Verity cheerfully strolled into the Adventurer’s guild. She’d had a ‘chat’ with the guild master the day before, and had him place her in the Brass rank class. Well, he owed her a favor anyway, so it’s not like she’d had to threaten him too badly.

Her mood took a serious dive as she noticed the Chain Smoking, Grump Queen of Alcohol: Sherry, and her loyal dog, The Fun Killer of Hard Alcohol: Scotch. When she’d commented the day before about their name’s relations to the intoxicating substance she’d had to suffer through the intense misery of a lecture given by a hillbilly.

Fortunately, she’d been able to escape the incoming chores when a kid with extremely unnerving silver eyes had distracted Sherry, long enough for her to escape. She’d also been able to move fast enough to escape her loyal hound and talk to the Uptight Jerk of Coffee Addiction: The GM. Five minutes, and a few…’heavy’ comments later he had broken down, let her join the Brass class and drop her old rank to the dirt.

She’d then skipped out of the office in a chipper mood while he poured himself another mug of sludge. Coffee, *bleh* it was super bitter, and sugar wasn’t enough to cover up it’s origins from the pits of taste hell.

As she was walking down the stairs to the first floor she passed by the silver eyed boy again and made eye contact. WHAT? She flipped around as he passed by and stared at his back; he was too engrossed in his own thoughts to notice that she was staring at him.

What was that feeling…trust? She could trust him? Her instincts were screaming at her, saying ‘you can trust him, he’ll help you get what you want’.

Humans were the most versatile race, Beast-Kin and Dwarves were the power heavy races, while Dark Elves and Elves were most suited to magic. One thing that set these four races apart from humans -beside the obvious- were their instincts. Beast-Kin all were born with the [Danger Sense] skill, even the ones without a [Blessing] were better against ambushes than a human, elf, dark elf, or dwarf with training.

Dwarves had a sense for the earth, and could sniff out treasure like nobody else. Dark Elves were the same with beasts and monsters, could read people to an extent, and made the best tamers, but Elves…were the kings at reading people. They could know at a glance if somebody held dark or evil intentions toward them, and they could figure stuff out about people in a heartbeat, so for Verity’s instincts to be telling her that she could trust that silver-eyed dark-haired kid…was nothing short of mind-numbingly shocking. It was usually a warning, not a good thing.

She had watched as he walked into the library completely oblivious to her, and had to restrain herself from following him. Instead she went to the second best source for all her silver-eyed informational needs: Alcohol Queen!

She had hurried up to Sherry’s -empty- line and inquired after the silver eyes. She hadn’t learned much, just stuff that could be found on official, publicly known, records: his name was Crimson Hokori, he joined the guild a week ago, he was Brass rank, he’d already taken and accepted twenty requests -all of them, except one, were fulfilled- and he visited Sherry the most of all the receptionists. After day three she’d been the only receptionist he visited.

It didn’t tell Verity a lot about Silver-eyed Crimson, but it told her enough. The biggest thing was that he was extremely hard working and motivated. The other thing was that he had an eye for reading people, to an extent. Probably nowhere near as good as an elf, but since he picked Chain Smoker Sherry and almost exclusively visited her, he probably had and eye for honest and hard working people, just like himself. Well, it was all just conjecture, if she wanted to know more, she’d have to talk to him in person. Unfortunately, she had to pay the price for her questioning, and was forced to polish the training equipment.

Which was why she was visiting the guild the day after she’d registered, she’d originally wanted to go hunt down Silver-Eyed Crimson the second she’s finished talking to Chain Smoker Sherry, but the chores, then she still needed to settle down in Falst, and familiarize herself somewhat with the layout, just in case. So she waited until a day later, but she would wait no longer! Where is he?

There! Nope, not him, just some other black-haired idiot, his eyes were even a stupid bleh color. What color? She’d just said it, a bleh-stupid one!

After hunting him down and getting to know Crimson she had confirmed her initial instincts about him: he could be trusted. The question then switched from: ‘Could he be trusted?’ to ‘Could he actually help her?’ He was Brass rank when she first met him, so she thought that there would be no way to confirm it if, or when, he got his [Blessing].

Shockingly, he was able to prove himself useful after just a few days of knowing him! Despite her being at least double his age, he knew more about magic than she did! Well, admittedly she’d never had an interest in magic before she got her current class, so it wasn’t a surprise, but still…a small part of her pride started squirming.

She had ended up asking him for help when it got too overwhelming, and quickly came up with another name for him: Slave Driver. He was an absolute fiend! A villain! A-a-a Slave Driver! He rarely let her take breaks, forced her to learn a lot in a short amount of time, and forced her to show up every day! Her head hurt!

She’d started teasing him to show that she wouldn’t be crushed under his heel, and it sort of worked, but her work load increased. She made a deal with a devil!

Well, despite the agony she suffered at Silver-Eyed Slave Driver Crimson’s hands, she couldn’t argue with the results. She had already learned a few spells and kept checking in with him to make sure that she was learning the right ones, he even sacrificed some of his time -which she knew he treasured as much has he did money- to help her when she couldn’t comprehend something. When her [Treatment] spell hit Lv.X she’d thought he was an angel for a quarter -no- half a second! But when she told him all that happened as a half hearted ‘good job’ and he assigned another spell for her to learn. He was a Slave Driver, not an Angel!

The trend continued on for a little while, with Verity spending a few hours every day in the library with Crimson and the rest of the day studying her assigned spells on her own time, until a day before when Crimson told her his birthday was. There was a problem. She couldn’t identify the source, but there was definitely evil intent directed at Crimson. If it was directed at her she could have seen through the source in a second, but since she was only close enough to sorta feel it there was no way she could tell who it was.

Crimson certainly couldn’t feel anything, while she had seen him polishing his mind and body, he certainly hadn’t polished his instincts! She kept a close eye on him and tried to follow him home, but was shocked when he slipped into a secret passage, she didn’t even know that Falst had secret passages! She couldn’t figure out how to get in either, and he’d never told her what inn he was staying at! There was no way for her to find out what was wrong.

The next day she met him in the library much earlier than usual, and had to suppress her laughter as he tried to suppress his clearly overflowing excitement. She doubted he even noticed how much he was shifting in his chair like a small child. Then, he got his [Blessing].

It was honestly a happy moment for her, she’d seen it all too often when a child would be so excited and ‘absolutely certain’ that they’d get a [Blessing], but then never got one. Seeing his expectations being fulfilled was both a relieving and happy thing! It was also fortunate, she’d just gained a trustworthy party member! Well, she’d let him be the leader, she wasn’t really suited for ‘leading’.

It was also a perfect opportunity for her to leave him and search for the source of the ill intent. Verity swung by and told Sherry what she was up to and asked her to make up an excuse for her so Crimson wouldn’t be worried. She’d sent Scot ‘after’ her so that she could avoid lying to him, and Verity left the guild ‘running away’ from Scot. Truly an awe-inspiring performance, millions would pay to see it.

Once outside she hid in the shadow of the guild and found a nasty looking weasel of a man, a weasel-kin, hiding outside. Based off her instincts screaming at her it wasn’t hard to figure out the source of the ill intent. It took her the rest of the afternoon to catch the slippery scum and beat some answers out of him. Apparently -after many punches and head whacking-, Crimson’s use of the city’s secret passages had passed straight through a gang’s territory, and they were looking for a chance to silence him, in case he saw something he shouldn’t.

She hadn’t even known they existed till the day before and they were already causing trouble for her…great. Hopefully he’d be okay until tomorrow, she could convince him to move into the guild-owned inn instead of wherever he was staying. Knowing him, he was probably staying at the cheapest place he could find. While that knowledge might be enough for her to find him under normal circumstances, the sun was setting, and she had to turn the weasel in. She wouldn’t be able to find him in time. All she could do is pray.