I walked up to one of the guild receptionists. This one happened to be a human zombie woman.

“Hello! Welcome to the Adventurer’s Guild. My name’s Navi, how may I be of assistance today?”

I frowned. Glamour, the same type as the halfling. It didn’t affect me, that would be a high-level glamour spell, but it did affect her. Her smile seemed genuine and her face seemed kind and sincere, but it wasn’t. That was what low-level glamour spells did. They added a pep to your step and a bounce to your soul.

But I suppose that was part of the job. It was probably necessary for any customer-facing employee.

“I’d like to register with the guild as an adventurer.”

She perked up at my voice as if it was the best news she’d heard all day. I tried not to outright scowl at that.

“That’s great news! We have all types of resources for aspiring adventurers! But we do require you to get a license before setting off into a dungeon first. I know, I know, that can seem a bit time-consuming but it is a necessity on our part. Making sure new adventurers don’t get hurt is our top priority. We offer a two-month class for about two hundred dollars, after which you’ll be cleared for a license and considered a copper one-star adventurer! I can send you home with a brochure if you need to think it over?”

Again, her voice irked me.

“Uh, no thanks. I’ve already self-studied for the test. I was hoping I could take it now if that’s possible?”

Then the automatic bubbly performed answer machine that was her mouth stopped.

“Self-studied?” She asked.

“Yeah, I read the books already. I believe there’s a test available for a hundred dollars that I could take right away. Or do I have to schedule that for a later date?”

“Uh- No- No. I can set you up for a test right away. But uhm, we will have you complete it under a truth spell, and there will be a minor background check done before the test. Will that be a problem?”

“Will there be holy magic in use?”

The receptionist gave me the lightest of frowns and then shook her head.

“No, it’ll be a mage spell, no holy magic.”

I nodded in reply.

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”

The woman looked at me and smiled her body language sent back into autopilot and the glamour taking over.

“Great! Now if you’ll just follow me over to one of our testing centers, we can set you up right and quick!”

I nodded, sensing her dislike of conversation even through the glamour.

The guild was big. I had thought that earlier and now I was inside, and I thought about it again. This place was huge and occupied.

Creatures of all races laid their bounties out on the table. The small group of goblins were now arguing the price of the monster’s body with one of the guild inspectors, going back and forth, debating the worth of the beast’s parts. An orc seemed to be studying a blade he’d bought from one of the guild sellers and one large gnoll, possibly a half-goliath gnoll, sat with two kobolds at his ankles. The kobolds were playing rock paper scissors while the gnoll leaned back and snored loudly.

A harpy flew through the doors with a corpse. No, an injured man and a group of guild healers ran to her with potions and reagents.

And no one else looked up from their business.

Man was this place busy.

A group of adventurers consisting mostly of minotaurs and one yeti passed by me in a hurried shuffle.

“This way sir!” The receptionist called to me, drawing my attention from the people.

I frowned again. I hated glamour.

Dark elves were generally a huge fan of the stuff, being lovers of lies and all. Archina was one of our patron gods, and her influence had shaped the culture of our species to love lies and deception and to hate unnecessary truth.

But I wasn’t a big fan of that stuff. It most manifested in court politics and dark elves having an obscene amount of pride and self-worth, but I mainly used my connection to the goddess for stealth reasons.

In truth, I barely worshiped her. The only reason I’d been blessed by her was because of my mother’s death and because of all the merit she had earned the Lady of Lies before she passed.

I should pray one of these days. She was important to me after all.

I followed the receptionist to a higher level. This floor was different, mainly occupied by guild staff, though the few adventurers that were here looked immensely powerful.

I saw one mage with two orbed staffs and a supremely enchanted robe. He was elven and old by the looks of it. He sat on a bench with his two staffs by each side and reclined himself across the bench, clearly unbothered. He was huffing from a smoking pipe as he waited for something. He even had a long grey beard that read down to his torso, and his pipe smoke created shapes of beasts and monsters as went.

One of his eyes lazily opened and looked directly at me, but before I could even think, it was closed again.

“Right this way if you can!” The receptionist called out.

The glamour held but I could sense I was getting on her nerves. I tore my eyes away from the mage and followed the girl, keeping pace this time till we got to a room.

“Right in here, then. Now the room is enchanted with a truth spell and there will be someone observing you, so any magic spells, divinations, or methods of getting the answers outside of pure memorization or luck will be caught.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She paused for a moment, letting the words linger and looking at me with slight suspicion.

It wasn’t in her face, but I could tell. I was blessed by the Mother of Lies after all. I could easily see through most of them.

I nodded in response.

“Also all magical items will be checked into the locker within the room. There will be complete confidentiality and your items will not be scanned or studied, but they will be locked off from you preventing any use of them. Will that be a problem?”

I shook my head again, then stopped.

“Wait, how big is the locker?”

“Uh, it should fit all the things you have on you.”

“Even my suitcase?”

“What?”

I pulled out a small book-like item out of my hand and let it enlarge to its regular size.

“My suitcase? I keep it shrunk down most of the time but that's an active enchantment on it, one I have to keep on. Without me being near it, it’ll be regular size and… I don’t know if the locker can fit it?”

“There should be enough space for it,” the receptionist replied. “Though I’ve never seen something quite like that. You’d think a bag of holding would be more capable and easier to make. What enchanter did you get it from?”

Finally, she spoke without glamour. But then just as quickly she wore it again, the curiosity being hidden by a false smile.

“Ah it’s something made,” I answered

“You’re an enchanter?” She asked

“Huh, no. I had a torn bag of holding and a fragile shrink amulet. I managed to stitch the bag to the suitcase and tie down the enchantment to it as well, and then added the shrink amulet on top of it.”

Then, for a small glamourless second, she looked at me like I was the poorest man in the world. A mixture of pity and annoyance.

Then the glamour came back.

Jeez, this woman really hates her job, or she doesn’t like me.

Probably both I figured. I wasn’t from here and all my gawking must have made me seem like some small district idiot who hadn’t seen the world much was wasting her time or something.

Well, she was partially right, and I didn’t like her much either.

“Well then, you can put your belongings in the locker and wait. The test will be administered automatically once you are ready. There is a time limit of three hours and the fee must be paid before the test can be administered.”

I nodded and stood in front of the doorway. It didn’t open. The receptionist looked at me with unhidden annoyance this time. I guess she finally stopped caring to cast her glamour at this point.

I nodded and stared back at the door.

She didn’t leave.

“Uhm, the fee must be paid before the test can be administered-”

“Oh, you mean now?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, right.” I searched my wallet for a handful of dollars, clumping together three tens, two fives, and three twenties.

“Here,” I said holding up a rushed bundle of cash.

The receptionist took my money, sorted through it quickly, and then used one of her rings to cast a detect spell, right in front of me. She had to have known I’d see it. I was a mage, after all, I had a staff. But she didn’t care, just checked the validity of the bills and nodded.

She touched the door and held her hand for a moment and the door opened in response.

“Alright, good luck.” She said flatly with the expectation of failure present in her voice.

I snorted and walked into the room.

At least she had stopped using her glamour.

I walked out thirty minutes later with a frown.

I had passed the test.

That was never a problem. The problem was that I had to go to the same receptionist to get my license. I thought it would teleport to me after the test or maybe I’d come back to pick it up the next day, but the test was graded by a high-level spirit of some sort, and it was done instantaneously.

And teleportation was not allowed within the city, at least not for stuff like papers.

I sighed and made my way through the building. The mage was still there. This time he was snoring, but he was still smoking from his pipe, even while asleep.

Sleep smoking, what a thing to see.

The smoke still took shapes, but this time they displayed lewd elf women and succubi, and even one rocky troll lady, dancing as a smoke version of the mage watched. It looked like they were in a club of some sort, or maybe a brothel.

“Huh,” I mumbled, more interested in the enchanted pipe than the smoke illusion.

I saw several other people peeking at the man. But instead of laughing they quickly looked away, some smirking for a moment, but most ignoring it in its entirety.

Why didn’t anyone wake him? I doubted he was doing this on purpose. He looked all mage-like and proper and now he was broadcasting his wet dreams? That didn’t make sense. I cast a small wind cantrip to run through the smoke and ruin the image, and at that, the mage awoke.

“WHAT? Who dares to bother me while I-”

He looked at me, eyed me up and down, and scowled.

“Why did you wake me,” he growled.

He was powerful, and if I hadn’t seen violence, I’d be scared. But I’d seen destructive pride and hateful people before and this guy wasn’t one of them. There wasn’t any anger or rage in the man’s eyes, only annoyance. But everyone else seemed to hold for a moment.

Was this guy important or something?

“You uh- you were dreaming,” I stated.

He frowned.

“Two elves, one troll, two succubi?”

The wizard’s eyes widen in surprise.

“The uh- the smoke enchantment,” I said pointing to the pipe. “It doesn’t turn off when you sleep”

The wizard stared at me in a small moment of understanding. Shame danced on his face for a moment, but it was quickly replaced by anger and then back to annoyance.

“I see,” he grumbled. “Was it… was it there for a while?”

I nodded.

“They all saw it,” I said shrugging back to the group of staff and adventurers behind me.

There was an audible pause before the room grew louder and several staff members and adventures left the floor hurriedly.

The mage nodded blankly then threw the pipe onto the floor.

“Malivici, that bastard,” he grumbled. Then he stood up from the bench grabbed his staffs and walked away.

I looked at the pipe.

“Hey? Your pi-”

“KEEP IT!” The man yelled back, his feet practically flying off the floor.

I shrugged and picked up the pipe, fiddling with it as I walked down to the second floor. I wondered how much this thing was worth. A thousand? More? Probably more. And it was a luxurious item as well, with some pretty great handiwork.

Nice.

I fiddled with it as I walked down to the first floor. Might as well get this over with.

The receptionist, what was her name again, Navi? She stood at her desk and waited.

She saw me and smirked sadistically, but quickly hid with glamour.

I walked over to her unbothered by her clearly fouled expectations.

“Unfortunately a retake will only be possible after you take the recommended class. And even then, you’ll have to wait four months before you can take the-”

“I passed.”

There was a look of sheer surprise on her face for a moment.

“What?”

“I passed. I’m here to get my license. Three star bronze rank it said.”

“Three-star bronze rank?” She questioned, pulling aside papers a golem had just given her. She looked up at the construct as if she was confused but the golem didn’t care. The rock construct just nodded and walked away, off to deliver more papers I presumed.

She flipped through the papers, quickly scanning the words, and then nodded with some surprise.

“You got all of them right, with flying colors. And you’ve had some experience with combat, more than most, so the spirit boosted you all the way past copper rank.”

“Yep.”

Then the lady cleared her throat in an awkward silence and read through the papers some more. She had clearly expected me to fail, not that I could blame her.

I don’t think most people could self-study for the adventurer’s exam and make it. And that wasn’t for a lack of intelligence, but probably due to an abundance of pride. The classes would have been easier than pouring over a five-hundred-page book. I didn’t blame her for her attitude.

But I still didn’t like her.

“Well, seems everything’s clear then. Here you go.”

Navi held out my license. It was a blank card, with no name or picture. I reached out for it and held it, and as soon as she let go of the card, it shimmered.

Then it dimmed down. My face, age, weight, and race were all listed on the card, along with my rank.

I frowned, not happy to see my race being blasted out into the open like that.

“The card’s enchanted. People can only see your picture and your first name, only you can see everything. But it’s magical and will work as verification for your status. It also took a mana signature from you as well.”

I nodded and took the card and studied it for a moment.

And I was stumped. I could pick apart how most magical devices worked. I couldn’t build one mind you, but I could understand the basic theory. But this thing was beyond me.

“So…” I said after a moment. “Where do I pick up requests?”