To be awoken in foreign lands, unable to decipher not only my surroundings, but status, was nothing new.

Note to self: change that.

I was always waking up in places I shouldn't be.

Whether that be the treasure troves of dungeon reward room that proved disappointing.

The outside of a gladiators ring after ale that proved too much.

Or the bed of the town lord's daughter that had proved too little.

Talk about near death.

So, to see random faces and strange settings, was nothing alarming.

Now, what exactly was going on was.

We were captured by the bandits that whiped our party .

That was easily deduced.

But what lay in front of me was not the simple tale that I had expected.

Everyone was hustling and bustling.

Like the inside of an ant hill.

They worked.

Men took crates of supplies from the looted wagons with an efficiency and drive unparalleled.

Other men, in chains, were hauled away to another area of the den that I hoped not to see.

Presumably to be sold off as slaves or worse.

I hoped not worse.

Industrialized and optimized, everyone with a purpose.

Just what kind of bandits had we lost against?

Then came a blow to the back.

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"Get up boy. Enough sleeping, it's time for your testing."

"Testing, what testing?" I responded.

The old man that prodded me awake had skin like soil and eyes like the sky. His teeth were in shambles, but he continued with his air of superiority.

He was in charge.

No matter how disheveled he appeared

I was the prisoner

Him the warden.

These situations were always give or take.

So I let him give as much without much take.

"We are gonna see what we can out of you boy."

"My pockets have been looted and there's nothing bound secretly to my person."

"Yes boy all that's been done while you were unconscious, drooling on the floor."

He laughed as he began taking me down into a new cavern, a new opening, revealing more of the moving pieces. More people working and moving. As if apart of something greater.

As if apart of a guild preparing, not the roaming bandits that they first appeared to be.

Then it hit me.

"You're raiding caravans in order to fund something large....much larger"

Glancing at the crates full of potions, the piles of rations, and the training area in which the bandits spared, it made more and more sense to why it was they moved like professionals.

It's because they were.

You aren't bandits. You're a guild gone rogue...

In my delight, I had given much more than I could take...

The old man squinted and whistled a winding tone that echoed throughout the cavern.

"Maybe you'll pass and join, kid…

After a few seconds he added.

"Mostly not." And laughed.

I was led into a tent that seemed shabby.

But once inside every luxury of city life resided inside.

Furs, a pit for fire, a desk of oak.

The looks of a captains quarters.

With a force, I was thrown into a chair and made to wait.

Looking around I made mental notes.

Everything has a reason for being.

Every piece of gear adorning the walls told a purpose.

Every painting, a story of the man who hung them.

I needed to befriend or pass whatever this test was...

With flying colors.

After a few minutes, ones that I had hoped would crawl; but like all hopes had gone the opposite...

Behind me a gust of wind told me that the flaps to the tents entrance had been open, and a pair of boots on ground produced a tone that told me the man coming was proud.

Good..

Breathing in, I collected my thoughts.

I prepared my plea.