“I’m sorry f-”

“Shut the fuck up,” the old man in front of the group barked. “If you’re here to become an adventurer, get into the group and shut up. Another fucking interruption from you two and the intiation will be the least of your problems.”

They did not need another word, but quickly shuffled towards the group, finding a spot at the very back of it. Slowly the amount of people looking at them decreased. Some made it a point to show them disdain, whilst others seemed to find amusement in the whole seen. One person, though, wouldn’t stop looking at them. It was the large man to the right of the speaker.

“The ones of you who aren’t complete dimwits will have realized that there are soldiers standing at the edge of the room. They are not adventurers, but from the capital of the imperial. Special soldiers that are here to clear any marks that might pop up. I do sincerely hope, that none of you will get closer acquainted with any of these soldiers.”

“Let’s commence the ritual.”

One of the men with spears walked up to the front, where there was a stage of sorts, and cut his finger to produce a drop of blood. He held it over some sort of ball filled with swirling mist, and when the drop of blood hit the ball, it seemed to produce a powerful reaction.

A powerful blast of air roared through the room. Noah’s clothes shook and slapped and he gripped his pants to make sure they wouldn’t fall off. There was a new aura here now, something picking and prodding at their bodies and their minds. It didn’t feel like the same room anymore.

Noah noticed that different sorts of runes had began flaring up. The ceiling nearly four meters away and the walls were covered with them, in a similar way the night sky was covered with stars. These strange, almost hypnotic, symbols were filled by vivid greens, deep blue’s, eye-catching reds.

He he didn’t feel stuck in a room, but something else, somewhere else entirely. The aura grew more fierce. He felt that the gods themselves were peering into his soul, asking all types of different questions.

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The light produced by the runes on thew alls and ceilings began flashing. First slowly, but they increased in speed as did the power of the light they emitted. They seemed not only to flash but to ebb outwards, morphing the wall.

Noah noticed that one of runes stretched out towards him as if it was trying to leave the wall, and then in the next second, it was in the air, floating towards him. He kept his eyes on this piece of red as it approached him, but it landed on the boy in front of him.

It hadn’t even been a moment before a spear impaled the boy from the side. The soldier who had attacked didn’t stay in the same spot for long, moving to another, person, ready to deliver the striking blow at a moment’s notice.

Noah heard the sound of a person collapsing, and then he heard again, repeating it seemed endlessly. He noticed that everybody around him, even if they were picked by a god or a demon, collapsed. His tattoo hadn’t arrived yet though, and as he looked at the ceilings and walls, which were growing darker, he thought that it hadn’t started arriving.

It was then that he noticed a glint very different from all the other lights in the room. It carried a substance unknown to the rest, and puzzled and chilled him to merely look at it. The glint seemed to be the bottom of a handle, metal, and the object slowly exited from the space of ceiling above the guild-masters head.

A sword was taking shape. He wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but he knew for a fact that there was a sword, which seemed both rusty and old, floating his way. It continued on its journey to him, until it hovered right in front of him, almost waiting to be taken, to be used.

Noah felt the eyes of the imperial soldiers, which had so far ignored him, and he wondered if it was a smart move to grasp the sword. He’d never heard of anything like this. This was the room where he received his tattoo. That much was clear to him, but more than this he didn’t know.

It seemed that there were no more runes flaring up in the room, and that most everybody except for him was laying down on the floor, either leaking a pool of blood, or soaking in one. Was it common for so many people to die? He thought. I thought it would only be one or two.

He couldn’t become a world renowned adventurer without the help of some sort of spiritual object or power. He knew that much, and since nothing else was seeming to be offered except for the sword, he felt that he had no choice but to pick it.

He grasped the handle, before collapsing.

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