Coming atcha this morning with a dose of local news before we hit the tunes – Senator Marcus Marcus Marcus the 3rd has disappeared from public life since attending the Merchant’s Guild Debutante Ball last weekend. No one who knows is talking, but you can bet someone knows and they are keeping things very hush-hush.
I have no doubt – no doubt! – that the gov-ern-ment knows exactly what is going on here. They’re covering something up, something very mysterious, and I can’t wait to bring you the stone cold truth right here on K-RAD – just as soon as I figure it out! I am public enemy number one of the hush-hush crowd and I won’t back down!
Now, let’s throw on something that fits the mood like a fucking glove! It’s time to listen to those !”
- DJ Demophon Kerner, on K-RAD LA, April 8th, System Year 453
I had hoped it would be interesting to be on the other side of the Tutorial day experience. Instead of one of the eager teenagers waiting to get their Class, I was standing with the Delvers, observing. It turned out to be pretty boring, honestly. The Mayor of Arcadia gave a slightly less crappy speech than Sunland’s Mayor had, and the group of kids was smaller. There’d been fourteen of us going through the Tutorial at the time, but today there were only ten.
I stood around doing my best to look tough and badass until the last of the kids had vanished into the Tutorial, then spent a while practicing casting Fire while we waited. The ones that decided on the Basic Tutorial were done within fifteen minutes, but as far as I could tell we had no interest in recruiting any of the four of them. The first to finish the Standard Tutorial was about half an hour later and turned out to be an Enchanter. I wondered idly what their Tutorial was like as we kept waiting.
About ten minutes later, a boy exited the Tutorial and, after hugging his relieved parents, immediately turned and marched over to us. Curious, I Identified him.
Name: Alex BarrettStolen from RoyalRoad. Support AzureInk by reading the original.
Class: Archer
Level: 1
Following immediately behind the short, slim, brown-haired Alex was a girl who had to be his sister. Identify.
Name: AlyssaStolen from RoyalRoad. Support AzureInk by reading the original.
Class: Mage
Tier: 0
Interesting, she looks younger than him but she must be older if she’s already been through the Tutorial…
Alex walked up to Hassan and stuck out a hand, which Hassan shook bemusedly.
“Hello sir, I’m Alex. I see that you’re also an Archer! I’ve always wanted to be a Delver, how do I sign up?”
His sister stopped next to him and elbowed him in the ribs.
“My name’s Alyssa, and I’m with this lout,” she announced. “We’re a package deal.”
Alex didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic about that but he didn’t disagree. I gave him and his sister both credit for not flinching at seeing Mason up close, especially considering the way the Guards had acted the night before.
Captain Rivers not-so-subtly wandered by to see if she could entice them into listening to her recruiting offer, but she didn’t press the issue when the siblings declined. Mason took them into the inn for a discussion while the rest of us waited for the remaining three Standard Tutorial takers. One got a Fighter Class and signed up with the Army, while the other two had non-combat Classes.
Thirty minutes or so later, Mason emerged from the inn with the siblings, who were both wearing DG recruit badges just like I was. They ran off to talk with their parents, all smiles, and with a great deal of hugging involved.
Waste it, I wish my parents had lived to see me take the Tutorial. Although they might have died of stress when I didn’t come out after hours and hours…
I found myself missing the kids – Yuna, RaeRae, and even snot-nosed Dustin. As the oldest, I’d had to be the strong, mature one for them, and I was sure it had helped keep me sane. I’d mostly been the one giving the reassuring hugs, not getting them, though in the last six months or so RaeRae had developed a scarily accurate sense for when I was feeling down and always did her cute little best to cheer me up. I definitely didn’t have to blink away tears at the memory.
Fortunately, Mason interrupted my homesick thoughts and let us know that we’d be staying one more night and leaving in the morning. The town would be celebrating the successful Tutorial tonight, and we were to stay in our room and keep to ourselves.
“Why?” I asked, curious. I didn’t really care, but it seemed strange to me.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
It wasn’t easy to concentrate on casting with the noise coming from the common room, but I did my best and went to bed early, still tired and sore from the long march the day before.
The Barretts were waiting for us in the common room the next morning – both the parents and kids. After a long, tearful – for the parents, anyway – goodbye, we left town. Both siblings were outfitted in new leather armor, which apparently had been purchased thanks to another loan from Block. I examined him out of the corner of my eye as we walked through the gates.
I like Block, he seems friendly and more fun than Hassan or Mason… but, is he really friendly or just trying to make some money off of us? Or is he both friendly and happy to make some money on loans? Either way, the armor I bought with his loan helped me out a lot in the dungeon, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
Our new members were happy to share a little bit about themselves. Apparently, they were actually twins, but Alyssa had been born before midnight and Alex after it. It just turned out that Alyssa’s birthday was the same day as the last Tutorial in Arcadia, so she’d been able to participate, while her brother had been stuck waiting a full three months for his chance. Interestingly, she was still a Level 1 Fire Mage, having been living safely with her parents in town and not out fighting monsters.
They were both amazed to hear about the dungeon, though by unspoken agreement none of us gave them any clues as to what Mason would have in store for them in training. The extra conversation helped the miles go by swiftly, and while the outskirts of Arcadia were barren, after a few miles we started seeing more farms isolated out in the wilds.
We also passed a caravan that was heading west towards Arcadia. It wasn’t terribly big, only eight bulky wagons pulled by two tri-horns each. The beasts were as tall at the shoulder as I was total, big strong creatures with horns well over two feet long. They’d each had a horn cut off on one side, so that they could pull the wagon side-by-side without always clashing horns. I wondered idly if it made their necks hurt, being lopsided like that.
Each wagon was around eight feet wide and about twice that in length, riding on four sturdy iron-rimmed wooden wheels with simple iron springs. There was a driver sitting on a bench for each wagon, while some also had a guard riding next to them. A couple had guards standing on top, keeping a lookout. The wagons moved surprisingly fast over the rough dirt road, probably going at least as quickly as we had the day before.
We stood aside and let them pass, then had to walk through the cloud of dust they’d kicked up for several minutes. With the Army marching around an hour ahead of us – according to Hassan – and the caravan likely having run into and killed some monsters themselves, the day went by swiftly and boringly. Kincaid, our next stop, was quite a bit closer to Arcadia than I expected, and we arrived at the town well before dusk.
No camping for us tonight, I guess. I was looking forward to seeing the twins' reaction to Mason’s training methods, though.
Kincaid turned out to be even smaller than Arcadia. We found ourselves staying in a small inn, all of the recruits sharing a bunk room. The only unusual thing about the town was that there were quite a few dwarves living there, mixed in with the humans and drinking in the common room. Interestingly, Vale didn’t seem any more talkative around them than she did with the rest of us. In the morning, I practiced casting Fire until it was time for the Tutorial.
When we assembled in the small town square, I saw a couple of younger dwarves mixed in with the five human teenagers waiting to take the Tutorial. They looked older than the ones we’d fought in the dungeon, but I still found my gaze locked on to their faces, imagining them covered in blood, shredded by my shotgun at close range. I shuddered, feeling sick to my stomach, and managed to turn away, blinking tears out of my eyes. Raylan reached out and steadied me with a hand on my shoulder, and I smiled at him gratefully.
With only seven Tutorial-aged kids, only a few got combat Classes and none of them signed up with us. I was more than a little relieved when neither of the young dwarves took combat Classes. The Army picked up two of the others though, and Rivers seemed pleased with the result. We said goodbye to the soldiers shortly after the last of the kids had come out of the Tutorial, as they were continuing east to Fort Delta, while we were going to head south instead.
Since Kincaid had started their Tutorial early and it wasn’t even noon yet, Mason led us out of the town back out the western gates where we’d come in, rather than spending another night in the inn.
Mason took up the little history lesson next.
The two resumed their usual bickering as we walked, which was a bit odd since Hassan was rarely in sight, making it seem like Block was arguing with the air. We continued back along the road most of the way to Arcadia, before turning south onto a new road. We made camp perhaps a mile or so south of the junction, but there was no convenient cave to send the new recruits into.