Because the number of marks shown by Identify is far too coarse a measure for practical s, the Adventurers Guild has always used a finer-grain ranking system. This facilitates a more reliable way to pair jobs and quests with people who have the power and skills to survive them.

  Uncssed guild members, and non-bat csses, are typically not referred to as adventurers. Instead, most guilds assign them ‘recruit’ or ‘staff’ titles depending on their expected roles.

  Single-mark adventurers – the so-called ‘newbies’ or novices – are unranked and most guilds will not allow them to take jobs unsupervised. This is to mitigate the steep death toll over the first couple of levels where people are far too unfamiliar with cssed bat ao make fatal mistakes.

  Upon achieving their tenth css level – and their seark – adventurers earn the bronze rank and are sidered experienced enough to join a team and take jobs unsupervised. Bronze-raeams make up the bulk of most guilds, handling most of the jobs. Still, there is an enorme of risk between a level ten threat and a level twenty threat, and adventurers are advised to exercise appropriate caution when choosing jobs.

  Silver rank is ear level thirty, and gold at sixty.

  Ptinum rank is reserved for those few rare individuals who mao survive the transition to level one hundred, and finally earhird mark. - Excerpt from The Adventurer’s Guide, Third Edition

  Teagan

  Teagan nervously readjusted her leather vest. It had been a gift from her grandmother when she had earned her css and she had been super excited when she first tried it on. But it chafed unfortably under her armpits, clearly not desigo be worn over a dress.

  “I’ll go first,” Braden decided, seg his buckler to his belt before hauling the grate up off the hole in the ground. He lit his torch. It was just a rag tied to the end of a stid dipped in cheap mp oil – cheap enough that it made a sooty fme. “Follow me, everyone.”

  “Don’t fall on your faighty warrior,” Willow said, lighting her own tord following him down into the hole, her blonde braid somehow angling with the bow slung across her back.

  The dder leading down into the sewer was nothing more than a set of rusty iron staples jutting from the stone wall. This is hardly safe. She reached out and stepped on the first one, holding her breath as she began her slow dest into the dark sewers. Well below her feet – eoo far down – the light of the torches danced and bounced around as Braden and Willow reached the bottom.

  Darkness closed in as her head passed below the street level, and immediately the muffled crashing and thumping of the Goblin siege ons faded, leaving only the soft sounds of dripping water, and the g of Basil following her down the dder, sh her with rust and dirt with every step. He acted even more timid than her. ly setting the bar high, are we?

  Teagan finally pced her bare foot on the cold, damp, and rather slimy brick of the sewer tunnel floor and stepped aside for the Herbalist’s apprentice, Basil. This ‘adventure’ had been his idea – apparently, someone had cimed to see mushrooms growing down in these sewers, and he had insisted on posting a job on the guild quest board.

  Normally, the Guildmaster would have vetoed them taking the quest sihey had only just reached level two before the Goblins had arrived – using the quest board required bronze rank – but there was nobody else. The garrison was so low on resources that Vivian Ross finally relented and asked them to escort Basil to collect whatever could be used for the defense of the town. In theory, they were still withiown down here, and it should be safe, but Vivian Ross had insisted they were to run if they found any monsters above their level.

  Which is pretty muy mo all.

  Holy, she had beeed just to be doing something – anything – that might be useful. Sitting around during a dungeon-break and doing nothing, even though you had unlocked a bat css, was beyond frustrating. But now, standing in the dank, smelly sewer and hearing the trickle of water in the darkness, she was suddenly not quite so sure of herself.

  What if there are monsters? What if we ’t run fast enough?

  “e o’s go,” Braden announced and began walking down the sewer tunnel, holding his torch high above his head to light the way. The normally soft metallic king of his well-worn mail shirt sounded unnaturally loud down here.

  Brown-haired, stocky Braden liked to py leader, but Teagan knew he would happily lead them into a forest without a map ahem hopelessly lost. It would be Willow that had the wits to remember the way back.

  I hope she finds a good panion soon. Willow – a tall Human from Hickory Hollow, deep in the great southern forest – had been struggling with her Beast Tamer css. Nearly half her initial skills required her to form a bond with a panio, but she hadn’t found anything suitable yet. Maybe we find something down here? But that would mean fag monsters. She shivered, then forced out a giggle. Monster slug? Sure, Willow, just what you always wanted.

  She let Braden and Willow take the lead, keeping up the rear with Basil.

  Healers at the back, she reminded herself, taking her pce. At least, the Guildmaster had been more than thh about drilling them on the basics of adventuring. She followed along in silence, choking ba urge to gag as the fetid odor of the sewer el assaulted her nose. She gnced back to che Basil, but he didn’t seem to be much of a versationalist – certainly not like Willow and Braden. He followed along in silence, his eyes searg the surroundings stantly.

  He's certainly putting on a brave face, she decided. He didn’t even have a css yet, and she had heard the rumor that he had faced a Goblin attaside the town and got lucky enough to be saved by a patrol.

  They had walked for quite a while before Teagan suddenly noticed something different. The tunnel was still dark, but she felt the crisp springiness of a mossy carpet under her bare feet, rather than the slimy, damp brick.

  “The ground feels different here,” she announced, and everyoopped to look.

  Basil bent down to examihe mossy carpet while Willow held some light for him. “Verdant Moss,” he said, a pronou of surprising fidence from the previously quiet boy. “Somewhat unusual, but I don’t know of any important uses for it.”

  He got up, and they tinued, rounding the bend iunnel, and Teagan stopped and gasped. The sewer tunnel ahead of them was just like any other, dark, and filled with a tral el of filthy water. However, the floor was carpeted by a thick yer of moss, and reg into the distahe tunnel was lit by a breathtaking sprinkling of mushrooms that sparkled and glowed with a soft golden light.

  “Wow…” It’s beautiful. Weird, but beautiful.

  Braden stepped forward raising his torch, shedding more light down the mystical tunnel. All along the sewage el, mushrooms sprouted. Several varieties even, not all of them glowing. They all stepped carefully into the tuheir footsteps muffled by the soft springy cushion underfoot.

  A swirling movement in the middle of the sewer el caught her eye. With a bubbling, sloshing sound, two shapes flopped out of the mud onto the moss, blobbing slowly across the carpet, dragging themselves along with protrusions aensions rapidly extruded from their amorphous bodies, leaving a filthy trail of slime and sewage behind them.

  “Slimes!” Willow shouted.

  Teagan’s heart left the gate in a shot, rag as fast as she had ever experienced. Monsters! Run? What should I do? But the lessons the Guildmaster had drilled into them sprang into her head to save her from a mindless panic. She remembered to use her skills.

  Toxic Slime – Ooze – level 1 x2

  “Level one, do we run? Or kill them?” Willow asked, her tone rushed and urgent, clearly having identified the monsters, too.

  Teagan’s panic abated, but only a little. They were still fag real monsters.

  And we’re only level two.

  “We got this,” Braden answered with a cat his voice that betrayed his nervousness.

  “Ok?” Teagan said. Why are they all looking at me?

  Apparently, that was all Braden needed.

  “Have at you, you foul beasts!” he yelled, brandishing his sword and shield at the monsters and charging forward.

  He’s su idiot sometimes. But Braden’s ridiculous shout had the surprising effect of calming her nerves. Braden had almost reached the two slimes when thick, gnarled pnt roots burst from the ground, with the creaking and grinding of tortured wood, and ed themselves around his arapping him in the middle of the sewer tunnel.

  The two slimes simply ignored his screams and filing sword and tinued by.

  They’re ing for me! Help!

  She froze, staring at the approag monsters in horror, her mind suddenly bnk and her legs trembling.

  From her right, the twang of a b snapped her out of her frozen panid a wet thud echoed through the tunnel as Willow’s arrow buried itself up to the fletg in one of the slime monsters. Immediately, it ged dire, angling toward her with the arrow still stig out of its amorphous body, but Willow executed a spectacur leap to the other side of the sewage el and nocked another arrow.

  All her practid training at the guild came back to her in a rush. Quickly, Teagan summoned a Free-A totem and dropped it he furiously struggling Braden. It pulsed softly, and the roots binding his ankles loosened, releasing him. At the same time, she backed away from the menag slime, remembering to ent her shield with her softly glowing green magic.

  Even though Braden was an idiot, he was always reliable. As soon as he was free, he charged the slime, smag it with the ft of his shield. A dull, wet spt echoed through the tunnel. Clearly upset, the slime retaliated by spraying a foul-smelling green liquid into Braden’s face. He screamed in pain, swinging his sword blindly while clutg at his eyes, but still managing, somehow, to ect with the monster.

  Teagan put two and two together.

  Poison! And she had just the antidote. She cast Cure on Braden and followed immediately by eling her mana into her Heal skill. The green beam of her healing spell ected her to him and immediately his screaming ceased, and he refocused on the slime, sword swishing through the air.

  Teagan had only had her css for a few days, and she could still scarcely believe she had healing magic. The slime tio strike at Braden with blobby appendages, but he seemed to be on good footing now, blog the attacks with his shield as he yelled, “Take that, and that, you fiends!” Her heart filled with a burst of warmth aement at the sight of her magiishing his pain.

  She gnced over to see if Willow was ok, but she seemed to be leading the other slime on a merry chase around the sewer tunnel. She had a pattern – she leaped across the water to shoot the Toxic Slime with arrows until it crossed over, and then she repeated the leap back to the other side, making it chase after her. Willow had always been a quick learner, and Teagan could see how she was makiain to stay out e of the toxic spit.

  The Toxic Slime in front of her sprayed Braden again, but this time he caught the brunt of it on his shield, getting just a little spsh down his mail shirt. His sword took on a ruddy glow as he used one of his warrior skills, and it blurred as the overhead strike cleaved the writhing blob in two. Teagan ighe monster, simply healing Braden again to make sure he was in top shape before he rushed off after the slime that was chasing Willow.

  “I have you now!” Braden yelled, his charge, and the solid impact of his shield, causing the blobby creature to explode in a wet spray, c the mossy ground with a greenish-brown sludge that bubbled and frothed for a while before subsiding.

  Willow nodded, “Nice work, Braden.”

  In the silehat desded on the sewer, Teagan’s notification chime sounded. She sank to the ground, her legs trembling as the adrenaline rush began to fade. It had been even more terrifying than unlog her css out in the forest with a group of five. Down here, it was just the three of them in the dark.

  “Too bad it’s a slime. No loot,” Braden said, kig the corpse of the monster. “Sorry about the, uh… near beheading there, Willow. I got carried away.”

  “I don’t mind, I got to level three!” Willow answered, a wide smile wreathing her face.

  She’s level three already? Jealously, Teagan firmed the advah Identify. Oh! I wonder… Her attention flickered inward to find the image of her totems and the notifications that hung glowing in the air among them.

  Yroup has defeated Toxic Slime – Ooze – level 1 x2.

  Restoration Shaman has reached level 3.+10 attribute points.

  Cure has reached level 2.Heal has reached level 3.Summon Totem has reached level 2.

  “I’m level three, too!”

  All her nervousness and shaking were suddenly worth it. She had leveled up!

  A little movement from behind her drew her attention to Basil, who was still c behind the er, and the reason they were down here in the first pce.

  “I think it’s safe to e out,” she told him, getting a nervous smile as he emerged from his hiding spot. To ence him, she got up and walked with him to where Braden and Willow were still examining the dead slimes.

  “Hey, there’s a dead Goblin here,” Willow called out. “It looks like it’s been half-eaten by the slimes.”

  Basil made a gagging noise in his throat and averted his gaze. “Don’t touch it.”

  “Does it have any gear?” Braden asked curiously.

  “Nothing that’s still intact,” Willow answered, earning a muttered curse from Braden. She gri him. “I mean, you’d smell like a Goblin, too.”

  “Fresh eau de corpse? t me out,” he chuckled. “Besides, their stuff is too small for me, I was hoping to find something to sell.”

  Teagan wasn’t particurly ied in dead Goblins unless she had to run away ht them, so she turned back to find Basil on his knees examining the mushrooms.

  “Oh wow! These are amazing!” he excimed, looking up with a beaming grin. “Three different kinds of mushroom, all magical. Look, this here is a Bed Deathcap, a death affinity mushroom.”

  “Why would we want a death magic mushroom?” she asked. It sounded creepy. Actually, it looked creepy, too. It was bd misshapen, and surprisingly rge.

  “It’s used for a ic poison,” Basil expined. “Some archers and rogues prefer it tur poisons because it acts faster. And here,” he carefully plucked a vibrant red and white spotted mushroom from the moss with a gloved hand. “This is a Forest Amanita – a poison affinity mushroom.” He ed it and pced it in a bag he had produced from his pack, taking care to avoid letting it touch his skin.

  Well, somebody’s finally in his element. Teagan could not help but warm to his enthusiasm, even if it was over vile poisons.

  “But the real find is this beauty,” Basil said, his voice dropping to an awed whisper as he gently gathered one of the golden glowing mushrooms. “This is a on Glo, an are mushroom. Despite their hey’re incredibly rare, found only near powerful sources of are magic. I have no idea how it’s growing down here.”

  “What’s it for?” Teagan asked, surprised at how curious she was about the strangely beautiful mushroom.

  “Are magits be used to make mana potions. These are low-level so would only supply low-level potions, but they do go a long way. Eliyen is going to be over the moon to see these. The garrison mages guzzle them like kids with dy.”

  “How many should we get?” Teagan asked, excited by the prospect that their first foray into the sewer was going to be extraordinarily useful.

  “I think ten should about do it for now,” Basil answered. “I mean, if that’s ok – I know you guys might have to fight more of those slimes.”

  “I’m game,” Braden announced, and Teagahe idea of earning a little from their job had made his day. “We did fine, nothing we ’t handle.”

  “Says the guy who tanked a face-full of poison,” Willow chipped in from the side. “I’d like to try to get to level four,” she added, making it clear that she was voting to tinue.

  “Me too,” Teagan added, surprised to find her fear had vanished, repced by an undercurrent of excitement.

  After Basil had collected the mushrooms, they ventured down the mystically lit sewer tunnel in search of the clump.

  “ you tame slimes?” Teagan asked, no longer feeling the need for absolute silence as she walked beside Willow.

  “No, I o find a beast, and slimes are not even intelligent,” her friend answered. Willow looked ahead and called out, “Hey, doofus, try avoiding the root traps this time. There’s a glow on the ground.”

  “Not for me,” Braden answered over his shoulder. “I don’t have trap dete.”

  “I’ll gdly help you fall into the one.”

  “Only falling for you, midy Willow,” he said, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead in a pretend swoon.

  Willow and Braden’s banter tio lighten the mood as they headed deeper into the sewer in searushrooms.

  Aliandra Once again, Ali wished the sewers didn’t smell quite so foul. She felt as if she had made a bit of a breakthrough discovery with her mushrooms, but with the Goblin siege and all the sudden work, she hadn’t had nearly enough time to cim the entire sewer yet, nor experiment with the effects she had noticed earlier.

  Things in town seemed to be getting worse. She had paired up with Malika for her patrol this evening because had taken a job shooting from the battlements. The sounds of Goblins screeg outside the walls had been unceasing, interrupted only by the periodic explosive reports of fireballs htning as the elite Goblins took potshots at the guards otlements.

  Their patrol had been quiet, with almost everyone respeg the evening curfew. Only a few criminals braved the streets, and those had been weak enough that they had simply fled when she and Malika approached.

  “I’m looking forward to some food and sleep,” Malika said as they walked the dark tunnels by the light of Ali’s occasional barriers.

  “I still o make some more arrows before bed,” Ali grumbled. The Guildmaster had personally asked her if she could make more. Apparently, the garrison was using them up at a furious pace, and it wasn’t like it would be easy to retrieve them from the Goblin horde camped outside the gates.

  Her meandering thoughts were suddenly interrupted when she bumped into the baalika’s leg.

  “Shh…” Malika hushed her before she could ask any questions.

  In the silence, Ali heard muffled shouting and banging ing from up ahead. That sounds like fighting. Ali peered around Malika’s leg and the er of the sewer tunnel. Panicked fighting.

  A little way dowunnel, a discarded torch flickered on the mossy ground where it y. A brown-haired boy wearing a shirt at least three sizes too big for him waved his sword and shield, cursing as he struggled against the roots from one of Ali’s runic circles.

  What is he doing? Her traps were foblins, not people.

  On the far side of the el, a blonde human girl wearing browher armor darted and weaved, jumping like aed grasshopper across the el while firing arrows at one of her Toxic Slimes. A sed slime bore down on a red-haired girl who looked to be frozen in terror. She was barefoot and wore an impractically long, flowing forest-green dress with a hem stained from being dragged around in the sewers. A leather vest had been awkwardly strapped over the dress.

  Hardly appropriate wear for a sewer.

  C behind a rge pile of rotting trash, the debacle, was a fourth. A boy that Ali instantly reized as the one she and had rescued.

  What’s Basil doing here? He doesn’t even have a css yet. Even she had not been that much of a liability in a fight – she hoped.

  Hunter – Human – level 2Warrior – Human – level 2Shaman – Human – level 2 (Nature)Human

  Low levels, no wohey’re struggling. Ali tried to step past Malika, but she felt her friend’s hale on her shoulder.

  “Wait,” Malika whispered.

  “I have to tell my slimes to stop attag them!” Ali replied with an urgent whisper.

  “I reize them. They’re newbie adventurers from the guild,” Malika said. “I think this might be their first solo fight.”

  “My slimes are going to hurt them.” Ali trusted Malika, but right now she didn’t uand why the irl was suddenly being so obtuse.

  “I think they’ll be ok,” Malika insisted, her gaze i on the unfolding se. As if ohe boy, now freed of the roots by the presence of a strange wooden totem emitting vibrating nature magic, charged the slime and earned himself a face full of toxic spray. He screamed.

  Ali g Malika in .

  “If we get involved, they won’t earn any experience,” Malika cautioned, apparently unmoved by his shrieks. “Watch, I think the redhead is a healer.”

  The previously terrified, barefoot girl was now wielding her magic. Ali’s eyes widened in astonishment as the nature mana burst from the girl’s hand flowing out in a swirling streamer of brilliant green to ect her with the hurt boy desperately trying to stab a slime he clearly couldn’t see.

  Healing magic, Ali immediately reized it. While it was quite different in position than the druidic restoration magic that she could create with her runes, it bore enough simirities that she could tell simply by looking.

  She’s a lot like that Goblin shaman, Ali realized, seeing simirities in the fual css skills. Her mana was Nature, not Lightning, and the totem was wooden instead of metal, but the meism seemed simir. The girl threw totems, used healing beams instead of lightning bolts, and wielded a shield that glowed with nature magic. Is that some kind of healing buff?

  And a few moments ter, both slimes were dead.

  The boy pined loudly about the ck of loot while the blonde girl excitedly shared that she had leveled up. Ali’s simple use of Identify firmed that all of them except Basil had just leveled.

  “They just got level three,” Ali whispered.

  “Don’t they just remind you of us when we first got our csses?”

  “Were we ever that scared?” Ali asked. She thought about some of the early fights she had had. “Actually, don’t ahat. I think I orse.”

  Malika snickered lightly in response. “No, they take the prize.”

  “Hey, he’s pig my mushrooms,” Ali pined. It had taken most of the day to pnt everything and now Basil’s excited voice echoed through the tunnel as he uprooted her mushrooms and stored them in a bag.

  “Listen,” Malika whispered. “He just expihat those twood poisons.”

  Ali trated on their versation and caught them talking about how the Glo mushrooms could be used to make mana potions. Oh! My mushrooms might actually be valuable after all. Mana potions are always in demand.

  “Perhaps you sell some of those too,” Malika suggested.

  “They’re going to searore?” Ali asked incredulously as the party of four retrieved their discarded torches and packs and headed further dowunnel.

  “Looks that way.”

  “What should we do?” Ali was still trying to unpack what had just happened. “They’re killing my slime sentries and stealing my mushrooms.”

  “Let them tihey’re level-three adventurers. This is probably their very first quest. I’m sure they’re just trying to help the town with some of the jobs and earn a little experience along the way. Besides, didn’t you say Basil is cute?”

  “No!” Ali squeaked crossly. Cute as in a Bugbear would stomp him ft in one sed? Ouch. Was I ever that bad? Hmm. Ali didn’t share Malika’s positivity, but she followed the irl as they headed off in the opposite dire, unnoticed by the novice adventurers.

  “You just make some more ter, right?” Malika asked. “Did you see how effective yrasping Roots trap was? The slimes just ighat warrior a straight for the healer. If she hadn’t freed him, they might have been in some trouble. I like that redhead shaman – she seems sharp.”

  I guess they really are just as hapless as we were, Ali thought. While it would be annoying to repnt, it didn’t seem like too much of a chore. The guild and the herbalist would get some good materials, the town would get some mana potions, and the three adventurers had just grown a little stronger.

  Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad oute after all. The only downside is I don’t get paid for those mushrooms I made! Jolly thieves!

  timewalk