Jojo can hardly sleep through the night. Partially because she's sleeping in a closet, yes, but mostly out of excitement. She's in a fantasy town, in a real, actual adventurer's guild, about to start her own adventure! How could she not be excited?

So, of course, she wakes up as early as she can, probably earlier than she'd woken up in years in her old life. She yawns and stretches, working out all the kinks from sleeping curled up on the hard wooden floor, and steps out into the bustling morning.

Cool early light streams in through the windows, brightly illuminating a much busier guild than last night. Workers sit all along the counter, helping lines of rowdy adventurers as they grab papers off the bulletins and bring them up to take on jobs. Even more workers scurry back and forth in the area behind the counter, carrying papers or sacks of money or any number of random objects.

Jojo is almost overwhelmed by the crush, but before that can happen, Frankie walks up and frowns at her.

"You're gonna have to get used to waking up earlier than that if you want to be an adventurer," Frankie says.

"What!? It's so early, though!" Jojo protests.

Frankie rolls her eyes. "Dawn was over an hour ago. See all those guys over there?" She gestures towards the throngs of adventurers. "They're coasting. Grabbing whatever mid-tier job they can get their hands on, just making enough for the day's boar meat and booze. Is that what you want to be? Or do you want to actually be successful?"

Jojo huffs and crosses her arms. "I'm gonna be successful, of course."

"Good answer. Now come on."

Frankie waves for Jojo to follow, and leads her out of the guild. The streets are overfull now, crowds of people all rushing to get to work and do what needs to be done for the day. Jojo struggles to stay close to Frankie, constantly at risk of being separated by someone practically shoving past her in their hurry.

"So, uh, where are we going?" Jojo asks as they walk.

"Outside," Frankie answers. "It's my day off, and you seem..." She's about to say something, then changes her mind and shakes her head. "You clearly need all the help you can get, so I'm gonna show you what it'll take to get to level 10."

"Woah, seriously!? Frankie, you're so nice!"

"Oh, be quiet."

----------------------------------------

Frankie leads Jojo out the gates she entered the night before—neither of the guards are the same, and they don't stop them from leaving—and then follows the wall in the direction opposite the forest. They walk for about an hour, Frankie staying silent unless prompted, and generally answering as briskly as she can, until eventually reaching a spot that, to Jojo, seems entirely arbitrary.

"This'll do," Frankie says. She reaches down to a pouch hanging from her belt and starts fumbling around in it.

"Where are we? Is this like—WOAH!"

Jojo gasps as, completely without warning, Frankie pulls a full sword out of the little pouch. It's nothing special, probably iron or something similar, but it's still surprising to see it come out of nowhere.

"W-What the heck!?" Jojo stammers and takes a step back. "Where'd that come from?"

Frankie gives her a weird look. "From my carrying bag? Do you seriously not know anything?"

"I... I guess not?" Jojo frowns.

"It's just a cheap enchanted bag," Frankie says. "It holds about thirty pounds of stuff without actually weighing that much or taking up that much space. It's basic space magic, you know?"

"Really? That's... Basic magic?"

"As basic as, like... A fairly big fireball, I'd guess?"

"Woah..."

Frankie groans and hands the hilt of the sword towards Jojo. "Here," she says, "take it."

Jojo gasps. "Really!? You're giving me a sword?"

"I'm lending you a sword," Frankie corrects. "Unless you're hiding a weapon somewhere or you plan to punch everything to death, it's pretty necessary."

"I mean, I did kick a slime to death yesterday," Jojo says, chuckling. She does take the sword, though, and gives it a couple of practice swings. It feels strange and heavy in her hands.

"Yeah, I bet that worked out great," Frankie says. "You're lucky it didn't crush your foot."

"Oh, it did! I just leveled up after."

"Great. Good for you." Frankie rolls her eyes, then pulls something that looks like a whistle out of her pouch. "You ready?"

"Ready for what?"

Frankie doesn't answer. She just blows the whistle, although no noise comes out of it. Jojo stares at her for a moment, confused, before her attention is drawn by a rustle in the grass nearby.

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She snaps her head towards the noise and sees a slime, green instead of blue this time, but otherwise seemingly identical to the last.

"Ooh! Identify!"

Slime Level 3

HP 20/20

"Good instinct," Frankie says. "Now kill it."

"On it!"

Jojo springs forward and thrusts the sword at the slime, skewering it near the edge.

In response, the slime quivers a little, contracts, and then spits a little ball of goo at Jojo. It speeds through the air and hits her right between the eyes hard enough to knock her head back and leave a red spot.

"Gah! Jerk!" Jojo fumes and waves the sword around wildly with the slime still stuck on the end of it. It holds out for a second, but very quickly is overwhelmed by being whipped back and forth and splits cleanly in half.

The two halves of the slime splat down onto the ground, then start dissipating into motes of light, leaving behind a slimestone that Jojo pockets.

Skill: Swordplay has reached Level 2

Skill: Swordplay has reached Level 3

Skill: Swordplay has reached Level 4

Level Up!

3>4

HP RESTORED!

MP RESTORED!

SP RESTORED!

ALL STATS +1

Jojo jumps up and down, cheering about her victory. Frankie nods approvingly.

"Good work," Frankie says. "I thought I saw something in you."

"Heck yeah! And I hit level 4!" Jojo says.

Frankie gives her a strange look. "Didn't you say..." She shakes her head. "Nevermind. Another?"

"Yeah!"

Frankie blows the whistle again, and this time two slimes appear, one blue and one red.

"Mm, yeah, this can happen," Frankie mumbles. "You think you can handle two?"

"No problem!" Jojo jumps back and forth in place for a second to psych herself up, then leaps towards the red slime in a sudden burst of speed. She slices cleanly through it, bisecting it like it wasn't even there, and then carries the momentum into a twirling slash that easily dispatches the blue slime as well.

"What the..." Frankie mutters under her breath.

Skill: Swordplay has reached Level 5

Level Up!

4>5

HP RESTORED!

MP RESTORED!

SP RESTORED!

ALL STATS +1

"Yippee! Level 5!" Jojo cheers and dances around happily.

Frankie, though, can't keep quiet any long. "What? No, no, hang on." She stomps over to Jojo and prods her in the chest. "What are you talking about? The gap from level 4 to 5 should take dozens of slimes. You... Have you been lying to me? Identify!"

"Huh?" Jojo gapes as Frankie glares at something only she can see. "You can identify people?"

"Yes, idiot!" Frankie groans and walks a few steps away with her head in her hands. "It's rude, and it's usually not very useful because almost nobody has a usable Identify level, but of course it's possible! And it says you're level 5, so what gives? Were you level 5 the whole time and just messing with me? Do you have some kind of artifact to change how Identify shows you? What is it? Huh?"

"I-I... Um..." Jojo shrinks in on herself and stammers as she struggles for words. "I don't..."

"You couldn't fool the truthstone, so it's probably not an artifact, and you haven't killed me, but—"

"I wouldn't kill you!" Jojo interrupts. "That'd be terrible!"

"Then who are you!?"

"I'm just Jojo! I..." Jojo frowns deeply and hugs herself. "I don't know, Frankie... Can I trust you?"

"No! What!? You don't know me!"

"But you seem nice! And... I mean, maybe this is naive, but I'm so new here, and I just... It'd be nice to have a friend I can trust to help me." Jojo looks down at the ground and starts to turn away. "You're right, though, I'm being stupid. I'm sorry for roping you into all this."

Frankie sighs. "Look, I guess if you really want to trust some woman you just met, it's your life. Come here, let's have lunch, and if you want you can tell me what's up."

Frankie leads Jojo over to the stone wall and they make themselves comfortable against it, sitting side by side under its shade as a gentle breeze tickles the grass under them. She pulls two canteens of water and two sandwiches out of her pouch, and hands one of each to Jojo.

"Thank you," Jojo says quietly. "Sorry I freaked out like that."

Frankie snorts out a laugh. "Please. We were both freaking out. So, what's up?"

"I'm..." Jojo takes a deep breath, then decides to just let it out. "I'm not from this world. I was just brought here yesterday by... I guess a god?"

Frankie raises an eyebrow and looks at Jojo for a long moment. Just quiet, contemplative studying.

Then, eventually, she sighs and nods. "I guess I hadn't considered you might be a dang Traveler."

"Huh?" Jojo's eyes go wide. "Is... Is that a thing in this world?"

"Supposedly," Frankie says. "It's all old legends. People who show up who are crazy strong and change the whole world."

"Yeah, that... That sounds like it could be me," Jojo says.

Frankie nods. "Yup. You were right to not tell anyone, though. That kinda thing is real trouble."

"I thought as much..."

"I mean, for one, every kingdom in the world would wanna grab you so you can be their legendary hero. Then, anyone who couldn't get you would want you dead. Lots of people would just want you dead regardless because you're too dangerous." Frankie laughs dryly. "I mean, the legends say the last one is why the moon is cut in half!"

"The moon is cut in half?"

Frankie laughs, livelier this time. "Yeah it is. Just two big half circles up there. I'll show you tonight if I don't forget."

"Tonight? So..." Jojo swallows hard, trying not to let hopefulness creep into her voice. "So we can still be friends?"

Frankie sighs. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess we can. Someone's gotta show you around this place and keep you out of trouble, and I guess I can at least trust myself to do that."

They're both silent for a long minute, just processing everything, before Jojo finally finds it in herself to speak up again.

"Thank you, Frankie. Really."

"Aw, shut up."