Outside, the storm still raged.

As she stood in the narthex, watching flashes of lightning through the stained glass windows and the open doors, her mind raced.

‘Candidate.’

The title swirled around her head; all her memories from the tutorial swirling through her mind like a box of old photographs that had spilled into a puddle, melting into the darkness. How could she have forgotten?

Guin bit her lip. Every spirit she had met had called her that—but back then, it meant nothing. Back then, she scoffed. It was what, three days ago?

Guin pulled up the quest that had been given to her.

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[Dusk Candidate (Fate Quest) (0 Points)]

Having this Fate Quest active enables you to receive special quests, meet special NPCs, and receive bonuses during spirit-related quests.

You have been marked.

Others with a Fate Quest of the same name can hunt you down for points toward their candidacy and will not receive a PK penalty.

You can see others who have the ‘Candidate’ Fate Quest. Killing a player with a different ‘Candidate’ quest than yours will only net half the points and will not receive a PK penalty.

This quest cannot be removed, refused, or skipped. (Difficulty: S)>>

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Tsk-ing, she ripped a few hangnails off her fingers—an action which, to both her great amusement and dismay, took off several of her health points.

This was a quest destined to be a lifelong curse for someone like her, who liked confrontation even less than she liked garule. In fact, that was one reason why she didn’t like the garule. She hugged her arms to her chest, burying her fingers as far away from her teeth as she could.

In all likelihood, this quest was the reason she had gotten the Veil quest from the Head Scribe at all. There was no way to confirm it, of course, but she was well aware that, even excluding her negative traits, a [Presence] score as low as hers should have had a considerable effect on her relationships with NPCs in the Che realm. It was possible that because the Head Scribe could also see into the Veil, she had given her the quest based on her high [Spirit] stat, which replaced the [Presence] stat in the Veil realm, and her respective Veil traits—but the implication that the inscription quest was connected to her Tenmath Candidacy could not be ignored.

What did he mean that ‘the Tenmath were on the move’? As far as she understood it, the Tenmath shouldn’t care about the Candidates, only the Heart—and the Heart was chosen from among the Tenmath themselves. Not that it mattered. She had no desire whatsoever to become a Tenmath, let alone the Heart. She just wanted to play the game.

What, then, should she do?

I really don’t want to have to do PvP at all, she groaned internally. The reality she had to submit to was that it didn’t matter what she wanted.

“No use crying over spilled milk...” she muttered.

With a blink, she found herself face to face with her favorite floating cat.

“Milk?” Liorax went, a grin spreading from ear to ear. “Why, yes. Yes, please.”

“I didn’t mean for you,” Guin scowled, poking his nose.

With a purr, he brushed against her face, going, “Milk!”

“Can it wait?”

“Can I curse you?”

Growling, she rummaged through her inventory. “I have jerky?”

Liorax floated up to stick his wide eyes in her face. “Milk!”

“It’s raining,” she pointed out. “And milk’s not actually good for cats, you know?” He simply stared at her with great expectation. “Fine,” she sighed and pulled out a paper and ink from her bag. In messy handwriting, she scrawled: Level 8 Scribe, LFG for Cats. PST, and sent it up into the air, where it would go to wherever the game felt the appropriate place was. “Let’s go.”

Pulling up the fox-headed hood of her fur cloak around her face, Guin ran into the rain outside, making her way out to the marketplace. Liorex, meanwhile, made a nest in her hair under her hood.

Though she wasn’t sure how happy she was to have been drenched, it wasn’t a terrible detour. She was able to appease the Harbinger of Death’s milk addiction and stocked up on that and a few other goods in preparation for her trip into the Catacombs.

With Liorax happily lapping up a bowl of milk that was somehow magically balanced on her head, she stopped and got herself a shiny new dagger she saw as they passed the armory. She wasn’t a fan of rouge-style combat, and she had the spear Jormund had given her, but she figured that having the small, flexible backup weapon on hand would bring far more good than harm.

Just after she slid the dagger into her belt, a ding rang in her ears, and a message symbol appeared like a tattoo on her arm. Tapping brought it into focus in a small window similar to a WristComp screen. She read:

‘Hi there! I’m Athariel Goldfeather! I am forming a party for the Cats! We have a group of three right now, and we are waiting on a few responses. It’s first come, first serve, so please reply if you are still looking for a party!’

Guin quickly responded, and a party invite popped up. When she accepted it, three names and character images popped up to the left-hand side of her line of sight; Athariel Goldfeather’s portrait took the leadership position at the top, followed by a serious-looking bald man with the name ‘Zen,’ and the image of a blue and orange garule named ‘TeaforaDragon’.

A video screen with the image of a blonde-haired, brown-eyed valkyrian woman with green mystriks freckling her face came up.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Hey! I’m Athariel!” The woman said with an elegant voice. “You should be able to see us on your map. We are in the back of the cathedral, in front of the dungeon entrance! Still waiting to hear from one more.”

“Okay, cool,” Guin said. “I’ll be on my way in a few.”

The woman nodded, and the video closed out. She ran back to the cathedral through the rain. Taking a moment to let the system dry her off before meeting up with the party, she took a minute to check her status and abilities.

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Points to Spend: 10

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The progress of her stats had slowed considerably since she had left the tutorial. Her abilities had each gained a few levels, though it was becoming clear that there was no way she could level everything she learned. Only the abilities and skills that she used the most had any consistent progress; [Spirit Shield], [Dance], [Fox Form], [Trip], [Backstab], and [Spear - Strike] were her best abilities, each at level 8 or 9. Those were followed by the quickly growing [Magic Circle] and [Hymn of the Light], which had served invaluable to her while she quested alone.

When she closed out her window, she saw another image appear in the team roster: a pure white garule by the name of Ibraxis Soulkeeper.

Guin paused and nibbled on her fingernail as she looked at the portraits of the two garuli. What she had told Stella wasn’t a lie; she was getting better—but that didn’t mean that she was entirely confident that she could accept them completely. Then again, she considered. ‘Guin’ and ‘Dassah’ aren’t necessarily the same people... Coming to terms with her existence as a character, she made her way to the entrance where the party was waiting. When they came into view, she matched her portraits to their avatars.

Athariel stood confidently, a few inches taller than Guin from the looks of it, dressed in greens and browns with a bow strung across her chest. She had a certain noble air about her that could have easily fit an image of a classic elvish archer.

On Athariel’s left was Zen, a lean young man who wasn’t much taller than her. His lack of mystriks told Guin he was probably human, like herself. Much more of an imposing figure, he stood out in his bright orange shirt and loose, navy blue pants. His fists were wrapped in white cloth, and Guin guessed he was some sort of monk class.

Standing at the other side of the elfish woman looking to be about Guin’s height, was Teaforadragon. The blue and orange feathers of their scrawny bare chest were vibrant against the dull brown of the rest of their attire. They carried a short sword at his waist and a lyre on their back.

Next to Zen was Ibraxis Soulkeeper. Their feathers were pristine, almost gleaming white, though much of their body was covered in colorful patterned cloth. A veil of bones and painted beads were draped over their head, covering their snout and falling down their shoulders. The veil was matched by various accessories it had on its arms, legs, and tail. He eyed her with wary curiosity through vibrant orange-gold eyes. Seeing no visible weapon, Guin assumed they were probably a magic user.

Athariel saw her first and held up a graceful arm to wave at her. The others turned and looked to where Guin was, though the only other one to make any sort of gesture was the blue and orange garule, who started jumping up and down excitedly.

“What a lively-looking group,” Liorax yawned from her head, flicking his tail into Guin’s eyes.

“Behave yourself,” she muttered up at him, waving back to them as she went over.

“Welcome, welcome!” the smaller garule went first, taking up her hand. Startled, Guin started at them in shock, but they didn’t seem to notice and went on, their tail whipping back and forth excitedly. They were speaking Isoli-Valkyrian which was translated to a rather boyish voice, which Guin took as a safe indication he was male. “I’m TeaforaDragon! You can call me Tea! This is Ath, Zen, and Ibraxis! And we are gonna go hunt mice! Isn’t it exciting? I’m excited! ”

“A-Ahh...,” Guin went, her mind unable to parse his exuberance in a reasonable time. “I couldn't tell...”

Athariel laughed and slapped the garule on the back, causing him to yelp and look at her with pitiful eyes. Frowning, she said, “Tea, down.”

“Sorry,” he giggled, rubbing his shoulder with a sheepish grin.

“Sorry about him,” Ath said. “He’s a little excitable. He’s small for his kind, something he makes up for with his good nature.” Guin nodded. “Now, introductions! You probably know our names already, but let’s give the official run down! I am Athariel Goldfeather—as Tea said, you can call me Ath. This is Zen, a Monk. He’ll be tanking for us today. You’ve met Tea. He’s a bard; count on him for support. The bigger garule there is Ibraxis, a shaman. He’ll — He’ll?” Athariel looked to the white garule for confirmation, and he nodded. “He’ll serve as our main healer.”

“I’m the only classless one then, huh?” Guin noted.

Tea gave her a toothy grin. “Don’t worry!” he went. “As a bard, I’m pretty useless too! Just wait, though. Once I hit my twenties! I’ll be the strongest and coolest one on this team!”

“Having a class only adds what one cannot make up for with skill and knowledge,” Zen said. “Combat is not about ‘cool.’”

Ath pat him on the back, “Yes, yes, very monk-like, Zen. Let’s not get off track now, hm?”

“It’s a game!” Tea reminded him, sticking his tongue out. “I’ll do what I want!”

Ibraxis snorted. “Shall we start moving? Nice as this is, I do not think any of us have all day to chit-chat.”

“Yes!” Ath nodded.

Tea took up his lute and pointed it toward the door, cheering, “Onward! To Battle! To Treasure! To—”

“Shut. Up.” Zen told him, walking passed.

“Spoilsport,” Tea grumbled as Ath laughed. Tea followed them, wiggling his tail, which suddenly turned into a spread of peacock-like feathers, flaring out in a brightly colored pattern of blue and orange and green.

Guin felt her mouth fall open as she watched Tea disappear into the dungeon with Ath and Zen.

“Something wrong?” Ibraxis asked in a deep sonorous, translated voice that carried over a simultaneous translation in her ears, overlapping the sounds of the bird-song language of the garuli he was speaking.

Still dumbfounded, she pointed at the dungeon entrance. “T-That... There were feathers,” she looked up at him. “Is that normal?” He blinked at her, then burst out laughing. The bones and beads that covered his body jingled as he moved.

“J-Just go!” he told her between his laughter, pointing at the door.

“B-But,” she went. “Is that normal?”

“It is perfectly normal,” Ibraxis assured her. “If anything is abnormal in this group it is me. Now go. Shoo.” He waved her forward, a bemused expression on his face.

“You? What’s weird about you?”

“Go.”

“This one is pushy,” Liorax observed. She had forgotten he was there.

Guin saw Ibraxis’s eyes flicker to her head. “‘This one’ can hear you, cat,” Ibraxis told him.

“Oh!” Liorax drawled, sounding very unimpressed. “So it can.”

“Hm,” the white garule went, his pupils contracting as he motioned Guin forward with his snout.

Keeping her eyes on the snickering garule who stayed behind her as she walked, Guin went forth into the dark of the Catacombs.