any benefits they had to do a first Hunt. This let them stay the night in almost any Society building, though spots were somewhat limited. From there, in order to actually become a fully fledged member, there was a semi-secretive test they had to pass.
That would take them months to get to though. It was recommended that they were at least level 20 or even Echelon 2 before taking the test.
“Well, what do you say Marc? A spot of hunting? I saw there was an active hunt going out for some Spine Deer.” Spine Deer were basically normal deer, like the kind Mac’s father hunted when he was a child, but when flicking their neck they could shoot sharp spines from their antlers.
“I suppose so. We’ll need to be careful though, since I don’t think we have the money for potions.” Looking for confirmation, Lloyd shook his head no.
Jacky got a mischievous grin, “Well, if only you knew a healer who was willing to go slaying with some new adventurers like yourselves.”
Marc started to thank her, but Lloyd seemed to have one last question, “ What’s the catch?”
She pretend-shrugged as if there was nothing she could do, “ All I'd need is a certain Farlander to let me record his boons in action.”
Marc gave a withering look to her, but couldn't suppress his smile for long. He had a Party. A real, RPG party.
“Let’s do it.”
----------------------------------------
The three made their way back to the Slayers's Hall. While Marc certainly had nothing besides the bag on his back, Jacky did. She apparently had armor she wore outside of the city. Jacky also promised the two she'd pay for their dinner, which had Marc agreeing. Lloyd, Marc noticed, was eager to agree to basically anything.
They walked in, and saw Fray, Barry, and Nico were sitting down at a table themselves. How they got in without Helen, the only actual slayer of the group, Marc didn’t know, but he didn’t want to question it too much.
There were a number of bottles on the table. Not for beer, but the exact kind that Nico used for his Alchemist stuff. Fray looked over them with a somewhat scary grin. Barry waved them over, and they joined. Most of the chairs and tables here had some kind of thin stone or enamel coating since dryads tended to be able to move through other things, as Marc saw yesterday with the door. Hearing this, of course, only brought a new slew of questions to Marc on the ethics of carpentry in a nation where there were people who were trees, but he ignored those for now.
“Hey, you made it back!” Barry said. Fray, at this point looked at the two, but Marc noticed that she had none of the distrust or malice she did yesterday.
Yesterday, so much had changed.
“Yep! This is Lloyd”, the man in question said hello, “And I’m all signed up for being an adventurer.”
Fray turned to him, “Oh? Show us your brick!”
He flicked his wrist, and handed over the blue stone tablet. Fray did the same motion, and put her own iron tablet next to his.
“Hey, Guy, what level did you start at with that Spider?” Fray asked.
“I was Level 1.”
Nico’s eyes went wide, “You were lucky to survive the fight. And the fall.”
Barry pointed to his name, “Hey, your name here is wrong.”
Jacky nudged Marc’s arm, “Tell them.”
Marc said, “My name isn’t Guy.” Fray and Barry looked at him confused, and Nico simply facepalmed. This maintained for a solid few seconds.