Three men were seated around an obscenely long table, which was situated at the far end of a large classroom. Taking up the entire wall behind them was a map of the world, its four continents and six oceans rendered in artistic detail. To the left of the table were an array of tall windows that let in a generous amount of sunlight, and the right was occupied primarily by posters and notices. The middle of the room had been cleared out aside from a single wooden chair. Opposite the table was a line of old cupboards that looked as if they belonged in some kindly grandmother’s living room. Right next to this array of aged furniture was the door connecting the room to the rest of the League’s office building.

As for the trio of gentlemen occupying this space, they were a rather diverse bunch. The first a rough-looking individual of diminutive stature yet exceptional girth, otherwise known as a dwarf. He was by no means just a miniature human though, the proportions were all off. His arms stretched all the way down to his knees, his legs looked a few sizes too short, and his skull was so wide that it might as well have been a cube. A huge ginger beard hung off his thick jaw and draped over his bulging belly, though anyone who confused this generousness for fat was in for a rough awakening and a punch to the groin. The dwarf was wearing some heavy boots, a pair of faded jeans, and a rough-looking hemp shirt that might have been red once. His chubby fingers moved with uncanny dexterity as he lazily twirled a revolver.

On the other end of the table was a well built slab of a man on the tall side. The off-white shirt under his open brown vest was unbuttoned towards the top, showing off a bit of chest hair and a necklace fashioned out of beast fangs. His sleeves were rolled up to his biceps and his hands were resting idly upon his head of chestnut hair. A thick moustache resided upon his lip, sandwiched between a relaxed smile and a pair of half-closed eyelids. His trousers were no less clean than the dwarf’s overalls, though that hadn’t stopped him from hoisting his legs up onto the table along with a pair of boots that had far too many buckles on them. The man was leaning so far back in his seat that the chair teetered precariously on its hind legs, completing the image of a stereotypical lackadaisical slacker.

Nestled between the two was a middle-aged fellow whose appearance could be described in full by two words - office worker. Everything from the balding scalp and thick-lensed glasses down to the worn suit and plain necktie screamed ‘this guy works a desk job.’ His frame, though nothing special, looked positively scrawny compared to the men flanking him. His attitude was, unsurprisingly, the most high-strung of the three. While the dwarf was bored out of his thick skull and the slacker was trying to master sleeping with his eyes open, the baldie between them was a bundle of nerves. The cause of his unease was not, as one might expect, the two ruffians flanking him, but the small stack of papers on the table in front.

“So where is this guy, huh?!” the dwarf asked angrily. “I thought you city-slickers prided yourself on punctuality and whatnot.”

“Relax, Skully,” the laid back gent urged. “I’m sure he’s on his way. Maybe he got lost on his way up to the third floor, you know how it is.”

“Hah! Any eejit that can’t find a room in a building ain’t gonna cut is an explorer, I tell you hwat. That means you, too, Jackie.”

“Watch it now. I didn’t get lost. I just… wanted to explore it at my own pace.”

“Feller, your pace might as well be a turtle having a seizure while high on swamp weed. If Bobbeh here didn’t send whats-her-face to find you, you’d still be sleeping downstairs in the kitchen.”

“At least I wouldn’t have to listen to your yippity-yapping.”

Skully took that as a challenge. And, like the red-blooded dwarf that he was, he immediately answered it by pointing his hefty piece at Jack’s head. Doing so placed the firearm squarely in Bob’s face, which the stressed out desk jockey did not take well.

“For fuck’s sake! Will you idiots stop it!” the man shrieked. “He’s going to be here any moment, and the last thing I need is you two tearing the place up! Look, just, take this one seriously, alright? If what I’m reading is correct, he’s the real deal, otherwise I wouldn’t need you here.”

The dwarf kept his barrel trained on Jack before he abruptly pulled it back, gave it a twirl, and then holstered it on his hip. At the same time, the seemingly laid back explorer carefully pushed whatever he was about to take out of his pocket back in. He also straightened up his posture and put his wide-brimmed straw-woven sun hat back on.

“So, Bob. Who is this guy that’s got your panties in a bunch, eh?” Jack lazily inquired.

“Probably just another rich daddy’s boy looking for an easy thrill,” Skully scoffed. “Just so you know, I ain’t playing babysitter to no spoiled brat. Not after last time.”

“Uh, actually, he’s… a nobody,” the recruitment officer revealed. “Some bumpkin from North… Weaselton or something.”

“Then why does the League need two of us fielders for an interview?” Jack pressed.

“It’s, uh…”

Bob cringed as he glanced at the papers, his brain looking for a way to make sense of the information therein. For better or for worse, he didn’t get a chance to put his problems to words before there was a loud knock on the door that made the recruitment manager nearly leap out of his seat.

“Must be him,” Skully figured, then yelled. “Come in!”

The air in the room instantly changed when he entered it. The stranger stood tall, taller than any man had any right to be. He walked with slow and heavy steps, almost as if he were a thousand-year-old tree trunk with legs. He sat in the empty chair in the middle like an avalanche settling at the bottom of a ravine and crossed his arms. His face, one of utter determination, sported braided locks and a full beard that gave off the impression of a combed mane. His broad-shouldered physique was wrapped in the finest apparel that Huxley & Smith had to offer, though the trappings of society did little to mask the wild, almost feral energy that emanated from him. It was as if an entire mountain - trees, animals, cliffs, and all - had taken on the guise of a human. His mere presence dominated the room, making it feel distinctly smaller.

Both of the seasoned explorers went on high alert. Any vestiges of boredom or laziness had been replaced by a cold intensity that matched that of the visitor’s steely-eyed stare. The tension in the room was so thick that one could cut it with a knife. The meek officer worker in their midst was feeling it the most. He’d shrunk so much into his chair one would think he were a decrepit old man even though he clearly had a few good decades left in him. He was supposed to greet the applicant and ask him some questions that would help gauge the quality of his character, yet he couldn’t utter a peep. His two colleagues were just as dead silent, though in their case it was because they didn’t need words.

Jack moved first. He stood from his seat and walked over to the blond visitor with measured urgency. The stranger, seemingly understanding what was expected of him, rose to his feet as well. The two men stared at each other for a brief moment before Jack extended a hand. The bipedal mountain grasped and shook it without any hesitation. A wry smile spread on the explorer’s face as his eyes slackened to their natural half-closed state.

“Welcome to the League. We’ll be in touch.”

A stoic nod of thanks was all he got in return before the living boulder rumbled out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Ozzy wobbled over to the far wall and leaned against it hard. His heart was pounding, his palms were sweating, and he was wheezing like a goblin that had just climbed ten flights of stairs. He hadn’t been this nervous since that time he had to arm-wrestle a minor wolf deity for the right to pass through its sacred forest. Despite having been tested in battle time and time again, this was the first time he’d ever had to conduct a formal interview for a position. He didn’t know why, but something about the stringent nature of such proceedings made him feel caged and restricted.

It also didn’t help that the first two parts of his evaluation hadn’t gone all that smoothly. The man had confidence in his physical abilities, but had neglected his conditioning ever since he first landed in Last Flag. Between getting bedridden from his gunshot wound and then spending so much time either reading or people-watching, he hadn’t done a lick of training. It wasn’t as if his muscles were actively abandoning him, but he was definitely smaller than he was thirty days ago. Furthermore, he had a hunch the air pollution was doing a number on his lungs and sapping his stamina little by little. He wasn’t so out of shape that he felt like he’d had a poor showing at the physical trials, but they could’ve done better.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The written exam, though? That was an absolute disaster. The first part of the test consisted of a dozen or so straightforward multiple choice questions, a fair number of which he had to guess at the answers. The latter half was a series of just as many open-ended queries. They posited a hypothetical situation that could occur on an expedition and asked the applicant what steps he or she would take to resolve each imaginary issue. Ozzy didn’t really have to think about them, but he had a sinking sensation his short answers would be deemed lacking. After all, even with his messy handwriting he barely took up a fifth of the provided space. Some of his solutions were more verbose than others, but he couldn’t help but doubt whether he was perhaps being too simple-minded. The League clearly valued brains over brawn if a bookworm like Eva could join, and he was far from proficient in that department.

And then came the interview. With his self-admitted faults and insecurities looming over him, he couldn’t help but feel as if this was his last chance. He had to ace this thing and leave them with one hell of an impression. And then he walked in and saw those two men giving him the stink-eye and then the third one cowering in his seat. That last one hurt a bit because it made Ozzy feel like an orc that had walked into a nursery. Not a good look to be sure, but at least he was used to that reaction. The other two were the real issue. Those men were downright intimidating. Yes, Ozzy was bigger than both of them combined, but if there was one thing the druid had learned to fear above else, it was the unknown, and those two reeked of it. The dwarf had a firearm that he kept trained on Ozzy’s face from under the table even though he was holding it at his hip while seated. He was clearly a master marksman that would not hesitate to put down anyone that stepped out of line. As for the other one, he moved in a certain way that made it seem as though he could pull out a knife out of thin air and jab it in Ozzy’s neck at a moment’s notice.

No, that couldn’t have been it. These were explorers. They had higher standards than adventurers. Surely they wouldn’t cause a scene in broad daylight without a very good reason. Now that he had calmed down, the druid figured that he must have been so nervous that he had imagined dangers that weren’t there. After all, he’d been so tense that he couldn’t even speak. It was frankly a small miracle that he apparently passed their evaluation. He didn’t know all the details nor how good or bad his scores were, but that was fine. He’d been deemed worthy of joining the League’s ranks, and that was enough for him to leave that office with his head held high.

Meanwhile poor old Bob was in the midst of losing his shit.

“Why?! Why would you go and say that?! He didn’t even say a single thing!”

“Look. Bob. Bobby. Bubulah,” Jack tried to calm him down. “I just did my job, okay?”

“Your job is to assess an applicant’s character and determine if they’re a right fit for the League!”

“And that’s exactly what I did.”

“I’m with lazy-eyes on this one,” Skully backed him up. “I mean, just look at my hand.”

The dwarf stretched his arm out as if he was petting an invisible pony. Bob looked at it in disbelief, unable to grasp what either of them were saying.

“What about your hand?”

“See how still it is? Not shaking or anything, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any idea how many beers I need to slam to get it this steady?”

“Uh…”

“It’s a lot. Point is, one look at that guy, and my body went completely into combat mode. Adrenaline spiking, that sorta thang. Trust me, that’s the type of feller you want on your side.”

“That’s how it is,” Jack smirked.

Bob huffed and puffed for a bit more, then gave up and accepted their verdict. He wouldn’t have asked these two to attend this interview if he didn’t trust their insight. He just wished they’d clued him in a bit more.

“Where’d you find that hurricane in a suit anyway?” the slovenly explorer asked.

“Uh, he came to us, actually. I’d never seen him before today, but his evaluation results were… ridiculous.”

“Pft. Those tests always were a load of hokey,” the dwarf scoffed.

“No, I’m serious. Here, look at this.”

Bob shuffled through the documents that had been bothering him and pulled out a spreadsheet.

“These are the results of his physical. He broke every single record in the League’s history by a considerable margin. Sprinting, hammer toss, high jump, grip strength, bench press - you name it, he aced it. Well, by human standards. The orcs still have him beat in quite a few events.”

Jack and Skully took his word for it. They weren’t about to go looking at a bunch of numbers they couldn’t understand. That’s what Bob was for. More importantly, the two explorers understood why he had postponed this interview just to get the two of them in on it. On paper, this Osmond Stigandr was unbelievable. As in, they literally wouldn’t have believed he was for real if they hadn’t just met him.

“Then there’s his written exam,” Bob continued. “He messed up a few multiple choice questions, nobody cares. The big ones, though… Well, just have a look for yourselves.”

He pulled two sheets of paper from the pile and handed them one each. They were copies of Ozzy’s test, and the two veterans couldn’t help but be amused at his answers. For instance, there was this infamous conundrum involving lost and found property that read as, ‘You discover a buried steel safe during a routine survey expedition. Your archeologist informs you that it could not have been here for more than five years. What do you do and why?’

The druid’s solution?

Bury it back up. Someone put it in the ground for a reason.

“Ha. Hahaha!” the dwarf laughed. “His answer to the safe one is just perfect!”

“Number five’s a pretty good one, too,” Jack remarked with a chuckle.

That one inquired about the best way to deal with a ferocious bear that had stumbled into an expedition team’s camp.

“Headbutt, then suplex! AAAAH-HAHAHAHAHA!” Skull roared.

Though they were having a bit of fun at Ozzy’s expense, both of them would have given similar answers if they were tested on those questions. Abandoned property was best left untouched for several reasons, chief among them being that the League wasn’t a lost-and-found. If it wasn’t ancient, natural, or unclaimed, then it was none of their business. As for the hypothetical bear incursion, incapacitating it quickly without killing it was indeed the best option. Admittedly neither Jack nor Skully would or could do so with a suplex, but that guy? Yeah, he could probably pull it off.

More to the point, those were the answers of people with copious amounts of knowledge and experience in the field of exploration, not some random nobody that walked in off the street. Of course, one could argue that the guy cheated on the test somehow and that those answers weren’t his own. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that sort of thing had happened. However, some of the things he said were remarkably original, perhaps even innovative. A prime example of this was the question that asked, ‘You are part of a four-man expedition team on a delve in some ancient underground ruins. Suddenly there’s an earthquake and the tunnel behind and in front of you collapses. One of your team members gets caught in the rubble. They survive, but their leg is broken and they cannot stand or walk. Assuming each member has a fully stocked standard explorer’s pack, how would you find a way out while also ensuring the team’s safety?’

This was one of the nastier hypothetical scenarios, and one of the few that truly did not have a correct answer. Some applicants suggested digging a way out, others pressed further into the ruin in hope of finding an alternate route to the surface. There just wasn’t enough information to make an objectively good or bad call, which was by design. It was a problem meant to test one’s creativity and ingenuity, and as such had a wide variety of recorded responses. Yet, the one Ozzy had provided was unlike anything that Bob, Jack, or Skully had even heard of.

Too many coincidences for this to be a natural collapse. Assume it’s a trap and watch for an ambush. After confirming the area is clear, check the walls, floor, and ceiling for trap mechanisms or hidden passageways, and work the field from there.

It was a bare-bones explanation that ignored a huge number of variables, made no attempt to utilize the standard gear provided, and copped out with a ‘work the field’ at the end. That would’ve been a big fat zero points if not for the fact that it identified and highlighted a major issue with this hypothetical scenario. Realistically, if an ancient tunnel was built in such a way that a random earthquake could collapse it, then it would have caved in centuries ago. One could argue that the underground structure’s integrity had been compromised by the ravages of time and that the hypothetical ground tremor was merely the last straw. However, for that to happen just as explorers happened to be passing through was a ludicrous proposition. ‘Too many coincidences’ was right. With that in mind, the idea that foul play was involved suddenly seemed like the most likely explanation.

None of the three interviewers had seen someone apply this kind of logic before, whether on a test or out in the field. It was certainly impressive, perhaps even more so than the results of the physical. After all, that question had been a staple of the entry test for years, yet this guy was the first to poke a hole right through it. This implied that, beneath that brutish exterior and behind those curt and simple words lay a mind capable of advanced deductive reasoning, and the League was in short supply of those. In truth, the man was capable of no such things.

He was merely speaking from experience after having lived through that very same situation.