After leaving the Guild-Master’s room, we did just what he recommended, and had Gracie lead us straight to the Requisitions Office, which was the main supply hub for the Adventurers in the Guild.

Like everything else in the Guild building, it took some walking to get to, which made it the perfect time to fill her in on all of the details. I saved the news about her raise until we actually got to the Requisitions Office, as a little cherry on top.

“Whaaat?” Her amber eyes grew wide, tail shooting straight out behind her and puffing up to a ridiculous volume. “You actually got me a raise?” She made a noise that sounded suspiciously close to a meow and rushed towards me, embracing me.

Ow!

Gracie was shockingly strong. My leather creaked in protest, and I’m pretty sure I heard something pop, as Gracie effortlessly pinned my arms to my sides and lifted me off of the ground in a textbook bear hug.

“Ouch, G-Gracie-” I tried to protest and get her to put me down. She didn’t hear me, and began to shake me from side to side in excitement, squeezing me close to her.

“Oh thank you thank you thank you!” Her eyes closed, Gracie began purring, rubbing her fur covered face on mine. (Side-note: She was really soft)

I groaned again, shoving my face directly against hers, not necessarily rough, but with enough force to definitely get her attention. “Uggh, Gracie! Put me down!”

“Mrrow? Oh!” Gracie’s eyes snapped open, her vertically slit pupils rounding out to more human proportions. She gave me a bashful smile and set me down, the fur on her cheeks flushing in embarrassment. Rubbing the back of her head, she let out of soft chuckle and said, “Nyeh-heh, sorry about that Emmanuel. Sometimes when I get excited, my cat half takes over. My bad.”

I shook my head, stretching to work out the new sore in my back while Brygid stood off to the side laughing at me. “No problem. I didn’t expect you to be so strong though.”

She immediately cheered up. With a bounce in place, she winked at me and did a double bicep flex pose. “I’ll have you know that I’m actually Tier 2, mister man. Plus, my Blessing gives me a pretty good STR boost per level! I could probably take both of you on at the same time. Hah!” She finished with fists on her hips, standing like a proud warrior.

Then she blushed again, and snapped back to clerk mode. “A-Anyway! Here we are at the Requisitions Office! It’s got anything and everything you might need for adventure. Please go in, take your time, I’ll be here when you’re done!” Then she ran off to the side before I could say anything.

I looked at Brygid, puzzled. “What was that about?”

She snickered, walking a couple paces in front of me toward the door of the Requisitions Office. “Hehe, I think you just made your first fan, Big E.”

My lips twisted in confusion. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Brygid shook her head, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into Requisitions. “Come on, we don’t have time to waste on that. You’ll figure it out eventually.”

The Requisitions Office was……well, I was expecting something more impressive, honestly. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice, basically a large warehouse converted into the world’s biggest general store, with shelves upon shelves upon shelves of supplies and adventuring gear. Any non magical gear you could think of, and quite a few magical pieces as well.

It just wasn’t anything special, and I dunno, the term ‘Requisitions Office’ made me think of something at least a little fancier than this.

We paused on the inside of the doorway, taking a scanning look around the room. To the immediate left was a broad wooden counter-top, staffed by an assortment of different Guild employees, men and women wearing uniforms just like Gracie’s.

Brygid and I walked over to the desk, making eye contact with a random male employee and calling him over.

“Hello there! How can I help you two?” The human attendant was average height, pale skinned. He had a name tag, but—and no offense to him, I’m sure he’s a great person—he seemed pretty boring and incredibly average, so I didn’t bother reading it.

Wow. Kind of a dick move, Emmanuel.

“Hey there! We’re the two adventurers the Guild-Master called about, here to get all supplied up.”

He nodded. “Ah, yes! Another two for that weird goblin Quest.” He began rummaging underneath the counter, still talking. “Good luck with that. It sounds like its pretty crazy.”

Coming back up, the attendant slung two sturdy leather satchels onto the counter. “Alrighty, Guild-Master says that you each get one small satchel, plus free reign to fill it with whatever Tier One items you like.” He took a second to process that. “Wow. That's pretty generous, he must’ve really liked you guys.”

I took the bag, Examining it.

Small Leather Satchel

Item Level: 1

Item Type: Storage

Item Quality: Generic

Capacity: 0/10 Slots

Description: A regular leather satchel. Has ten item slots. Reduces weight of items by 35%.

Oh, finally, something to replace my normal bag. It’d performed its service admirably, but as a non System-aligned item (IE: It was just a normal fucking bag), I could only get so much use out of it.

I’m gonna assume for this next part here that no one wants to sit around and listen to me struggle to fill out this shopping list, and just skip to telling you what I stocked up on.

Current Inventory

-Greater Tier One Potion: Restores 250 HP (10/10)

-Greater Tier One Potion: Restores 250 HP (10/10)

-Shep's Wool Rope: Made from the wool of the hearty shep, this durable rope can be used in many situations. (500ft)

-Bottle of Boom Juice: Used in many different explosives. (5/5)

-Pinch of Sulfair: This powdered electric mana serves as an alchemical and explosive ingredient. Incredibly potent, and even more unstable. (5/5)

-Camp in a Bag: Contains all of the necessary materials for creating a safe Camp in a dangerous area. (3/3)

-One Day Rations: Contains enough food for one average day of exploration. (10/10)

-First Aid Kit: Treat wounds the old fashion way. (5/5)

-Beginner Cartographer’s Kit: Contains one nuvellum map sheet and one cartographer’s quill. +5% Skill Exp gained when in use. (1/1)

-Beginner Chef’s Kit: Contains all the basic necessities that a new chef needs. +5% Skill Exp gained when in use. (1/1)

Every single slot filled, and stacked as full as they could go. Honestly, I felt that twenty potions still might not be enough, and wanted another stack of the Greater potions, but wasn’t comfortable sacrificing anything for it.

After seeing how effectively they destroyed Tobis, no way I was passing up a stack of those Radial Bombs. I had plenty of fire power myself now (I wanted a rematch so bad), but a little extra could never hurt. The Camp kit, rations, and first aid kits were obviously something we couldn’t go without either. The chef kit, because of course everyone needed to be able to cook for themselves.

Admittedly, the cartographer’s kit wasn’t exactly needed. You didn’t have to make your own maps. Even the most basic Journal had a map function, and the advanced ones could basically give you a 1:1 replica of the world. I bet Syscile actually could give me a 1:1 replica map.

As a matter of fact, Chosen Emmanuel, I can.

Oh. Yeah see, that’s just cheating.

Of course, as a kid, I didn’t have a Journa. So I made my own maps, with all my shortcuts, the best alleyways for losing people in a chase, etc.

And you know what? Making maps is actually a lot of fun. A good one takes a lot of effort, but there’s a certain satisfaction in replicating the world in front of you with your own hand. Plus, once I saw the Cartography skill on my character sheet, that got me thinking about what kind of abilities it could even grant me, and now I’m really curious about it.

So yeah, that’s everything. I didn’t put anything into my Clingy Bag, in case we found something valuable on the way.

Wait! No, that’s not true.

I moved the stuff I looted off of Slade—the ring and the holster—into there. Shoulda done that earlier really, but I forgot. Examining it will have to wait until we hit the road though. I just don’t want to spend any more time here.

Brygid and I thanked the clerk and left the Requisitions Office.

Gracie was standing outside waiting for us, resting in a chair against the wall. The blush was gone, her tail gently swishing underneath the chair. She gave us a happy little wave, carefully pulling her tail out from the chair as she stood. “Alright! You guys got everything you need then?”

I hefted my new satchel high with a grin and a thumbs up. “Oh yeah! We’re good to go Gracie. Please get us out of here.”

She took the lead once more, leading us out through the endless hallways of the Guild building. We made idle chit-chat, sharing details about our Blessings between the three of us.

Gracie’s Blessing was called ‘Feline Fury’ and apparently it allowed her to tap into the fearsome predatory instincts of her feline heritage. When active, it made her stronger, faster, and go absolutely nuts. I say apparently because even with a quick Examine backing all that up, I just couldn’t see it. She seemed way too sweet for that, you know?

Conveniently, we arrived back out at the entrance room just as Gracie finished her explanation. She walked with us all the way over to the door. “Well, here we are! Mission accomplished. It was really great meeting you two, and I wish you the very best of luck on your Quest to kill those nasty goblins!”

We said our good-byes, and turned to go. Brygid went and started walking forward. I turned back and gave Gracie a last wave.

She blushed, and took a step towards me. “Ah, Emmanuel…”

My mind flashed back to Brygid’s comment about me getting my first fan.

Ooooooh no. I can’t deal with some girl having a crush on me right now. Also, why the hell would she? We were complete strangers like forty five minutes ago.

Chosen Emmanuel, I would attribute that to your heightened Charisma. This will probably happen more often as you grow increasingly more Charismatic.

Uhm.

I don’t know if anyone else thinks so, but that sounded a lot like the System was just manipulating people to like me? I was………not a huge fan of the implications of that. What else did the System force people to do? Was it forcing me to do stuff? Would I ever be able to know if it was?

My unsettling thoughts must have reflected on my face, because Gracie’s building embarrassment turned to concern. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. What’s up?” I quickly assured her. Those were way too high level questions for right now, so I’d just put them off until later, when I could do something about it. Which uh, might be a little while.

She fidgeted for a second, reached into a little pouch hanging on her hip, and pulled out a mossy, light green Journal. She cracked it open, and waved her hand over the pages. Motes of light flickered into existence, and Gracie swooped her hand through them, grabbing a green bookmark out of thin air.

She put her Journal away and walked over to me, the blush on her face growing stronger with each step. Holding the bookmark out in front of her, Gracie’s face was beet red, voice shaky. “Uh, th-this is my contact information. This might seem weird, but could you send me a message once you clear the dungeon?”

Yeah, that did seem a little weird, which I conveyed through the appropriate eyebrow tilts.

“Y-Yeah, that does sound weird, sorry. Its just that, as a Guild clerk, sometimes I’ll make friends with an adventurer—like you—and then they’ll go off on a Quest and…” Gracie’s face dropped, her eyes going distant. “Sometimes they don’t come back. This seems like a really dangerous Quest, and I’ll be worrying about you.”

I couldn’t help but crack a grin at that. “Oh, only me, huh?”

Gracie’s tail shot behind her, tip curling back. Her ears swiveled forward, facing directly at me, while her eyes took on the focused vertical slits cats were known for. “N-N-No! You and Brygid, of course! I just, you know! You kind of seemed like the party leader, even though you’re just level one.”

My grin grew even wider as I leaned forward, taking the bookmark from her outstretched hand. “Yeah? You think I got the ‘party leader’ vibe? I’m flattered. Don’t worry Gracie, we’ll be fine. I’ll make sure to message you when we’re done. Promise.”

The bookmark in one hand, I took out Syscile with the other and opened her up. I held the bookmark over an empty page, and it dissolved into motes of light once more. The motes settled onto the fresh page, words appearing in their place, a new section of the Journal coming into being.

Contacts

-Gracie Lahklaw

Congratulations! You have registered your first Contact! You may send messages to any registered Contact whenever you are not in combat. Sending a message takes five mp and ten seconds of uninterrupted send time.

-Ding! Achievable Unlock! [My First Friend!: Register One Contact. +1 Charisma]

I gave Gracie a thumbs up. “Alright. You’re registered.” Then I winked. “You know, you can message me, if you want. I won’t mind.”

I regretted it instantly, as Gracie’s face flushed a deep tomato red.

Goddammit, Emmanuel. Goddamn you and your stupid big mouth. You can’t be joking around like that and leading her on. Not that I didn’t want to be friends with her, I did. Just, no girlfriends. Not for a long time, me thinks.

Gracie reached a hand up and began twirling a finger in her curly brown hair. Her ears twitched sporadically, tail swishing behind her lazily. “O-oh yeah? Nyeh heh, I just might. Alright, well. I’ll go back to work then. Thanks Emmanuel, and be safe out there.” She gave me a shy wave, and went off.

Auuuugh. That’d be a problem later. But whatever, what’s done is done. Moving on.

I left the Guild to find Brygid standing off to the right, leaning against the black wood wall with a smug, crooked grin on her face. She came over to me with a strut. “Uh-huh! Was I right, or was I right?”

“Tch. You were, but that’s the last thing I want right now. I just want to be able go on adventures. Not ready to add another person to my life just yet.”

Her smug grin melted into a warm smile, and she gave me a rough hair-ruffling. “D’awwwww, look at you. I know how you feel though. I don’t wanna get mixed up with anybody either, but do you know how many guys I’ve had to beat off since I got this good looking?” She laughed and flexed, then paused, and cringed.

“Oh, wait, no, phrasing. You get what I mean though. I imagine that it'll take you a while to get used to all this new overnight attention, huh? Cause honestly, she’s not gonna be the last little girl who sees you, Mr. Handsome S ranker, and starts getting ideas. Hell, older women too, probably.”

“Sssssssshit.” I hissed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Are you for real? Maaaan, I don’t wanna deal with that.”

Brygid laughed at that. Taking a quick second to check her surroundings and seeing that there was no one around, she flared her wings and punched her fists together. “Don’t worry bro. Your not so little sis can take care of all your girl troubles for you. Just say the word.”

That got me. I chuckled, and waved my hands placatingly. “Woah, woah. Easy there Brygid. I don’t need you getting in a fight with every girl who looks at me. Though I appreciate the offer, I’ll handle it myself once we get back from this Quest. Whenever that is.”

She nodded and let her wings go, but cracked her knuckles anyway for good measure. “Alright, but I will take a bitch out if I think she’s messing with you. Oh!” She brightened, dropping the angry sister act in a second. “Right! Emmanuel, we need to trade Contacts and officially party up! Dang, I can’t believe we forgot about that.”

Drawing both our Journals back out, we each went through the motions of grabbing a bookmark out of the air just like Gracie had. Brygid’s was unsurprisingly red, and mine turned out to be a nice, unassuming grey. We traded bookmarks, adding each other to our Contacts.

After that, it was time for the most important question any group has to ask. “So who’s party leader?”

Brygid just looked at me like I was an idiot though. “You for real? Its you, dingus.”

“Geez, okay! I figured since you’ve been doing this longer, got more experience and stuff, that you might want to do it.”

“Yeaaah, no thanks. You’re the S ranker, you do it.” Then she grinned and gave me a nudge in the ribs. “Plus, I know you’ll listen to what I say anyway. This way you can just take the blame for it.”

“Hah! Classic Brygid. Alright, I’ll do it.”

Syscile, please send Brygid a party invite, if you would.

Of course.

A flash of light came from the pages of Brygid’s Journal. She read over the party invite, poked the page where I’m assuming there was a ‘yes’ button, and then I got an automatic notification.

Brygid Jewel has accepted your offer, and joined your party!

In the upper right corner of my vision, opposite my HP and MP bars, a small circular icon appeared. It had Brygid’s face on it, but designed to be noticeably………cuter? All cartoony, with big eyes and a silly expression. They had a word for that in the Far East, over in the land of Sarghezi. What was it? Kawaii, or something.

Anyway, it was pretty cute, and her HP and MP bars were displayed underneath it. Very convenient.

Then I got another notification. This one was much longer, and didn’t sound like Syscile at all. While the normal notices had her smooth, cool tones, this was one much more bombastic, the letters appearing in my mind in blazing gold as opposed to soft silver.

Pretty sure that was The King.

“Emmanuel, are you okay? You—”

Congratulations Emmanuel! You’ve gained your first party member! Before the end of the first day even, good job! I’m sure you know the importance of having a good party, but that goes tenfold for the Chosen. There’s no way you can complete your journey without the backup of some equally powerful allies.

To that end, each Chosen is given access to a modified version of the normal party Leadership system, to better fit the more personal connection that a Chosen has with their party. With this unique Leadership system, you may earn Leadership Points (LP) and then spend them on skills to upgrade your party’s effectiveness and teamwork, as well as your party members’ stats.

Leadership Points may be earned in the following ways:

When the Major Skill ‘Leadership’ levels up.

Whenever you gain a level.

Whenever your subordinate party members gain a total of five levels. I.e; Member A gets three levels, Member B gets two levels, you get one LP.

Whenever you recruit a new party member. Note: This does not count when you simply team up, or take control of some sort of third party group.

Certain achievables will grant LP, as well as other party related skills and stats.

Certain rare Quests may grant LP.

The Leadership system has a lot to take in, including multiple different paths to spend your points on, but don’t worry too much about getting ‘the most’ out of it. This is one area I can safely say there are no wrong options. Pick what you think is best for your party style and go with it.

Remember, sometimes your party members will be even more important to the situation than you are. They’re your biggest assets, so take care of them and they’ll take of you.

King Sam out!

-Ding! Achievable unlocked! [Its Party Time!: Gain your first party member.] Reward: Leadership System unlocked + 1 Leadership Point!

Mooooore stuff to keep track of! Fantastic. Well, if it helps, it helps. No use bitching about something that makes me stronger. I wonder what kind of—

*Thwack*

A flash of pain flared across my face as Brygid slapped the ever loving shit out of me.

You have taken 15 points of damage.

Reeling from the hit, I grabbed my face and hissed at the fiery woman. “Ooowch! Brygid what the fuck? You can’t just hit a dude like that out of nowhere!”

She put her hands on her hips, cocking them to one side and tilting her head at me disapprovingly. “That wasn’t out of nowhere. I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past couple of minutes. As soon as I accepted the party invite, your eyes just glazed over and you totally zoned out. It was really creepy, dude. You okay?”

The fury on my face smoothed as I realized what happened. “Oh.” Then I explained to Brygid about Syscile, and how she could just read prompts into my mind at any time, as well as the prompt about the Leadership skill I just got. Of course, I just substituted everything King Sam said about the Chosen with ‘S rank’. Seemed to be working as a fine answer so far.

Brygid gave me a dirty look. The kind of look that said ‘I’m gonna shank you later, so watch out.’ “You know Emmanuel, if we weren’t such good friends, I’d be thinking you’re a totally cheating bastard.”

“But since we are such good friends?”

“I only think you’re a cheap son-of-a-bitch.” Then the dirty look went away and she winked. “Course, your mom is anything but a bitch, but son-of-a-nice-lady just doesn’t have the same impact.”

I laughed and threw my hands up in surrender. “Hah! Yeah, you’ve got me there. Now, is there anything else we need to do before leaving? We have plenty of supplies. We’ve got our Quest. We know where we’re going. I wanted to see Ferrous before we left, but I’m sure he’ll understand. I know we should check out all that Leadership stuff, but it can wait for a little while, at least. Oh!” I snapped my fingers.

“What’s up?” Brygid asked.

“If I’m gonna be party leader, I need to read your character sheet before we head out and get into any fights.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s prolly a good idea. Here ya go.”

———————————————————————————

Name: Brygid Jewel

Race: Human (Rapellan)

Level: 7 (0/100% EXP)

HP: 897/897(HP=((BDY*10.1)+20x [X=Level])

HP Regen: 1.33/sec (HP Regen=[(BDY*0.0015)*(HP)]/60)

MP: 938/938 (MP= ((MND*10.1)+20x [x=level])

MP Regen: 7 MP/Sec (MND*0.015)*MP))/120

Primary Statistics:

STR: 31

CON: 42

BDY: 75

INT: 39

WIS: 34

MND: 79

DEX: 35

PAS: 35

HEAT: 80

Secondary Statistics

Charisma: 19

Blessing

Name: Tinderwings

Tier: One

Grade: B+

Type: (Elemental; Fire) (Enhancement;Flight)

Description: The burning desire for freedom inside you takes form as wings of fire. Let your passions soar and take you for a wild adventure.

Level up bonus: STR 2, CON 3, BDY 0, INT 3, WIS 2, MND 1, DEX 3, PAS 3, HEAT 1 HP 20 MP 20, +1 Distributable Stat Point

Active Abilities:

Tinderflight Lvl 6: Take flight with wings of fiery passion. Sustained Ability. Cost: When not in flight, .5Mp/second. When in flight, 4.3Mp/sec. Maximum Flight Speed is [(HEAT)(0.88)]=70.4MPH.

—Fire Flap Lvl 3: Blow forward a powerful wave of burning hot air. Effect: Deal (Heat/4) Fire damage in a 15 foot long, 6 foot wide line. Cost: 20MP.

—Tindershot Lvl 5: Fling fiery feathers at foes. Effect: Shoot two feathers. Deals [(Dex/4)+(Heat/5)] Fire damage twice. Each feather inflicts 3.5% Burn Status. Cost: 10MP. Note: Only usable when Tinderflight is active.

Enflame Weapon Lvl 4: Sheathe your held weapon in fire. Effect: Held weapon gains (Heat/10)+4 Fire Damage and deals 6% Burn Status. Cost: 17MP.

Cinnamend Lvl 3: Heal up with sweet magic. Effect: Heal one target for [(5%MaxHP)+ (PAS/2)]. Cost: 30MP. Cooldown: 15 seconds.

Fireball! Lvl 3: It doesn’t get more classic than this. Effect: Form and shoot a fireball. Damage is [((Int)+(Heat/2))*(.60x)] X equals charge time in seconds. Explosion Radius is [x/3]ft. Maximum charge time is twelve seconds. Cost: 30MP/sec. Cooldown: 45 seconds.

Extra Cooked Lvl 2: Make sure that attack is extra well done. Effect: When using a skill that requires charge time, spend an extra 6MP/sec in order to extend maximum allowed charge time, up to 1.525x.

Examine Lvl 7: Analyze a target for information. Cost: 5MP.

———————————————————————————

She had a wide variety of passive abilities as well, but they were all pretty standard/expected. Lots of things about her proficiency with controlling Fire mana, and cooking. Specifically [Baking Lvl 9], which I thought was quite impressive, considering a Tier One skill can only go up to level 10 before it maxes out. Other than that though, nothing too exciting.[*1]

“Soooo, anything else else?”

Brygid mumbled under her breath, counting off an invisible list on her fingers. “Hmm. Nooooo? I’ll just send Mom and Dad a message real quick to let them know what happened and that I won’t be home for a while.” She pulled out her Journal, writing a short letter, which flashed with a pulse of light when she was done. “Alright, good to go man.”

“Are they gonna be okay with just that?”

“Uh, yeah? They know how long we’ve been planning on doing the whole ‘Adventuring Team’ thing. Besides, I’m not doing this just to have fun. Mom and Dad are good at what they do, and we have a stable life—people always want more jewelry and breads—but I’m not happy with just stable, you know?”

She fixed me with a serious gaze, light shining in her eyes. “I don’t know how the Guild-Master did that weird thing he did,” Cue finger wiggling. “But I’ll give him credit, he knew what he was talking about. I want to use these wings of mine to carry my parents up with me, and being a strong Adventurer is the best way I know how to do that.”

I nodded. “Hell yeah. Let’s go then. Time to hit the Gate.”

We packed up, headed back through Center Park (With me gaining another level in the Walking skill) and took the Transport Circle back to the Ring Five Hub.

Then, just like that, we left the city.

[You are now leaving [Capital City Rapella]. Entering [Green Hill Zone]. The teething ground for any new Blessed, the Green Hill Zone is home to all of the normal monsters one may think of; rabid wolves, slimes, goblins, boars, bears (If you are particularly unlucky), and more. Bask in the sun among lush green grasslands and rolling hills. A perfect place for a picnic. Recommended Level: Tier 1, 1-6.]

What I saw took my breath away.

Gently rolling hills covered in green. More green that I’d ever seen in my life. An endless sea of vibrantly lush, verdant grass waving in the constant breeze, speckled with copses of trees bristling with birdsong and the chatter of small animals. Novas hung in the sky above, its glimmering rays shining down, gently twinkling upon the crests of the grass sea.

A great dirt road ran straight from the Gate and off into the distance, splitting into smaller off-roads the whole way, almost like it was imitating the root system of a tremendous tree. The width of the road was vast, easily wide enough for fifty large horse carriages, side by side.

My face broke out in a great smile.

Now, it really starts.

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

[*1] [Though, it did beg the question: If Syscile was modifying the layout of the sheets to be more convenient for me, did Brygid’s sheet look totally different to her? What did my sheet look like? Hmm…I’m just gonna drop that for now.]