After we all are seated various different looking officials file in from the same doors Princess Alistra came from. They all are carrying identical stacks of papers, and seat themselves across from each of us. The man who sits across from me seems to be middle-aged. He sets his papers down and takes the top one from the stack, and sets it in front of him.
"We'll start with with introductions, after which I'll teach you how to access your status, so we can record your attributes and magic. My name is Roman Garris, and I'll we working with you through this process. Now, if you could provide me with your name and age?" Roman states, bluntly.
"My name is James Adams, and I am 23 years old." I respond.
Roman writes on the paper briefly before looking back to me, "Ok, now we'll try to help you access your status page." He briefly pauses and pulls out another paper with drawings on it, and shows it to me, "This is what it should look like. Now close your eyes and try to visualize what you've seen on the paper. Ultimately you should be able to pull it up with your eyes open, but for now, we'll work with this."
So I do that, I close my eyes, and focus on trying to pull up my status... not long after, there it is:
________________________________
Name: James Adams
Race: Human
Level: 1
Strength: 5
Endurance: 5
Dexterity: 6
Intelligence: 11
Charisma: 6
Magic Affinity: Mind-Control
________________________________
I try my best to not reveal what I've seen, and process this for a minute, to give myself more time to think. At the very least, my magic affinity is powerful, and likely would get me thrown in to fighting the Demon Lord, and at worst, will be seen as a threat in itself, and I'll be gotten rid of. I need a convenient lie, something that I can cover my tracks with as well... I think I've got an option here.
"I can see it." I say to Roman.
"Good, now first, I'd like to verify that you are level one, correct?" Roman asks.
"Yes, I'm level 1." I respond.
"Alright next we'll go through each of your stats, you can just read all five of them off, and I'll write them down." Roman continues.
"Strength: five. Endurance: five. Dexterity: six. Intelligence: eleven. And Charisma: six." I rattle of each of the attributes to Roman.
"Alright, now what is listed after Magic Affinity?" Roman asks.
"Empathy." I respond. I think that I can play off anything like this, I can at least convince people that I only helped someone express themselves to cover up any non-radical personality changes that might happen. Yes, hopefully that'll work at least.
"That covers the basics," Roman says, "from here I'll give you some details on your stats, and give you any recommendations I might have. To start, your stats are above the average across the board, but most of them aren't that much higher than average. An average starting rating in any one attribute would be around 4 for an average citizen of our country. Obviously an outlier here for yourself is your intelligence stat, which generally affects magic, and magic power. Depending on what actually develops from your magic, this could be very useful to you. Your other stats present themselves well enough, that personally I'd recommend adventuring, and I'd recommend you fight in the backline with a bow or similar weapon, since your dexterity is higher, and that way, if your magic develops some form of healing, which given its category, it might, you won't need to change your party configuration."
Roman continues with his explanation, "Adventuring entails doing requested tasks ranging from fighting monsters, to escort missions and delivery. If you ultimately do become an adventurer, we'll provide you with identification, and a recommendation to help get you started. Also, given the recent discovery of a Demon Lord, there should be plenty of new parties forming who would be happy to have a hero as a party member. We generally recommend only one Hero per party, which helps the speed at which adventuring tasks are covered, which will invariably pick up pace as more monsters appear."
"The other tables should also be finishing up soon, so feel free to retake a seat in the rows, and we'll have a brief internal discussion before presenting everyone's roles." Roman finishes.
I get up, and head over to the initial rows, it looks like a handful of the other Heroes have finished as well, with more getting up all the time.
Eventually all the Heroes have moved back into our initial seats, and all the advisers gather together, and discuss among themselves. After a few more minutes, they seem to have come to a decision, and begin talking to Princess Alistra. She then moves back into her earlier position in front of us and begins speaking.
"Heroes, we believe we've come to a decision on placements, ultimately you have the right to decline any help we may give, but understand we're recommending things based on our world, and similar to how we know little of your world, you know little of ours, and we're only trying to help you succeed. Also, note that for speed of announcement, given the number of you here, we won't be reading all of your stats out, we'll list it your abilities as a total score, and given as either average, above average or below average compared to other heroes taking into account how useful their magic might be in combat. For instance, I would read out name, magic affinity, attributes average, role."
Princess Alistra pauses here, letting us take in what she's said before continuing, "Then, with that, I'll begin:
Garrett Williams, Magic Affinity: Beasts, Attributes: Exceptional, Demon Lord subjugation team
Micah Smith, Magic Affinity: Swordplay, Attributes: Exceptional, Demon Lord subjugation team
Jeremy Porter, Magic Affinity: Tactics, Attributes: Average, Demon Lord subjugation team
Gregory Tailor, Magic Affinity: Fortune, Attributes: Above Average, Demon Lord subjugation team
Thomas Mason, Magic Affinity: Protection, Attributes: Average, Demon Lord subjugation team
Timothy Farris, Magic Affinity: Machines, Attributes: Average, Strategic military assistance
Jessica Sampson, Magic Affinity: Currency, Attributes: Below Average, Governmental assistance
Amy Anderson, Magic Affinity: Deception, Attributes: Average, Adventurer
James Adams, Magic Affinity: Empathy, Attributes: Average, Adventurer
Katherine Harrison, Magic Affinity: Endurance, Attributes: Below Average, Adventurer
Vanessa Ward, Magic Affinity: Entertainment, Attributes: Exceptional, Adventurer
Robert Schmidt, Magic Affinity: Cards, Attributes: Below Average, Undetermined
Samantha Jacobs, Magic Affinity: Cleaning, Attributes: Average, Undetermined
Emily Robinette, Magic Affinity: Music, Attributes: Below Average, Undetermined
Lance Davis, Magic Affinity: Food, Attributes: Below Average, Undetermined
Melissa Parker, Magic Affinity: Art, Attributes: Below Average, Undetermined
Ethan Meyers, Magic Affinity: Fishing, Attributes: Below Average, Undetermined
Diana Cooper, Magic Affinity: Penmanship, Attributes: Below Average, Undetermined"
After announcing everyone's magic and roles, Princess Alistra continues, "Now, of any of the people listed, does anyone think someone belongs on the Demon Lord subjugation team who wasn't included?"
Princess Alistra stops here, and makes eye contact with each of us before speaking, "Ok, then in a moment we'll have you separate into groups based on what role you've been given. Demon Lord Subjugation team members will join me up here. Those of you who have been deemed useful in some regard to a government function, please go see the knight commander, to my left, in the corner of the room. Adventurers, please head to the corner to my right, where the Capitol's guildmaster will give you further info. Lastly, those of you with undetermined roles, don't fret, your roles are only undetermined in so far as we don't already have an official capacity for you, any heroes magic could ultimately provide unpredictable boons, so we won't be abandoning any of you, first you'll head back to the desks you were initially at, new advisers will come over to discuss plans and goals you might have, to try and help you as best they can. Alright everyone, thank you all for being as cooperative as you were, I expect a lot from each of you."
At this point, we all stand up, and begin moving to where we were directed. Shortly after beginning moving, its obvious who the other three adventurers are. So these three are Amy, Katherine, and Vanessa. One of them looks fairly physically fit, with brown hair, and medium height. One is on the shorter side, with blonde hair. The last one is a bit taller than the others, also with blonde hair, but one thing stands out, she has large tits. It'll be interesting to see who is who.
Once we make it to the instructed corner, the the gruff looking man standing there begins to talk, "Hello, we'll get introductions out of the way first, My name is Garm Markus, and I'm the guildmaster for Godren's adventurer's guild. I'd like it if you would introduce yourself, as well as tell me your exact values of your attributes afterwards."
The taller blonde speaks up first, "I'm Vanessa Ward, and my attributes are, Strength: Nineteen, Endurance: Seventeen, Dexterity: Thirteen, Intelligence: Four, Charisma: Seven."
I speak up next, "I'm James Adams, attributes, Strength: Five, Endurance: Five, Dexterity: Six, Intelligence: Eleven, Charisma: Six."
Next, the shorter girl introduces herself, "I'm Amy Anderson, my attributes are, Strength: Five, Endurance: Six, Dexterity: Seven, Intelligence: Three, Charisma: Four."
The last girl takes her turn after, "I'm Katherine Harrison, my attributes are, Strength: Five, Endurance: Five, Dexterity: Four, Intelligence: Five, Charisma: Four."
Garm was paying close attention to each of our responses, nodding along the whole time. After Katherine finishes her introduction, he speaks up again, "Alright, I think to start, it'll be useful for me to help explain what your attributes mean, and how leveling affects you. Your attributes increase by their base amount about once every five levels, so if your attribute started at 5, when you are level five, it'll be 10, at 10 it'll be 15, so on and so forth. So having high attributes can be very useful, however, humans aren't the strongest beings out there, not even close, but we are some of the smarter ones. For instance, Vanessa has a strength of 19, incredibly high, but if we compare that to a dragon, its still pitiful. So while she'll be exceptional at fighting mid-tier monsters, sending her to fight the Demon Lord would be a death sentence. The thing that sets us apart is our magics, and even that sets Heroes into a class on their own. In a similar vein however, Katherine has low stats, but her unique magic will likely be very useful, unfortunately, her stats won't keep up, and she would lag behind the other Heroes on the Demon Lord subjugation team. However, you four each are still strong enough to be useful as adventurers, fighting mid-tier monsters that show up within the country, or doing transport or escort missions to bring things closer to dangerous areas."
Garm pauses for a moment, looking over how each of us are reacting to what he's said so far. He gives a satisfactory nod, and continues, "Some more information on leveling, as you level up, it gets harder to gain further levels, there isn't a maximum, as far as we are aware, but practically speaking, high level normal adventurers max out around level 50. Its likely you'll grow higher, and as the Demon Lord's power grows, stronger enemies will appear even in more peaceful areas, but it gives you a good idea of where people end up. Also, starting at level 3, and every 3 levels after that, you'll get to select a spell to take or advance. A common example among adventurers with the fire affinity would be a selection between the spells firebolt lvl.1 and burning hands lvl.1, both are fairly weak spells at their current level, but can still inflict some damage on opponents. One is good for ranged combat, the other is good when you are in melee range. At level 6, you might get offered the second level of the spell you already took, the other spell from before at the first level, and a new spell, generally based on how you've been earning experience. For instance if someone has spent a lot of their time treated wounded party members after fighting, rarely someone with fire affinity will be offered the spell comfort, which helps speed up the regenerative capabilities of an affected person. That said, other affinities tend to be better equipped for healing. In addition, starting at level 5, and every 5 levels after that, you'll earn a passive perk. For normal magic users, they usually get offered passive resistances to their affinity, or similar bonuses."
Again, throughout the his whole explanation, he's paying attention to each of our reactions, evaluating our understanding of what he's saying. Satisfied that we have at least a basic understanding of what he's telling us, he continues, "Last, normally, you'd be expected to pay certain fees to register, and go through a vetting and testing process. These will be waived for you. In addition, your first month's expenses for you and your parties will be paid for by the royal family. After a month, you'll be re-evaluated, and if you continue adventuring it will once again be provided for. Each of you will be assigned a team of other newbie adventurers that you'll party up with. After a month if you want to form a new party with other people, that can be discussed at that point. We'll have vetted these parties to try to form the best parties for each of you to succeed within. That process will happen tomorrow, so tomorrow, each of you will have time to get settled in within your provided rooms at the guild hall. So, two days from now, you'll be introduced to your new parties, and you'll be given a basic mission to complete, after a few basic assigned missions, you'll be able to start selecting missions for yourselves."
Garm takes a deep breath and relaxes his posture, "Alright, with that, I'll lead you to the adventurer's guild, and your new rooms." Finishing this last sentence, he turns to his right and motions for us to follow him as he begins walking. It takes about 20 minutes for us to ultimately leave the castle we were within, and before us sprawls a bustling metropolis.
I immediately speak up, "Garm, how many people live within the capitol here?"
Garm turns to face me and thinks for a minute, "Its probably near 3 million, around 20 years ago there was a census that said 2.7 million, and times have been good, so its around there, give or take. Why?"
"No reason in particular, just trying to get a grasp on the scope of the population." I respond.
Garm looks at me for a moment longer, and then turns back towards the city, and begins guiding us towards the guild hall, which turns out to be not that far away, only around 10 minutes on foot from the castle entrance. Which, now that we are far enough away from it, looks huge, although it isn't mind-bogglingly large. The largest part of the time spent inside of it was traversing winding hallways, after all, it was built as a last bastion to fight in.
Garm instructs us inside, and up a large staircase on the left. Once we are upstairs, he guides us to the end first, and begins speaking, "This is my office, and my room is the next door." He points to the door before continuing, "If you need anything, or have questions, feel free to reach out. I'm fairly busy though, so for most things, its probably better if you head back downstairs and talk to a receptionist." With that he begins showing us to our rooms. Our rooms aren't next to each other, and given the size of the place, I'd guess that given the two more floors above us, there are probably 200 rooms within the whole place. It looks like some of the weaker adventurers tend to stay here. The better ones probably have their own house or something of the like.
After showing us to our rooms, Garm hands us each three small tickets, "Tomorrow, you'll get a guild ID that will act as an ID and get you meals in the tavern on the first floor, but for this afternoon, tonight, and tomorrow morning this ticket will get you your meal. Whenever you get hungry feel free to head down to the tavern. If you want to talk to each other, feel free to, but it'll be hectic here tonight and tomorrow, and it'll be more pain than its worth for you all if you spend to much time talking to random adventurers before you get your new parties. With that, I have a lot of work ahead of me for the next two days, so I'm going to get to work."
Garm heads out, leaving us standing in the hallway in front of my room. I look at everyone before saying, "Well, that was a lot of stuff to take in, personally, I think I'm going to look at my room, and probably take a brief break before eating." With that I turn around, and head in to my room.