We arrived at Mandoza? The talk I had with Grey in the carriage left a bad impression on me but when I open the door I’m more amazed than afraid. From the floor to the city walls and all the way to the horizon where a giant castle is placed, it all looks fantastical. The floor is paved stone and the buildings are also stone and wood, a cobblestone maze. There are posts and street signs and the city wall stands tall beyond the buildings to protect the city. The people walking about are so varied, some are families with children, or self important looking people. There are even workers and craftsmen going about carrying things like painting canvases or tools. There must be hundreds of people all around going about their daily lives, some with pointy ears and I think I saw some dwarves too. Residents going out to eat at the little stalls at the sides of buildings, or going shopping for groceries or some clothes or house ornaments, going to work as a seam, going out with their children around town, and so many other things. There’s nonstop banter if you close your eyes and listen, some people talking about the latest gossip, some guy's wife being a bad cook, or a couple of guys fighting over who’s a better player at a sports game I never heard of before. And the castle far above everything, on the horizon in the middle of town. It’s huge, it looks like a fairy tale, I wonder what kind of king lives there.

“Fren, are you stuck, come on. Let’s go.” Grey takes me out of the trance I was stuck in, I was looking at the vibrant city colors. I could have been stuck staring at my surroundings for an hour, and looking at Grey he also had a similar experience, a tad shorter than mine.

“Right, I’m sorry, where’s the carriage driver? He’s gone, what about his pay?”

“He was already paid at Coppercamp. Didn’t you pay him there?”

“No, I didn’t. Did he leave without payment?

“Probably another one of Coppercamp hospitalities, he was probably told by the mayor not to take our money. Anyway, let’s get going.”

Let’s get going… I look around… where are we supposed to go? “Umm… Grey, where are we going?”

“Oh… I thought you know, you have that letter.”

Right, the letter that rodrick gave me, it’s a recommendation for a hunter guild called Dragon Shifter. “Do you know how to get to Dragon Shifter?” I ask Grey, but he shrugs.

“Why don’t we ask some locals?” He walks up to someone on the street, oh it’s the two men arguing about sports. “Excuse me, do you know how to-”

“Who do you think is better at Trollball?” He directs his anger at Grey.

“I don’t know… I was just looking for directio-”

“Nobody knows you. You think you're the only player? You're barely on the team!” His friend cuts Grey’s sentence short.

“Hey, stop yelling, he’s looking for directions. The nearest church is this way, turn left-”

I step in too. “Actually, fellas, we’re looking for Dragon Shifter.” They both look at me odd. I don’t really look like an adventurer anymore, I still have my armor underneath my shirt, and the sword on the side of my hip is not immediately obvious.

“Dragon Shifter? Oh, an adventurer wanna be or just there for the drinks? It’s up the road, turn right as sita’s flower shop, if you see the inner city gate you’ve gone too far. A couple of junctions later and you turn left, you’ll see the sign.”

“Thank you!” We both leave those two to talk about Trollball.

“Fren, what’s a junction?”

“It’s like a fork in the road.”

“Oh, where did you learn that? It’s a city word. You never did tell me how you know all these words.”

I don’t really know either, I just thought it’s common knowledge. I avoid the question for now. We need to walk, a flower shop belonging to a ‘Sita’ person. There are many shops, some sell chairs and doors, and some for groceries, and a fancy restaurant. The buildings get fancier the farther we walk, there are even souvenir shops, and one for paintings, a peculiar one called ‘Bolli’s magical items’ . I wonder what Bolli sells. Either way we find ‘Sita’s flowers’ and turn right, walk a bit and ask someone just outside a pub called ‘Parth’s collection’ and he pointed us down the road and to turn left at the next junction.

Finally we made it to a big building with a large wooden sign on top of the entrance saying ‘Dragon Shifter’, it has a symbol of a something that looks like a man normal legs, a dragons head, and his torso is something in between, largely human but with small wings coming out the back. Neither of us know what to think so we enter, and we immediately meet a girl with an apron coming to greet us.

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“Welcome to Dragon shifter, are you here for a drink?” She asks with a happy tone “I can get you a tabl- '' She's looking at Grey and realizing he’s a priest. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you looking for the church? It’s in the inner city.”

“We came here because I have this.” I take my letter of recommendation to join the guild. She looks at it carefully.

“Oh… that's alright. You’re going to need to go to Clara for that.” She points at the insides of the Guild. It actually looks like a tavern more than a guild. Many people are sitting and having a drink or eating a meal, waitresses walking between the tables. But beyond the Tavern looking part I can see a counter with a woman behind it taking care of some paperwork, next to the counter there is a big board on the wall where some pieces of paper are posted, a quest board? Next to her are stairs leading up. We head on over to her, she’s busy with her paperwork too much to notice us.

“Umm… hello, Clara right?” Grey asks the blond young girl behind the counter who’s too busy with her paperwork to even send a glimpse our way, now that we’re close we can see that she’s juggling some books, as if she’s looking for something in them.

“Yes, I’ll be right with you, can you write your name on this form? Be careful, we don’t have many others.”

She hands us a form for registering a quest, Grey hands it to mee since some of the words are long, he probably doesn’t know some of them.

“Umm… we’re not here to register a quest.” I take out my letter and reread it to make sure. “I’m here to become an… umm, a hunter.”

She leaves her books and looks at us. “A hunter? We’re not accepting applications for guild members currently. I’m sorry.” She looks and sounds in a hurry, glimpsing at her books even while looking at us.

“He has a letter from one of your members though.” Grey backs me up.

“Yeah, this is from Rodrick, it’s a referral.” I hand her the letter.

She reads the letter carefully. Is it too carefully? I think she might be perplexed by this and thinks about what to do.

“Rodrick… I remember him, he stopped working a couple of years ago… I don’t know what to do.”

“Can we talk to the guild master? Maybe we can explai-”

“No, you can’t. Just wait a second.” She shouts to someone up the stairs. “ Luxios! Just hold on a moment, I need to ask someone about this.”

“What’s the issue? Is the guild master not here?” Grey asks her too.

A slender man walks down the stairs from the floor above, it’s a man with sharp ears… and elf!

“Luxios, this guy is applying to be a hunter.” Clara tells the elf.

“Actually, I’m supposed to follow him so… me too.” Grey says with an awkward grin.

“We can’t accept anyone right now. I’m sorry Clara.” Luxios tells her.

“I know, but they have a letter from Rodrick.” She gives him the letter.

Grey whispers to me while Luxios reads the letter. “Is it supposed to be like this?”

“I don’t know.” I answer him quietly. “But it looks like they have a problem in the guild right now.”

“Right… Fren, that’s you, right?” Luxios asks me after reading the letter. “But why the priest? Are you allowed to be here?”

“Yes. Umm… My name is Gregory Engillian, I’m from a chapel south from here. I was ordered by Inner circle paladin Allous to accompany Fren in his adventures.” He answers very formally, odd seeing him like that. Now that I think about it he is a bit more stiff. Is it because his dream of being an adventurer is so close by?

“Allous?! Did you meet her? Where?” Clara lights up the moment Grey mentions Allous, She looks at Luxios, it seems they exchange unspoken words with their eyes and a nod.

“Oh, yeah, Allous used to be an adventurer before she was a paladin. Did you two know her?” Grey remembers just now an important detail about Allous. I don’t think he mentioned it before… or did he?

“Yes, we're friends, Allous and I.” Clara was her friend? Maybe it’s because of her cold treatment but it’s hard to imagine Allous friendly with anyone

“I should be starting a course for adventurers and hunters soon, it would have been odd having no one from the guild as a student. They can join it, I’ll teach them everything they need to know.” Luxios assures us.

“By the way, Allous told us to meet her here, didn’t she come by earlier? We got… preoccupied on the way.” Grey asks them, that’s right she told us we’d meet her here, did she mean the church rather than the guild?

“Didn’t you hear? All paladins were told to hold a meeting. They’re holding a summit at the capital.” Luxios informs us.

“I wonder what it’s about, the whole inner paladin order.” Clara throws a remark into the air. “I hope Allous is alright.”

I hope it’s not related to me… did she tell the other paladins about me?

“Anyway, come up the stairs, you can stay in the dorms, put your bags there. I’ll show you around.” We follow Luxios up the stairs. This whole thing feels irregular to say the least, but I think we did get what we needed. Thanks Rodrick, your letter can rest now.

“What is the course for? Can’t we just become adventurers?” Grey asks him.

“You’re on route to become hunters, which is different. Either way you need the course to learn about the rules and way of life in the guild, what we do and how we do it. You know, and of course some training, both physical and magical, and most importantly: how to prepare for a hunt. Oh, I’m blabbing too much, I’ll leave that for the course itself.”