I didn’t want to return the way I came, so I exited back into the main street at an intersection further up ahead. The night had just fallen and the streets were illuminated by the glow of magic lamps. They were shining crystals encased in a glass exterior, with the soft luminescence of ghostly lights that danced and circled around it. Two points in language comprehension was enough to make out what was written on the sign outside the noticeably distinct guild building. Inside was the familiar sight of quest boards, smiling guild receptionists and unruly adventurers. “How can we help?”, the woman at the counter enquired while maintaining her practiced smile.

  “Here to register”, I replied. The receptionist frowned at that. She took a white crystalline paperweight from her desk and handed it to me, while the stack of paper underneath threatened to escape.

  I wasn’t sure if the paperweight was something that was freely provided to all the new registrants, or if I was expected to do something with it. “Level stone”, she said, doing her best to hide her frustration of having to explain something like that. As I stared blankly at the newly entitled paperweight, the winds chose to scatter the now unencumbered clutter of paper on her desk. A cursing receptionist chased after the flying documents, then decided she couldn’t be bothered to run after them and chose to let the winds claim them. ‘They are probably not important’, she muttered under her breath. “Cayla, are you using the level stone as a paper weight again?”, her colleague from the next counter shouted at her, as I looked on bewildered. This receptionist was the gateway goddess of all receptionists, in terms of competency.

  “Just transmit your level information on to the stone”, the receptionist suggested impatiently.

  I tried to focus on the stone and just as I did, the stone gave a mild red glow. I was expecting the stone to reveal my exact level, but it was perhaps too crude for that and maybe just measured whether a threshold was crossed. Glorified paperweights afterall.

  “Just as I suspected — below level ten. The guild is strict about who can register. The guild can not be liable for everyone running around with a stick, claiming to be an adventurer. The rules are clear — at least one of the two requirements for a class has to be met”, she said, as she tried to shoo me away.

  “I take it that the first requirement is level-based. What’s the other one?”

  “The other..”, she scoffed. “I suggest you find someone capable enough to take you with them to the forest when they go on quests and leech experience off them to raise your level. Train yourself on a weapon in the meantime. You can come back once the system deems you proficient enough to use a weapon and you have ten skill points saved up from leveling to claim that weapon skill.”

  “Just give me a straight answer, lady. What’s the other requirement?”, I asked without budging from my spot.

  “The other requirement for a class is that you must have a weapon skill or…”, she paused for dramatic effect before continuing, “..or that you have a magic primer”. She smiled triumphantly, assuming that the revelation startled me enough to give up. Looking at me again, she continued, “What are you — seventeen? Unlocked your system a few months ago, perhaps? Maybe you poked a stick at a monster that was all but dead at the hands of someone else, picked up a level here or there and convinced yourself you are an adventurer?”

  “I have a primer though”, I stated flatly. “And I’m nineteen”, I added.

  She suddenly went quiet, then recovered from her shock and shook her head entirely unconvinced. She wasn’t going to let some teenage girl make a fool of her. So she dragged me all the way to the training area. “Lying on your guild application is grounds for punishment”, she warned me.

  She stared wide-eyed as I tossed a luminous blast at a training dummy, entirely decimating it.

  “But how..? With your low level..”, she mumbled. She appeared to have connected some dots as she didn’t bother to finish that sentence. “An innate primer! You were born with it”, she declared as if she had put together all the missing pieces of the mystery. “A light primer as well?”, she screamed, almost as if the detective had suddenly thought of the involvement of an accomplice.

  Her entire demeanor changed instantly, contempt giving way for reverence. She quickly took me back to the front desk and even volunteered to help me fill out the form. Having witnessed firsthand the attention and care she provided to the paperwork in her custody, I briefly considered handing my form to the receptionist at the next counter. But, my language skill was only at rank two and writing was a challenge at this level, especially if I wanted to be done with the form anytime soon.

  The application allowed plenty of room to withhold information. Several fields were marked optional and I wasn’t keen to volunteer more information than I had to. I offered my first name, but left the optional field for my last name blank — owing to not having one, but my reasons were easily mistaken by the guild receptionist, who winked at me in ‘understanding’ . “A high noble house then. Secret’s safe with me, my lady”, she said. I had to check the box that asked if I had a primer, as my guild membership was tied to meeting that requirement, but the specifics of the actual primers didn’t have to be shared. So I left those fields empty and did the same with my skills. In the end, I turned in a mostly blank application. Thank the king for those data consent laws!

  I was granted a provisional guild membership, which would be made permanent after I attended the orientation program that was held once every month. As a novice adventurer, I received a copper badge and a guild membership card. The badges weren’t a measure of one’s strength, but reflected one’s reputation and standing in the league, and went up with results delivered. They also determined what benefits I received from the guild. The copper badge was the lowest of all and It certainly didn’t come with dental — or any other benefits for that matter, but the entry fee at the gate was waived if you were wearing one. The badges also established a hierarchy and gave a general idea of what quests I could take. But they weren’t going to stop you if you had a death wish and wanted to test yourself against a dragon or something, provided the guild and its top brass weren’t inconvenienced by your attempts.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The guild also accepted monster corpses, medicinal herbs and alchemical ingredients at fixed rates, in exchange for a small fee. I was relieved I didn’t have to haggle with anyone. I kept the horn and the core of the Nightspark for myself, but I was paid three silvers for the rest of the rabbit, and was promised more once their alchemist had a chance to look at it. I was told that the corpse of a mutated creature like that was worth a lot as an alchemical ingredient. The cores and the horns of the normal rabbits brought me a silver and sixty. The guild took ten percent as their cut, which came close to half a silver. My total savings stood at five silver and twenty-two bronze.

  Once that was settled, I moved on to other pressing matters. “Can you perhaps introduce me to some party members? As a mage, I’m practically at the mercy of a brute willing to take a beating in my stead.”

  “Once every month, the guild holds an event to match new adventurers to parties. It’s the best way to find new party members. All the participants will gather in a room and meet each other, one at a time. A bell that chimes at regular intervals signals the participants to change partners. At the end of the day, you will hand over the list of your preferred candidates to the organizers, who will then carry out the match-making”. She continued, “ How fortunate for you, lady Alysa. There is an event scheduled for tomorrow. It’s a bit last minute, but I can sneak you in”, she said.

  The process sounded vaguely familiar. I sighed when I finally realized. If I was understanding this correctly, she had signed me up for a speed-dating event! Speed dating for party members.

  “Let’s get you registered for tomorrow. The first step in the process is to fill this questionnaire. A lot of thought and effort went into making this questionnaire. I’ve personally handpicked a lot of these questions, even crafted some of them”, she said with immense pride. Her active involvement in this endeavour didn’t bode well for its chances or my faith in it.

  “The questions were crafted with great care to measure potential team chemistry”, she said, her enthusiasm plain to see. I wasn’t convinced. “The responses say a lot about how someone would fit in a party”, she further explained.

  “Let’s sit down and get comfortable”, she said, as she pulled out a form that was at least a dozen pages. I sighed and took a chair.

  The first question was the fantasy equivalent of 'Who would you rather save from a sinking boat?’. I was supposed to pick the recipient of a healing potion. A choice between a warrior, a rogue and a mage — all grievously injured and in need of the only healing potion in my possession. Cayla being the ‘outside the box thinker’ that she was, suggested that I keep the potion for later.

  She quickly moved on to the next question before I could correct her. “If one of your party mates secretly ate your packed lunch, how would you react?” The options ranged from 'striking them down on the spot' to 'handing over my dinner'. I settled for something halfway between both the extremes.

  She smiled when she saw the next question. “Lady Alysa, would you say you are more likely to fall for a dashing young warrior, a scholarly mage or a devious rogue?”. I instantly suspected Cayla’s hand in the question.

  “What has that got to do with forming a party?”, I blurted out in confusion.

  “Most adventurers are likely to get married to a party member. Er.. scratch that. Most adventurers are likely to get killed, barring which, they tend to get married to someone from their party. We have to be ten steps ahead, and team you up with the right people if you want to be married by thirty!”

  “There is no way I am answering that question”. If I didn’t put my foot down, she would marry me off to someone by the end of the day.

  “I will write you down as ‘open to all possibilities’..”. She winked.

  “Is it absolutely necessary that I fill this form?”

  “Anyone who registered with the guild in the last two years is eligible to sign up for this event. The event usually attracts hundreds of people and there isn’t enough time to go around meeting everyone. So we split everyone into groups of fifteen. The questionnaire helps to place you in the most compatible group.”

  “ And my marriage prospects are the deciding factor?!”

  Cayla read out the next question, “Would you agree to wear matching party-uniforms?”

  “Absolutely not!’, I shouted.

  She pouted in disappointment, but didn’t stop with the questions. “You are camped out in the wilderness for an overnight quest and your teammate snores..What would you do?”, the question asked. I opted to simply ‘roll them on to their sides’, much to the disappointment of the receptionist, who was a big proponent of ‘smothering them to silence with a pillow’.

  On and on the questions went. There was a question on the preferred approach to handling disputes within a party. The receptionist tried to nudge me towards the right answer, which according to her was to let things fester long enough until they were forgotten — ‘or blew up in our faces’, I muttered. It was still a mild choice by her standards. Naturally, I opted not to go with any of her suggestions and stayed far away from another option that called for ‘a fight unto death’. Amicable settlement through healthy dialogue wasn’t listed as a valid choice.

  Once I settled on some random choice, she went straight to the next question. “The best course of action to bring about a change in party leadership?”

  “ A call for a vote?”, I asked hesitantly.

  Her eyes flitted through the form. “I don’t see that listed as one of the options”, she said. Of course, it wasn’t there. She started reading out the available options one by one, “Leaving things to omens, signs and divine intervention”. Sure, if we were trying to depose the chief shaman. Her face was practically gleaming as she revealed the next option, “ Challenging the leader to a duel” —Maybe if I was in a wolf-pack and wanted to be made the alpha.

  When we were finally done with everything, she took all the pages to her desk. Then she searched around looking for something and when she found what she was looking for, it turned out to be a white crystalline stone, which she left on top of my forms as a paperweight. I sighed knowing the fate that awaited it.