Eventually Aerin gave up, barraging Richard with questions, as each time he would avoid the question. Upon giving up, Aerin got out of her seat and began to drag Richard around, tugging his arm as if it were a lead. She dragged him through the commercial districted of the town, taking him to a little run down shop.
The building was small and looked as if a bomb had gone off not too far away. The holes were patched up with wooden boards nailed into the stone walls. the frame work of the hut was made with stripped logs, where as the walls were made with medium to large rocks, cemented together with a clay-like substance.
"Aerin, Question." Richard said distrustfully of Aerin.
"Yeah?" Aerin replied nonchalantly.
"What in the bloody Hell is this shack?" Richard asked raising his voice midway through the question.
"A blacksmith."
"You think I'm going to believe that?"
"If you don't believe me, then see for yourself." Aerin said, dragging Richard by the arm once again.
Inside the shack, was a dark and damp environment, which could make almost any modern human whinge. Straight ahead was a till in which an old and very short man sat smoking a pipe. The small man paid little attention to both Aerin and Richard. Scattered around the shop, in a very organised way, were weapons. On the left were easy to use bladed weapons, as you move to the right side of the shop, the weapons change from bladed to pointed to blunt, and became much more difficult to handle. Looking at the weapons, even a person who is not well versed in Blacksmithing like Richard, could tell the weapons were well crafted.
"Aerin, why did you bring me here?" Richard asked looking at all the weapons.
"Well I noticed that you don't have a weapon, so I thought I might buy you one."
"Buy why here? Yes the weapons are well crafted, but don't you think they'd be expensive?"
"No, my dad brought his old sword from here and even gets maintenance done by that old guy."
"Then what weapon do you use?"
"Me? I don't use any. I just punch my way through things." Aerin said, nonchalant, not knowing that reduced her opinion from Richard.
"Don't you think that's a little brutish." Richard replied with, not thinking too much about it.
After thinking about it for sometime, Richard picked the halberd as his weapon of choice. Though Richard could use martial arts, he was not confident that he could kill a living being with his skills. Weighing the pros and cons of each weapon, the halberd, being a mix between an axe and a spear felt like the perfect mix of: slash attacks; stab attacks; and securing a safe area around himself.
"Aerin, does this world use things like skill books? You know like tomes that allow people to learn skills?" Richard asked as they were leaving the run down shack.
"Wouldn't that make things to easy then?" She replied, acting as if it were obvious.
"Yeah, but where I'm from, we had full dive games. And in some of them you could learn skills without needing to put in the effort like that." Richard said feeling dejected, that there was no easy way out. "Well, I should probably learn to use this before I can start adventuring." He said swinging the halberd as if it were a baseball bat.
"Before that, what do you think about learning some magic?"
"Anyone can learn it? You don't need a blessing or something?" Richard replied surprised that anyone can learn such a strange and mystical thing.
"Well, as long as you have the funds for it and some amount of affinity, then yeah anyone can learn it." Aerin replied, thinking that she might finally get some rear-guard support.
"Before that, can we stop by the market place?" Richard asked almost forgetting the most important thing.
"What for?"
"I still don't know the language, other than when you used that magic you used on me. I think at least knowing how to read and write should be enough."
"It's fine. Most people can't read or write, let alone do both."
"But doesn't that make specialisation, that much harder?"
"What's that?"
"It's how people would get a job, and be very good at it, unlike being able to do a lot of things but mediocre."
"Almost all people who can read and write, are generally hired by: merchant companies; the guild; nobles; or royalty."
"So what you're saying, is that I don't need to be literate?" Asked not surprised, at the low level of education.
Before they knew it, Richard and Aerin had made it to a small, little book store. The shop looked to be a Taxpayer, where the the ground floor was a store and the first floor being living space. The material looked as though it was made out of Birch, but the building looked as if a tree grew diagonally through the building. The sign on the shop looked like a rounded oval plaque made of wood, with the words "masquerade magic".
Once again, as they entered the shop, Richard felt the same nauseating feeling as when he entered the guild. The shop's interior was well furnished for the maximum amount of comfortability and professionalism. Most of the store was full of shelves, lined with books. Where as a small part, by the window, had a pile of cloth and leather, that seemed to imitate a beanbag. Further in the store, there was a birch counter, that was relatively empty, other than a hand bell. Behind the counter was a entrance way, covered by wooden door curtains.
Upon ringing the bell, a small little girl, that appeared a little too youthful, came out from the door way behind the counter. She had light green hair and emerald green eyes. On the sides of her head, there were parts of her hair that were white. This whiteness only affected the underside of those parts, leading Richard to think those were her ears. All her other features were child like: big eyes; small head; and small nose. She was also wore a poker face.
She wore a dark blue dress. The skirt of the dress was a long skirt going down to her ankles, and seemed quite rigid. Her shoes were black, leather buckle shoes, that had thick soles that added a few inches to her height. She had black, lens less glasses, where each part -where the lens should be- had small but very fine engravings. Her entire fit was tied together with the dark blue hat she wore, that looked similar to what a pope would wear.
"Hi, Hello, can we talk to the owner of the store?" Richard asked the little girl, thinking she was being taken care of by the owner.
"Hey, Richard, come here for a moment." Aerin, pulled Richard by the arm, while whispering to him. "She is the owner." she whispered into his ear.
"REALLY?!" Richard shouted in surprise that such a little girl could run a shop on her own.
"Shhhhh. Keep it down." Aerin said trying to prevent Richard from causing a scene.
"But why is such a young girl, managing a shop this large?" Richard whispered into Aerin's ear.
"She's 30." Aerin replied, in a whisper.
"30?!" Richard shouted again, in surprise. "She don't look 30." He whispered back to Aerin after, giving her a few glances.
"She says it's because of a curse. In exchange for her overwhelming magical abilities, she physically stopped aging after 10."
"Stuff like curses exist here? Then again, it makes sense, since this world has things like skill boards." Richard replied. "Well, I should probably apologise and get what we need to be done, done." Richard followed up with.
Richard, walked back to the counter, the little girl still standing at the counter. He then bowed down at a 90 degree angle, and apologised.
"Well back to the matter at hand. I want to learn magic." Richard said, now talking in a slightly more respectful tone than before. "Of course you don't have to if you don't want to teach me. All I need is to have my aptitude checked."
The clerk gave Richard a long hard stare before reaching under the counter and pulling out a crystal ball and a brown leather cover book.
"Put you hand on the ball and imagine that some form of energy is circulating inside it." The clerk said. Her voice sounding like that of a ten year old but he vocal mannerisms were that of a mature lady in her thirties.
Richard placed his hand on the crystal ball and closed his eyes. He had tried to image a circulating flow of energy but couldn't as the term was vague to Richard. After a while Richard began to imagine convection currents that occur under the crust of planets. The warmer, less dense magma rising to the crust and the colder, denser magma descending back down towards the core. While imaging the convection currents, the crystal ball changed. The inside of the ball began to look like an opened bottle of sparkling water, after is has be shook too much. The clerk began to flip through the pages of the brown leather book. eventually the clerk came to the last page of the book and began to shake her head.
"I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?" She asked Richard.
"Bad news first." Richard said after giving a glance at Aerin.
"There is a Fifty-Fifty chance that you have all the affinities or no affinities. The good news is you have a mana capacity closer to a high elf than a human."
" So what does that mean?" Aerin asked, worried for Richard's aptitude.
"It means that he can either use all types of magic, or would need to rely on items such as relics imbued with an affinity."
"So what your saying is that he's useless against non-physical entities?"
"More or less, yes."
"Doesn't mean that I can't try. You'll never know anything unless you ask questions and search for the answer, be it someone told you or you do it yourself." Richard said, with a never seen before flame in his eyes. "Would it be alright if I come back again?" He said, turning his attention to the clerk.
"Sure. Also call me Cath." The clerk told Richard. "I'll try help you if you don't understand anything."
Richard and Aerin promptly left the shop, and began to head for an inn to kill time. Aerin paid for Richard's expenses for the day, and payed in advance for the next few days till Richard could get off from his own feet.
The next day Richard headed for the guild building, to get his adventurers card. Richard headed for the same receptionist that tended to him the day before.
"Hi, Hello. I'm here for my guild card, and can you also like explain how the guild works? Aerin didn't really explain it to me."
"Ah. Err..." She responded scrambling through all the pig skin paper documents on the desk. "Here it is. And sure I can explain it." She responded, now much more composed than last time. She hands Richard his card and begins to explain. "Adventurers have ranks, and each of these ranks correspond to their strength and what kinds of quests they can take. The ranks from G to F, E, D, C, B, A, S, double S and Triple S. Once you reach B rank people can start to request for you personally, but you can decide weather you take the quest or not. Right now you are G, as we do not know what you are capable of, But once you start to gain so reputation amongst the guild you can rank up. For G-Ranks we recommend going on a plant gather quest with at least one party member. You can pick a quest from the quest board to your left over there, once you select a quest bring its paper to me or one of the other receptionists."