Marlin set them up to meet their respective instructors early the next day at around nine in the morning. They had to meet Ark at the guild at seven, so their morning was fairly packed. Luckily, they didn’t need much sleep, because their meeting with Marlin was very late.

After getting a very refreshing three hours of sleep, they decided to sleep in a little, it was around five in the morning. This world didn’t really have much to do in your home, besides reading of course, – which Vorn was more than fine with. – so they decided to head out early.

They arrived at the guild a little before five thirty, sat down, and ordered some food. The guild food was surprisingly good, that probably came with the territory of having high-level people in most positions. As they were eating, they felt a nervous tap on their shoulder. Rowan nearly grabbed his weapon, but Vorn took over before he could do anything they would regret.

Behind them, the strange… rogue? From the artificer’s shop stood. He wore a black cloak over dark gray leather armor. His face under the cloak was also masked, a black cloth covering his mouth and nose. It seemed to shimmer slightly in the light as if the fibers were laced with silver.

“Ah, hello… I didn’t mean to startle you…” He spoke anxiously.

“It’s fine, but you should probably just call out to us next time, Rowan gets jumpy.” Vorn said.

“I did…” He said, somehow even quieter than before.

“Oh. Hmm, that is a hard problem to solve. Are you cursed or something? Sorry, that’s a personal question, you don’t have to answer that!” Vorn quickly corrected.

“N- no, I’m not cursed. It’s a p-perk called wallflower, and it makes it way harder for me to be noticed…” He trailed off at the end as if he thought that they would get mad if he talked any longer.

“How interesting. It’s not often perks have actively detrimental effects.” Vorn appeared lost in thought, so Rowan took over while he chewed on that information.

“When did you get here? I have been keeping an eye out for you the whole time.” Rowan spoke in his practically trademarked monotone.

“Uh… an hour before you two? I’ve been trying to get your attention the whole time…”

“Wow.” Rowan spoke with genuine surprise, even if for him that meant only a slight inflection entering his tone, “That is some perk. If you join us, you will be a superb addition. We will need a way to prevent us from losing you, though. I wouldn’t want to hit you mid battle.” His tone became slightly more excited.

To anyone else, it would sound like he finally became mildly interested in the conversation, but to Vorn he sounded almost manic. Especially for his ‘conversational speech’ which was always more reserved than his internal speech.

“Ah, about that… I ca- won’t fight close up. I’m uh… scared of blood.” He whispered out, incredibly embarrassed.

“Oh? Then how will you contribute? I assume you wouldn’t be asking to join us if you had nothing to add, so you must be good at something besides melee combat.”

“I’m, uh, good with poison. My Class is actually unique, which is why I wanted to join your party in the first place…” he mumbled quickly, “It’s basically a mix of alchemist and rogue.”

“That would be very useful-” Rowan was cut off by Vorn taking over, “Can you make potions, too? Or just poison? Do you get a damage boost for inflicting poison undetected? How do you inflict your poisons without drawing blood?” He asked in rapid succession.

“Uh, I am really good at making airborne toxins… And I don’t mind if you use them on your weapons! I just do- don’t like inflicting wounds u-up close. I can make some potions, but I’m not very good at it, so their efficacy leaves something to be desired… My poisons are really strong, though!” He shouted at the end and then proceeded to turn cherry red.

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“Very, very cool. We’ll have to work out several strategies if you wanna work with us, but I bet it’ll be worth it. For now, take one of these,” Vorn handed them one of their comm stones, “They vibrate when someone contacts you on it. Call once if you just wanna talk, or call twice if it’s something urgent. Oh, and next time you want to get our attention, if the comm doesn’t work, just throw a rock or something at us. Don’t want my partner up here stabbing you, that won’t be fun for anyone, especially for your hemophobia.”

“Thank you for your consideration…” The poor guy looked like he was ready to cry at being shown basic kindness.

Vorn looked at the clock, “So! What books do you like? We have about an hour before Ark gets here, so we should get to know each other a little!” No one would know that if he wasn’t talking about the System, magic, or books Vorn was just as introverted as the wallflower.

“Uh-” He was cut off by Rowan taking over, “Don’t you think we should ask his name first, before getting to know him?”

“Good point! What’s your name?”

“My name is, um, Rexenarious’ar’celona, but my family calls me Rexen…” He said, hiding his face. Voran guessed he was just embarrassed because of his long name.

“Cool name. I’m guessing your Elvish?” Vorn asked.

“I’m a half-elf actually.” He took down his dark hood and mask to reveal regal features, matte black hair, bright blue eyes, and slightly pointed ears. He really did look like a picture-perfect combination of a Lunarian and an Elf. The black hair was pretty rare among both Elves and Lunarians, but it wasn’t unheard of by any means.

“Back to the main topic,” Vorn spoke excitedly, “what are your favorite novels?”

“Uh… romance.” He seemed to cringe as he said it.

“Oh, awesome! I still have a ton of romance novels from back when I was still figuring myself out, I could give you some if you like!”

Rexen looked surprised by the easy acceptance, “S-sure! I would love to have a look at them!”

Vorn smiled internally, he knew it. The best way to bond was over literature, there could be no better way.

— — —

After Ark arrived, they introduced the two, and they got along fine. Vorn and Ark’s outgoing personalities – Even if only outgoing when discussing their interests – naturally drew out the same in Rexen. Even he began to start animatedly discussing his love of poisons towards the end of their meeting. Afterwards, Voran told them about their training and postponed their next dungeon dive to overmorrow.

With the introductions out of the way, they headed off to meet their instructors.

After they had left Marlin’s, he had one of his servants bring them a letter telling them when and where they would meet their instructors, with the caveat that they would only change their schedules once so Voran could meet them both at the same time. Past this, they would have to meet each individually.

They arrived at a private property in the middle of nowhere, only a few dozen feet away from the city's ramparts. The property itself was more a field than anything developed. It only had a little shack out front. Dimensionally, it reminded Rowan of a shooting range. It had a few acres of length, following the wall itself pretty closely, but only a few dozen feet of width.

They knocked on the dilapidated door of the shack but were met with silence. Suddenly, an overwhelming feeling of danger engulfed them and Rowan was forced to take over and dodge. A sharp whistling was heard just to the left of his head. He quickly turned around, but before he could blink he had a knife to his throat.

“Surrend-” the assailant was cut off by Rowanerupting in bright white flames.

Their attacker was vaporized, and Vorn let his flames die down.

“What the hell was that-”

This time, Vorn was interrupted as the very same knife found its way back to their throat.

“What a poor way to treat your instructor. Though, you get extra points for an appropriate reaction.” The man backed away and let them look at him.

He was a middle-aged Elf with jade hair streaked with silver. His face had the distinctive Elven features that most had, the high cheekbones and sharp nose, but he also had a few unique to him. Namely, the large scar that engulfed the left half of his face, giving it a slightly shiny look. It trailed all the way up to his hairline, stopping a few centimeters after.

While they were studying him, his viridian eyes were doing the same to them.

“You’ve seen a lot of combat for one so young. One can only wonder how that’s possible with your level being so low.” The statement was obviously meant to be a question, but if he wasn’t going to be direct, then Rowan wasn’t going to answer. He didn’t have time for a dance of words, he just wanted to get better with his weapons. He was only lightly trained with daggers, as firearms and plasma weaponry were the tools people truly fought with in his time. Honestly, the dagger training was only a formality for the worst-case scenario, and most would never have to use it.

“That was a rude way of introducing yourself. You could have just said hi.” Vorn would have laughed, but he knew Rowan wasn’t joking. How the man could accidentally wisecrack better than him was a little upsetting.

“I had to gauge your reactions. They were… decent, I suppose. The short gap at the start was the most concerning part. I’m assuming that was when you were switching with your partner?”

“Indeed.” Rowan answered.

“Well, that was your most glaring flaw. The second being the fact that you don’t have a scabbard for your dagger, but that can be rectified with a quick visit to the shop.”

“Yes, you do have a point. I shouldn’t have let my guard down, even in a city. I suppose I have gotten used to the seemingly peaceful nature of Bern. My mistake.”

“Excellent. I have a feeling you're going to be one of my easier students. You seem used to criticism, most of my students get very defensive at first.” He spoke, and even Rowan could feel the sheer exhaustion that came from that sentence. This was clearly a man whose calling wasn’t teaching.

“Now, for you Vorn. Your instructor will be here shortly, he had to pick his son up from medical unexpectedly today, so he’s going to be a little late. While we wait, I’ll go ahead and get Rowan up to speed on what he can expect from my class. Since he seems to have a lot of experience in combat, I can afford to be a little rougher than I normally would.” Rowan distinctly remembered that same look in one of his more sadistic drill sergeants, and he was suddenly feeling a little nervous.