Hi, everybody! As this post's title suggests, I've just started a Patreon. This is not a chapter of the story you're following, but I appreciate your readership, regardless of whether you can support me financially.

My Patreon is located at www.Patreon.com/CLRobison and includes access to all kinds of nifty perks - mostly advanced chapters of the stories you've been following.

--At the $2 tier, you'll gain access to my Discord server's VIP area, where I'll be active in chat, as well as have weekly scheduled chats about my current and developing projects (assuming there's demand for such a thing). I hope I'm worth it!

--At the $5 tier, you'll gain access to two advance chapters of They Shall Call Me EMPRESS (but not of TSBH) as well as access to the Discord, plus recognition in the post-chapter blurb after EMPRESS chapters.

--At the $6 tier, you'll gain access to three advance chapters of The Shadows Become Her (but not access to EMPRESS), plus recognition in the post-chapter blurb after Shadows chapters.

--At the $10 tier, you'll gain access to advance chapters of both stories - two more chapters of each - plus access to previously-unreleased stories. I will develop whichever stories are deemed most popular by my Patrons (assuming there's demand). You'll also get recognition in the post-chapter blurbs.

--At the $10,000 tier, I will bold your name in the recognition part of the post chapter blurbs (this is the best value option, IMHO).

I promised you a chapter, too, and I shall deliver. This chapter, already available for free on my Patreon, is the opening chapter for Tales From the Guild, my first-ever LitRPG story. It follows the adventures of Alysonna von Knauss, a beginning adventurer with two massive secrets, one of which even she isn't aware of...

Tales From the Guild

Chapter One: Class Consciousness

Alysonna von Knauss had a terrible secret. Fortunately for her, it was a sneaky secret. The type that was easy to hide. So far, nobody even suspected it, not even her Aunt Vivian. But she'd find out soon enough. Everybody would find out, and then she'd be right back in jail, sixteen years old and destined to be a criminal for life.

Aunt Vi meant well and she didn't take 'no' for an answer. That was how Aly found herself engaged in a dangerous and unwelcome mission one day in late spring, two weeks after her sixteenth birthday. Her first mission for the Corvona Adventurer's Guild. It was a beautiful day outside, not a cloud in the sky, birds chirping amidst the new leaves, young couples courting along the boulevard, and here Aly was stuck underground, hunched over, and looking for monsters.

"Got it!" Absko shouted. "Oh! Crap!"

Aly heard something like a stuck pig squealing. Crates toppled. Limbs clambered. A black-eyed beast, dark-furred and the size of a mid-sized dog charged her. Or charged toward her, at least. She and the beast dodged in the same direction at the same instant, and she immediately found herself face to face with a giant, panicking rat.

Everybody knew the sewers of Corvona had big rats - giant rats, even. Evil rats that fought dogs and dragged babies out of carriages if you left them unattended… or so it was said. This one just looked scared and smelled like sewage concentrate, its beady eyes wide yet somehow unseeing as it scrambled past Aly and dove into a pile of cluttered crates. It hunkered down back there underneath about a ton of moldering wood, chittering pitifully.

Absko barged out from the gloom of the back room, his blade anointed with a small splash of blood, his face drawn in what was either mild vexation or moderate constipation. He helped Aly to her feet.

With the cutlass grasped in his meaty fist and the leather doublet stretched across his brawny frame, Absko actually looked the part of an adventurer. Aly, in her stylish, form-fitting street clothes… clothes now torn in parts thanks to a panicked giant rat… didn't look adventurous at all. "Did it get you?" he asked.

Aly shook her head but reconsidered. "Well… yes. But not on purpose. I feel bad for them."

"Ms. von Knauss said not to come up until we'd got them all," Hryz said. He was a jinn, one of the bronze-skinned, gold-eyed desert folk that the superstitious still treated with superstition and everybody else treated as marginally-interesting foreigners. He was barely taller than Aly and almost as slim, but his robes suggested that he fancied himself a mage. And, to his credit, he did know a spell, even if it was the unimpressive Mage Light spell that Aly could kind of almost cast, herself. Hryz was much better at it than her, though. He summoned a little glowing orb and set it floating across the pile of crates. The giant rat squealed and rummaged about as the light shifted the shadows around them.

The wood pile shifted - it was a huge stack of ancient, half-disassembled milk crates. They smelled rather strongly of spoiled milk. Or maybe that was just the smell of a rat infestation. Aly wasn't quite sure what rats smelled like beyond the smell of sewage and general filth. The pile shifted again and Absko shot forward, hitting something deep within with the tip of his cutlass. More shifting. More squealing. Then nothing…

He lifted several crates away and then dragged the giant rat out by its scaly tail. It was quite dead. "That got it," Absko said. "That's two…"

Aly rolled her eyes. "And you two wrecked the pile of crates. Mrs. Cafree said she wouldn't pay us in full until if we didn't keep the place neat. You knocked it down, so get stacking…"

Jinns already had arched eyebrows as part of their naturally-devious look, but Hryz's dark arches poked even further up. "What are you going to do? You haven't even touched a rat yet."

"First off, yes I have. The one that Absko just killed ran right into me. It touched me, ergo, I touched it. And second, I've been thinking - you should try it sometime…"

Hryz shook his sleeves. "I am a ~Mage~…"

"Not yet," Aly stated. "If you already had a Class, you wouldn't be a Pre-Apprentice, would you?"

Hryz harrumphed but did not argue - obviously, he wasn't a ~Mage~ yet. Everybody knew that was how it worked. Until you skilled up enough to rate an official Class, the guild considered you to be unmolded clay - a potential Apprentice adventurer, but not one yet. After all, what if you were one hen's egg away from a ~Farmhand~ Class? Then you'd have to work your tail off to get something adventuring-related when you upgraded classes at Level 5… and what could you get then? ~Miltia~ probably. ~Guard~ if you were lucky. You could fare okay-ish as an adventurer as a ~Guard~, but you'd probably never overcome your early handicap.

Hryz and Absko were still waiting to earn their classes. Aly had already got hers, but she hadn't told anybody yet… and she was already Level 3 in it. She didn't dare to tell a soul, not even Aunt Vivian. Especially not Aunt Vivian.

Hryz cleared his throat. "All right, Miss Thinker, what great rat-catching insights have you thought up for us?"

"Have you ever heard the saying, 'It's easier to catch rats with honey than with vinegar'?"

"I'm pretty sure that's flies," Absko said.

Aly shrugged. She damn well knew the saying, but they weren't hunting giant flies, were they? "Same principle." With a flick of her wrist, she produced three of the little tubes of honey Ms. Ondore gave you to sweeten your tea at the stand down by the roundabout.

Well… gave was a strong word. Ms. Ondore sold the tubes for five to the obol. But Aly had never once paid for one. She had very sticky fingers, even without the honey. It wasn't that she couldn't afford to pay a obol… it was just the general principle of the thing. It wasn't tea without the proper amount of honey, and she'd already paid for the tea. And she might also want tea later, so she might as well take a few extras just in case she forgot. Nothing to feel guilty about.

Aly requisitioned three intact crates and proceeded to drag them into the dim back room of Mrs. Cafree's basement. That was where they'd found the hole gnawed into the sideboard, so that was probably where the rats were living. Even now, she could hear the scritch of their little claws as they scurried about in the dark. She propped up each crate with a long wooden dowel and proceeded to smear a line of honey up the side of each dowel, adjusting each of them until they barely budged with a casual push from her finger. Then she motioned the boys away and the three of them crept back to the foot of the basement steps.

"What now?" Absko asked.

"Shh," Aly said.

Three minutes passed. Five minutes passed. The rats in the back room scritched about with their little claws.

"Whatever you plan was, it's not working," Absko said.

Aly frowned at him. "Shh."

Clack! One of the crates clacked down. There was scritching, squealing, and frenzied thumping. Absko stood, but Aly motioned him back down.

"Wait," she said.

Three minutes passed. Scritch scritch scritch. Five minutes passed… Clack! Scritching, squealing, frenzied thumping. Three minutes passed. Five minutes passed… ten minutes passed. Clack!

"That's three," Aly said. Finally, she strode back into the dim back room.

She glanced to the jinn. "Can we get some light, Sir Archmage?"

He harrumphed but shook his sleeves and cast a glowing magical orb all the same. All three boxes were filled with thumping, squealing rats.

Absko chuckled. "Okay… so the rats could taste the honey on your little wooden prop, but as soon as they climbed over one another to get at the higher up honey, they pulled the stand down and the box fell on top of them? That's pretty clever."

"I'm pretty clever," Aly agreed. "Hmm…"

"So how do we kill them?" Hryz asked.

"Well… I see a tail I can chop…" Absko said. He pointed to half a tail squirming back and forth from underneath a crate. He readied his cutlass.

Aly grabbed his wrist with both hands. "Wait!" Cutting off a rat's tail just seemed… wrong. You should either kill the poor thing or leave it alone. Either was fine with her, but mutilation wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to be associated with. She grabbed the tail, grabbed the corner of the box, and then lifted and yanked as fast as she could, whisking out a squealing, struggling, two-pound rat. It scrambled. It tried to leap. But her fist held fast on its tail and the thing couldn't get away. "Aww! It's a baby!" she said.

"It's… a giant rat," Hryz observed.

"A baby giant rat!" Aly corrected - that bit was pretty obviously important. "I'm not killing babies…"

"We're supposed to get rid of all the rats," Absko said.

"So we'll get rid of them," Aly replied. "'Get rid of' and 'kill' aren't synonyms."

"They aren't mutually exclusive, either," the jinn observed.

"You'd slaughter baby rats?" She shot him a hurt look… it was a look that still worked so well on her father that her parents had been forced to send her away because discipline just hadn't been an option in light of Aly's exquisite pathos.

"You're using emotionally manipulative language."

"You'd quickly and efficiently end the life of two dozen of these?" She held the rat up - it had calmed down quite a bit. She held it in her hand for him to see, its black and beady eyes shining like buttons in the mage light. Its whiskers trembling ever so slightly. Aly tried to pretend it wasn't currently pissing itself all over her palm.

"They are pretty cute," Absko agreed. "Fine. We'll shore up the sideboard and then you can do whatever you want with the little buggers."

"Great!" Aly said. "Um… so how do we get them out without baby giant rats running everywhere?"

"I think your trap plan still needs refinement," Hryz chuckled.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Fortunately for Aly and the rats, Mrs. Cafree's basement was filled with all kinds of stuff, including four squares of sheet metal just big enough to slide under the upturned crates to seal off the bottom. They then carefully stacked the three crates and carried them upstairs. Even though Absko was significantly larger and stronger than Aly, she ended up hauling the crates up the basement stairs, since he wanted nothing to do with the release of the baby giant rats. Instead, he cut off the tails of the two actually-giant rats as proof of kill. With proof of kill, the three of them could get the kills entered into the guild records as soon as they graduated from Pre-Apprentice to Actual-Apprentice.

Not that Aly was ever going to graduate… eventually, somebody was going to notice that she wasn't a guild-appropriate Class. She didn't belong in the Adventurer's Guild… but if she didn't stay there, she was going to prison, and her parents weren't going to bail her out.

They'd brought her in a week ago and made the ultimatum - a year in the guild working toward a productive Class or a year in prison doing street labor. That was the prison where you slept locked up in bunks at night and got chained up and brought outside during the day to do menial work in the streets. And, if people sometimes shoved you or threw rotten vegetables at you while you worked, the guards didn't bat an eye. Sometimes, they helped.

Aly had been in the Fallchurch Market with Geb and Quick Tia scamming folks with a set of loaded dice. Aly had never been caught with fixed dice, and she never would be, because most of the time she played fair. The only time she'd cheat was when she didn't like you… though she didn't like enough people that she managed to make a small profit on most scam outings. Geb and Aly both had the Stash ability, which let them both switch out loaded dice with fair ones whenever they liked, and Quick Tia had Nudge, which meant she could cheat with normal dice.

So there they'd been, innocently scamming people out of pocket change, when Aly noticed that a trio of birdlike saturine merchants were cheating people at their jewelry booth. They were selling all of their wares at bargain prices… only, they weren't really. As soon as their customers had inspected the jewelry and agreed upon a price, the jewelers would take the jewel to wrap up and then swap it out with an identical piece that had gold plate over copper with cheap jewels.

So… at Aly's suggestion, the three of them stole the cheap jewels. Sure, they could have stolen the real deal, the valuable ones, but then they'd have been on the hook for a big theft. Plus the box with the cheap jewels was right there for the snatching. Geb provided the distraction, Aly did the snatch, and Quick Tia took the handoff…

And Aly and Geb got nabbed thirty seconds later. At least Tia made off with the jewels. Then the city guard, who'd been keeping eyes on the shady Saturine merchants two stalls down, charged out of hiding, grabbed Aly by the collar, and pushed her face into a pile of horse dung right there on the street. That's how she got brought in, with manure in her nostrils under suspicion of being a jewel thief.

Of course, the merchants suddenly decided not to press charges and quickly made themselves scarce when Aly pointed out that they'd only stolen the cheap jewels they'd been using to defraud customers. Even a cursory investigation would prove them right - and sometimes, when the stars were aligned just right, somebody important got defrauded and the guards decided to do an investigation. Still, it was Aly's third time in and Geb's fourth time. He got sent to the clink for eighteen months… if he was unlucky, he'd come out 'upgraded' to a ~Convict~ Class, which happened when a ~Thief~ leveled up too much doing prison work. Being a ~Thief~ made you suspicious. Being a ~Convict~ marked you for life.

But Aly didn't have a Class yet… she was very adamant on that and suggested that the guards call her Aunt Vivian to verify. Of course, what she was actually doing was name-dropping in the hopes that this would result in charge-dropping. No dice, loaded or otherwise… they sent somebody to fetch Aunt Vi while Aly waited in a teensy tiny jail cell with a vagrant who smelled strongly of old tuna. Vi showed up an hour later with both of Aly's parents. It was… not good…

"You're throwing your life away, Aly… you're breaking your mother's heart," her father told her. "We're not paying your fine. Not this time. This behavior has to stop…"

"They're going to send me to prison for a year!" Aly cried - and she turned on the waterworks, and when her father started to waver, her mother broke out in actual sobbing. For once, Aly's emotional plea didn't land.

"Every time we get a call like this, it breaks your mother's heart," he said. He pulled Aly's mother close. "You're doing this to her. One of these days, you're going to become a ~Thief~… and if working the family shop isn't good enough for you, well… I suppose it would be better for you to put in your time and become a ~Laborer~ than be a criminal for life. Your sister can run the shop, and you can… well… there's no shame in honest, hard work. Maybe you'll learn that."

"I… may have a better idea…" Aunt Vi said. "Aly is bright and she's quick… I think she'd be a good match for the guild."

"Aly… an adventurer?" her father said. He said it as if this were barely preferable to being a ~Thief~.

Vi nodded. "There are all sorts of good classes that our training can lead to. A ~Guard~ with a little combat practice… maybe even become an ~Officer~ in a few years, given those brains of hers… or, if she shows promise, a ~Mage~? All of those have further paths that could help the family business, once she gets her act together… if she gets her act together."

"That's a big if," her father said.

Aly dropped the sobbing. "What do you mean, if?"

"Just that… stay in my guild for a year and shape up… or stay in prison for a year. I know Captain Sangh, and I can make the deal happen. What do you say, Aly?"

"A year?" Ally would be seventeen and a half in a year. She'd practically be old…

Aunt Vi nodded, her hazel eyes not leaving Aly's for an instant. "A year learning valuable skills or a year shoveling shit and breaking rocks. Your choice."

She offered her hand. After a second's hesitation, Aly took it. A gentlewoman's pact.

That was how, one week later, Aly found herself carrying three very heavy crates thumping and scritching with the panicked tumbling of about two dozen baby giant rats. She carried them up the basement stairs, through Mrs. Cafree's parlor, out the front door, and down the steps to the streetside. She was three steps away from discreetly depositing the rats in an alleyway when a woman carrying a produce basket bumped by, nudging Aly just enough to unbalance the crates and spill all two dozen rats, squealing in fear and surprise, right on the street in full view of two guards.

People shouted, cried out in surprise, and ran away. Unfortunately, none of those people were the guards. They apprehended Aly as she desperately tried to toss rats back into the crates, catching a grand total of two, both of which promptly escaped again when the guards nabbed Aly.

"Where are your friends?" Officer Kandry asked. "That's right… heard the dumb one got sent to the quarry to break rocks for a year."

"Eighteen months," Officer Ly corrected him. "Do I even want to know what harebrained scheme you were up to?"

"It wasn't a scheme!" Aly insisted. "Official guild business!"

"However stupid I look, I'm not that stupid," Kandry said.

So Aly had to wait three hours in a teensy tiny jail cell with a cutpurse who smelled strongly of manure, on account of having been pressed down into it during her apprehension. Aunt Vi showed up three hours later, just as Aly debated with herself whether to eat the jail dinner she'd just been served… it was supposed to be porridge, but she was pretty certain porridge didn't and couldn't burble.

"So… it was really guild business?" Officer Ly asked.

Aunt Vi sighed. "Yes… though I can't for the life of me guess why she was carrying the buggers out onto the street."

"Because I didn't want to kill them!" Aly insisted. "They were babies!" She indicated a size that was only twice the volume of a regular sewer rat.

Aunt Vi pinched the bridge of her nose and nodded. She looked at Aly with tired eyes. "That's… not as bad as whatever I was expecting…"

"What you were expecting?" Officer Ly asked.

"I thought she was going to… I don't know… race them?"

Aly gasped. "Race them?"

"I don't know. I'm not a schemer," Vi admitted. "Come on, kiddo, let's go back to the guild house. We've got porridge tonight."

"Does it burble?" Aly asked.

"Porridge doesn't burble, Alysonna."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The guild house wasn't so bad. All of the apprentices and pre-apprentice were supposed to stay there - you weren't allowed to be more than an apprentice for your first year or until you got your Level 5 Class upgrade, whichever came first. That meant there were about twenty young and aspiring adventurers living on the premises between Aly's age and a few years older… and there was Old Reagan, of course.

Old Reagan wasn't old-old, but she was old. Twenty-four, if Aly remembered correctly. She'd been a farmhand at her parents' farm outside the city but, after a few too many incidents chasing off cattle rustlers, and especially after capturing a small gang and turning them in for reward money, she'd upgraded to ~Mercenary~ at Level 5 and decided to try her hand at being an adventurer. So Aly was the youngest by a few weeks and Old Reagan was the oldest by about four years, and everybody else was somewhere in-between.

Their bunks were four to a room, but since the guild hall wasn't at full capacity, Aly only had two roommates and they used the fourth bed as extra storage space. Plus, Old Reagan wasn't even there half the time because she snuck out to spend the night with her fiancée and, as far as Aly could tell, there were going to be absolutely no repercussions for that. Reagan already had her intermediate Class, so she was a shoo-in to join the guild in a few months' time. So Aly returned to the guild house, ate her non-burbling porridge, yucca, and boiled, barely-seasoned chicken breast, and spent the rest of her evening playing cards and making out about even in her winnings.

The next morning, Theresa Dyne woke them at seven o'clock sharp and ran them through stretches and morning warm-ups. She was the guild member in charge of the apprentices and Pre-Apprentices, and was Wisp ~Paladin~ and a mid-ranking member of the guild. Aly had never heard of a wisp before joining the guild, let alone seen one - they were a mountain race, appearing generally human, albeit with very pale skin, snow white hair, and a porcelain-smooth face with sharp little teeth. Wisps got their name on account of being able to turn into incorporeal clouds for short periods of time when scared or startled… Aly wasn't sure whether she believed that story.

"Fitness is important for every Class, as is self-defense! Try to keep up!" she barked.

Of course, it was hard to keep up with somebody who was many levels higher than you - your attributes only went up a bit with each level, but they added up over time. Theresa was probably as strong as Absko despite being a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter, and she was as fast as Aly despite her compact build. Plus, she had a prehensile tail covered in white fur that she'd smack you with if you weren't performing up to her standard, which Aly usually wasn't.

After breakfast, Theresa led the Pre-Apprentices and the fighting-class Apprentices through combat drills - those like Hryz who weren't aiming for fighter classes only participated for half the class, and Aly had half a mind to claim she wanted to be a mage just to skip out on the drills.

"Your bow and knife skills are much improved, but your blade skills still need work," Theresa observed, an edge of suspicion in her voice.

Aly cursed to herself and gave the wisp a noncommittal nod. Advancing more quickly in some areas than others suggested (though it didn't prove) a class-type advancement. Whichever skills were attuned to your Class would advance more quickly as you practiced, while those that weren't advanced more slowly and with more quickly diminishing returns. And, when Aly forgot to do poorly on purpose, she was better with a knife and a bow than just about any of the Pre-Apprentices and many of the Apprentices, all except the two with the ~Scout~ Class.

"You're still aiming for a fighting class, I assume?" Theresa asked.

Aly nodded, the lie coming easily. She could only wish the gods would deign to descend from Altima and bless her with a boring ~Fighter~ Class or strip her Class entirely and let her start anew. But these sorts of things didn't happen. But Aly figured she could fake a fighting class, if just barely… there were ways…

Theresa nodded, her big, pale eyes taking Aly in… as if she could detect the lie. But she couldn't… could she? "Okay, I want you to spar with me for some blade drills… we'll break down what you're doing wrong and build your form back up."

But Aly was lost in thought, thinking of all the ways she could fake a fighting class. It was doable. As long as she could avoid being scrutinized by somebody with the Assessor skill, nobody could directly see her Class or level. And she had a few skills that could…

Theresa was irked by Aly's lack of attention and swung the practice sword at her. And Aly, who'd already been thinking about how to fake a fighting class, did so in the moment. She used her Stash ability, and her practice sword practically appeared in her hand, shooting up to block the paladin's wooden sword with a resounding Thok! Theresa just stared at her in shock.

"Was that… did you…" she said.

An instant later, Aunt Vi was out in the practice yard, her expression wavering between pride and concern. Aly had just displayed an Ability… the only Abilities you got before you received a Class was whichever ones came with your race… and what Aly had just demonstrated wasn't one of them.

"Was that… Aly, did you just Quick-Draw your sword?" she asked hopefully. "Aly… do you know what that means? You've got your class! Did… did it just happen?"

"Um…" Aly said. "Yeah… just got my class… yay?"

Aunt Vi's brow went down, suspicion playing across her face, her gaze firmly upon Aly. "Great… show me again."

"I… okay…" Aly said. She carefully put the practice sword back in her belt loop and positioned her hand to draw it out using Stash. Unlike with Quick-Draw, the sword wouldn't immediately come out fighting-ready, and so she had to be careful. No, Stash was what you used to quickly put items in and out of hiding, which was much more useful for most people of a certain class. She summoned the sword from 'storage' at her belt. It shot out in a blur, almost too fast to see, and Aly almost managed not to fumble it.

"That's not Quick-Draw," Theresa Dyne stated.

"It's not," Aunt Vi said quietly. She scowled at Aly. "Alysonna… you're coming with me. Now."

A vise-like grip clamped around Aly's wrist and she found herself dragged along by her aunt. There wasn't much point in struggling back against Aunt Vi. She was a Level 34 Duelist and possessed an inhuman speed and strength that put Theresa's to shame. Even as Aly pleaded and tried to think of an excuse, any excuse, that would work, her aunt continued toward the front of the guild house and out into the street, where she hailed a carriage.

"Fulment Hill, please," she said to the coachman. Finally, once they were secure in the carriage, she released her grip on Aly's hand.

Aly rubbed at her wrist, trying to coax blood back into her fingers and wincing at the pins and needles she felt. At least nothing felt broken, though she might well have a bruise. "Look… Auntie Vi… I can explain…"

"I don't want your explanations. I don't want to hear it. We're going to the assessor. You will submit to his assessment. And, until I hear that, I don't want to hear another peep out of you. Do you understand me, girl?"

Aly just nodded - she wasn't sure whether 'yes' would qualify as a peep, but she wasn't willing to risk it. When Aunt Vi got intense like this, the only thing to do was to ride it out and hope you didn't get in too much trouble. In the current circumstance, even the right amount of trouble might be too much. So Aly tried to look as miserable and pathetic as she felt and hoped that it just might curry some favor with her aunt… but if Aunt Vi felt even a little bit swayed, she had a hell of a poker face.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Far too soon for Aly's liking, they found themselves on Fulment Hill, the little district of fancy shops and city government offices where you might well find a high-quality assessor. The buildings were new brownstone, the cobblestones had been scrubbed clean, gleaming in the springtime sunlight, and people bustled about happily, utterly oblivious to the dread brewing in the base of Aly's stomach.

"Come on," her aunt said. This time, she didn't drag her out by the wrist. She wanted Aly to walk herself to her own doom. "Anything I should know about before we go?"

"I can explain…"

"That's a 'no' then," Vi replied. "Go on."

Vi paid the coachman and they made their way into a cozy little office with a sign out front:

H. A. van Geistmann, Assessor and Class Consultant

Walk-Ins Welcome!

There was a reception area and a series of private offices inside. Aunt Vi spoke with the receptionist, arranging a meeting with H. A. van Geistmann himself, and when the receptionist returned back from the office, it was with the man himself in tow, a very tall, unusually gaunt human who probably had a bit of something else in his ancestry to be so tall and bald. Aly suspected his eyebrows were drawn on, because they were so utterly unconvincing. He smiled at Aunt Vi, his teeth glittering with a bevy of precious metals.

"Always glad to do guild business, Vice-Chairwoman. Is this your aspiring adventurer?" When he regarded Aly, his smile somehow managed to be both clinical and kindly.

"We'll see," Aunt Vi said.

Aly had to roll her eyes at the noncommittal response. Now that the worst of her terror had begun to abate, and now that she found herself in a perfectly prosaic office environ and not some dank inquisitor's chamber, a bit of courage crept back in. Indignation. Yes, she'd been hiding things from Aunt Vi. Granted. But what else was she supposed to do when she'd known… she'd known… that her aunt would respond like this. What did it even matter anyway? A Class was just a title, not a summary of who you were as a person. Aunt Vi was a ~Duelist~, but Aly bet you could count on one hand the number of people she'd killed in actual duels.

Mr. van Geistmann sat behind his desk, tasteful oak, the surface meticulously neat, and placed his big, bony hands palms-up upon the surface. "Take my hands and stare into my eyes, please," he said.

There was no getting out of this, so Aly did… besides, she was a bit interested to see what the assessor would find. It was said that an assessor could see things about you that you couldn't even see for yourself without a special Ability. Things like your attributes - the six numbers that determined the extent of your physical, mental, and magical aptitudes. And, while it was acknowledged that things like Classes, Attributes, and Skills were a simplified summary of some vastly more complex metaphysical phenomenon, they were a pretty good snapshot of what a person was capable of.

Val looked into the assessor's eyes. Dark eyes, black and empty, that still somehow glinted in the sun as it streamed in through the skylight. Or maybe it was a glow from deep within the man's eyes, like the shining of some distant star. Aly felt herself drifting toward it, like she was being pulled right out of her body and into some vast cosmic abyss, some realm of absolute negation, where no light or sound existed, where there was nothing beyond abstract being.

She felt herself beneath a great and gazing eye, and she wanted to pull away… and, in fact, she felt that she might well summon the willpower to do so. That she might yank herself back through her spiritual tether and find herself safe and un-assessed back in her body. And yet she knew that wasn't really an option for her. It was far too late to back out, not that it had ever really been an option.

She was being judged. Scrutinized. Each tiny scintilla of what made Aly herself atomized and broken into quantifiable bits before being reassembled into some synthetic homunculus of herself. A Class… Levels… Attributes… none of these things were real at the basest level of reality, and yet they were real to every person as surely as the air Aly breathed. And part of Aly understood this, and she steeled herself and looked into the great and gazing eyes, and she knew exactly what Mr. van Geistmann felt.

NAME:

Thesiodrik van Geistmann

Gender:

M

Race:

Human 75%

Aspirine 25%

Age:

47

Class Traits:

Class:

Analyst

Level:

25

Aly felt herself cast back into her body - cast so suddenly that she was literally tossed back into her spot in the chair, which then tipped back, her limbs flailing. Only Aunt Vi's fast reflexes saved her from suffering a nasty bump on the head. The chair rocked back and her palms slapped down against the polished wood of Mr. van Geistmann's desk.

The assessor… the ~Analyst~ took a moment to calm himself, his already pale complexion going almost smoke-gray. He offered both ladies a terse smile and blotted at the sweat on his brow with an argyle pocket square.

"My apologies… it's not often that you get assessed back during an assessment."

"She… she has the Assess Ability? How is that possible?" Aunt Vi stammered.

"She doesn't… though it suggests she has high willpower and the potential to one day develop it, perhaps quite soon. It's not unknown for certain thief classes to develop that Ability."

"Certain what classes?"

"Yes, well…" Mr. van Geistmann cleared his throat. "Vice-Chairwoman… your niece is a Level 4 ~Thief~. And, I daresay, she has high Attributes for her level. Very high, even - equivalent to most adventurers four or five levels higher than her. And quite a few Abilities already…"

As he spoke, the assessor jotted down a summary of his assessment, occasionally glancing back to Aly and Aunt Vi. It took two full sheets of paper to commit everything to paper… there was a lot. But the summary at the top half of the first page was:

NAME:

Alysonna von Knauss

Gender:

F

Race:

Human*

Age:

16

Class Traits:

Class:

Thief

Level:

4

Physical Traits:

Height:

5'7"

Weight:

115

Hair:

Coppery Red

Eyes:

Emerald Green

Notable Features:

Freckles

Attributes:

Power (P)

16

Agility (A)

28

Vitality (V)

23

Intellect (I)

31

Social (S)

30

Energy (E)

17

Notable Skills:

Weapon - Bow (18)

Weapon - Knife (16)

Weapon - Sword (3)

Sneak (12)

Tumble (5)

Acting (14)

Pickpocket (8)

Smooth Talk (6)

Notable Abilities:

Tall Tale (1)

Stash (1)

Sucker Punch (1)

???

"A… thief…" Aunt Vi stammered. "My niece is a thief…"

"It's only an Apprentice class, Ms. von Knauss, and not an uncommon one. If you like, I can recommend some practices that will foster development toward a less… problematic… Class."

Aunt Vi pursed her lips. She couldn't even manage a fake smile. Her breath snorted out her nose in quick little huffs. "No thank you, Mr. van Geistmann… we'll be going now. Thank you for your time."

With that, she marched out of the office, dragging Aly behind her. For her part, Aly was on the verge of tears - not the sort of fake tears meant to manipulate but real, actual tears - just seeing how her aunt had reacted to the news. As if she was suddenly a bad person, just like that. As if all of this was somehow her fault.

"Where to, madam?" their coachman asked.

"The March River Guardhouse, if you please."

"Of course, madam."

Aly's eyes went wide. Her almost-tears graduated to panicked sobbing. "What? Aunt Vi! Wait… I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything!"

Aunt Vi shot her a steely look, almost devoid of emotion. Almost. "You are a ~Thief~. You knew you were a thief when you agreed to join my guild, and you chose to deceive me, putting me and my reputation in grave danger. I'm taking you back to the guard and telling them you broke your word."

"I didn't, though! I didn't!" Aly was hyperventilating. The coach was too stuffy. She had to get out… but Aunt Vi's hand shot out and secured the door handle in her iron grip. "Aunt Vi… we had a deal! Stay in the guild for a year and shape up… I haven't even done anything wrong yet! You gave your word!"

"Yesterday with the rats…"

"I didn't want to kill baby rats! Please! I'm not a bad person! I promise!"

Aunt Vi snorted in derision… but, even so, she banged on the carriage roof and signaled the coachman to pull to the side. "You promise? What is the promise of a ~Thief~ worth?"

"Yes, let's distrust the thief. Should I be afraid you'll challenge me to a duel, as well?"

"Don't be ridiculous…"

"Yes, exactly," Aly sniffled. "It's ridiculous - just a name… I'm a good person…"

"People will assume…"

"Nobody has to know! I'm… look…" she tapped her finger on her assessment. "I'm Level 4. Mr. van Geistmann even said so. If I keep training, I could make ~Mercenary~ or ~Scout~ with the stats I have. We could pretend that none of this even happened."

Aunt Vi rubbed at the bridge of her nose, her face crinkling up. Really, she looked a lot like an older version of Aly - more like her than either of her parents, really, with her coppery hair (yet to sprout any gray, unlike Aly's father), her pretty, lightly-freckled face with her expressive lips usually on the verge of a sardonic smile, her hazel eyes a muted version of Aly's sparkling emerald. The biggest difference, really, was the three faint scars from some decade-old fight that had never quite faded. That could happen if you didn't have a good healer or a top-notch potion right after a serious injury. So, when Aunt Vi regarded Aly with those intense eyes, she knew well enough that her aunt was in deep thought and would not be sidetracked until she'd reached a conclusion.

"Fine," she said softly, so softly that Aly wondered whether the comment was meant only for herself. Her eyes bored into Aly's. "Fine… we're not going to tell people your class, but we're not going to lie to them, either. We'll… we'll be vague. You've got your Class. You show promise as a fighter. And we'll train you with the bow and in taking contract jobs. That way, you can become one of those other classes that van Geistmann mentioned and nobody will ever have to know that you were… you know… that you were a ~Thief~."

"I'm sorry I disappointed you, Aunt Vi…" Aly held her hand out and, with only a bit of hesitation, Aunt Vi took it. Her hands were hard and cool, like she'd been sculpted from stone, but they warmed with Aly's touch.

"I'm not disappointed, niece. Not really. I'm just… look, I already suspected. If you really put your mind to thieving, you'd be good at it. Very good at it. So I can tell you're not a bad person from that alone. But it would be very bad for me if this got out - I've got a reputation and a lot to lose. I might lose my vice-chair position… people might not want me to take contracts… I'm not going to sell you out, but you have to promise me you'll be careful with this information…" for effect, she shook the assessment sheets in front of Aly's face. She glanced at them. She frowned. "Hmm… that's strange."

"What's strange?" Aly squeezed herself next to her aunt on the bench to get a look. "What?"

Aunt Vi pointed to an entry near the top of Aly's assessment sheet. "This. Under race, it says Human… with a little asterisk."

"What does that mean?"

She shook her head. "I haven't the faintest clue."