“Okay, now let’s take a look here…”

Within short order, Sláine was ushered into a sitting room on the second floor, had a cup of tea placed in front of her, and - as she watched smoky amber branch out into the clear water of her cup - Yora peered at the words that had manifested on her shoulder. She reached out a finger, the tip stopping just an inch from her skin, and her golden eyes turned up towards Sláine’s face.

“Mind if I check your stats all proper-like?”

“Uh… sure?” she replied, not entirely certain what was being asked or why she was even asking, but she presented the markings to her anyway. For some reason, Yora’s touch sent tingling sparks down to her elbow, and she reflexively flinched back in surprise.

Yora smiled guiltily, and Sláine briefly marveled at how many combinations of happiness mixed with some other tangential emotion existed in this world. “Sorry, should have warned you! Database connection always feels a little weird.”

“It’s fine… But didn’t you already figure out what my numbers were going to be before?”

“No, that was just a projection! Kinda like a guesstimate, I guess? At best I’d call it ‘mostly accurate.’ Doing it this way, we can see what your spread is really like with all the fiddly bits in place!”

This time, Sláine didn’t visibly react to the odd sensation, but she still felt it burn like the rigid black script was radiating its own source of heat. Idly, she sipped at the tea-cup caught daintily in her other hand, listening to Yora ho and hum over her like she was waiting for a doctor to finish pondering some stick they’d shoved in her mouth. It didn’t really seem like she was looking at anything in particular, but she figured that there was something going on that she wasn’t aware of. She could feel things as the seconds passed, fizzles of sensation that traveled across her body in popping little trails, but there was no pattern to it… at least, not one that she could discern.

After a bit, Yora saw fit to clue her in. “So, your physical attributes are all basically what we thought they’d be, plus or minus a few things - all well within the parameters of the [ Berserker ] class. You have absolutely no talent for magic, sorry if you were hoping to sling spells and stuff, and - …woah.”

She shifted, and looked up at Sláine inquisitively, who responded with a raised brow. “Your defensive stats are ridiculously high. Like, we’d factored your racial bonuses into our calculations, but… this is absurd.”

“Really,” she said, putting enough interest in her voice to passably feign surprise. “Well, that’s good, right?”

“I mean - yeah, it’s good! Super weird though, [ Berserkers ] aren’t really known for their awesome defense. Let’s put this into perspective here - normally, a ‘zerker’s got super high attack, good resistances in stun and slow, and enough speed to round out their naturally poor ability to take hits. They’re considered damage-dealers more than barrier-class operatives, and they’re best when around classes that can cast protective incantations or, even better, control the enemy in a way that means they don’t even get hit. Make sense?”

“Sure.” She was actually only half keeping up with the rapid-fire jargon that Yora was spitting off, but she still grasped the basics. “So why did you make me a [ Berserker ], then?”

Sláine paused briefly, realizing how odd it had been to say the name of her ‘class’. She couldn’t even really properly attribute adjectives to it; it was just a weird feeling.

“That’s not really how it -… ugh. Do you remember what we said, about how we were… like, ninety percent certain you’d be something under the [ Warrior ] subgroup? And how we gave you a list of potential ones and you just kind of nodded and said whatever was fine?”

“…Yes,” she replied, because she at least remembered the nodding bit.

“That’s because what class you are has nothing to do with us. It’s all up to what the Protocols decide to recognize you as, same with your identification number and all of your stats. We can make assumptions based on what it’s given people before, but nothing’s ever certain. That’s why we told you, oh, you might be a [ Dragoon ], you might be a [ Marshal ], you might be a [ Monk ]… Honestly, with your current statistics, I’m shocked you’re not a [ Knight ]. They always have defense as their highest attribute.”

“So… that means…?”

It seemed like a silly pretense to be a spade that wasn’t being called a spade, but given the way her brows were knit together, it seemed to be bothering Yora quite a lot.

“Well, it means that you now fulfill a much different group role than I thought you were going to. You don’t need someone who can take damage around, nor is your main tactic necessarily going to be hit it really, really hard and get out of there. Not that you’re not good at hitting things, but if we don’t need someone who can round out a glass cannon, then perhaps…”

It was then that Yora stopped, and instead of babbling on, she raised her hand to cup her cheek. There’s was an expression of deep contemplation resting on her features, an odd sort of seriousness that was… striking, to put it mildly, and Sláine refrained from pressuring her to speak.

After a momentary pause so the gears could turn, she nodded to herself and said, “You know what? This actually works out great. I know exactly who your partner should be.”

“My… partner?” Sláine asked, since that was vague and seemed important enough to care about. “What do you mean?”

“Your mentor, silly! We talked about this. Her name is Red, and I think you’re going to get on smashingly.”

They had, in fact, talked about this, or at least Yora had talked at Sláine about this, though out of consideration for just how culturally out of her depth she was, Yora gave her a quick reminder as she finished her tea.

“Not every guild does this, but Madame Valiant saw it work wonderfully in her previous organization, so when she founded Aria of the Fallen she implemented the same system. All new initiates are matched with an older member whose fighting style, personality, and classification we think will complement them. You’ll quest with them, you’ll train with them, and hopefully, you’ll like each other enough to want to continue partying up even after you become a full-fledged member! It makes it a lot easier to manage a large group of people, many of whom are new at the whole adventuring business, without going completely insane or letting anyone slip through the cracks. Delegation, y’know?” Yora finished stirring her sugar into her cup before taking a large swig from it like a heathen.

Sláine smiled mildly.

“How long does it typically take to be considered a full member?”

“Ehh. Depends?” The edge of the china clinked against the saucer, and Yora searched through her memories for an answer. “We’ve done the ceremony as soon as a month after someone has joined, but there’ve been cases where it’s taken over a year. Being a full member means that we trust you enough to officially represent the guild, so we can’t just make it an instant one-and-done thing. There have to be hoops, y’know?”

“Such as?”

“Don’t make that face! It’s nothing major. You need to complete, like, fifteen quests, you need to go through one raid-class dungeon with a group, and you’ve gotta put some of your time into setting up events and helping out around the hall. It’s all about proving that you’re trustworthy. Oh - you’ve also got to get three other people besides your mentor to vouch for you, but that naturally comes out of the other stuff.”

She waved her hand as if to brush off any of her concerns. “It’ll be fine, promise. Especially for you, since you actually know how to fight. You just have to go through the motions and meet some people along the way. Easy-peasy.”

That didn’t sound too terrible, but it was certainly less independence than Sláine would have liked. Bureaucracy had never been her strong suit. “Am… I allowed to do things with someone who’s not my mentor or fulfill jobs on my own?”

“Ehh!” Yora made a face which, in these circumstances, didn’t particularly please Sláine. “Yes to number one, not recommended for number two, particularly since you’re a foreigner and have no idea how things work around here. We have mentorship so you don’t get yourself blown up by a trap or killed because you didn’t understand a monster’s resistances.”

Comforting. “So… what’s Red like, then?”

Yora, apparently deciding to be enigmatic about the whole thing, gestured to Sláine’s drink with a flick of her fingers. The jewelry she wore, along with her prettily painted nails, made each of her motions feel dynamic. Purposeful, Sláine was certain. “You done with that? It’d be easier to meet her yourself.”

Sláine looked down into her cup watching the way the gold lining glinted in the light, and then finished off the last dregs that clung to the bottom. It had been a bit too saccharinely floral for her palette, but she supposed she shouldn’t critique her new employers too harshly despite their relative lack of taste. Tea was tea in the end, and work was work. There was no sense in complaining about things she couldn’t change.

Sláine stood, and pushed her chair in with a soft grumble of scraping wood. “I suppose there’s no time like the present. Lead on, then.”

Yora followed suit, and as she guided her out of the room, Sláine consoled herself by thinking that it’d likely be just as easy as she said. All she’d need was a month of forced partnership where she nodded and played along, and then her life could get back to normal - i.e. not getting too close to anyone and unrelentingly slaughtering monsters in her quest for personal glory.

Unbeknownst to her was the fact that camaraderie had a truly remarkable ability to worm its way through the cracks of people’s defenses, but… let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, shall we?

>> Follow Yora