Four years of hard work and dedication were soon to pay off. After I finished working out the last few kinks in the longsword, I set it in ice-cold saltwater while I wiped the sweat off my brow with a towel. I had a few hours until it cooled and I honestly couldn't wait for it to be done. Of course, there wasn't any point in rushing it, I needed the sword to be in perfect shape, or else I would have been dead.

After I cleaned the sweat off my face, I glanced at the mirror to see if I looked my best for my send-off that day. I moved the long platinum hair that covered my face to the side to get a proper look at it. "Bronze to silver in one year," I said, exhausted as I took a heavy breath while emotionally staring at my scarred, burnt, and bruised left arm in the mirror. Between the burns from my carelessness while smithing, the hits from sparring, and the pulled muscles from training, that arm had taken a lot of damage. If it hadn't been for the mages and their healing spells, I probably would have lost it before I even turned twenty.

But here I was at twenty-two, with both arms working and ready to start a new journey to boost myself to a silver rank blacksmith in the Valiant Shields guild. I would be lying if I said I wasn't panicked back then. Self-doubt was a pretty strong thing, and I wasn't sure if I would survive the year-long journey with my equipment, but I had ambitions, damn it! I didn't work my ass off for four years to get from iron to bronze just to give up. I needed to survive just one year's worth of travel as an adventurer with the weapons and armour that I crafted. Just one year, that was all. That's what I kept telling myself to bolster the tiny amount of courage I had. 

Look, I wasn’t a brave person at all, far from it. I had ambition yes, but not a single drop of courage in me. I could have just stayed a bronze ranker forever but silver and above paid a good amount of money. Gold was when I could start being an arcane blacksmith, so I could craft enchanted weapons and the like. Any adventurer would have happily paid their weight in gold pieces for an enchanted weapon. Everyone knew what a good weapon was for an adventurer in combat. Sure they had their own skills but they needed a good weapon to keep them going. Nothing taught me that more than the year and a half of training I had to prepare for this. I got knocked down a lot and broke a lot of subpar weapons. 

Cut to the afternoon of the sendoff, the other bronze and iron rankers watched me with smiles on their faces as I stood at the edge of the village. A gold member of the guild, wearing full plate armour, handed me the chain shirt I had crafted to put on.

 “Hayden Morisson, you are about to embark on your journey as an iron rank member. As you are aware the ranking is iron,bronze,silver,gold,platinum,diamond and finally starsteel rank. Is this understood?”

“I understand the ranking system and am of full knowledge that if I survive this journey I will be promoted to silver.” I say putting on my chain shirt.

“Are you aware of the terms and conditions of your test for silver rank? If so please state them”

“I am to use this set of weapons and armour only. I will fail the test if I use equipment that has not been crafted by me before the test. I am not to stay without working on a quest or mission for over 5 days otherwise the test will be considered a failure. I am to involve myself in combat at least once every two weeks to see if the crafted weapons and armour are durable. If I break my weapons or my armour during my journey the test will have to be restarted.”

“I will send Amelia, a member of the guild, to follow you on your journey to verify that you have followed the rules.” He said as a bright ball of light appeared behind him, floating over to me right above my shoulder. “She will constantly watch you, making sure your equipment stays in proper conditions and making sure that you follow the terms of the contract.” 

“It’s good to meet you” The ball of light said in its high pitched voice as it lightly floated above my left shoulder. “I’d sit on your shoulder if I could but I weigh 120 kilograms in this form.”

“What do you mean by this form?” I said moving to my right a little bit out of fear of dislocating my shoulder via a heavy ball of light.

“I can assume multiple forms, this one is the one that feels more natural to me. If you wish I could take a lighter,more pleasant form” She said as she glowed brighter, turning into a pixie. Her new form was a slender woman around half a foot tall, long and wavy raven hair that flowed openly to her lower back. She had bright, glowing pink eyes and a dress made of small leaves that fit perfectly on her.

“This form seems like one that’d fit on my shoulder easier.” I said as she used her translucent rainbow wings to gently glide down onto my shoulder. 

“You shall now don your equipment and head forth out into the wilds, travelling with a mere five gold pieces in your pocket.” The gold ranker took off his hat, the sun shining on his light brown hair that lightly covered his elven ears as he did. He reached into his hat and pulled out five gold coins exactly, placing them into my hand as I unzipped the top of my backpack and placed it next to my six days worth of rations and the other tools I had crafted a few days ago. 

The town's gates opened, revealing the wilds outside, a lush green forest that looked like it went on forever in front of me. I took a deep breath and went into the wilds, the gates slamming shut behind me. With my shield in one hand and longsword in the other, I walked through the woods, keeping my guard up for any animal that might attack me. 

“So, are you excited to start the test?” Amelia said, smiling up at me from my shoulder.

I turned my head to look at Amelia, her small form perched on my shoulder. "Excited? I guess so, but excited isn’t exactly the word I had in mind" I replied, my voice low from the stress and anticipation. "I'm more worried than anything. I don't even know what's gonna come up after I travel to knightshaven, or whatever plan I’m gonna have in the future."

Amelia's smile faltered, and she placed a comforting hand on my cheek. "I understand, but you've come so far already. You've trained hard, and you've faced challenges head-on. Whatever comes next, you're ready for it."

I nodded, grateful for her words of encouragement. She was right, of course. I had trained for years to become a bronze rank, and this test was just the next step in my journey.

“Anyways, I’ll try and keep my eyes peeled for anything interesting, you just keep marching ahead.” Amelia said, leaning her back against my neck as she sat on my shoulder.

 

It felt like hours of keeping a shield raised until my arms got tired, and I had no choice but to drop it because of the exhaustion. That’s when I felt the rocks hit me. A swarm of feral goblins were shadowing us in the woods, waiting for me to put the shield down. There might have been about twenty of them throwing rocks at me. With them slowly moving closer, my first instinct was to run. Sadly, a lucky rock hit my knee, after which another one struck me in the temple and knocked me down badly, leaving me unable to stand. Meanwhile, Amelia retreated in fear, flying into my backpack to hide. 

I thought about how pitiful it was. I was going to be torn apart and eaten by feral goblins in less than half a day after I had set out for my test. That was when I saw her. She was like an angel that had come to save me. As I lay on the floor scared, my eyes were blessed with long fiery scarlet hair with two twin buns at the top and three streaks of purple hair falling on her beautiful face. She wore an old, dented full plate armour with damaged silver paint on it. She swung a greatsword the same size as her and twice as heavy at the goblins to swat them off me.

She took one swift swing with the greatsword and three feral goblin heads went flying off. The remaining feral goblins moved to her with their clubs as she spun around culling the horde as they approached. After I got my bearings, I stood up when I saw one of the feral goblins sneaking up behind the girl. As it was about to use its club on her, I slammed down on its head with my shield and sliced its throat with my sword. She let out a simple “Thanks” before she stabbed her greatsword through the head of the last feral goblin, kicking it off afterwards. As the battle ended, I fell to the floor, grabbing my head in pain as the bleeding showed little sign of stopping.

“I should be thanking you, I’d be dead if you didn’t show up. Head’s a bit messed up at the moment though.” I slurred out slowly looking down at my blood stained hand, holding my head as I was moments away from passing out. 

“Take one of these” She handed me a clear glass bottle with a glowing red liquid in it. I remembered being told about healing potions, so I quickly bit the cork off and chugged it down. After a few seconds, the wounds healed up completely. However, my legs turned weak as I couldn’t get the energy to stand.

“Why can’t I stand?” I asked as I lethargically lay down on the floor. The girl offered me her hand to lift me up and I took it while extremely pink in the face. She had me lean on her as we walked, picked up the sword and shield that I had dropped, and placed them back on the belt I had around my waist. As I got close, most of my feelings of infatuation quickly turned to uncomfortable nausea as the smell of this woman who had walked around in heavy armour for who knows how long hit my nose. 

“You’re not gonna have the energy to stand for a while. Healing potions speed up your body’s healing but they drain a ton of energy out of you.” Her fully plated armour clanked as she walked, and from what I could see, it needed a lot of work. The plating had a lot of dents, and some rivets looked like they were going to fall apart. The straps on the armour needed work too; I could practically hear them screaming for dear life. The poor condition of it distracted me heavily as we walked; the thing looked ready for the scrap in my eyes. 

“Where’re you headed?” I asked as I leaned on her shoulder, nearly falling asleep as I couldn't keep my energy up. My eyes felt heavy as if they were going to close down any second. That wasn't bothering me much, though. If I was going to pass out, the last thing I was going to see was a pretty face. That, and I wouldn't have to deal with her smell again. I knew it sounded insensitive to say it, but that woman hadn't bathed in days, and heavy armour tended to build up a smell.

“Knightshaven, it’s just a few days worth of travel from here” She said “I’ll set up camp for us in a bit, just try to stay awake for now.”  Even though she said that it was already too late and my consciousness was beginning to fail, I fell asleep instantly and landed on the forest floor. Night fell, and I woke up in front of a campfire, stretching myself. My head was incredibly groggy as I tried to gather where I was. It slowly started to come back to me, and my first instinct was to search my bag and belt for the equipment that I had crafted.

“Amelia!” I shouted, trying to find her as she floated out of a nearby tent, with the scarlet-haired beauty following her. She gave me a smile and threw me a piece of meat that I instantly ate out of pure hunger caused by the potion. 

“You slept for five hours, I got tired of dragging you around the woods for so long and set up camp for the night.” She said, just staring at me, entertained by how quickly and without a proper sense of control I had eaten that meat.. “Names Zeta by the way, Zeta steelsoul for my full name.” 

“Oh uhhh, Names Hayden, last name Morrison”I said, coming to my senses after having devoured what had felt like a kilogram of meat.. “I’m a blacksmith looking to make it to Knightshaven as well.”

“You’re one of those travelling guild blacksmiths right? The ones that are on some kind of quest?” She said with a curious grin on her face.

“Well it’s not really a quest, I guess a test would be the right word” I said, as I stood up, and dusted myself off. “I gotta spend a year using only the stuff I crafted to go from a bronze rank smith to a silver rank one.”

“Yeah,your fairy friend told me about it” She said, pointing to Amelia, who had now flown above her shoulder.

“I’m a pixie, not a fairy” Amelia said, looking slightly annoyed as she took a seat on her left shoulder.

“What’s the difference?” Zeta asked, after which she lightly blew on Amelia to make her hair fly.

“Pixies can shapeshift, fairies can’t” Amelia said in a grumpy voice.

“But you’re both tiny people in dresses.” She said as she patted Amelia on the head with her finger.

“Not all of us wear dresses!”  Amelia barked, offended as she stood on her shoulder.

“You do” Zeta said, chuckling at her.

“I wear dresses because I like dresses, not because I’m a pixie!” Amelia said as she got more annoyed at Zeta.

“Look, I’m just saying, I’ve never seen a pixie without a dress.” Zeta said with a smirk on her face, trying to stifle a snort.

“Look here you…you’re messing with me aren’t you?” Amelia said red in the face as the revelation hits her.

“No…” Zeta said, chuckling, while I had already burst out laughing.

She pouted her face as she landed a light punch on Zeta's face to no effect. (checkpoint)

“So Zeta, how far away from here do you think Knightshaven is?” I asked standing up and taking out a canteen of water and a toothbrush from my backpack. “I’d rather not travel alone if I can help it.”Smearing a bit of toothpaste on it, I quickly started brushing my teeth while waiting for her reply.

“I could use the company, I need to make my way to Knightshaven to get a new axe.” She said making a swinging motion to that of a person swinging an axe.

“Don’t you use a sword?” I said with toothpaste in my mouth as it lightly dripped onto my shirt.

“Ew” She said, using a rag to wipe the toothpaste off my shirt. “I use a lot of weapons, the greatsword’s just all I have right now though. Kinda lost my bag of weapons in an adventure involving a waterfall and a river.”

“So you’re trying to-” I said before I’m interrupted.

“Don’t talk with toothpaste in your mouth! Also yeah, I’m trying to replace all my weapons one by one.” She took out her greatsword to show me. “Right now it’s just my greatsword, but on the list I have a flail, a mace, a new shield, a longsword, a warhammer and-”

She then got interrupted as I spat out the toothpaste on the ground, accidentally hitting her foot with it.

“Dumbass!” She shouted, pushing me onto the ground in a panic..

“Sorry…” I said as I got up, and used the rag to wipe the toothpaste off my chin and her shoes.. 

“Jeez you really should be more careful, if it was any other adventurer they’d beat the crap out of you.”

“Yeah I understand, I really am sorry and uhh…I should probably thank you for saving my life as well.”

“It’s fine you looked like you could’ve used a hand, the feral goblins looked like they were gonna turn you into a paste with how much you got beaten up by them.”

“Yeah I’m new to the whole adventuring lifestyle deal.”
“No shit, when’d you start travelling? I just wanna know how much time you got on this whole long mission test of yours.”

“I started this morning.”

“Damn…that new to adventuring? It’s no shocker you got your ass kicked so easily.”

I gave her a dejected look as I sighed and said“Yeah I’m probably gonna be dead by the end of the month now that I think about it.”

“Does your test say you fail if you travel in an adventuring party?” She said, looking down at me, her well-built 6'6" height overshadowing my skinny 5'6" body.. “Just for a short while I mean, the things gonna be dissolved by the time we reach Knightshaven.”

“Does it?” I said, looking towards Amelia. (Checkpoint)

“There’s nothing in the rules of the test that forbids travel with an adventuring party, no matter how uncouth and childish the members of the party are.” Amelia said as she shot Zeta the nastiest look.

“Look, I’m sorry about the whole pixie and fairy joke.” Zeta said, trying to contain her laughter.

“You should be!” Amelia shouted as Zeta snorted and just burst out laughing, causing her to fly over to Zeta and start hitting her in the face. “You think this is a joke? I’ll mess you up!” She shouted as she kept punching and kicking Zeta's face to no avail as she just shrugged it off like a mosquito bite.

As Amelia eventually got tired and fell asleep on the floor, I picked her up and placed her in my backpack.

I said as I wrapped a handkerchief over Amelia as a makeshift blanket. "Just so you know, I only met her today. We hadn't known each other long. I'm fine to party up with you until we get to Knightshaven. It's just a day's journey anyways."

“You do that, I’m heading back into my tent to sleep. Since you slept all throughout day time I’m sure you won’t mind keeping watch for the night.” She headed back into her tent, and the sound of her snoring could be heard more than a few seconds later.

The night went by uneventfully, with no wild animals attacking us, no monsters or bandits trying to ambush us. The entire night ended up being spent with me bored out of my mind. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was thankful that that was the case. Any dangerous beast coming to attack out of nowhere would have been a pain in the ass for a new adventurer like me, especially one who was barely an adventurer anyways. It was just that watching absolutely nothing for an entire night was the most boring thing a person could do.

Eventually, the sun rose up, and I had heavy bags under my eyes.I was close to nodding off when I heard screaming from Zeta's tent. Panicked, I ran into her tent and saw her kicking around, her eyes still closed as she lay under her blanket. I tried to shake her awake, and she woke up, heavily breathing as tears ran down her eyes. Her first instinct as she woke up from whatever nightmare she was having was to punch me in the face and send me flying outside the tent, rolling onto the ground.

“Oh shit!” She shouted “Hayden I am so sorry!” She said while I lay there on the floor dazed.

“What’s the damn noise can’t a girl get her beauty sleep?” Amelia's voice resounded from inside my backpack.

“I accidentally punched Hayden in the face!” 

“Of course you did!” Amelia said as she flew out.

“Not the time for your fairy snark!”

“Piss off!” She shouted at Zeta while I was just on the floor trying not to cry at my broken nose.

“Why would you do that?” I weakly shouted at Zeta. (checkpoint)

“I’m sorry I was having a nightmare, and I just freaked out!” Zeta shouted as she tried to wipe the blood from my nose and face.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” I said, my slightly broken nose affecting my voice.(checkpoint)

“I’ll buy you an ale in the Knightshaven tavern for this. Just please don’t cry!” 

I immediately stopped the tears and just got up. I knew I was used to getting hit in the face a lot; I got punched in the face almost daily when I was doing combat training with the guild to prepare for this journey. It was just that a punch really hurt when you didn’t expect it.

“Okay let's just get going…”I said as I held my bloodied nose between my fingers..

“Let me see the damage.” Zeta says pulling my hands away and just lets out a noise of discomfort. “Oh I’m really sorry”

“I want another healing potion” I shouted with light anger at her. 

“You’ve been up all night. If I give you a healing potion, you’ll fall asleep instantly, and we need you up until sundown so you don’t end up a nocturnal adventurer,” Zeta said as she pulled out a few bandages to wrap my nose and set it into place.

“But I’m so hurt and so tired.” I said while  lightly groaning.

“Stop being such a baby about it,” she said as she finished wrapping the cloth on my nose. “We’re going to push on to Knightshaven for today and if we don’t reach by night then you can set up camp and actually sleep.”

I stretched my back and said, "Fine, let's just march along and keep walking."

It had taken hours of just walking, during which I kept my guard up, not wanting to be attacked by more creatures. The few hours we spent walking were full of awkward silence. None of us spoke because Amelia and I were annoyed with Zeta for our own reasons, and Zeta felt awkward talking to us after breaking my nose and constantly calling Amelia a fairy. It went on like that for six hours until Zeta finally spoke up.

“Look I’m sorry about-” She tried to get out before I heard a growl nearby.

I  interrupted her by saying “Wait not now, I think I hear something in the woods.

“It’s probably a stray wolf.” Zeta said, continuing on.

“If it is a wolf do you mind if I take it on? I need to engage in combat to test this sword and armour out to the best of its abilities.”

“Knock yourself out, but if it ends with you crying on the ground again don’t blame me.”

“I have a feeling you’re going to hold this over my head for a long time.” I said getting the sword and shield out.

I carefully approached the source of the noise and saw three small wolf heads looking back at me from a bush. I moved back a little, not wanting to harm any cubs. The heads followed me, and as they got out of the bush, something hit me that set off alarms in mine and Zeta's heads to run away. Sadly, we were too late, as we heard louder and deeper growling nearby.

 “It's a cerberus cub.”I said, slowly stepping back as the sight of three wolf heads on one body became clear when it stepped out of the bush. I was frozen in fear for a few seconds, unsure of what to do, until I felt two very tiny hands grab hold of my left ear.

“Hayden, get out of here now!” Amelia shouted with pure panic in her voice as she used all of her strength to pull on my ear.

I ran at her command and caught up to Zeta who had a good head start on running before I did but had to run slowly due to being weighed down by her poor quality and badly maintained armour, which kept creaking with every rushed step she took.

“Shit that things growling is getting louder and louder, I think its about to catch up to us.” Zeta said, breathing heavily as the combination of the heat and the running in heavy armour had taken its toll on her body and caused her to run extremely slow. “I don’t think running’s gonna be an option Hayden, at this point it's either hide or fight.”

“Hide, I choose hide!”I shouted in a state of pure panic as I didn’t want to face what was coming. If it was a mother cerberus we had no chance of making it out of this alive. We’d have to fight a 15 foot tall wolf with three heads that in some adventurers guides was said to spit magma at people and have a bite that could burn wood to ash and melt steel in seconds.

“I smell something burning,” Amelia said, shaking in fear inside my backpack.

“I’m not going down without a fight.” Zeta said, stopping in place and pulling out her greatsword as she walked back to where we were, knowing she’d meet the mother cerberus when she got there.

“Zeta you can’t win against the thing alone! Don't be stupid!” I said trying to pull her back and get her to hide with me. 

“Leave her behind, she’s made her choice. You focus on saving us right now!” Amelia had shouted from the backpack as she flew out and tried to pull me away, which had gone as successfully as one would think it would.

 That was when we heard the thuds of its footsteps growing louder, the sounds of it sprinting boomed through the forest. We smelled ash and smoke, a clear sign it was out to get us just because we went near its cub. We knew it was going to be huge but couldn’t predict just how big it would be. This giant three-headed wolf creature was in front of us. What looked like lava poured along its dark and ashen grey fur. They had rumoured these things to have a good sense of smell and with how close it was to us, hiding didn’t seem like an option anymore. I had to defend myself from the beast…but even worse, I had to stop something that's known for melting steel from destroying my weapons and armour while doing so. It wasn’t the best start to a test and it’d be an understatement to say I was screwed.