The tunic was, indeed, snug. What’s more, it was a faded purple and covered in quarter moons and stars. Jack felt utterly conspicuous, not to say ridiculous, trudging along beside Tiarraluna toward the city center.

They ran into trouble almost immediately. Adventurer’s Row, which Tiarraluna insisted had been thriving during her last visit, was empty. Abandoned. From one end to the other, nothing could be seen but boarded up shops or vacant stalls. What’s more, they looked to have been in this state for quite some time.

Their luck was no better among the normal merchants. What few of them had bits or pieces of the sort of gear he needed refused to sell him a single piece. Nor would they sell anything he might use to Tiarraluna.

They managed a couple of larger tunics, two pairs of pants, and a decent pair of tall boots to replace his worn through steel toes, but that was it before Jack called a halt to the exercise. Tiarraluna, despite being the nominal head of the party agreed. It was time to see what was going to happen at the Adventurers’ Guild hall.

The building itself wasn’t particularly grand. Three stories, rough stone, small windows. The entryway was overlarge, but that was the most remarkable thing about it. And the sign, which was somewhat garish, although Jack couldn’t read it to know whether the text was as overblown as the imagery.

Tiarraluna entered first. Jack followed. Without warning, and too quickly for him to react, bars slammed down from the ceiling and sprang up from the floor, caging him tightly in the doorway, neither inside nor out.

Without thinking, he spun on his heel, drew FoeSmite high, and smashed its butt down onto the base of one of the bars, shattering it. He was angling for a strike at a second bar when Tiarraluna’s frightened voice came from within the building.

“Jack san,” she cried. “HOLD!”

He froze in place, hearing a clatter from behind and above. Turning his head and craning his neck, he spotted a grizzled looking old guy holding a strangely glowing crossbow. Yeah, he wasn’t gonna dodge that. Nor was he likely to get around quickly enough to have FoeSmite block it. He held himself absolutely still.

The old guy was yelling down angrily while Tiarraluna was calling up beseechingly. Jack could only understand her side.

“He is no demon!” she insisted. “We are here on official guild business!”

Jack turned slowly, his movements very deliberate, arms held as wide as the cage would allow. If things went south, he wanted the staff between himself and that incoming bolt.

“Cursed?” Tiarraluna showed her first hint of anger. “It most assuredly is not! My grandmother and I enchanted that staff ourselves!”

Closer inspection of the old guy revealed a scarred and mustachioed visage, on a balding, grey haired head. He might have been sixty or seventy, but his arms still showed muscle. Importantly, he was alone. If this was the guild hall of a sizeable town, what did that mean?”

“I have a recommendation letter from the wizard Mohrdrand,” Tiarraluna was calling. “Requesting you admit Jack san into the guild.”

She listened to the still angry reply before turning back towards the cage. “Jack san,” she sighed. “Would you please, very carefully, slide FoeSmite out of the cage and into the room?”

He narrowed his eyes, hesitating for several heartbeats before he complied, crouching and sliding the staff well into the room and off to the side.

She turned back to the balcony from which the old guy was covering Jack. He called something down.

“The sword as well, Jack san,” she translated. “If you please?”

Jack slid the scabbard out from behind the leather belt he’d cinched around the tunic, sliding it clear as well. Not towards the staff. He didn’t trust FoeSmite to make contact with it and they not both in his hands. FoeSmite was maybe a little cursed, Jack admitted to himself. Certainly willful.

Once Jack had been nominally disarmed, the old guy, who, no surprise, turned out to be the local guildmaster, stumped slowly down the stairs, crossbow still trained on the damaged cage’s occupant. He sidled across the room to a long bar and behind it, the prospective path of the crossbow bolt never veering from Jack’s chest. As he reached the midpoint of the bar, the guildmaster reached down and activated something.

With an audible clack, marred somewhat by the scraping of the stump of the broken bar, the cage retracted into the floor and ceiling respectively. Jack didn’t move.

“What the hell was that all about?” he asked Tiarraluna.

“The trap,” she informed him without moving from her own position. “Activated when FoeSmite was detected entering the guild hall. Apparently, the ward mistakenly identified it as a cursed weapon.”

“And the bit about me being a demon?”

She smiled without humor. “That was the guild master’s interpretation of an individual with no visible life crystal bearing a high ranking cursed weapon. In his eyes, what else could you be but a demon? Or demon possessed.”

Huh. “This something I’m gonna have to get used to?” he wondered.

“Let us hope not,” she frowned. “That would be most inconvenient.”

The guildmaster called something to Tiarraluna. She nodded and approached the bar, staying well clear of the prospective trajectory of the crossbow bolt as Jack remained rooted.

“You!” Borea Jonkins, the guildmaster commanded the novice mage. “Girl! What is the meaning of this? What has Lord Mohrdrand to do with this... this thing, and who is your grandmother?”

“To answer your last question first,” she replied as she approached slowly, careful not to foul his aim. “My grandmother is Rosaluna Galbradia. You may have heard of her. And Uncle Mohrdrand has sponsored Jack san into the guild. Is this somehow unacceptable to you, Lord Jonkins?”

He was scowling as he took the letter from her hand. Rosaluna Galbradia? Of course he’d heard of her. Everybody’d heard of her. Even the question was insulting. And Mohrdrand? Sponsoring an ungifted? Even with the troubles, that was nonsense.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He took the letter and read it. Then he read it again, more slowly. Then he examined the seal. All were genuine.

“Is this true?” he demanded, looking up from the parchment at the girl. “Your grandmother found him in the Hero's Glade? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, obviously,” she replied, her expression less cloudy. “It means that he is a hero.”

“But the demon lord is gone,” he told her unnecessarily. “What need have we of another hero?”

Now she frowned and pursed her lips, lowering her head in a contemplative manner. “And when, Lord Jonkins,” she asked smoothly. “Did I claim that he was our hero?”

Now he was even more confused. Who else’s hero would he be? Even then, why would he appear here rather than wherever there was? “That makes no sense.”

“And yet,” she stated confidently. “Grandmother has determined it to be the truth, and Uncle Mohrdrand has concurred.”

Belatedly, it occurred to the guildmaster that he was taking her identity on faith. While the letter screamed authentic to him, and she did, upon closer examination, resemble the powerful enchantress more than a little bit, he was naught but a rank seventy Battler, and neither mage nor wizard. “Your guild token, if you please?” he asked gruffly.

She smiled a self-satisfied smile and handed him a smooth, rectangular stone about three fingers width by five, and no thicker than a peach seed at its center. The same token she’d shown the man at the town gate. He fed the stone into a device behind the bar. While he had no personal magic beyond the basic spells most all adventurers gleaned, the enchanted reader would not be fooled, no matter how clever the forgery.

A translucent image of the girl, appearing slightly younger, bloomed into view above the machine. Tiarraluna Galbradia, it verified. Rank ten, advanced novice mage. Her various stats and skills pertinent to her membership followed. So she was Rosaluna’s great, great granddaughter. “Heatherton guild, eh?” he noted. “That’s a ways off.”

“You have already seen that Jack san is capable of bearing ranked weapons,” she said to his back. “And now you have verified that I am a guild member in good standing. So, will you aid us or not?”

The guildmaster removed the stone, tossing it in his hand a couple of times before turning and passing it back into her hand. “And what would you have me do?” he asked.

“Obviously,” she said. “He will need a guild token.”

“And what would I have that token convey?” he wondered. “I can see nothing about him to indicate his rank or skills. I cannot even clearly understand how he bears those weapons.”

She gave that some thought, finally turning to Jack and explaining their current dilemma.

“How do you guys assign levels?” he wondered. “Does it just happen whenever your experience warrants, or is there some sort of testing procedure?”

Her eyes lit up and her face brightened. She spun on the guildmaster. “You shall test him,” she announced. “As though for a new rank assignment.”

To Jack, she said, “it is some of both. Our statuses rise whenever we reach the appropriate level of proficiency and experience, but we must test for the new rank to be recognized by the guild, and to manage skills should such be available.”

The guildmaster was thinking it over, rubbing a hand along his bearded chin. “It will cost you the standard fee,” he cautioned. “Do you have the gold?”

She frowned. She didn’t. At least not if she expected to retain enough to purchase equipment. “Could you deduct it from our first bounties?” she asked hopefully.

He frowned harder and gave his beard another go.

“As a favor to Uncle Mohrdrand?” she added.

His hand dropped and he made a sound that might be a growl. “Fine,” he conceded. “But there will be interest accrued. This isn’t a charity, little miss.”

She nodded happily. “That is acceptable. Now, what do we do?”

He looked to Jack, standing still and mute. “And you say he doesn’t speak tandrian?”

“Not yet,” she admitted. “He is learning, I hope,” she held up her hand displaying the gold ring, to which Mohrdrand had added a supplemental spell.

“Alright,” he nodded. “You repeat everything I say to him, and everything he says back, got it? Exact translations. As though you yourself were a ring.”

“Understood,” she nodded uncertainly.

“You,” the guildmaster ordered, pointing to Jack. “Strip.”

Tiarraluna’s eyes went saucer wide and her blush threatened to leak blood.

“Go on,” the guildmaster insisted.

She repeated the demand. And Jack’s refusal.

The guildmaster’s hands went to his hips and he quirked an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted him registered?”

She tried again. This time, his answer was, “not with the girl in the room.”

That wouldn’t do, of course. Tiarraluna was the sole venue of communication between them. “How about if I have her turn away?” the guildmaster asked.

Tiarraluna needed no urging. She turned her back on the pair of them even before translating the message.

Jack moved slowly into the room, caution in every step. He still didn’t trust the old guy with the scarred face. Tiarraluna rotated so as to keep him out of her line of vision. Finally, he brought up before the old guildmaster.

“What’s this about?” he asked.

“I need to see if you’ve ever been in a fight in your life,” came the reply. “Or if you’re just some farmer putting on airs.”

That didn’t sound quite right to Jack. If he had it right, the vast majority of heroes had zero experience before embarking on their journeys. “Why?”

The guildmaster chuckled dryly. “Because it costs money to test you,” he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Money which you’ll have to repay at some point. Would you rather I started you at rank one and charged you for each rank increase?”

Okay, that made sense. “Fine,” he relented, suiting action to words.

The guildmaster whistled once Jack had gotten down to his undergarment. “Alright,” he admitted. “So you aren’t a farmer,” taking in the partially healed wounds from his most recent encounter and moving on to the fainter traces of those injuries Rosaluna had been treating. Then he looked over the older ones. Those that Jack had been carrying for years. “What’s this one?” he pointed to one such scar on Jack’s leg.

“Piece of a truck I was riding in,” Jack explained. “We ran over an IED. There are a few more. Here, here, here, and here,” indicating the places where blast fragments had been removed from various parts of his legs. Then he had to explain what a truck was, and then an IED. Those explanations took longer.

“And this?” pointing to a three inch scar along his left forearm.

“Knife,” Jack said dryly.

“Here?” pointing to a pair of puckered circles low on his midriff. “Arrows?”

“9X18 Makarov,” Jack explained. “Got surprised by a twelve year old jihadi when I should’ve known better.” then he had to explain bullets.

“That must be one strange world you come from,” the guild master ventured.

“Stranger by the day,” Jack agreed.

“Tiarraluna,” the guildmaster addressed the girl directly. “He’s clearly seen battle. What do you say to starting him at rank five?”

She gave it some thought. She’d seen rank fives fight, and she’d seen Jack san fight. “I would suggest seven would be more likely.”

The guildmaster’s face tightened. “You know,” he cautioned, “you pay per level whether it’s up or down, right?”

“Seven,” she confirmed. “I think that he will be fine.”

“If you say so," he shrugged. To Jack, “what are your primary and secondary weapons preferences?”

Jack coughed back a burst of laughter, stopping himself from saying ‘M4 and Glock.’ “Given my druthers,” he told the man, “of the weapons I might find here, bow first, followed by the staff or sword.”

That raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you have a bow, then?” he wondered.

“No one would sell us one worth owning,” Tiarraluna skipped the translation. “Nothing more than a rank zero hunting bow, in any case. Not without a guild token.”

“And yet, he’s got that ridiculous staff and an heirloom grade sword.”

“He fashioned the staff with his own hands,” she pointed out, “and the sword was a monster drop.”

“A what, now?” his voice rose.

She nodded without turning to face either of the men. “A creature he fought on our way to town dropped it after I had released its soul.”

“That can’t be right,” the guildmaster insisted. “Those sorts of drops just don’t occur until the creatures top rank fifty. There’s no way he defeated a rank fifty monster.”

She smiled a self satisfied smile, though neither of the others could see it. “It was four monsters of ranks ten to twenty,” she told him. “And one —the one who dropped the sword— of, we think, up to twenty-five. Perhaps that explains it?”

The guildmaster was looking a good deal more critically at Jack now.

“I will confess,” Tiarraluna added somewhat self-consciously. “He was wielding FoeSmite when he killed them.”

Yes, the guildmaster thought. The cursed staff.

“Put your clothes back on,” he sighed. “And we’ll go about seeing what sorts of missions you might be capable of.