The five lines of applicants were gone when Micah stepped out of the Tower, as were the escort mages waiting to help them to their destination. Instead, small pairs of who looked like nurses stood by with kits and stretchers at the ready, should they be needed.
Small tents had been set up to the far left of the portal. When one of their flaps lifted, Micah spotted an applicant sitting on a table, getting inspected.
One of the pairs approached him the moment he stepped out and squinted at the sunlight.
He got three steps far and had to set the chest down with a huff. It was too heavy—it easily weighed fifty kilograms, after all—and he greeted them by calling, “I’m fine!”
He didn’t need nor want to get inspected. He didn’t have the time for it. Who knew how long the Kobold had before it died?
“I’m sure you are,” a guy said, maybe a few years older than him. He had blonde hair and seemed a little familiar, though Micah didn’t know from where. Had he seen him around the Guild before? “I can see it by your pant leg.”
He pointed.
Micah glanced down and joked, “It’s a fashion thing. You wouldn’t happen to know how long I have left?”
The guy’s partner was a young woman and ignored his question as she stepped up to pick up his treasure chest. She groaned when she lifted it and immediately dropped it again, frowning at Micah.
“Uh, no,” the guy said, frowning at her in turn, “See that man over there?” He pointed at a man with a clipboard who was following the applicants coming out of the portal. “He’s keeping track of who is coming in and out of the Tower and how long they took. Your test is over.”
“Oh.”
The test was over? Micah needed a moment to process that, unsure how to feel. He decided to go with relief. He had made it in time. That was great.
“Hey,” the woman said and pointed down at the chest, “help me lift your loot. We don’t have all day.”
“I’m fine, really,” Micah insisted again. Because he really didn’t have all day.
“It’s not about whether or not you’re fine,” she said, “we need to assess the condition you’re in for your score.”
“Oh.” So they were like preliminary judges, then? “Right.”
Micah rushed to lift his chest on his own, not wanting to make someone who had bearing on his score carry it, but the woman brushed him off and told him to take one handle while she took the other before he hurt himself. They slowly dragged it over into a tent and Micah thought he heard something grumble inside when they sat it down.
He quickly hopped onto the table and urged them to hurry up as he off shrugged armor and clothes. They put on gloves, told him a bunch of legal stuff, and went to inspecting his condition.
All the while the woman poked and prodded, the guy made him list all the injuries he got and how he treated them. They asked whether or not any of his scars were new and how he had used his healing potions. Potion-s. Plural. Someone had brought in his file a few minutes ago and they knew he was an [Alchemist].
“I only used the flask you gave me to heal myself,” Micah said truthfully.
“Oh, we’ll need that back,” the guy mentioned.
“The flask?”
He nodded.
“Uhm, I filled it with something else. Can I give it back later? After I present it to the judges?”
The woman gave him the stink-eye and grumbled, “Sure.”
Why was she so grumpy? They should have told him from the start if he was allowed to use the flask or not. She put a little bit of pressure on his chest and Micah tried to squirm away.
“From the sounds of it, your elbow wound was the worst flesh wound you had,” the guy said. “And flesh wounds are fine. They’re the easiest to heal with potions, though you might feel residual discomfort in the coming weeks … or months … or years, really. There is no way to tell. The only demerits we’ll be giving you are for wounds that taking longer to heal or won’t heal at all, like your chipped tooth”—Micah ran his tongue over it and wondered if it looked bad—”then there’s your bruised knee, the ear damage, and your bruised ribs.”
Micah frowned. “I don’t have any bruised ribs.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Are you telling us you didn’t notice?” the woman asked and by her tone, Micah immediately switched tunes.
“Uhm, of course I did!” he said. Not noticing your own wounds would look bad on a report, right? “I just meant … I don’t feel like I had bruised rib. I can still … act? If I have to. Despite the injury.”
He tried to phrase it in a way that made him seem competent but—by the male nurse’s single raised eyebrow—knew he had failed horribly. The guy scribbled down a note in his file.
Micah sighed.
“We’re going to patch you up,” she explained, “and prescribe you some things to speed up the healing process. And you’re going to take it easy for at least a week until you get better, okay?”
“Uhm,” Micah frowned, “define ‘easy’ for me, please.”
She didn’t look amused and gave him a lecture on how to treat his own body while she bandaged him up. Micah made sure to look like he was listening.
When they were almost done and he put his clothes back on, he asked, “Do you know if I can present my loot first or do I have to write the essay right away? I have something that’s a bit time-sensitive.”
“What, a fully-formed without crystal?” the woman asked him.
“Something like that.”
He briefly considered showing them the Kobold to have them check up on it, but dismissed the idea. What would they be able to do that he hadn’t already? It was a monster, not a human.
“I think you’re mistaken?” the other said. “You go to the loot tent first to hand in what you brought, show them the state your equipment, and make your initial statement. They ask you some questions and then you write your report.”
“What really?”
“Yeah.”
That was … both good and bad. On the one hand, Micah would be able to surprise his judges with the Kobold and get feedback for his essay. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be able to gather his thoughts first before he spoke to them.
That reminded him, “How long do I have to write the essay?”
“An hour.”
“Only?”
“You’re not going to need an hour,” she scoffed. “You’re summarizing five hours, how hard can it be? Keep it short, and simple, and to the point. Then add a paragraph in conclusion. Something like, ‘This monster I killed proves that I’m really tough, hardy, hardy, har.’”
She angled her elbows a little and made a mock manly pose as she said that and her colleague chuckled a little, though he tried to hide it. So she took a step toward him and repeated, “‘Har, har.’”
It seemed like an inside joke to Micah. He smiled a little.
“Then you add stuff like, ‘Look at my other reports. I evaded that ambush on the second floor and wasn’t injured at all. I’m level three already. Please, accept me into your school.’ That’s it. Of course, you can’t say you weren’t injured at all. Because you were injured. A lot.”
Micah disagreed. But when she said it like that, the report really didn’t seem like such a big deal. That just raised another question, though. If they were supposed to write an essay for an hour after talking to the judges, which was bound to have another waiting period as more and more students got back—
“When did the last group enter the Tower?”
“A little past three?” the guy asked.
His colleague nodded.
“That means some people will have to stick around till ten p.m for the test?”
“There were delays. If it gets too late, they might give the last group the option to hand in the essay at a later date. But those people had that much longer to think about what they were going to do, right? Advantages and disadvantages to everything. I’m sure the judges will take that into consideration.” She shrugged and handed him his closed file. “Either way, you’re done. Show this to the man at the tent, then give it to your judges. Do not tamper with anything in there, do you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Micah took the file reverently and went to peek, but she put a finger on it and pressed down.
“No peeking, either.”
“What about his loot?” the guy next to her asked. “We can’t have him carry that with his ribs.”
“What?” Micah asked, appalled. “No, I have to carry it myself. I need to make a good impression. I’ve been carrying it around for the last two and a half hours. Another ten minutes won’t hurt.”
They looked unconvinced.
“Please? I really need to do well during this exam.”
The woman’s face soured a little and she said, “Fine. But do it slowly and don’t brace it against your chest. The race is over, you know? By the way, what kind of chest is that? It looks like a Salamander’s Den chest.”
“It is,” Micah said and headed for it.
“Oh, so did you fix the floor you broke?”
He froze. “What? How did you…?”
They both looked at him with amusement and she said, “Don’t you recognize us? I guess you wouldn’t, having been unconscious the entire time. We’re the ones who treated you back then.”
Micah’s eyes went wide and he immediately bowed politely, saying, “Thank you.”
They were silent for a moment before the woman scratched her neck and mumbled, “Well, that’s awkward. You’re welcome, Micah.”
The young woman introduced herself as Jen and her colleague as Steve when they placed the chest into his hands for him. Apparently, they had volunteered for this today because they thought it would help them level. They wished him good luck and Micah wished it back before he ducked out of the tent.
He’d had enough time to catch his breath by now, but the chest was still immensely heavy, so he repeated his cycle of lifting and setting it down again while other teens walked past him at three times the pace. Some of them had chests in hand, too, or even two stacked on one another, or large beasts like Prowlers or Rathounds over their shoulders. Most of them were older than him, but not all. They all gave him condescending glances as they strode past.
Micah ignored them. Others recognized the Salamander chest and frowned, looking like they wanted to approach him and ask about it. None of them did, thankfully. Probably because they were in a hurry. Micah tried to remember their faces for the future. He immediately had a better impression of them.
Some did both. They gave him a condescending glance and frown. He wasn’t sure how to feel about those, and decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they didn’t like how slow he was walking, that meant they just had high standards. And what was wrong with high standards?
After six breaks, he finally made it to the tent. He saw that desks had been set up outside of it, where the crowd had stood earlier. Not nearly enough to seat every applicant, but enough to give them the option to sit. Only a handful of people were writing reports there already. It didn’t look very private or strict. Two were writing theirs together and an adult standing nearby didn’t seem to mind.
Micah found one of the greeters waiting at the entrance and handed him his file. As the man looked through it and made sure everything was in order, he leaned over to peer past him.
The individual stations inside the tent were refurbished to house one or two tables where three judges sat next to one another. The lockers were still at the far end, and there was another counter where they reclaimed borrowed equipment indiscriminately. Only about two dozen applicants were back already and sat tensely on the other side of the tables as they were interviewed.
That would be Micah in a moment, he knew.
As the greeter closed the file again, he picked up his chest and it took his breath away. The man asked if he could just put the file back on top and Micah nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He must have seen the strain on his face, because he just checked his clipboard and pointed him in the direction of a table halfway into the tent where his judges sat.
Micah saw them and nodded again. He followed the man’s directions … until he got to the first junction and saw Ameryth Denner turn away from where she had observed an interview.
Of course, she wasn’t one of the judges herself, he thought. She probably wanted to spectate as many interviews as possible and always go to where the most interesting things were. Now, she headed for another table in the distance and Micah frowned.
That table was not going to be the most interesting one in a moment … His was. It was probably not a nice thing to do, but Micah made a split second decision and called anyway, “Ameryth! Hey, Ameryth, ma’am.”
She slowly turned around, noticed him, and smiled a little, looking amused. That was a good sign, right?
“Mr. Stranya. It’s a pleasure to see you here. What is it?”
He lifted his chest a little higher … which only ended up being about a centimeter … and said, “You’re going to want to see this.”
Her eyebrows twitched when she spotted the red chest in his hands, but she didn’t bite.
Another adult was approaching, looking like he wanted to admonish Micah and drag him away from her, but Ameryth handled it herself. “Getting me to oversee your performance personally isn’t going to improve your chances of getting into my school, Mr. Stranya. And as Mr. Sundberg over there will tell you, you should address me more respectfully and not with my first name.”
Micah shook his head. “This isn’t about the school, ma’am. That’s why I’m calling you by your first name. I’m not inviting you to see as my maybe-future-principal, I’m inviting you as a fan of my work.” He nodded down at the chest and smiled. “You’re going to want to see this.”
That seemed to get her attention because she paused for a moment and then swept her hand in the direction of the table Micah was supposed to go to, saying, “By all means, lead the way.”
Finally, Micah thought and tried not to heave in relief. His arms were burning and his back heavy. He felt like either the former two were going to pop off at any moment or the latter was going to crack and bend the wrong way.
He dutifully led the way while she followed and it took everything Micah had to lift the chest those extra few centimeters and place it on the table. Such a simple task, but it felt like the final hurdle. That done, he bent over and leaned against the desk to catch his breath for a second.
Ameryth greeted his judges and stepped around to stand behind them, waiting patiently along with them.
Okay, Micah thought as he looked at them. Calling his not-yet-principle by her first name in a spur-of-the-moment, cheap ploy to get her attention was one thing. Being disrespectful to the people who would grade his performance? That was an entirely other.
As soon as Micah could, he stood up straight and said, “Good afternoon, sirs and ma’am. I’m Micah Stranya, applicant #2425. I would shake your hands in greeting”—he lifted his right hand to show them the leftover glue and grime—”but that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Uhm, here is my file.”
His judges were a man a dark suit wearing glasses, a tiny lady with a blonde ponytail in jogger’s clothes who looked like she had started working out ten years ago and never stopped, and a slightly heavyset man in a cardigan. They wore nametags, but Micah was having troubles reading them from across the table.
The woman in the middle took the file from him and wordlessly passed it along to the man with the glasses.
The man in the cardigan was frowning at the chest instead. He pointed and asked, “Is that a Salamander chest?”
Micah was a little dismayed that they wouldn’t introduce themselves, but he brightened at the question. “Yes! It is. I found it in a treasure room of the first floor Salamander’s Den.”
“Curious,” the other said as he opened his file. “You’re not lying.”
Micah had been too exhausted to be truly nervous before, but the emotion reared its head at the man’s words. Not lying? How could he tell? But … this was a good thing, right? This way, there would be no doubt.
Micah glanced at Ameryth, but she just had a hand on the Cardigan’s chair and was leaning forward slightly, peering at the chest as if she could already see what was inside. Her eyes flickered up to him, then back down, as if she were nudging him along to reveal it already.
“Is this all you’ve brought?” the Jogger in the middle asked.
“Ah, yes. Protocol first,” Glasses said before Micah could respond. “Answer truthfully, are the contents of this … sealed? … treasure chest the extent of what you have brought us from the Tower for this exam?”
“Oh, uhm, no!” Micah said and slipped off his backpack. He reached inside and got out the large staff that was poking out of the back compartment first, setting it aside for later, then got out the hard container he kept the scrolls in. It was covered with glue, dirt, and blood and all four adults noticed.
Two grimaced.
“Small mess with my alchemy, sorry,” Micah said. “But these were the contents of the treasure chest.” He opened up the container and immediately faltered, “Uhm, if one of you could bring them out, please? Sirs and ma’am. They’re scrolls and I’m worried about getting them dirty.”
The woman leaned forward like she was forcing herself to move and took the container from him. She brought out the two scrolls and handed them to Glasses again, who peered at the seals with interest.
“And this,” Micah said and got out the pouch. “It’s filled with marbles. I don’t know what they do, if they even do anything.”
“Two sealed scrolls and a pouch full of marbles. Those were the contents of the treasure chest?” Glasses asked him.
“Yes, sir. I also brought back a number of fire crystals, a mist crystal, and two other items, a crude obsidian dagger and what I believe is a mage staff.” He placed the staff and glass dagger on the table next, pretty confident about his statements. Why would a [Mage] use a staff that couldn’t conduct mana?
“So if those are the contents,” Cardigan asked, nodding down at the table, “what’s in the chest? And why is it sealed?”
Micah smiled and got out the small metal flask the organizers had issued him earlier. He screwed it open and upended its neck against his fingers, then rubbed the liquid that came out against the seal.
“Archertoad Oil,” he explained.
It took an awkward minute, but eventually he covered it all. The oil only weakened the seal though, so he used his dagger to slice the rest open and slipped it back inside his sheath.
Belatedly, he realized that just because he’d bound the Kobold inside the chest when he’d put it inside, that didn’t mean it was still bound. It could do magic after all or it might have slipped out.
The chest didn’t feel any warmer than it had before so he wasn’t too worried, but how was Micah going to explain without ruining the surprise? He went with, “Uhm, you might want to take a step back.”
“Is there a live monster in that treasure chest?” Cardigan asked.
“Yes.”
“If it’s from the first floor, we’ll be fine,” the woman in the middle said, looking like she was about to place her feet on the table out of boredom. Micah knew one person who didn’t want to be here.
Ameryth stood up a little straighter, no longer leaning against the chair, but nodded confidently without saying anything.
“Okay,” Micah breathed and opened the lid. Hopefully, it would still be alive. Hopefully, it wouldn’t attack the judges. Hopefully, he wasn’t making himself a fool in front of them.
For a moment nothing happened. Then slowly, the figure inside the chest righted itself up, showering its legs with fire crystals and drawing a few glances. Its eyes stretched over to give Micah the stink-eye, but it faced ahead, still bound, and it wasn’t trying to run again.
The four people behind the table stared. The man in the Cardigan actually backed up with his chair. Nearby people stopped as they spotted the Kobold and others stepped over to get a better look for himself.
But their expressions weren’t all positive. Some even looked disappointed and Micah needed a moment to figure it out for himself. Another applicant standing in the aisles a few meters off put it into words as he leaned over to his friend and explained, “The fourth floor is off-limits. He’s getting disqualified.”
Ah. It didn’t matter then. Micah hadn’t been to the fourth floor. Not that they knew, but he wasn’t going to explain either. There were only five people in this tent whose opinions mattered right now. Three of them looked confused. One immensely happy. Or satisfied, at least.
So the last one smiled at Ameryth and said, “You asked us and here is my answer: Proof is what I have to offer.”
----------------------------------------
Micah was exhausted. Thankfully, someone had brought Ms. Denner a chair a moment later so he could finally sit down on his. He doubted he would be able to stand for much longer. Or at least, he didn’t want to. He would have eventually sat down, either way, but it would have been awkward as Ameryth was clearly intent on staying here for the duration of the interview.
They gathered his belongings on the table to inspect them all, noting the damage on his equipment, the scratches and dents on his borrowed shield, and his wounds and appearance as they read his file.
Glasses scraped some of the dried glue from his ruined backpack and put it in a bottle for sampling.
Someone else appraised the scrolls and marbles and found they were probably not dangerous, but they wouldn’t tell Micah what they were either, since it would influence how he wrote his essay. If he couldn't appraise the items he found on his own, tough luck. Maybe he should have gotten them appraised somewhere else before coming here?
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The Kobold was dragged off for preservation, containment, and inspection purposes, they told him, and for some reason, Micah felt bad as he watched it go. He just wasn’t sure why. It had tried to kill him more than once and it was going to die soon. Maybe … he had just wanted to be there when it happened? To say goodbye? It had put up a good fight, after all. He gave it a curt nod instead, as the Kobold’s eyes were on him the entire time as it left the tent.
Then the judges demanded his attention and Micah gave it, completely.
“Twenty-six fire crystals,” Glasses counted—Micah had learned his name was Registrar Zayer by now, but he liked Glasses better—counted, “a mist crystal, a living and bound specimen of an as of yet unseen species of Kobold found on the first floor, its staff that it used to cast fire spells with, its obsidian dagger, and a first floor treasure chest from the Salamander’s Den filled with two sealed scrolls and a pouch full of fourteen glass marbles. Is that all you brought us, to the best of your knowledge, applicant Stranya?”
“Uhm …” Micah said, sitting across from three adults. Ameryth had seated herself at the side of the table and he couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t said a single words since she got here.
“The Kobold is also wearing clothes, sir,” he remembered. “I thought they might be enchanted?”
“A clothed Kobold, then,” he amended his statement, pen hovering over his file. “But we are noting the items you brought us to the best of your knowledge, not ours. Besides, the sealant you crested the specimen with blocked our appraisal attempts. We will only be able to do so once we have removed it.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Pay no mind. We have noted your … alchemical mixture and are aware of your efforts in keeping the specimen alive. Is there anything else? Physical objects, I mean, Mr. Stranya.”
“I wanted to make a physical map and report on the Kobold,” Micah said. “Will I still be able to do that?”
He nodded. “Immediately hereafter.”
“Alright then, that’s all I brought for now, sir.”
The man began to scribble.
“So you fought a pyromantic Kobold,” the woman in the middle said, holding his medical report. “In the first floor. And it resulted in … I’m not even going to list this, but these are a lot of injuries.”
She looked at him expectantly.
“Nothing serious, ma’am,” Micah reminded her. “Honestly, I could have ended the Kobold’s life within the first moment of engaging it. I threw the first punch. I could have just as easily have used my knife instead. But I purposefully dragged the fight out to see what it could do. It was my judgement that the information would be more valuable to the Guild than a crystal?”
He couldn’t help it. His voice went up at the end of that sentence.
“Is that a question?”
Micah shook his head. “No, I mean, it is more valuable. As soon as I write the report, anyone who reads it and goes into the Salamander’s Den looking for those Kobolds will be much better prepared to fight them. They will only even know where to find them thanks to the efforts I made.”
“Assuming your report is correct,” she said. “You might have missed something. Or every Kobold might know different spells from a set variety, as is the case with other spellcasting monsters. And even if not, it might cloud people’s judgement of the monsters and lead to mistakes while fighting them. Are you aware of that?”
“Those people’s mistakes are their own, not mine,” Micah said. “My duty is simply to offer as much information as I can. If they find anything else out, they can add it. Until then, my report will be the first best source of information.”
She nodded and put the medical report down. Her expression remained the same, but Micah suspected he had said the right thing, or gotten it close enough, even if she didn’t like his words or tone.
Big words, Micah had reminded himself earlier. When talking with adults he had to use big words and sound as pretentious as possible. He imagined it was liking writing an essay out loud. However, the lady in the middle didn’t seem to like that. Should he drop the act? Using big words was giving him a headache … another headache, besides the one he already had.
“You said ‘thanks to you’,” Glasses added. “‘They will only even know where to find them thanks to the efforts I made,’ those were your words just now. And yet, I have here a report that states you were the one to cause the collapse of the Salamander’s Den and its subsequent isolation from the rest of the Tower in the first place. You received a strike for this action, a rather mild punishment for something so grave.”
A cold sweat went down Micah’s back as he suddenly remembered that he had practiced doing Spreedruns on his own. If anyone had caught him doing that, would he have been punished for it? Ryan and Lisa had been right there, though. And how else was he supposed to prepare? Come to think about it, the people here knew about his punishment and had still let him take part in the exam. Was that ... alright?
“Are you not simply fixing a problem you yourself caused, Mr. Strayna?” Mr. Zayer went on, oblivious to the worry Micah felt. “And poorly at that, with only one entrance? Had you not caused that collapse, these Kobolds would be a common and publically known foe by now and all would still be able to enter the Salamanders’ Den. Now, we must climb down from the fourth floor to get there.”
The woman in the middle frowned and sat up straight. She leaned over to get a look at, then snatched away the report Glasses held. Apparently, she hadn’t known about this. After just a short moment, she glanced up at him with a scowl. Everyone else was looking at Micah, too, expecting a good answer.
Did he have a good answer?
“I ... may have caused the collapse of a part of the Salamander’s Den,” he said slowly, trying not to let the guilt eat at him. But he wasn’t responsible for this, he wanted to say. He had to believe that. It was an accident. And the alternative would have been him dying. Did they want to hear that from him? No. No way.
“But I in no way was able to cause its isolation from the portals. All I did was cause an explosion, sir. And until we know how the portals work, the main argument it that the Tower is responsible for their care. Uhm, and people can still go to the Salamanders’ Den through other means. There is a connection from the Dripping teeth just three miles off from the one I used. If there are two, there are bound to be others. So I guess, Climbers will just have to … ”—he took a deep breath—”get off their asses and go look for them, if you would excuse my choice of words.”
Glasses looked unoffended, Ameryth and the petite woman were smiling a little, only Cardigan looked unhappy about that. He hadn’t offered much to the conversation yet, though, so that was good enough.
“The Tower’s layout isn’t changing anymore,” Micah added. “So any connections found will last. Someone will make a map with the quickest route there soon enough.” He smiled. “It might even be me. Once my ribs have healed, of course. I mean, once I have healed them myself … I’m an [Alchemist] …?”
That had started well and ended poorly. Micah shut up before he made it any worse. He really would have liked to write the report first to gather his thoughts before speaking to these people.
“Excuse me, Ameryth,” Cardigan said, turning to her. “I know you told us to pretend like you’re not there, but isn’t this kind of a Big Deal? Shouldn’t the Guild be sending people to investigate this right away? We need to assure ourselves of the structural stability of that passageway, not believe in word of mouth. No offense, Mr. Stranya.”
“None taken?”
Ameryth raised an eyebrow and said nothing, but glanced at Glasses who picked it up for her.
“Ms. Denner no longer has any official authority over this branch of the Climber’s Guild, Mr. Salbei,” he spoke. “She has retired from her position and until school starts, her influence is entirely based on contacts and respect. Besides, she has duties elsewhere. If you want to send word to the new guild master, you may do so yourself. With her permission, of course.”
She nodded.
Cardigan gave his thanks and stood up, then hesitated. “Mr. Stranya. I’m sure you’ll be able to make a map and answer our questions at the same time?”
“Uhm, yes, sir?”
“Good.” He waved at a nearby helper. “Have someone bring this boy a pen and some paper.”
Then he left.
“Now that he’s gone,” Ameryth spoke for the first time since getting here. “I’ll stand in as a judge for Mr. Salbei until his return. Unless there are any objections?”
Nobody answered.
Micah suspected she and Glasses had wanted this.
“Good. So Mr. Stranya,” she said. “A map into an allegedly lost first floor of the Tower and discovery of a new type of Kobold. Your opening statement was that you had proof to offer. For an event that transpired four months ago? Is that all? We’ve all been to the Salamander’s Den when we started out, right? Why would anyone want to return to that place? And the Kobold he brought is just a weaker version of the fourth floor one, hardly worth mentioning.”
Glasses opened his mouth as if personally offended, but shut it again and just shook his head.
Ameryth smiled. “So my question is, shall we expect you to offer proof for all your future claims in four months’ time?”
“Uhm.”
Micah was caught off-guard by her sudden switch from no words to a lot of words. In his defense, he had hit his head at least four times in the last five hours, even if he had worn a helmet.
“No, ma’am,” he said slowly. “I believe that what I have … brought you today, both in items and information, speaks of greater qualities that I possess?”
“Is that a question?” the middle woman asked again.
“And what would those qualities be?” Ms. Denner added.
Oh, great. She’d called his bluff. Micah’s mind was reeling a little. He knew that bringing the Kobold here had been a Big Deal, even without Cardigan saying it. Glasses seemed to respect Micah personally based on that achievement alone, which probably meant he had the approval of the Registry for this exam.
He was willing to bet, if he focussed on drawing the conversation back to the Kobold, he would get a great grade for this exam. Ameryth was just trying to steer him off-course, bring him off his game and get him to admit negative qualities.
But she was also right in asking him for long-term qualities. Despite the effort Micah had put in, a large part of what he’d achieved today was based on the bad luck he’d had in encountering the Kobold back then. He’d turned something bad into something good, but luck was still luck, either way.
So what positive qualities did he have?
“I’m driven,” Micah said, the first thing that came to mind because he had been thinking about this topic for a while. “The representatives from the Guild didn’t believe my report of what happened in the Tower and, with all due respect, ma’am, I believe neither did you? Nor did some other people I had encountered. So once I had the opportunity to, I went inside to get proof for myself. I could only do that because I had followed up on a rumor I'd heard weeks before about the Tower not changing its layout. The first time I went back into the Salamanders’ Den, it wasn’t along the stairs someone else had built. I climbed down through the rubble myself. I wanted something and so I did everything I could to get it. And that … behavior…?”
Micah paused for a moment. That wasn’t right word.
“Mindset?” Glasses offered. “Attitude? Work ethic?”
“Mindset,” Micah picked at random, “will extend to any other future endeavors I undertake. Whether they be in the field of alchemy, exploring the Tower, or attending your school, ma’am.”
He took a deep breath and considered the words he had just thrown together for a moment, as did the judges. That … hadn’t been half-bad, right?
“You climbed down through the rubble?” Glasses asked, looking disapproving for once.
Oh, no. At his tone, Micah immediately realized his mistake. The newly opened school of the Climber’s Guild that was getting heat from all sides did not want to accept reckless students that might get themselves killed in the first year and cause them to be closed down.
“I did,” he immediately apologized. “And I learned from my mistake. I brought a friend of mine along, an above level 30 [Housemaster], to assess its condition before I went in a second time. By then, the stairs had been constructed and my friend used a spell, [Road of the Empire], to further stabilize them and the tunnel. That was four days ago.”
Glasses nodded at that and scribbled something down in his file, looking pleased.
Puh. Micah inwardly sighed at the same time as a man approached with pen and a small booklet of folded papers, like they used for entrance exams. Apparently, it was all they had.
He accepted it with a thanks and went to spread it out on the table so he could work while they asked questions, but Glasses gave him a look and said, “Thank you for your time, Mr. Stranya. If you would, please hand in your loot and borrowed equipment at the designated counter on the other side of the tent.”
He pointed.
Micah’s head whipped around to look at the counter he’d already seen before and he immediately turned back to ask, “Wait, that’s it? I mean, excuse me, sir, but are there no further questions?”
He frowned. “Is there anything else you would wish to speak about?”
“I, uhm … what about my equipment?”
“We have no questions concerning your preparations.”
“What about my grade?”
“We won’t be able to determine that right away,” he answered. “But … unless I’m overstepping my bounds…?” He looked at Ms. Denner, who hesitated, but then gave him a brief nod.
Glasses’ face split into a smile. “Good. Seeing the scores of your previous exams and what you brought us today, I’m sure the school will be looking forward to speaking with you again, Mr. Stranya. You should receive an invitation for an interview in the mail by the end of the week. And, of course, the Registry will be looking forward to speaking with you as well. Don’t forget to hand in an updated Proof Of paper by Tuesday should you level up from today’s experiences.”
He stood up held out a hand and Micah followed to meet him, feeling both overjoyed at his words and a little— Well, a lot lost.
He had just gotten confirmation that he would be invited to the interviews, which could either mean he was an edge case that they couldn’t decide on or that they were considering his scholarship applications. It could be either good or bad.
At least, the man had confirmed that Micah had done well today and would be given a chance. A chance, that was all he needed. So he said, “Thank you, sir.” He hesitated when he stopped shaking his hand. “But, uhm, what about feedback?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Feedback?”
“On my performance.”
Micah just felt like this interview was ending entirely took quickly. He had barely said anything to them.
“I’m sure … perhaps … hm,” Glasses said, clearly thinking something over. “We cannot give you any feedback that would influence your essay, you see?”
“Oh, right.” Micah nodded. “Of course.”
"It does seem like a flaw in our organization."
“Do you want feedback?” the woman in the middle asked, leaning forward. Somehow, she made her small shoulders seem broad.
Micah considered the question. Did he want some way of gauging how well he had done, aside from Glasses’ approval? He nodded. “Yes, please.”
“That’s always a good thing. Screw the essay, here’s one thing I will tell you: You can’t argue both extending your fight with the Kobold for the sake of gathering information and creating a map for others in today’s Towers. A few months ago, you wouldn’t have even been able to argue making a map in the first place. The Towers used to change. But if they don’t anymore…?”
Micah frowned, thought it over for a second, and realized the answer himself. If nobody knew about the Salamander’s Den and he didn’t know what the Kobold could do, then—
“Then I should have brought back proof first, not started with analyzing the Kobold. That put the information and myself at too much of a risk. I should have come back with greater numbers to safely examine how the Kobold fights later. Uhm, if I were a part of the Guild, I mean.”
She smiled and stood up to extend her hand. “You learn fast.”
Micah shook it. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Then I hope you’ll also learn this,” she added. “You were injured far too much during your fight with the Kobold. Collecting information is one thing, but you still need to do it safely and with much more competence than you showed today. You should never have let yourself get hit in the first place. Not even by those tracking arrows you mentioned.”
“I understand.”
“I really hope you do.”
He turned to Ameryth last and shook her hand as well when she stood up and offered it. Apparently, none of them minded his hand after all.
“Draw that map quickly,” she told him. “I’ll send Mr. Salbei your way when he gets back. He’ll handle the rest.”
“I will. And thank you, as well, for standing in for him during his absence. Uhm, good day?”
“Good day,” Glasses said.
The middle woman just waved and sat back down, immediately looking bored again, and Ameryth said goodbye and walked off to observe the next table, the next interview, the next story.
So Micah got his things, put his loot in his much light treasure chest, and handed it over at the counter. He got a note that said he should hand his essay in by seven fifteen, then went to a desk outside to write it.
It was just a simple report, a crude map since Micah didn’t remember the way perfectly, and a paragraph and a half arguing mostly the same points as he had made during the interview. He added only a few things: Only because he was an [Alchemist] had he been able to keep the Kobold alive outside of the Tower. He also added a few lines about how he had thought ahead and borrowed a shield, or how effective his self-made ammunition had been, but he didn’t know if those would be important.
Halfway through writing it, though, Cardigan—Mr. Salbei—showed up with three people who introduced themselves as Guild-employed scouts who gladly accepted Micah’s map and asked him if he would escort them into the fourth floor Wolves’ Den, since they had no way of getting where he’d been with any kind of assurance. That surprised him.
“You’ve led others there before, right?” he asked.
“Uhm, yes,” Micah said and didn't know if he should mention the hand-holding. “But what about my essay?” He gestured helplessly at his desk.
“No problem,” Mr. Salbei said. “I’ll write you a pass explaining why you handed it in later.”
“Oh, well then okay.”
Micah led the way, reluctantly asked to link up hands, and pointed the three of them in the right direction. He explained a little more about how he had found his way “North.” Thankfully, they saw how tired he was and didn’t ask him to come with so Micah just ducked out of the portal again.
That felt so weird, being able to do that, so he did it three more times. In. Out. In. Out. City. Forest. City. Forest.
It was a little dizzying and Micah stopped before he threw up. But as long as he thought of [Savagery], he was ensured that he would land in the Wolves’ Den and it had a portal back. What a wonder the Tower was. He wondered if anyone had figured out how to make portals elsewhere.
After handing in his essay and the now-empty flask the school had given him, Micah sat on a lawn a little ways off from the tent and decided to nap until Ryan and Lisa got back. He stared at the passing clouds and the blue sky and all was peaceful—aside from the increasing amount of teenagers coming out of the Tower, of course.
Once, an applicant came out of the Tower screaming and the medics rushed to lift him on a stretcher. Micah glimpsed a bloody figure being hurried away and wondered what had happened. He went back to dozing and pushed away the intrusive of thoughts of that having been Ryan or Lisa.
The sky was getting orange by the time someone stepped up behind him and leaned over to block his view. Micah didn’t mind. She immediately improved it after all. Anne smiled at him and his day went from good, though exhausting, to simply great.
She smiled. Always smiling. “Hey, Micah.”
“Anne.” He sat up and spun around to smile back. “How are you?”
“Tired,” she said and crouched down in front of him. She did look tired. It showed in the way she moved and held herself. Her boots were caked in drying mud, she smelled like the Sewers a little, and was covering a sheen of sweat.
She was still in a much better state than him, though, and had a pouch stuffed full of many things in her one hand, her shield in the other, and her sword was sheathed at her hip, all looking intact, unlike his gear.
Micah caught on the pouch, though. By the way it bulged in places, it look like it was filled to the brim with crystals. He asked, “Haven’t you been to the tent, yet?”
She shook her head. “No. Too many people getting back at the same time, too few judges. I’m to wait a few more minutes until I’m up. But I see you’ve been inside already.” She stifled a laugh. “You look like a giant Archertoad ate you up and spat you back out. How was it? What did you bring? What did they ask you?”
Surprisingly, Micah wasn’t embarrassed by his appearance. He’d put in a lot of effort to look like this after all, be it negative or not. “Oh, you know …” he said with false modesty and wagged his foot a little. “I just brought back an entirely new type of monster from the Salamander’s Den. No big deal.”
Her eyes went wide and plopped into the grass with the words, “Explain. Now.”
Micah happily explained.
By the end of it, she was pouting, “Oh, man. And all I brought back was a bunch of crystals. That’s so unfair.”
Micah frowned at her small pouch. Was that really all she had brought back? It didn’t look like it could hold much. Forty or so crystals, tops. That couldn’t be everything. He squinted at her and decided, “Liar.”
She smiled, caught. “Not true. I really did only bring back a bunch of crystals. But it’s what the crystal are that matters. I heard some other people talking about it before the exam, about how they would love to bring back everything.”
“Well, that’s impossible.”
She pointed at him. “Right! That’s what they thought, too. But I thought, Anne, you can bring back everything, if you had enough time, you know? Surely, the judges would have to see that, too? If only I could prove it. So I thought about how I can shape that into a good argument and …”
“And…?” Micah asked.
“I brought back one of each crystal!”
Micah’s smile fell. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.” She raised her chin up. “Thirty-five different types of crystals from the first five miles of the first three floors of the Tower of Hadica, proof of my worth, my fair gentlemen and ladies.” She did a mock bow in sitting. “Now, accept me into your school, if you please.”
She chuckled as Micah looked at her in admiration. If she’d really done that then she had to have been running for five hours straight. Even without a backpack and being prepared for the trip, just how …?
“What do you think?” she asked him.
“I think you’re going to get the first place,” Micah said honestly. She had a true proof of what she could do. All Micah had brought back was a discovery and a tacked-on argument. That didn’t carry the same weight as something like this.
“Really?” she asked. “First place … I hope so. Because, believe me, that was the most exhausting thing I’ve done in my life. Well, second most exhausting thing. I even had to use all of my Skills and—” She broke off sharply and spun around.
A man was calling at the tent, “Applicant #1717? Applicant #1717! You’re up!”
Anne stood up. “That’s me. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck!” Micah called and smiled long after she had left. Then he let himself fall back in the grass. When he looked at the clouds, though, he remembered her poking into view above him.
A while later, someone else fell into the grass next to him with a huff of exhaustion and a groan.
“Hey, Ryan.”
“You’re alive,” he said, sounding relieved.
“Mm … you won’t like what they said about my wounds, though.”
“You’ll heal,” he said and hesitated. “You will heal, right?”
“Yes … aside from one tooth. I chipped a tooth. Sorry.”
“What are you apologizing to me for?”
Micah frowned. “I don’t know. I promised I would be safe.”
“And were you?”
“Not as safe as I could have been.”
“Then I know you’ll work on it. Smile?”
Micah tilted his head over and smiled. He saw Ryan then, and he was just as exhausted as the rest of them. Some of his clothes look soaked for some reason and he was covered in sweat and grime. He must have put a lot of effort into today as well. Of course he had. Who wouldn’t?
Now, he was frowning softly as he searched Micah’s smile. “Where…?”
Micah pointed with his tongue.
“Oh. It’s barely visible. If anything, it makes your smile a little cheekier.”
“Uhm?”
“That’s a good thing,” he answered. “Anne will like it.”
“Anne—” Micah corrected him out of habit and paused. “Oh, you got it right. You think she will?”
“I bet.”
It was a nice thought.
“And,” Micah asked after a moment. “How did you do? How did your mysterious plan go?”
Ryan grinned. “I made it.”
“What was it?”
“I ... sort of collected one of every crystal in the first three floors.”
Micah froze and exclaimed, “That’s what Anne did, too! Is that a common plan or why is everyone doing it?”
Ryan's grin dropped to a disappointed frown. “Wait, she did it, too?"
"Yeah, you're both awesome."
"I guess, if we both managed to come up with it, a lot of people tried. It doesn’t really seem like a 0.1% plan to me, you know? In retrospect, I mean. Do you know if she succeeded?”
“Yep. Thirty-five crystals from the first five miles of the first three floors of the Tower.”
“Thirty-five …” Ryan mumbled. “Oh, she must have missed a fire crystal. I got thirty-four from the first three miles instead.”
Micah glanced at him, worried. “Are they going to demerit that if she doesn’t have them all?”
“Possibly. But only four people knew about the Salamander’s Den, so that would be pretty harsh of them. It depends on how high their standards are.”
Oh. So they were going to demerit it. “Poor Anne …” Micah mumbled and perked up. “But who are you people? How can you do stuff like running through the Tower for five hours on end while the rest of us mortals—”
“Capture and drag Kobolds through the Tower on foot?” Ryan interrupted him.
Micah brushed him off. “That’s different. I won’t be able to move tomorrow.”
He snorted. “And you think I will?”
At that, Lisa fell into the grass between them.
Micah got a warm arm to the face and tried to roll away, but it was harder than he thought so he shook it off and complained, “Oh, great, I won’t even be able to move now.”
“And?” Lisa asked. “How did you two do?”
“Eh.”
“Hrn.”
She smiled. “Perfect, because I’m pretty sure I failed.”
“Huh?”
They both spun on her.
“I found two treasure chests,” she explained with a grin, “and I didn't give them anything but crystals. My three judges were not happy when I set down the two boxes and refused to hand them over. Apparently, they take the whole ‘sacrifice yourself for the Guild’ thing seriously.”
Micah didn’t know why, but he found himself laughing. It was just for a few seconds, but by the end he was wheezing for breath as the other two looked at him like he had gone insane. He had to force himself to give away the treasure chest for his score and Lisa could just...? Lisa and Ryan were awesome. If he had done better during his first two exams, he'd be able to do anything he wanted during this one, too.
Next time, he told himself. Out of curiosity, he asked, “You failed? Whatever happened to the girl who was mad at me for failing an exam?”
“She doesn’t care anymore,” Lisa said. “She knows how great she is. Why would she need it on paper?”
Ryan was smiling, too. “You are pretty great. And just look at Micah’s backpack. He’s probably going to have to buy a new one—”
Micah interrupted, “I’m going to have someone teach me sewing and fix it myself.”
“Or that,” Ryan said. “But you did the right thing. Forcing us to throw everything on the line and taking our rewards? It sucks. Not for me, I just got crystals, but for others. We’re not even guild employees. But I guess this is how they’re paying for the entrance exam.”
Micah hadn’t even considered that. How much did two-thousand flasks of middle-grade healing potion cost? A lot, he bet. Even just the flasks on their own. Not mentioning the cost of hiring everyone for today, renting the tent and the space, and—
Well, the equipment was probably the school’s equipment for Tower classes anyway. It still sucked that they took their loot. He wondered what those two sealed scrolls had hidden. One was probably a drawing of an animal or a monster. They were from the first floor, after all. But the other…?
He shoved that out of his mind—there was no point dwelling on it—and told Lisa, “Either way, you did well during the first two exams.”
“And I’m sure you’ll get some points for your essay,” Ryan said. “You did write an essay explaining, right?”
“I did,” Lisa said. “And I did hand in twenty-two crystals, so I have nothing to worry about. I know. Thanks.”
They lay there for another moment before Lisa asked, “But seriously, how did you do? Is Apples coming to school with us? Is Ryan still in the top ten? I need answers, people!”
They told each other what they had done—apparently, Lisa had sent Sam out to scout for treasure chests and gotten lucky—and only stopped trading stories when the sky dimmed and their stomachs starting rumbling in harmony. So then Micah invited the others to drop by Prisha's to order a feast. Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow he'd worry about money. And if he had to spend the upcoming weeks hunting for Honey Ants every day, he would do it.