Once you got past the disgusting filth in the streets Rovale actually wasn’t all that bad of a place to spend some time. Though, as expected everything that was interesting or fun cost money. There were plenty of people willing to loan you money, or take a tab out at their restaurant, but once you began running up a debt the underworld already owned you. Most permanent citizens knew better, and these days they only really got tourists with such obvious traps. Two such tourists had been declining every offer given to them on account of the wife “having a bad feeling”. In actuality Prisaela could just smell the scam and didn’t want to have to deal with it later.

Truth be told the duo didn’t have any jobs, so if they ran up a debt they’d likely have to kill their way out and flee the city. When it was put to him that way Thozronnath understood why it would be a chore and opted against it.

That’s not to say that they were completely out of money though. They saved a few copper coins by purchasing second hand clothes, even if they hung a bit snug to their shape shifted forms in a few places. They saved half a gold by reserving their food and lodgings at one of the most run down and suspicious looking inns they could find, and when it came time to get Thoz a weapon they opted for a spear. Spears had less metal parts and were thus easier to mass produce and much cheaper to buy.

When they’d finished up all their purchases and exchanged around enough loose coins with the merchants to consolidate their assets, their entire fund could be summed up in two coins.

One gold piece.

One iron piece.

They weren’t broke, but if there was an emergency they’d barely last a few days. This was not a position Thoz wanted to be in.

Though as he and his ‘wife’ walked around the city in their shapeshifted disguises, Thoz was learning more and more about the mortal plane with each passing moment. Prisaela would occasionally stop and ask someone an innocent question under the guise of being new in town, and slowly but surely like sand in an hourglass they were gaining information as they wandered the streets.

First, a “guild” was a fancy word for a club. It was a membership based grouping that the mortals made and offered special benefits to their members while taking a small membership fee. Thoz thought it sounded like a pyramid scheme, but it could certainly be useful if the rest of the information was true.

The main other thing they learned, from a small green-skinned man they later learned to be a civilized goblin, was that the guilds served as a form of employment. A guild offered jobs and ID to their members on behalf of the clients that highered the guilds, and for a cut of the payment involved they could keep membership fees relatively low. As a result, guild members had a steady stream of work, and a great deal of benefits thrown their way by the guild itself. It was one of the very rare win-win situations humans lusted for.

There was also a surprising number of different humanoid races around. Thoz saw a few of what he expected, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Gnomes, etc et nauseum. However, he also saw a strange number of half-giants and giant-born, the occasional animalistic beastman, and even individuals who appeared to carry infernal blood themselves judging by the red skin and horns. All in all, it gave Thoz hope that he could assume strange identities rather easily if he got caught red handed and little would be said about the new stranger from out of town.

This didn’t even address the remarkable number of half bread races though. It seemed like mortals were willing to fuck literally anything, as Thoz noticed the occasional individual that looked like a cross between an orc and a dwarf, or a gnome and an elf, it was borderline disgusting when he thought about it.

Pushing that thought aside though, the first and most important step was to register at one of these guilds so they could obtain a steady source of income and continued employment. Once Prisaela batted her eyelashes and asked a few gruff looking men for a favor, they knew exactly where they were headed too. The docks.

Going nearly twenty minutes out of their way at a perpendicular angle to their previous walking, the surprisingly hearty Thozronnath didn't have a problem with it at all, but Prisaela was shockingly weak so she was out of breath and exhausted long before they arrived.

Stepping awkwardly into the front door of the main guild building, Prisaela stopped for a moment to read the sign over the same door that read “Outpost Omega, Adventuring Academy & Guild”

It was a sizable building, three stories of various wood and stone work, and it appeared to have been rebuilt several times despite being visibly older than the other buildings around it. Stepping inside was quite a shock though, the entire atmosphere the external city created shifted suddenly almost exactly when crossing the threshold.

The main flower had a small sitting area with various tables almost akin to a tavern of some sort, several groups were currently sitting there having discussions and meetings of their own. The back third of the room however, was cut off by a long desk with equidistant clerk stations like a bank. The various clientele, or guild members in this case, kept going over to the clerks behind them to deliver small packages, fill out forms, and miscellaneous guild business that Thozronnath and Prisaela could gain no further information about at the moment.

Prisaela felt entirely out of place, even though Thoz was also a bit of a unique presence. Everyone here was armed and armored in some regard, even the robe-wearing individuals Thoz assumed to be priests and mages were often wearing bracers of some kind and kept daggers as well as their staves. Since our monstrous duo was wearing plain clothes and only had the one spear between them, they didn’t give off the air of intimidating combat prowess that the rest of the adventurers had.

The two intrepid villains then walked to the back of one of the various lines that had formed, coincidentally finding themselves almost to the very far right side of the room while waiting to speak with a clerk. The individual in front of them was a massive woman with pale grey skin, Almost three meters tall and with very faint tusks. Thoz assumed some mixed heritage of perhaps Orc and Giant.

Her business was so slow it was enraging, but neither Thoz or Prisaela had the confidence to complain from behind the strikingly muscular form in front of them. They were still in the shortest line after all.

When the half-giant finally moved out of the way, the duo was greeted gently by a shockingly small man with horns flanking either side of his head, a scraggly white beard, and most disturbingly, sideways pupils. Like a goat. Prisaela had never met a Satyr before, and Thoz was trying not to laugh at the soft tapping the man produced whenever he adjusted his apparently hooved stance.

“How can I be of assistance to you fine folk this evening?” The clerk asked as they approached, his voice nasally and only somewhat reminiscent of a goat bleating.

Before Thoz had the chance to speak up and voice whatever thoughts were currently fueling the smirk across his face, Prisaela stepped forward and conveniently placed herself between him and the clerk.

“Hi there! We’re new in town, just got in today, and my husband and I were hoping to register as members of your guild.” She explained flawlessly, every word dripped with charisma and there was an effortless air to the way she wove their cover story so subtly into the answer.

The clerk, whose name tag very simply read “Zak”, blinked up at her for a few moments, very obviously lost in her charm before breaking the silence. “Oh! Oh? Of course, we can start the registration right away and get the two of you all sorted out by the end of the day!” he offered with a chipper tone.

Thozronnath was sighing internally as he scampered away to retrieve some paperwork and left the two of them standing alone. Prisaela was incredible to watch, but it was always a bit disappointing how easily mortals were manipulated.

When Zak the satyr returned, he had two individual bundles of completely identical paperwork and began a long and rambling explanation of the process. For your own sake I will condense. First, since the two applicants are adults neither of them has to attend the academy before registering but if they would like to it costs ten gold pieces. The academy teaches basic and common monster biology, simply arithmetic, and literacy in the most common language of the region. Second, they are expected to pay a fifteen gold piece membership fee at the start of every year, though this fee is delayed for new registers and they have six months to acquire the funds. The last bit though, was their adventurer IDs. Their level would be measured, their race and class recorded (based on register input), and then they would be given a metal ID card with minor enchantments on it that operate quest records.

The duo stood there and answered questions for what felt like hours, though in truth it only took them forty five minutes. The entire time Thoz was thinking about how susceptible the whole process seemed to be to shapeshifters though. Best he could tell there was absolutely no safeguards in place to prevent malicious form swapping. Hells, an enterprising mimic or doppelganger with a few levels in warlock could get themselves and a shapeshifting summon into just about any city with the same standards. Though a mimic warlock was a preposterous idea, and actively made Thoz chuckle under his breath.

His smile quickly faded into a grimace though, when faced with the five silver ID printing fee. Reluctantly paid, he and Prisaela now only had a single iron piece to their name, and would need to take a job by the end of the day if they wanted emergency funds.

With their paperwork completed, and a few lecherous looks from the other adventurers, Prisaela led Thoz to the board of posted quests. She was actively ignoring the chuckles clearly prompted by the single weapon shared between two adventurers.

As she began looking over job postings with her master, she frowned at the signs of confusion quickly spreading across his face before the cause dawned on her. Fuck. He can’t read, can he?

Which was not completely fair. Thozronnath could read. He could read the infernal script just fine. This human garbage though, he understood maybe every tenth word.