Gather intel in town

In the morning, the three of you split up to tackle various tasks: Lia volunteers to go around town and put her quick hands to use “gathering” whatever she can for the cause, be it coin purses, food, or anything else of use; since none of you know anything about the runes you’ve been seeing on all of Hesperos’s wizardry, Blythe is going to take another look at the magic circle and then ask people in town if they know anything about the mysterious symbols, and finally, you plan on heading over to the Adventurer’s Guild to see if there’s a job that needs doing. Not only would a job earn you some cash, but also you figure a place like that usually holds some answers for the protagonist to stumble upon. A bit cocky to be thinking of myself and the girls as the protagonists, you think. But hey, this whole town is part of a trial made to test us, so isn’t that what we are?

You find the Guild Hall with relative ease. To your surprise, it looks almost identical to the building in Evris. Broad stonework rounds the base of the building, which gives way to solid oak walls decorated by banners. The banners even carry the same crossed-swords-over-a-shield logo. The only difference you can see is that the wooden walls have been painted orange, and that the banners are mostly blue in color. Between his face on the money and his fashion sense on the buildings, this place must really be a major boost to that old wizard’s ego, you think. The inside of the building is a tavern-esque layout, with large table sets spread around a big, open room. You can see at least three groups of people hanging around, as well as several individuals sitting and minding their own business. In the back, there’s a long counter like you’d see at a bank, behind which stand three lovely ladies in matching blue dresses. You walk up to the one in the middle, an elf with a bob of chin-length, lime green hair.

The guild clerk greets you with a smile. “I have not seen your face in here before,” she says. “How may we at the Guild be of service to you?”

“Actually, I’m here to see how I can be of service to the Guild,” you say.

The elven clerk helps you fill out paperwork to register with the Guild. She’s very professional and sincere in her duties, walking you through the hierarchy of job listings, from S down to E, and how much an adventurer needs to accomplish in order to raise their ranking with the Guild. It’s all very standard fantasy stuff, but that doesn’t stop you from paying close attention to everything she says. The way you see it, any word coming out of a person’s mouth here could be a clue to encountering the Elemental and completing the trial. It feels beyond strange to think of these people like NPCs in a game, you think, but if we’re really in a separate dimension created solely for these trials, then it’s hard not to think that everything that’s going on here is happening for a reason. Once her explanation is finished, the clerk sends you on your way with an E-rank cleaning job to get done by the end of the day.

On your way to the communal toilets that you’re meant to clean, you bump into someone on the street and feel something around your pocket. You turn your head, thinking you’re being targeted by a pickpocket, and see a person in a brown cloak walking the other way. The hood is pulled over their head, but is being poked up in two places. Ah, I get it, you think. You carry on walking, and once you reach the toilets you pull out a pouch of drachmas that Lia slipped into your pocket. She probably didn’t want to keep every coin purse she snatches on her person. Or maybe she just wanted to give you some spending money?

The work is menial, and the pay is depressing, but after today you officially have your foot in the door with the Guild. You can’t help but be a little disappointed that you didn’t uncover any clues about the Elemental you’re supposed to defeat, but hopefully Blythe had better luck on that front. For now, as you walk through the streets in the early evening, you try to put those worries aside. Just for a little while, you try to pretend that you’re a budding adventurer without a care in the world, who just finished his first job and wants to celebrate. To feed that fantasy, you find yourself in a tavern, allowing yourself two drachmas worth of booze.

Practically everyone in the tavern makes fun of you for saying you’ll spend so little, but you’re not an idiot. You don’t have the luxury of spending your entire paycheck on getting drunk. Besides, if you’re drunk, you can’t listen in on conversations — or at least you wouldn’t be able to remember them. So, with your two drachmas worth of watered down ale, you take a seat at a table in a corner of the tavern and eavesdrop on the locals for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the talk of the tavern is incredibly boring, and has you thinking of leaving already when someone plops down in the seat across the table from you. As you look up from your mug, the first things you see are the giant tits, threatening to burst right out of the rosy button-up shirt that’s barely containing them. Your eyes continue upwards until you’re looking right into the eyes of the bunnykin bombshell you met at the inn yesterday.

She looks… nervous?