On his way out of the slums, Nedoma takes another look at each resident as he walks by. Despite what he had just heard, a small glimmer of hope wishes to believe that perhaps his parents had somehow made it out of the village and ended up here. But the faces that Nedoma saw never matched what he wanted them to be. As he finally reached the entrance to this part of town, he tries to comfort himself. Maybe they were inside an inn or something?

Looking around, Nedoma spots what appears to be a familiar figure once more on patrol through the town. As he runs up to him, the man notices the inbound figure and moves off to the edge of the road.

“Yo!” the guard greets Nedoma with a slight wave, a slight grin on his face. “Didya sleep well last night?”

Nedoma gives a slight shake of his head. “Not really, a dirt floor just doesn't compare to what I normally... used to sleep on.”

The guard gives a slight chuckle. “I'm sure it doesn't! So, I'm guessing you need directions again?”

“Yes. I'm looking to register at the adventurer's guild. Can you tell me where that is?”

The moment Nedoma finishes speaking the guard bursts with laughter. “Hahahaha! You spent one night in the slums and decided you'd rather be goblin feed, huh?” His final words make Nedoma feel uneasy, a slow head nod is all that he can muster to respond with. “Well, if that's what you want to do, you can find it down that street.” The guard points off in a direction. “It's a nice looking, two story building. All adventurer's guilds no matter the place should have a sign with a symbol of an angry monster, and, well,” he smiles, “I guess the sign also has Adventurer's Guild written on it, assuming you can read.”

Assuming you can read...I wonder how many people didn't learn? Or maybe he's making fun of me... “Thanks, I'll look out for the symbol.”

“No problem.” As Nedoma begins to go on his way, he hears the guard call out from behind him. “I think this time around you'll need it, stay safe!” Nedoma turned to see the guard waving goodbye with a grin on his face. Nedoma mustered a grin and waved back to the guard before heading towards his destination.

Monster symbol, two stories, wide doors....Adventurer's Guild. This is the place. Nedoma stands a distance away from the building as he watches people flow in and out. Varying appearances and sets of equipment adorn each individual who passes through those doors. In fact, Nedoma felt as though he could categorize them into two separate groups. One group would be the adventurers who had seemingly unique sets of equipment, appearing distinct from all the other adventurers. Whether it be the adventurer who wore a fat metal suit, or another donning a cloak with beautiful embroidery, these individuals seemed to value either their own identity or perhaps function. The other group would be adventurers who all seemed to have nearly identical equipment, down to the color and pieces which they wore. They seemed almost complete copies of each other, the only distinction being their own personal sizes and differences. Looking at his own outfit, he certainly appears unequipped compared to both groups, and hopes that when he registers to become an adventurer he'll be able to purchase the necessary equipment.

A twinge of fear hits Nedoma as he opens the door. Despite not having said or signed anything, just by entering the building he feels as though he has signed away his fate. Thoughts like Maybe I can go back to Ayrith like that family fill the void inside of him. But in the end, a simple tap on the back and the words “Don't block the doorway” are all it takes to get him inside. Although not completely packed, the interior is surely bustling with adventurers. Many of them seemed to congregate in groups, the number of persons never seeming to go above seven, although there were some groups with unconventional party members in the form of animals, and even what looked like a skeleton causing them to go above that number. Nedoma spotted the counter, which seemed manned by a few different receptionists.

They all gave off a feeling of being properly dressed; their more formal attire in stark contrast to the equipment that adventurers were wearing and made them easily identifiable. Nedoma spots a familiar figure towards the end of a hallway, standing in front of a door next to someone. The priest from the church was talking to a scruffy looking man dressed in professional clothing. As the priest seemed to spot Nedoma, the other man turned his head to look at him as well. There seems to be a brief lull in movement before they both turn around and head into the room, closing the door behind them. As Nedoma approached the counter, two of the receptionists were approached by different adventurers and began handling them, so he approached the right most one, a woman who appeared around Nedoma's age. Nedoma found her likely trained smile almost unnerving as he walked up to her.

“Hello! You look like you're new here, are you looking to register as an adventurer?”

“Ah, yes.” Nedoma seems to almost shake slightly as he begins to answer. “I'm looking to become an adventurer.”

“Excellent!” The woman picks up a small cylinder shaped object with her hand which hovers over a piece of paper. “My name is Xilia, I'm just going to write down some information about you. Can I get your full name?”

“Sure. It's Nedoma Rold.”

“Your age?”

“Sixteen... a month from now seventeen.” The receptionist performs an ever so slight flinch.

“Are you from Luton?”

“No, I'm from Ayrith.” She gives a slight nod.

“What did you used to do before deciding to become an adventurer?”

“Huh?” Why would they care about that?

Xilia responds to Nedoma's confused look. “We just like to write down some additional information about our adventurers. Sometimes we use it to help foster relationships between yourself and other people with similar backgrounds and circumstances.”

Oh..Maybe they can group me together with any other people who came from Ayrith? “Sure. I used to work in the fields as a farmer...didn't really do much besides that.” He avoids thinking about the semi-playful practicing of swinging farm tools like weapons to try and come up with any other information. Nedoma ponders for a moment. “Oh, I can write. At least somewhat decently that is.”

“Ooh, wonderful. That's a fortunate skill to have,” she says with a smile while she continues to jot things down. “Alright, I believe I have most of your information. Now then, have you heard of something called the Adventurer's Initiative?”

Nedoma recalls discussions with his father as well as others from his village. “Yes. I heard that if you sign up to be an adventurer, the Adventurer's Guild would provide you with five silver.”

“Hmm, not quite,” Xilia responds with an upbeat tone. “We use a magical item to determine what your natural aptitude is. There are twenty different classes, and it is able to figure out which one of them you would be best suited for. If you decide to go along with the class that was selected for you, we'll give you the five silver. In addition, we also provide you with vouchers for equipment and training at your class' guild.”

“What if I want to choose something else?” Nedoma tries to recall some of the names of classes he heard before. Cleric, Paladin...Elementalist? But twenty, that's a lot to choose from.

“You are free to choose whatever class you would like, but the guild will only provide you with the silver and vouchers if you select what we recommended you. You would have to spend your own money to receive training and buy equipment, so most people go along with what they were recommended.”

“I see...” Nedoma thought for a moment. Well, I don't think I have the money to go and choose my own class, so I'd have to go along with whatever they choose for me. The receptionist caught his troubled expression.

“One thing I'd like to add, we've seen the most success with adventurers who stick with what we recommended. Even the guild is not completely certain how the decision is made, but we are certain that it's always the best fit for the individual adventurer.”

Sounds reasonable. “Alright, I'd like to participate then.”

“Wonderful. Now normally, we have a minimum age restriction in place that requires participants to be seventeen or older.” Nedoma winced at her words, wondering if he should have lied. “However, due to recent events regarding the village of Ayrith, we are lowering the minimum age restriction for people from there.”

An emotion- almost anger, seems to rise up in Nedoma. Recent events, is that what they call it? He has to mentally suppress himself before he speaks up again. “Great,” in an almost annoyed tone. “How do I get started?”

“Just sign here.” The receptionist pushes the form she had been filling out during their conversation toward him. But instead of whatever tool she had been using, she brings out some ink and a quill to write. Nedoma briefly wonders about the nature of her writing utensil before disregarding the thought and marking his signature. The receptionist takes the form and quickly glances over it, before looking up and smiling at him. “Excellent!” She sets the form aside and motions Nedoma to follow her. “Now we're going to find out your recommended class.” Nedoma begins to follows the receptionist. As she steps out from behind the counter, she asks “Would you mind leaving your sword at the desk? We'll return it after the selection is complete.” Nedoma nods his head and hands the sword he had been holding to her, which she sets down on the shelf which had previously stood behind her.

As they begin to make their way toward the hallway, Nedoma becomes more aware of her appearance. Her form fitting uniform was neat and clean, which appeared in sharp contrast to the gear adventurers had been wearing, and was certainly much more professional looking than what were comparatively rags that people wore in his village. As they reach the corner of the hallway, they turn left at the first door and continue forward. As Xilia stops at the second door and begins opening it, Nedoma feels anxious thinking about what class he will get. As she opens the door, he asks, “You mentioned that there are twenty classes, what are their names?”

“Since you can read, I can easily show you!” Nedoma follows her inside of the room. It feels almost like it was meant to be a private room. Xilia walks over to the right where a see-through ball sits still on a table, next to a piece of paper. She opens a nearby drawer, and pulls out a stone. As she holds it up to Nedoma, she explains, “These are called Edenti stones. They're magical stones used by the adventurer's guild to help prove who you are. Whenever conducting adventurer related business, we will always expect you to present your Edenti stone. After selecting your class, we'll change the color of the stone to match the class you selected, and it can also be used to figure out your name as well.”

Nedoma thought that sounded strange. “My name?”

Xilia smiled. “You'll understand after we're done. Here, hold onto it.” Xilia places the stone in Nedoma's hand. He tries gently squeezing it, but feels nothing to magical about it. She grabs the piece of paper which had been laying on the table, and briefly shows it to Nedoma. It was a list of twenty rows, each holding a name and a distinct color marking to the right of it. “Here are all twenty class names. Whichever color shows up in the ball, we match to the paper and that becomes our recommendation. Are you ready?”

Nedoma quickly tries scanning the list of names and their colors. Guardian, red. Berserker, crimson. Rogue, green. Realizing that he is stuck with whatever gets selected for him, he abandons reading further and hands Xilia back the paper. “Yup, I'm ready.”

“Alright, place your hand on the ball and try focusing your energy into the palm of your hand. You've probably heard of the term mana before, you're going to be focusing your magical energy into the ball and we'll end up seeing twenty different colors. After a bit more time, the colors will begin to fade into each other, and we'll be left with one single color which we can check against the paper to figure out your class. Don't worry about not having any magical training, anybody can do this much.”

Nedoma nodded and placed his hand on the ball. He began to focus on his hand. Although a size-able number of villagers had gone through this same initiative, from what he had gathered most of them did the bare minimum amount so they could return to the fields, not focusing to much on learning or being able to teach others. It sounded like most had either forgotten or never truly learned how to properly use their abilities before returning, so he never had any opportunity to learn any magic or how to manipulate mana. It felt like all he was doing was simply tightening his muscles, but after a short while the clear orb began to fill with colors.

Xilia had been telling the truth. A flurry of colors danced within the glassy interior of the ball. Nedoma, having never seen such a display before, muttered softly in amazement, “It's beautiful.” As he continued to focus on his hand, the colors in the ball begin to reduce in number. He watched as they disappeared, or perhaps more accurately, were devoured by the surrounding colors. The yellows, reds, greens, browns, all these different colors began to fade one by one. Two colors swirled around now, a nice orange and a red-purplish color that resembled crushed berries from the forest. As if the two colors were battling it out, only one could remain as the final traces of orange were consumed, leaving only a single color.

“Huh?” Nedoma heard an exasperated sound come from behind him. Keeping one hand on the ball but turning to face Xilia, he was met with what looked like a suppressed frown.

Nedoma felt nervous. “Is something wrong? What class is that?”

Xilia looked back and forth between the crystal ball and the paper in her hand. “Well....” her voice seemed to trail off. “It looks like you have an aptitude for...Demon Knight.”