The guild hall at Rivermarch smelled of ink and iron, crowded even at dawn. Adventurers lounged in groups, clinking mugs or sharpening blades.

  The notice board was half-cleared already, only low-paying scraps pinned crooked at the bottom.

  Aanya tugged Marin toward the registration counter. The clerk, a round man with ink stains on his sleeves, looked up with weary eyes. “Yes?”

  Aanya laid down the herb-gathering slip from last week. “I completed this.”

  The man glanced at it, then at her. “That wasn’t a guild contract, girl. Just a healer’s posting. If you want it on record, you need to register.”

  “I’m here to register,” Aanya said firmly.

  The clerk’s quill paused mid-scratch. His gaze flicked from her determined face to Marin, who was standing with arms crossed, a hammer still tucked in her belt from the forge. “Both of you?”

  “She dragged me here,” Marin said dryly. “Might as well write me down before she gets herself killed.”

  The clerk sighed and pulled out two forms. “Names, age, residence, skills. Under eighteen means you’ll be provisionals only — no major rift closures, no high-risk hunts, no solos. You take beginner jobs, earn beginner coin, and keep your logbook updated. If you break rules, the Registry Core erases you.”

  “The what?” Aanya asked.

  He jerked his chin toward the center of the hall. There, half-hidden behind a carved railing, stood a waist-high crystal set in an iron frame. Its surface shimmered faintly with shifting names and runes.

  “Registry Core,” the clerk said. “Been recording contracts and ranks since the First Guild was founded. Don’t ask me how it works — nobody knows. But lose your badge, and it won’t know who you are.”

  Marin leaned closer, whispering, “Creepy. Looks like it’s watching us.”

  Aanya felt the bracelet on her wrist stir faintly as her eyes lingered on the crystal, but she said nothing.

  The clerk shuffled their forms, then turned to a squat machine set on his desk. It looked like an oversized press of iron and brass, covered in dents and patched with new bolts. With a grunt, he slipped in two blank brass plates.

  The machine hissed, a faint hum filling the air. Sparks flickered, and two hot badges clattered onto the tray, each etched with a name and faint runic stamp.

  “Badge Forge,” the clerk explained as if reciting lines he’d said a thousand times. “Same device, same rules, five thousand years. Your badge links to the Registry Core. Lose it and you’re nobody. Keep it, and every job you take, every coin you earn, goes on record. Don’t disgrace it.”

  He pushed the badges across the counter. “Congratulations. You’re provisional adventurers.”

  Marin picked hers up, sniffed, and grimaced. “Smells like old pennies.”

  Aanya pinned hers proudly to her satchel strap. For the first time, the word adventurer didn’t feel like a dream. It felt real.

  ***

  On their way out, Aanya stopped at the board. A fresh posting had just been tacked up. She pulled it free and read aloud:

  Escort required: caravan to Verdant Vale rift. Payment in coin and supplies. Risk: minimal.

  “Perfect,” she said, eyes shining.

  “Minimal risk,” Marin repeated flatly. “That’s the same as saying ‘surprise danger.’”

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  Aanya grinned. “First real contract. Come on.”

  The clerk waved them off as they left. “Good beginner job. Don’t get tricked by fairies.”

  “Don’t get eaten by leeches,” Marin added under her breath.

  ***

  By midmorning, the caravan rolled out. Two wagons creaked along the road, one piled with sacks of grain, the other stacked high with sealed barrels. The merchants bustled, cheerful and chatty.

  “Fairy honey fetches twice its weight in coin!” one boasted. “And moonfruit wine? Worth its weight in silver.”

  Aanya walked alongside, listening wide-eyed. Marin muttered numbers under her breath, already calculating potential profits.

  As the hills dipped, the air grew strange — warmer, filled with faint shimmering. Ahead, the rift glowed between two standing stones: a tall oval of green light, steady and strong. Through it, glimpses of towering flowers and silver streams danced like promises.

  Traders streamed in and out, carts rattling under bright canopies. A fairy drifted past with baskets of glowing fruit, her wings trailing light. An elf juggler performed tricks for laughing children.

  “It feels alive,” Aanya whispered.

  “Feels like money,” Marin said, but her eyes lingered too long for her words to carry weight.

  ***

  The second night at camp, the shimmer of the rift faltered. A hush spread through the caravan.

  Aanya’s bracelet pulsed warm against her wrist. She rose just as something slipped through the gate — a hunched, flickering shape, claws dragging sparks on the earth.

  “Rift leech!” a merchant hissed.

  The creature darted for the grain sacks. Aanya lunged, knife flashing, the bracelet steadying her feet as the ground seemed to sway. Marin was there too, hammer gripped two-handed, swinging as if the creature were glowing metal under her forge.

  The leech shrieked, its body rippling in and out of sight. Claws slashed at empty air where Aanya had stood a heartbeat before. She rolled low, stabbing upward. Marin’s hammer cracked down in the same instant.

  The beast dissolved in a hiss of ash.

  For a moment, the campfire’s crackle was the only sound. Then the merchants cheered, clapping them both on the back.

  “Good strike!” one cried. “Didn’t think a forge girl’s hammer had a place on the road, but you proved me wrong.”

  Marin puffed a little, smudged with soot and pride. “Metal’s metal. It listens to me.”

  ***

  By dawn, they reached Verdant Vale. The market beyond the rift thrummed with life — fairies bargaining, elves singing, beasts hauling glowing goods.

  Aanya stood transfixed. “This could be us. A shop at the rift’s edge. A forge that makes gear people trust. A place that’s ours.”

  Marin smirked, but her eyes shone. “Then we’d better survive a few more of these runs. That house won’t buy itself.”

  As they turned back toward Rivermarch, Aanya touched her badge again.

  “We’re adventurers now,” she said softly.

  “Provisionals,” Marin corrected, bumping her shoulder. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  Behind them, the rift shimmered, green and inviting — but Aanya’s bracelet pulsed faintly, reminding her not all gates led to friendly worlds. Somewhere, another rift whispered with teeth.