I heard the house’s large wooden door open. I jumped up from the living room floor, where I was playing and ran to the door. I see my father coming in the house, I yell “Father.”

He just responded with “Hey Art. I am home early for your birthday, however I was thinking of taking you to the guild hall. I wanted to start showing you the ropes and maybe get you some training. What do you think of that Art?”

I said “Yes!!!”

“Alright, lets go.” He said. I got my coat and we left to the guild hall.As we where walking down the streets to the guild hall, we passed many stores. From armorers and sword makers, to food stalls. When my father spoke “Let’s get some lunch before we arrive at the guild hall.”

I responded with “Yay.” We stopped at a small tavern and had what looked to be meat, not sure. So, I asked father “What is this?”

He said “It is Mountain Boar. Just a common monster around these parts. You will learn all about the monsters around here soon though.” We finished eating and left the tavern.

As we where walking, he said “There is the guild hall. You have been here before, but I am not sure how much you remember as you were just a baby.” We keep walking, but I was admiring the building. It was two stories and made of stone and wood. A common looking building in the town. It had two giant wood doors and when we opened them, a bell rang from the top of the doors. With a ‘kling kling’ sound, kind of high pitched. I glanced around the big room and did not see many people.

We headed to the reception desk and some lady at the desk, just turned around to look at my father. My father seemed to have gotten flustered when she said “What are you doing back here? I thought you had the rest of the day off, as it was your sons…” As she was about to finish, she looked at me, then sighed and said, “Well you must be Artemis, happy birthday and welcome to the adventurer’s guild hall.”

I said, “Thank you.” I shied behind my father some.

He said “Art, this is the guild master Neia. Also as you can see, I am an elf.” He then turned back to her and said, “Now that he is three, I wanted to show him around the guild hall and start getting him familiar with the place.”

She replied with “Well… in that case, I will give the tour.”

My father just sat there for a few seconds and sighed “But are you not to bu…”

She interrupted him and said “I will not take no for an answer, especially when they will eventually be an adventurer. Now let me get the adventurers guild book. Then I can explain about adventurer ranks a little.” She walked behind the counter and pulled a leather-bound book out from the counter. Then takes us to a small wooden table with some wooden chairs nearby.

While at the table she opens the book and starts to talk about the adventurer ranks. “First every adventurer has a colored plate that signifies their rank, with some engraved information. Most wear it around their neck. The first rank is bronze, which is an apprentice and is for anyone from age five to ten. The other ranks go copper, iron, blue steel, silver, gold, mithril. There is another rank, but that has not been given out is some time. That is the orichalcum adventurer rank, the plate is has the front as mithril and the back as orichalcum. In general, they mask their rank when taking missions and just pose as mithril. So even if someone were one, most would not know. Any questions about the ranks?” she said while looking at me, who was looking at the book.

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I responded with “What rank is my father?”

She looked at him, then back at me and said “I am surprised he did not tell you, but he is gold rank. That is considered the strongest common rank.” I just nodded. Then she said, “Lets continue with the actual tour of the hall. The second floor we will not be going on. As you will not have to worry about the stuff up there till you hit gold rank. In the front corner, as you can see from here. There is a small bar that serves some food and drinks. In the other corner in the front, you can see the request board. Let us go over there so I can show you what requests look like.”

We got up and headed over to the board, where a bunch of papers where pinned. I just staired up at the board. She unpinned one of the papers and pulled it down. “This is a request for copper rank to take. It is for picking herd and specific plants, just outside the south gate. This one can be done with a single person, but most other requests are for parties. For requests with parties, most of the part must be that rank. There is an exception, where half the party can be lower than the rank, that is when the party leader is a higher rank. However, those kinds of parties are rare, except for higher ranked missions. Also, to take a request, you must take it up to the reception to get it verified. Do you have any questions?”

I just looked at her and said “No.”

She responded with “Good. We will head to the back, so we can see the training area and dismantling area. Also, when you turn in quests, you do it at the desk in the dismantling area.”

We start walking to the back and head to the right of the reception desk through a hallway. As we are walking, I notice there is another double set of doors on the right and on the left. We stop just before the doors. “The doors on the right are to bring in monsters that need dismantling from the outside. The doors on the left is the dismantling area, but we will not go in there. As they are always dismantling something. So, we will move ahead to the training area.” We walk further down the hall to a normal looking wood door. We stop and she opens the door and heads in.

Once inside, she said “This is the information area of the training area. Where adventurers can get what they need to know about for their requests. That is why all the books and tables are around here. Also, the door you see at the end of the hall goes to a small training area, but there will be no one in there right now, as most adventurers will be out doing requests. The few that are not, are the couple you saw in the front of the hall or around town. Now, the training manager should be around here somewhere. I will look for him right quick.”

I nodded to her. I just turned and looked at my father as she wandered off. He looked sad and was just muttering, “I wanted to be the one to tell him all of this.”

She came back with an older man. He looked at me and introduced himself “I am Marv. It is a pleasure to meet you, little one. What is your name?”

I just looked at him and said, “Art.” As I got slightly behind my dad.

He said, “A shy one.”

The guild master just said, “Well I should get back to work and leave the rest to you.” She just ran off the way we came from. Nearly slamming the door behind her.

My father just muttered “I knew she was skipping on work to do this.” Then he sighed. My father looked at the man and said “Well, I was wondering if it was possible to start Art on some training and learning with you Marv.”

The man chucked a little and said “I do not see why not, he can start tomorrow if you want. Just bring him here when you come in and I will train him till noon.”

My father just said “Sounds good to me, thank you.” My father looked at me and asked “What do you think Art?”

An “Mhmm” was all that came from me.

My father looked back at the man and said “Looks like that is settled.”

They said their goodbyes and we started to leave, however that man shouted “I almost forgot. There is another kid that will be training starting tomorrow as well. I think they are the same age as your son. Is that okay?”

My father just said “Yes, maybe Art can make a friend.”

The man chucked and just said “Well see you tomorrow then, Art.” We left and headed back to the front.

When we got to the front, I heard a ‘kling kling’ and look at the entrance. It was then that I heard a shout from one of the people who entered “Look who it is.” As they were walking towards my father.