Upon their arrival at the Adventurer’s Lodge, Therissa led Jason and the others to one of the upstairs private rooms. She stopped outside the door and pressed her hand to a small panel next to he door, which was inscribed with a small rune sequence.

The elfess muttered a command under her breath, and the circle lit up.

“There,” Therissa said. “Aurion’s already inside, and I’ve activated the wards against eavesdropping, so you’re free to discuss whatever you need without worrying about someone listening in. I’ll leave you to it. Just activate that runestone I gave you when you want me to come and do my part.”

“Thanks, Therissa. You’ve been a huge help,” Jason said sincerely. “Just uh… be prepared for a bit of a shock when it comes time for our, uh, demonstration. It’s definitely gonna raise some questions.”

Therissa raised an eyebrow at Jason. “Nothing dangerous, I hope. I do live here, you know.”

“No, nothing like that,” Jason replied. “But I’ll be demonstrating that legendary potion I made.”

Therissa shook her head ruefully. “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, then. It’s a big risk to take.”

“I hope so too,” Jason sighed. “But this is the best option for us, I think.”

“I’ll leave you it then.” Therissa turned and headed back down the stairs.

Jason turned to the girls. “Well… here goes. Moment of truth I guess. You ready, Kera?”

“Yep,” Kera replied. She looked more excited than worried.

Jason pushed open then door and entered the room.

A long, rectangular conference table dominated the center of the room. On the far side stood a middle-aged man, perhaps in his late thirties, with a short-cropped, neat brown hair. He was dressed neatly in dark slacks of rough cloth and wore a double-breasted, black leather vest with reddish-brown lining and a white tunic underneath. He also wore knee-high, sturdy leather boots, colored similarly to the vest, and had a kind of tool-pouch strapped to his side, in which Jason could see the man had holstered an assortment of wands.

The man, whom Jason could only assume was Aurion, placed the sheaf of parchment he was examining onto the table and turned as Jason and the girls entered the room.

“Ah, right on time, I see,” Aurion commented. “Good.”

He gestured to the table. “Please, have a seat.”

So he values punctuality, Jason thought. Good thing I decided to approach this a bit like a job interview.

Jason took a seat across from Aurion, and Lumi and Kera did the same.

“Jason, right..?” Aurion inquired. “And…”

He glanced down at the parchment in front of him. “Lumiriel and Kerali?” He looked at each of the girls in turn.

Done his homework, too, it seems, Jason thought with amusement, though he kept his face carefully neutral. Definitely a job interview.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Jason replied.

“Therissa tells me you wish to request sanctuary with the Black Thorns,” Aurion began, “and wish us to shield you from the Darklight Archive. I must say, that’s a rather unusual request. While I’ll admit that our relationship with the Archivists could be described as chilly at best, that’s mostly just politics. Their goals aren’t so different from our own, just much broader in scope.”

“So you understand when I’m a bit… concerned,” he emphasized, “by the implication that the Archive is after you. Usually, there’s a good reason for that. Either its because they’ve committed some crime against them, or you’re mixed up in something you really shouldn’t be. While the Archivist’s methods are often overzealous and aren’t always... strictly ethical, let’s say, they do what they do for good reason.”

“I understand your concern,” Jason said with a slight, deferential nod of his head. “I assure you, we aren’t personally involved this situation, at least not in terms of being.. perpetrators, so to speak. We are merely victims of circumstance, and those circumstances just so happen to paint a massive target on our backs, thanks to having several rare and unusual classes that would draw the Archive’s eye to begin with. I will admit that we have decided to approach your guild precisely because you are no strangers to conflict with the Archive, but I’d like to make something clear: This isn’t just us begging for protection.”

“Rather,” Jason continued, “We want to join up. My friends and I aren’t the kind to sit around and twiddle our thumbs while we’re being pursued, and thanks to the Black Thorn’s general area of expertise, I believe we have more than a few things to offer your Guild that will make it more than worth your while to bring us on, and shoulder the, shall we say, political burden of doing so.”

Aurion gave Jason a considering look.

“You are aware, then, of what exactly you’re asking of us?”

“I believe so,” Jason replied. “Therissa filled us in some, and I can guess the rest. You ‘raise’ dungeons kind of like livestock, but with utmost caution thanks to mistakes like the Crystal Wastes, which no doubt has the Archivists breathing down your necks all the time, I’d hazard to guess. I’m not going to beat around the bush: Once it gets out what my class really does, they’re going to want to know very badly how to recreate it, and to be frank I don’t think they’ll take an ‘I don’t know’ as a valid answer. They will put pressure on you to turn at least me over, if not my friends, so I want to make it clear up front: I’m here to make you an offer I don’t think you’d refuse in a million years.”

Aurion leaned back in his seat and rubbed his stubble-lined chin thoughtfully.

“Well, I can see why Therissa recommended I at least hear you out instead of sending you off to the Wayfinders, as bodyguard work is more their thing. Why don’t you explain what your actual problem is, and then I’ll hear your offer.”

Jason nodded, and then launched into a brief summary of the situation. He didn’t go into detail about his or the girls’ classes, as he wasn’t sure if they were unique or just rare, but he explained how all three of then had been summoned from another realm by an unknown force, how they’d acquired classes with unusual, powerful abilities, and how they’d come to realize that someone had set some sort of bounty hunter after each of them.

He emphasized that they weren’t involved in any kind of plots that they were aware of, but held a grave concern that the Archive would look poorly on the combination of rare classes, otherworldly knowledge, and their means of arrival as an excuse to ‘quarantine’ them and try to mine them for information — A situation which obviously didn’t sit well with the three.

Aurion gave a rueful laugh at that.

“You aren’t wrong there,” he said. “It’s been known to happen. Have you met Velan yet? Short kid, blue scales on his arms and neck?” He held a palm out over the ground, about five feet up.

“Ah, yes, we have,” Jason replied. “He was there to take our horses in hand when we returned to the wastes.”

“Well, Velan’s human,” Aurion said. “His scales are a mutation brought on by living in a dungeon for a significant amount of time, not unlike how the Wastes will twist things living it. His father was caught red-handed sacrificing people in the creation of new cores as some kind of magical experiment taken too far. His condition used to be much worse, and the Archive tried to get us to hand him over, on the assumption that he was a potential threat, that his affliction made him more likely to follow in his father’s footsteps. I don’t know how he convinced them otherwise, but they wanted to do exactly what you’re describing.”

“They didn’t try too hard in his case, though,” Aurion added.

“You know…,” Jason said thoughtfully, “I might be able to cure him, if that’s a thing he wants.”

Aurion shook his head. “It’s been tried. The mutation runs deep enough it affected his racial status. He’s got the augmented tag, which mean’s it’s not just a status effect anymore. Its a bit like being mana-touched; once it reaches that level of infection, there’s no going back.”

Jason gave Aurion a knowing grin. “Don’t be so sure. You haven’t seen what my offer, yet.”

Aurion leaned back in his chair again, giving Jason a long look. Then he sat forward again.

“Alright, color me intrigued. You seem awfully confident I’ll accept, and I can’t think of anything that could possibly work on Velan after all we tried. What’s this offer of yours.”

Lumi dug through Jason’s bag, which she had sitting in her lap, and passed Jason a healing potion.

Jason pushed it across the table to Aurion, who pulled out one of his wands and gave the potion a tap.

“Identify,” he commanded.

“A fairly standard eternal potion?” he asked Jason after a moment. “I’m not sure I see…?”

Jason held up a hand to interrupt. “Wait.”

“Artifice,” he commanded, materializing a shallow bowl.

Lumi passed Jason four vials, each one containing a bit of processed plant matter in water: the ingredients for a greater healing potion: two Restore and two Health. Jason hadn’t had the time to refine them into powder, but it had only been a few minute’s work to prep the ingredients normally.

He poured the vials into the bowl, to which Lumi added a measure of conjured water.

“Brew Potion,” Jason commanded clearly, and Aurion’s eyebrows rose as the mixture swirled with mana and turned a bright red. Jason quickly poured it into one of the now-empty vials, stoppered it, and handed it to Aurion.

Aurion didn’t even bother to identify it. Instead, he pulled a dagger off his belt, wrapped his hand in a piece of cloth, and slashed open his palm. Then he quickly downed the vial.

The telltale glow of a healing potion enveloped him, and he flexed his hand as it healed in a matter of seconds.

Aurion regarded Jason carefully for a few moment after putting away his dagger and handkerchief.

“Well. This is… I can see why you’re so confident, if you’ve rediscovered the secret to crafting eternal potions. I don’t suppose you’d tell me what was is in those vials?”

Jason shrugged. “I could, but it wouldn't do you any good. We’ve tried seeing if Lumi or Kera could earn the skill by helping with the creation, and it doesn’t work. It seems to be a class-specific skill, and no, I couldn’t explain how I unlocked the class. Not unless words like ‘piezoelectric’ or ‘debutanizer distillation’ mean anything to you. Which would highly surprise me, no offense intended.”

“No, I’m afraid they don’t,” Aurion admitted.

“What I will say is that the materials for my potions are generally easy to come by,” Jason declared. “Plants, animals, monsters.. they’re all sources of potion ingredients for me. You are aware of the expedition we made to the Crystal Wastes?”

“I am.”

“Well, that’s in large part what it was for,” Jason said. “I was looking for a wide assortment of things I might be able to use to craft potions with to aid in the town’s defense. I’m not just limited to healing potions, either. I can produce a wide array of different potions, and can even imbue offensive ones into objects. Adding to that, I’ve got access to the Artificer class, and I’ll be unlocking the technological equivalent the dwarves are known for, Machinist, within a matter of days.”

“Really…? I’m curious to know how you pried the secret out of them.” Aurion said.

Jason shrugged. “Nothing ‘pried’ about it, really. I’ve got the basic background skills to begin with, and a good understanding of… dwarven technology, we’ll say, from back home where such things are common. Since I was three quarters of the way there already, it wasn’t too hard to broker a deal, knowledge for knowledge, with Tersk to get the rest.”

“And no,” Jason added, “That knowledge is not on the table. I’ll respect my contract with Tersk on that matter.”

“Wise,” Aurion commented. “Making an enemy of one of the main dwarf clans on top of the Archive would be… less than a good idea.”

“I’ve got a few other things I’ve got to offer as well,” Jason said. “The first goes hand-in-hand with the potions, really.”

He reached over and picked up the first healing vial, which was still sitting in front of Aurion.

“Disenchant.”

The contents flashed into arcane powder.

“As you can see… with the ability to manufacture potions through only an expenditure of my own mana, I can offer a supply of arcane powder alongside my potions.”

“A useful skill indeed, for an Artificer,” Aurion said.

“Last of all,” Jason said, “I have something which… I would not be surprised to learn is the sort of thing people would kill over, if the eternal potions weren’t already enough. Kera?”

Kera stood up, and withdrew the three remaining [Elixirs of Rebirth] from a pocket in her robes. She kept one, and passed the other two to Jason, and then stood to one side, waiting.

Jason passed the two large flasks to Aurion, who proceeded to identify one. While he did, Jason activated the token to summon Therissa.

Aurion’s eye’s grew wide, and he stared off to one side at a screen that Jason couldn’t see, but knew well the contents of.

“T-This is…?”

He took a deep breath, and calmed itself. “It’s… impossible, is what it is. If I hadn’t just watched you do something that hasn’t been done in only the gods know how long, I wouldn’t believe even my own eyes. And you made these!?”

“Jason nodded. “I did. And I assure you, they work. In fact….”

Therissa entered the room, carrying the AVL reader, which she placed on the table, looking at Jason expectantly.

Perfect timing, Jason thought.

“In fact,” he continued after a pause, “Kera has given Therissa full permission to show you her full status screen, with all hidden information revealed, and wishes to give you a live demonstration, so that you know we are absolutely serious about our talents and desire to sign on with the Guild. Therissa?”

Therissa turned to Kera. “Just to confirm, do you consent to my accessing your full Adventurer’s License status, including potentially sensitive hidden information, and consent to allowing me to share this information with Aurion?”

“I do,” Kera said with a firm nod.

“Very well, please insert your license into the reader,” Therissa said.

Kera pulled her card from a pocket and pushed it into the slot on the side of the half-sphere. Therissa activated the device’s display feature, alongside several additional runes, and Kera’s full status screen appeared.

“As you can see,” Kera said, “I’m currently single-classed, and my race designation is Human Outworlder. Today, I will be changing both of those. First, I will be unlocking two classes for demonstration purposes, [Druid] and [Shaman].”

She turned to Therissa. “Will the card read live changes?”

Therissa nodded. “It will.”

“Status,” Kera commanded, and then made several motions as she selected the new classes, [Shaman] appeared in her secondary slot, with [Druid] as a sub-class for [Beast-Bonded]. Two new skills appeared on her sheet: Wild Empathy and Woodland Stride, and Basic Spellcasting went up a rank. New spells appeared on her spell list as well; Jolt and Flame Shock. For good measure, she then spent her now four free skill points on ranking up Basic Spellcasting.

Kera then gave Aurion a minute to examine her status in detail before gesturing for Therissa to remove her AVL card from the reader.

“I don’t want to risk breaking your device,” Kera said to Therissa, “so it might be best to not have it running while I do this. We know there’s some kind of time dilation effect involved. From you guys’ perspectives only a few moments will pass, but for me, I can take as long as I want to make decisions, and I plan to.”

“Huh?” Therissa said, confused, but she deactivated the card reader. Jason hadn’t told her specifically what was going happen.

Aurion leaned forwards and held up some sort of monocle-looking thing as Kera downed her elixir. Jason guessed it provided him something similar to his own [Arcane Sight] skill, and belatedly he activated it.

His vision became awash with disorienting colors as he did so. Everything became more vibrant, more colorful, and everything glowed with a pale shimmer. Aurion’s wands, monocle and the AVL stood out like beacons, as did Jason’s pack sitting on Lumi’s lap.

He stared as a spiraling aura of deep purple spun up from the floor at Kera’s feet, the mana bent and twisted, spinning itself into the most hellishly complex sequence of runes he’d ever seen. Each rune formed, linked with nearby others, then twisted and broke apart, only to form into yet a new sequence as the purple-tinged, black mist spun around and around Kera until she was completely cloaked from sight.

Watching the runes swirl and pulse was giving Jason a headache, and he wasn’t getting any feedback from the system, so he closed his eyes a moment and dispelled the effect.

He opened his eyes to see the black mist condense about Kera’s body, wrapping her in a kind of misty cocoon, before it suddenly dropped away, revealing Kera once more.

She’d changed drastically, which didn’t surprise Jason in least.

“Whoa… trippy,” Kera said, holding her arms out in front over her, examining herself.

Kera’s skin had become a dark, almost slate-grey or steel color, and her eyes were now a pure, pale white, without visible pupils. Her hair had changed too, now cut short once again, and colored shimmering silver-white. Her ears were long and pointed, but swept back from her head, as opposed to Therissa, who’s elfin ears stood out horizontally.

Jason’s first assumption was that she’d chosen to become a rather stereotypical dark elf, but he was soon corrected.

“Hang on,” Kera said. “Let me see….”

She closed her eyes and scrunched her face up in concentration, an expression Jason had seen before, which looked somewhat comical on her new form.

Then she began to visibly change in front of them. She grew slightly shorter, and her skin first lightened, then took on the shade of a well-tanned caucasian human. Her hair changed until it was long and black, and her ears shrank, folded, and then morphed into a pair of fox-ears stuck up out of her hair. The back of her dress bulged, and Jason saw flashes of furred tails drooping down onto the floor through the gaps at the front of her dress.

“Ok, that’s crazy uncomfortable,” Kera said, squirming a bit. “Tails inside long dresses does not work. Gonna need some new clothes. Lets try that again, something simpler…”

She scrunched up face again, and the tail and ears melted away, but she kept the dark tan. Kera’s height increased and her elf-ears reappeared again, this time pointing outwards like Therissa’s, while her hair became a sandy brown. Her chest shrank, and her shoulders broadened. Suddenly, she seemed obviously male as the bones in her face shifted subtly.

She looked everything like a male variant of Therissa, with Kera’s face, only slightly more angular and broad.

“Whoa. That’s—” Kera cut off as she coughed once, clearing her throat. Her voice had deepened drastically “Ok, I’ll mess with that later. Wow. Too different.”

Her frame shrank again as she reverted back to female, but remained looking for all the world like an average plains elf.

Then she sagged a bit.

“Whew, that really takes a lot of you. Spends my stamina like crazy, just like ‘Morphic does.” Kera said, winded.

She staggered back over to her chair, and then sat down heavily.

Lumi reached over to poke at Kera’s ears with one finger, curiosity written all over her face.

“Ack, that tickles,” Kera giggled tiredly, jerking her head away from Lumi, but giving the other girl a grin.

“Oh, uh, go ahead and scan my card again, Therissa,” she added.

Therissa gave a slight start; she’d simply been staring wordlessly at Kera the whole time, seemingly in shock. She reinserted Kera’s card.

Name: Kerali Vakar Race: Changling (Plains Elf) Gender: Female Primary Class: Beast-Bonded Mage 12 Subclass: None MP: 550 / 550 Secondary Class: Scion of the Wild 1 Subclass: None SP: 15 / 110 Might: 14 Agility: 14 Intellect: 14 Endurance: 12 Charisma: 10 Spirit: 13+2 Fortitude: 13 Awareness: 18 Appeal: 12 Magic Resistance: 16 Resolve: 13+1 Luck: 20

Jason gave Kera a big grin. “Why am I not surprised in the slightest to see you pick something like Changeling?”

He looked back at her status again. “And what’s… [Scion of the Wild]? That’s an usual name for a class.”

Kera waved a hand tiredly at him. “Later. Specialization unlock, kinda like Lumi’s new options. Too tired.”

She sank down into her seat with a satified, if weary, sigh. Jason noted her stamina was nearly depleted and decided now wasn't the time to ask; Kera’s Druid and Shaman classes were gone, and she’d rearranged some of her skill points as well. Good enough for demonstration purposes.

Aurion was examining Kera’s status critically, and Jason cleared his throat to get everyone's attention again.

“As you can see…,” he said, “Kera was able to not only remove her Outworlder designation, but she was able to change her race entirely, refund skill points, change her rank expenditures, and re-lock classes entirely, allowing her to choose new ones.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you just how valuable a service that is,” Jason finished.

Aurion blew out a long breath and sat back in his chair. Meanwhile, Therissa, still partly in shock, sank slowly into a chair of her own, staring at Kera’s status.

“No,” Aurion said slowly. “No, I don’t think you do. He picked up one of the elixirs in one hand, holding it up to the light.

“Legendary indeed….” he murmured.

“Um, that will be all for now, Therissa, thanks,” Jason said. “Sorry to rush you out after a show like that, and I promise you and explanation later if you want it, but…”

Therissa shook herself thoroughly, and her professional demeanor returned as she took refuge in it. “I understand," she said with a slight nod. "You clearly have business to arrange. Please, let me know if you need anything. Rest assured, everything that happens here is confidential.”

She stood, perhaps a bit unsteadily, and made her exit, closing the door softly behind her.

Aurion put the elixir back down on the table.

“So. This offer of yours…?” he prompted.

Jason cleared his throat again, and leaned over to snag his bag off Lumi’s lap, for the other girl was still preoccupied with examining Kera’s skin and hair. He rummaged in the main section until he withdrew a sheet of parchment, which he passed to Aurion.

“In exchange for membership in the Black Thorns,” Jason began, “and for protection from any persecution from the Darklight Archive on account of our special status and means of arrival, for myself, Lumi, and Kera, I am prepared to offer the Black Thorns a yearly tithe of eternal healing and mana potions, subject to negotiation as to exact volume, alongside with a flexible quota of additional potions or infusions upon request, subject to availability of ingredients. Included of course is our agreement to participation traditional guild duties and whatever that entails, including any normal tithes that may pertain to membership. Furthermore, while these Elixirs are made with… difficult to come by ingredients, namely dungeon cores, I am prepared to offer two of them right now: one for yourself as the contract negotiator and one for the Guildmaster or whoever he deems fit. I can also provide at least a small shipment of potions and limited-offensive wands, up front, as a gesture of good will.”

Aurion briefly looked over the agreement Jason passed to him. He made a few noises of consideration.

“Well, you’re certainly generous here, it looks like. Not much in the way of downsides for us.”

Jason chuckled. “Well it wouldn’t very well do to try and pull a fast one on the organization I want to be a part of, now would it?”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Aurion chuckled in reply.

He leaned back in his chair again, thinking.

“On the surface,” Aurion said, “I think I can tentatively agree to this. However, I’ll absolutely have to clear this with Grandmaster Evander. I doubt he’ll say no, but there’s a political element here that I’m not authorized to be involved in, and there is one small snag. Namely, we don’t just ‘sign up’ people. While some Guilds do, for us there’s a process involved. Dungeon-running is dangerous work, and we need to know our comrades-in-arms are both well informed and capable.”

“Now, I gather you two have actually entered, and slain, a dungeon, albeit a newborn one. Would that be correct?” Aurion asked.

“That’s right,” Jason confirmed with nod. “Only a few days after our first arrival. We weren’t much more than third level then, I think.”

“Hmm, reckless perhaps,” Aurion replied. “but then you’d have no reason to know the danger you were walking into. That’s something that we’ll need to address. Are you aware of the status of the students with me?”

“Students?” Jason asked. “Oh. Sort of. I mean, I know you brought… I think the word used was ‘trainees’, but other than that, no.”

“Ah,” Aurion said. He steepled his fingers, leaning forwards onto the table and putting his weight on his elbows. “Well, a good portion of the force I’ve brought with me aren’t officially Black Thorns. While most of them are properly licensed adventurers, right now they’re only students, ones who’ve already passed a certain level of competency tests in their respective classes. Normally, all potential recruits are required to pass an academic course regarding the nature of dungeons and the methods of combating them.”

“There’s practical elements involved as well,” Aurion continued. “Usually it involved a supervised dungeon run to defeat a core that’s been specially revived for that purpose. However, the Guild has had an awful lot on its plate in recent years, so when we got word that Arnvale had not one, but two brand new dungeons crop up, with one likely only a week old, the Grandmaster decided we’d send the recruits out on their practical a bit early rather than try and round up whoever was currently available. It’s my job to manage things here, get kids like you some experience in the field, and make sure that if the dungeon does get out of hand, someone’s here to deal with it.”

“So here’s what I’ll do,” Aurion said. “Tentatively, pending Evander’s approval, I’ll agree to your terms, but with an addendum. I’ll make sure you get some tutoring in our general curriculum to help get you up to speed, you’ll assist in any town defense as necessary, and you’ll accompany us on the full raid in about a week, once scouting is complete. Assuming you survive and do well, I’ll sign off on waiving the prior competency exams and you can be inducted alongside the others in a few week’s time.”

Jason considered the offer for a moment. He looked to Lumi and Kera.

“Sounds good to me,” Lumi said.

“Same,” Kera confirmed with a nod.

“Then I guess we have deal,” Jason said, extending one hand to Aurion, who shook it. “I’ll leave the two elixirs with you now, so you can provide proof of our offer to… Grandmaster Evander, was it?”

Aurion nodded and picked up the parchment Jason had passed him. “I’ll get this modified and signed by Evander, if he agrees, and then we can have Therissa notarize it properly afterward once you sign it as well.”

He rolled up the parchment and then placed it into his pouch alongside the two elixirs.

Aurion paused. “Who to assign to you…” he said, trailing off. “Hum. Now that I think about it, perhaps it would be best to assign you to your squad at the same time. Yes. I will need to rearrange the raid group accordingly anyway, since we’ve had a few non-guild turn up too, and I know just the right two miscreants who could use a little extra work after that prank they pulled yesterday.”

Aurion shook his head in exasperation, then gave Jason a smile. “Don’t worry, they’re quite competent, it’s just… well… students will be students.”

“Drop by the Lodge tomorrow around noon,” he said, “and I’ll have them waiting to meet you.”

“We look forward to it,” Jason said. “Good doing business with you… sir.”