SLAP

A bundle of papers were slapped onto one of the front of the dining tables. The dark haired foreigner nudges his head, gesturing for the first person in front of him to get it.

“Get one and pass.” Noah says to the now satisfied group of well-fed teens.

The plates were smeared with goop of what were the remains of Carp Stew and Rice with a bit of chicken and bacon mixed in with their grub. A loud burp erupted from the end of the table as a meek long haired classmate purses her lips and hides her embarrassment behind her long raven hair. “Nice one, Hope.” called from the other table, Robin, with a snort as he gave a weak thumbs up, his face in pure bliss at the large array of food he managed to scarf down. Hope merely sank lower in her seat, well, if she could on the seat being a long bench to accompany the vintage look of the long trestle dining table.

“What’s this for?” Asked Lemuel who, astonishingly, ate the most out of all of them with 4 plates stacked up next to him. He dabs a napkin on his mouth before eyeing Noah who motioned his hand up and down like a fan, as if saying ‘just pass it’. After Lemuel takes the papers, Noah then adds a few pencils to go with it as well. The pencils weren’t the usual ‘thin lead on top and eraser on the bottom’, but were more like chunks of wood sharpened hastily to just get a good fat of lead out as a pointer.

Noah makes his way to the front, right next to Grey then following Josh who had already given the other table a stack of papers and pencils as well.

After said papers were passed on to all the students across the two tables, Grey cleared her throat with a loud cough. The dining hall’s whispers die down. Grey tilts her head up, her hooked nose pointing up as she survey’s the tables to check their expressions and wait for them to pay attention.

Nathaniel passes the last paper and pencil to a quiet Lala, who hadn’t eaten as much as the rest. Nathaniel held the paper in front of her, but she sat quiet, staring at her empty food plate before the copper-haired boy nudged her with his left shoulder. “Lala, hey.”

At the sudden physical contact, she blinks, tensing up in her seat as she widens her eyes. “Oh-Uh, Nate. Yeah, sorry.” She gives a small cough before reassuring him with a miniscule smile. He cocks a brow before handing over the paper and pencil, not saying another word. He was worried, sure. But it’s not like they were close or anything.

It wasn’t his problem to butt into ‘yet’.

There were a few more whispers that managed to ask questions about the paper and its weird outline, such as Caine and Vallerie who were chatting across the second table. “Name… Talents?” read out Caine as he pulled the paper up to his eye-height. “Warrior… Lancer… Fighter… Whoa, what are these?” Vallerie excitedly reads it as well, clutching the paper with tight fingers.

“’Dunno. We’ll just have to listen.”

“I’m getting all warm just from being excited.” Vallerie squeaks to Caine with two hands sliding up and down her face. Caine’s brow shoots up as he looks around, rubbing one hand to his resting arm. “Warm? You know, not that I’ve noticed it… This ‘world’ is comparably colder than where we were. Our country was basically in the middle of the equator.”

“Oh, It is! I just noticed!” Vallerie points to Caine with a shocked look.

“What? Our country being in the middle of the equato-“

“No! Not that! I meant that it IS colder, like, we don’t need any air-conditioning any more or even a fan!”

Caine leans forward, resting his elbows on the table as he bites his lip and nods. He looks around the guild hall once more, still in disbelief at the fact that this guild was ‘theirs’. “Yeah… I guess we don’t.”

In a few minutes, the chatter settles down as they noticed Grey standing in front with a look that says ‘Hey, keep quiet”.

“So, you’ve all had your fill.” Grey began with a teasing smile on her face, the crowd replies with nods and sounds of agreement. “Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of today. It won’t be long.” Grey nods her head to Noah first, then to Josh as they both slowly walk in front of the tables, not too near yet not too far.

“In this world, we have a thing we call ‘Talents’. Talents are basically classes in different games, like Warrior, Rogue, Archer, etc.” Noah and Josh shift in place, going into a certain stance that makes them bend down their knees a bit as they pull their head a bit low.

Lemuel and Ian were in front of Noah, where the two slowly slid a few inches to the side of the bench they sat on, feeling cautious. Nick and Alisson did the same in front of Josh.

“Talents are what classify you as a Gladiator. The world of Everoe refers to those brought in from ‘another world’ and are sent here as Gladiators, a dominant species of multiple races who can master Talents and hone their skills. You will all be choosing your Talents today.” Grey, with her hands behind her back, nods to them with a waiting smile.

Just as she predicted, they gave a few nods and looks of surprise. The noise started to build up around the tables again as they exchange pumped comments and mutters. Grey quickly spoke again, a bit louder to draw their attention once more. “Now, I’ll be explaining what the Talents are, eleven Talents in total. I’ll say its name, what you’d do, your weapons and how you fight.” She pulled up a paper from one of her back pouches and looks down to the list, it was another copy of the papers she just distributed.

“First off… First Talent, Close combat.” At the sound of this, Josh and Noah’s empty belts suddenly had a zap of an orange light by their waist. When suddenly, there sitting on their waists were dark brown scabbards with swords sheathed, waiting. Both of the boys slowly gripped the handle and pulled them out, there was a slow yet smooth sound of metal grinding against metal until they pulled the length of the blade out and held its point directly in front of them, the crowd’s eyes widen at the sudden appearance of a weapon. “Status, Warrior. Weapons, Axes, Blunt weapons, Scythes, One-Handed weapons, Two-Handed weapons, Rapiers and Swords.”

As Grey reads out weapon by weapon, Noah and Josh seem to whisk away their swords back to who knows where and replace their swords with the following weapons said. Noah pulls out a small axe from thin air, Josh pulls out a mace, then vice versa as they pull out extraordinary weapons and replace them in a matter of seconds with a twinkle of an orange light in between shifting weapons.

The crowd gazes at awe, like children watching magicians toy with their perception. But this was no ‘magic trick’. This was real magic.

“Warriors are melee attackers, they’re usually the DPS of any party—“ She pauses for a moment after seeing confused faces appear through the crowd, “—Ehm… DPS meaning, Damage per second. They do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Party is—“

“Like a small group, right? In a game, you can group players up with a maximum count of… say six to eight people?” Ava raised her hand in the back, “Yeah, a party.” She repeats.

Grey gives a small smile, “Mhm. You’re correct.”

A dull looking male with thick ruffled brown hair scoffs across from where Ava sits, she shoots him a scowl. “Got somethin’ to say, Mason?”

“No. I just didn’t think a rich girl like you would know what a ‘party’ meant.” He lazily replies, propping an elbow on the table as he picks his teeth. The crowd immediately tenses at his sour comment.

Mason was a lazy butt-hole to put it frankly. If you catch him in a bad mood, well, you’re in for some very colourful and highly detailed compliments. ‘Compliments’.

Ava recoils at his display before hissing, “I play games too, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe you should eat my—“

“ANYWAYS.” Grey called out loudly which perked the crowd, she shakes her head. “Moving on, yes, Warriors are the DPS of the party… usually. They’re fast on their feet and are just as fast with their heavy swings.”

With a snap, the weapons from the two other boys disappear.

“Next, Second Talent, Lance combat.” Josh and Noah take a few steps back, kneeling a bit lower this time as a large spark of orange zips across their hands. There was this large weapon before them that had this cone-like structure. It was held on to by two hands, it opened up in front of the user and slowly thinned out. “Status, Knight. Weapons, Lances.” Grey motions over to the weapon Josh and Noah was holding as she says ‘Lances’.

“God, this is heavier than I thought it would be.” groaned Josh as he adjusts his grip on the back.

“Now that I think about it, how ARE you carrying that Lance if you guys came into this world the same time we did?”

“Yeah, shouldn’t you guys be beginners like us? Well, info and status wise? You guys already have money, magic and weapons!”

The crowd agrees with a few confused looks and sudden realization at the fact.

Grey shrugs, “Remember when I said there were other people here? Some of the ten thousand people did play this game before and have earned some money, weapons, etcetera… And apparently, our ‘stats’ here in this game are already registered the moment we came in here. So, it’s like we were ‘already’ a part of the world.” She shakes her head after rambling. “I really don’t get the idea of it, but that’s what we managed to figure out after… Well, staying up all night.”

“All night?” Matthias echoed worriedly, his brows pinning close.

“Yeah, but don’t worry. It’s all for you guys after all.”

Appreciated and warm, the crowd exchanges looks that were a bit uncomfortable at the lengths their classmates went through. But in this circumstance, they figured to just go along with it for now.

“Now… Knights are known to be heavy hitters. They’re slow, but they pack a punch. Think of it as another version of Warriors but with slower speed and more power.” Grey turns to Josh as he holds it up with a single hand, sticking his chest out in pride. “If someone were to pick this, well, they’d have to be somewhat big enough to lug this around.”

Some of them eyed Evan, Caine and Matthias, since those three were obviously fit for the job. Evan being their batchs’ Vice President and son of a very well-known local police officer, they can pretty much see him as one of the heavy-hitter types. Then there was Caine, good o’l modest Caine. He has a fit body, all because of his “part-time job” he says, lugging around rice and potato sacks to pay for his personal bills. Generally a kind and considerate guy with a sense of justice to him, being that he’s always on their ass whenever they miss out on attendance or the like. Then there’s Matthias.

Matthias shrinks at the ogling gazes of the crowd. “M-Me? With a Lance?”

“Yeah man, I mean you’re on the volleyball team. You got great arms.” Started Nick from the front, gesturing to Matthias’ arms that were currently on the table.

Matthias pulls his hands and hides them under the table. “You’ve got great muscles too, you’re good.” added Vallerie with a nonchalant wave of her hand.

His face reddens more at the compliment(?) and sulks, lowering his head down. “I’ll see…” He mutters, earning a few giggles from the teens.

“Third Talent, Martial Arts.” Noah puts out his hands, palms facing the ground. He waits for a moment before small light particles shine across his elbows down to his fingertips, then in a flash, as his fingers curl into a fist, a pair of large gauntlets settled on his hands. “Status, Fighter. Weapons, Knuckles. Now, fighters are those who like to get up and personal with the enemy. It’s a Talent that requires a lot of technique and a hell of a lot of stamina. This is actually my preferred Talent since it was also my first.“ Grey let’s Josh hold the paper first as she extends out her hands the same way Noah did, pausing for a moment before pumping her fists forward. Beautiful yet dangerous looking knuckles covered her arms as she stretched her gloved fingers, the metal spikes on her knuckle-area shining under dim light.

“Now this is the opposite of Lances. They’re fast, but need to take a lot of punches to do a ton of damage. But because of a few skills under this Talent, you’d learn how to make each punch stronger than the last.”

“Figures you’d like that.” Augustus gives a knowing smirk, propping an elbow on the table as he leans his head on it. “Taking boxing and all.”

“That and the fact that she’s a tomboy.” Said Mason with a teasing smirk.

Robin immediately spits his drink on his plate as Mason says that and chuckles uncontrollably in between coughs.

“HEY. It’s effective.” Grey says, the knuckles disappearing in white lights of fading particles. She takes the paper from Josh with a pout before continuing.

“Those first three are the main melee Talents and more basic yet hard to control types. If you think you’re up for it, write it down. There’s a list there so just refer to that.” Grey adjusts the paper in her hands and continues.

“Fourth Talent, Archery.” Josh holds his hands out and a flash of orange sparks before a long wooden bow with a simple design and a few bandages strapped onto it materialized onto his palm. He stretches the string and holds tight on the grip. “Status, Archer. Weapons, Bow. Now we’re starting off with the first Talent in long-ranged attacks. Archery is just as simple as it looks, it’s for people who want a good distance away from the target and have good control with their arms. They’ve also got to have their shit together and be light on their feet, quick with their draws—“ She makes a gesture as if she’s grabbing an arrow behind her on a quiver and gives a mock release of an arrow. “—And they need to be able to get that bullseye.” Grey clicks her tongue with an unsure look on her face, “A lot of pressure for someone. I know, but if you’d like to stay out of the fray, then take that Talent.”

“Fifth Talent, Magic.” Noah’s face for the entirety of the first four Talents was just him seeming bored. But as Grey announces the word ‘Magic’, he licks his lips in anticipation as he holds one hand out and zip. A long staff, that’s even taller than he was stands next to him, rests on his palm. “Can I do a thing?” pleaded an excited Noah as he turns to Grey, biting his lip with a smile.

Grey gives a disgruntled look and sighs, “Fine.”

Noah’s smile couldn’t get any wider as he picks up his staff, raising it a few inches from the ground before tapping the bottom of his staff on the ground.

THUD THUD

The small white gem that hung on a dangling vine on the top of his staff glowed a vibrant red before shifting to a darker shade of velvet. As the gem glowed bright, Noah raises the staff up with a quick pump of his arm, a streak of fire blazes above them as it shoots directly into the wooden chandelier, it swung on the metal hook that attached itself to the ceiling, the chandelier creaks slowly and is dyed a bit of orange at the sudden added fire to the candles. Luckily, it was like a bullet. Small and fast, so it only hit the area of the candle’s wick.

A series of ‘woahs’ echoed across the dining hall as they, by habit, clap at the little display of magic. “We really are gonna learn magic.” Kaden says with his face contorting into an expression of pure excitement while Charlotte next to him slaps both her hands on the table as she jumps in her seat, repeating “OhmygodOhmygodOhmygod” over and over again.

Grey holds her hands up. “The Status is Mage. Weapons, Staves. Like the one Noah has.” She gives a thumbs up to Noah as he whisks away his staff. “Magic is one of the, if not, hardest Talents to completely learn. Noah here is a Grandmaster Mage so that’s saying something.” At that, Noah gives a small wave to the crowd, wiggling his brows in his dickish pride. “Unlike the other Talents so far, this one requires Mana. Mana is essentially another version of your stamina, Mana is what powers your Magic to be used, created and controlled.” As she says this, she flaps the paper in her hands.

“It also requires a lot of meditating, no joke. So if you’re down with that then go for Mage.”

With a huff, Grey rubs her forehead and continues. “Alright, Sixth Talent… Battle Alchemy. Status, Battle Alchemist. Weapon, Cylinders.” Josh holds out his arm, his hand balled into a fist as a streak of yellow circles his arm before the empty space on his forearm transformed into some sort of proto-type blow torch of some sort.

On his arm was a brown padding with two straps circling his forearm, attached to the padding was this ‘cylinder’. It was a thick metal cylinder shaped weapon with holes on both ends, its length just about the same size as his arm. On what it looked like it’s top was this metal strainer that served as its cap. The end portion of the cylinder had this ball like shape, like a tiny air balloon of some sort.

“Alchemy…?” Muttered Vallerie in curiosity, her interest now piqued as she leans in forward to squint at the contraption on Josh’s arm.

“Alchemy is a sort of practice that enables someone to create items using different processes. Unlike Magic, this is more on the use of chemistry.”

“Teacher Roger.” Muttered Robin as he coughed in between his words, pretending to look around as if he didn’t say it.

Their table snickers as Grey held back a smirk, Their lovely chemistry teacher and ever so doting father figure of a home room teacher. Well… Too doting if you asked them.

But there was a look to their faces that made them feel… regretful. Regretful for the joke that seemed too personal for them now.

Grey managed to catch their attention with a clap of her hands, the paper almost crumpling in her palm. “So, yes. Chemistry. We’d finally have a use for what we’d learned back in class. A use we’d thought we’d need till we get jobs.” She took a deep inhale and huffed out a short sigh, “But for those who’d want to fight using the power of science, that being where you’d concoct your own crystal, like a fire crystal or ice crystal, then using it on the cylinder to blast either fire or ice. It’s a pretty neat system.”

Elijah perks at the sound of that, “Blast fire, ey?”

“Yes, dear fledgling arsonist.”

“Heh, we’ll see.” Elijah reaches his hand up behind his head to fix his blonde hair pulled back into a loose bun, he smirks. “Who knew Chemistry could be useful like this.”

“Right? Ahem, now.” She gestures to Noah, “Those are the three long-range Talents. Now this time, we’re going into the versatile Talents. Which now brings me to the SEVENTH Talent, Dual Guns!” Grey finger guns Noah as he stuck his index fingers out and a flash of purple appears before two large metal guns with an intricate design to it rested on both his hands. He twirls them both on his fingers and strikes a pose, a shine suddenly sparkling on the tip of the muzzle.

“Status, Gunslinger. Weapon, Well… Dual Guns. Yes, they always come in a pair.” She adds before anyone could even ask. “Gunslingers are like the Archers, but with less work to aim. Unlike Archers, however, Gunslingers have a more wild kind of attacking. Archers are more on giving concentrated perfect slow-processed shots which is hard to master but is totally worth the effort of. Gunslingers thought are more rapid-fire based. DPS. They’re both long-range and short-range if you create your own style of using it. Though I must say, the only downside to this is the amount you can reload and the time you have to reload. Gunslingers are one of the new Talents implemented in the game so there’s a lot of things you can experiment with in cases of combos or techniques.”

“So… You’re allowing us to use a gun?” Asked Orlando, his brow slowly rising at the thought of having a firearm… Legally.

“Well, yeah. I mean, these aren’t REAL bullets.” She nods to Noah, “Show ‘em the cylinder.”

At her command, Noah pops the side of the gun which seemed to be a more intricate looking revolver but with a longer barrel. As he pushes the cylinder, a pool of blue energy emanates from the six slots, it seeps out of the slots like ghostly entities slithering up and disappearing.

“Those are Mana bullets. They’re processed from Shyllien crystals and packed into little tiny glowing bullets. They’re not as strong physically, but they have this magical impact to someone that doesn’t naturally injure you with holes through your body. It’s just like a heavy sonic wave or some sort when it hits you.” Grey snorts as Noah slowly points the barrel to Alisson who gives Noah a double-take before squeaking, “H-Hey! Noah!”

“Relax—“ Grey says before Noah pulled the hammer, “--…Nevermind. Noah, come on.”

He gives a shrug before snapping away the Dual Guns, the image flickers from his fingers as he crosses his arms. “Kidding.” He merely says which made Alisson grumble a lousy complaint.

“Moving on to the eighth Talent, which is by far one of the coolest—“ She slowly backs away from where she stood, as did Noah who took a few steps to his right before actually going to where Grey was and gave Josh a thumbs up.

“—Puppetry.”

Puppetry? They didn’t understand what was so fun about that. Do they magically make small dolls do their command or something?

“Status, Puppeteer. Weapons, Control Bars.” Eyebrows were pulled up at the sound of the weapon.

“Control Bars? What, like the Wii?” Asked Nick, adjusting his glasses to peer at the now concentrating Josh.

Grey merely pulls a finger up to hush him as she then points silently to Josh, waiting.

Josh pulls his hands out and a new weapon materializes into the form of crosses, these control bars that the old ventriloquists use to move the hands, feet and body of a wooden doll. On both his hands were just two flat small wooden rectangle pieces nailed in a cross.

“You see,” Grey starts as she lets Josh take a few steps back and take her previous place in the middle. “The Puppetry Talent is for people who want to not get involved in a fight by themselves. They’re tactical and fast with their hands, just as fast as Archers are. They’re adaptable to melee combat or even long-ranged combat.” Grey turns to Josh, eyeing his back.

“Call the Pierrot.”

Josh then whips the Control Bar, like smacking reins against a horses’ back as a string then starts to form, it appears and disappears, trailing along the tips of each end of the Control Bar. The strings then flow forward, where a plume of brown smoke fogs on the floor and rises upward, creating this smokebomb like effect on one particular area only. The strings find attachment to whatever was inside the small constricted plume as the smoke disappears and there sitting on the ground was a small wooden Marionette.

“It looks like Mokujin from Tekken.” Mentioned Arthur who quickly covered his mouth, realizing his comment was a bit louder than he anticipated.

“Oh yeahhhh…” Agreed Robin, bobbing his head up and down as he took in the image of the unmoving 3 feet doll.

It looked like one of those wooden training dummies with a wooden face, square blocks for hands and stumpy rectangle feet.

Josh whipped the Control Bar again and pulled, the sound of gears turning and metal strings screech rang through their ears. They furrowed their brows, pausing, unsure if the sound came from those strings attaching to the puppet or not.

As soon as Josh pulled, the Pierrot hopped on its feet. It turned to the crowd with a tilted head and slouched in place, knees close and feet spread. It was now visible for them to observe as they first notice its arms were slightly pulled up and the hands hung from where they assumed the strings were attached, it had a cute carved out smiley face with a small leaf growing on top of its head and on its left part of its chest was a carved out heart which seemed to look like it was… pulsing. The carving itself looked like it was.

“Okay, that’s both cool and creepy.” Charlotte’s smile grows wider as she leans her back, gazing at the puppet. “It’s so cute!”

“Oh just you wait till you see it’s skills. But that’s just the first Marionette. Josh, get the other one.”

“Another one?” Charotte’s eyes grew, astonished. “Yeah but don’t worry, Puppeteers can only control one at a time, so if you want to use the other one, you’ll have to unsummon the first one.” She quickly adds right after, “Oh, and Puppeteers only have two. The first one Josh showed was the Pierrot. Then second one is—“ she snaps her fingers, signalling Josh to call out the next puppet.

Without moving, the small Pierrot dissipates, smoke replacing its place. Now, the smoke grows larger, its height towers the first cloud of smoke, standing at about nine feet. In the fume of brown smoke, there lies a silently sitting—

“Colossus.” Grey says as the smoke disappears and leaves the larger wooden puppet lying on its bottom. Unlike what they noticed with first puppet, the Pierrot seemed drawn to the concept of a feminine look. The Colossus however was definitely built for a masculine feel. It had bulky carved trunks for arms with thick logs chopped to the size for its forearms and hands, legs and feet.

With another whip, Josh looks up to the sitting giant and pulls the control bars down. A heavy sound of tension creaks, groaning as the Colossus slowly stands up and hunches in place. The crowds head slowly follows as it takes its full height.

Its right arm hooked, pulling its shoulder up to shield a bit of its chin. It slowly bends its knees then straightens then bends again, repeating its movement as if it were ready to ram its arm into something. Like the Pierrot, it had a face, but instead of smiling, it had a small straight line for a mouth. Instead of the carved heart placed on its left chest, it centered in the middle of it. Large and softly pulsing.

“Whoa… That’s a Colossus?”

“Yep. There a lot of details around using a Puppetry Talent but that’s for another time.” Grey said, walking up behind the Colossus and giving it a soft pat on the bottom. “Goooood Colossus.” She coos, it heaves up and down, not responding.

“Literally ‘playing’ with dolls.” Wynn croaked, a bit terrified at the thought of going up against a Colossus, if that was even possible.

“Looks like something I’d pick~” Ian sings with a gleeful tone, his hands cupped his cheeks as he leans his head right and left, staring at the Colossus as it then disappears into a puff of brown smoke. The sound of strings being pulled back echoes as Joshs’ Control Bars vanish in a zap of green lights.

“The last versatile Talent, The Ninth Talent and Status… Ninja. Weapons—” Noah jogs up next Grey after Josh unsummons his Colossus and bounces in each step. He extends his hand in front of him and the other holding onto his waist. With a spark of crimson as it twinkles across his fingers and it takes place in his hands, materializing into two things, one looked like a large metal star and the other was something they could guess was a blade specified for Ninjas. “—Shuriken and Kunai. It’s already considered as a single weapon, like the Dual Guns and Control Bars.”

A hand rises in the back, Grey whips her head to peer over the back and to see the quiet Hope looking up to her with a curious look. “Yes, Hope?”

“Um… Ninja as in… Assassins?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Though, they have a lot of Japanese elements into it. The people who made the Talent wanted it to be really wanted to base it out of the traditional Ninjas.”

“Oh, okay. Okay… I-I see.” She lowered her hand, nodding her head as her eyes wandered back to her empty plate, her shoulders less tense than before.

Grey continued, taking note of Hope’s piqued interest.

“Ninja’s are, as what Hope said, Assassins of the night. They have quick attacks, deadly barrages of tricks and a lot of acrobatics.” She shakes her head with a pout before shrugging, “They’re just as new as the Gunslingers so you can do a ton more with them if you fancy a quick death to your opponent.”

Grey pulls out two of her fingers and looks back to the list, “Now the final Two Talents, the support Talents.” She looks up to them, “Just for your information, not all of you can be supports. Some of you have to be on the battlefield and actually do some fighting. That and the fact that support classes don’t get as much experience to level up, which means more time you need to reach Grandmaster.”

They all respond with silence, their eyes tempted to look at the others next to them. “Tenth Talent, Holy Arts. Status, Cleric. Weapons, well… They have Staves or Wands just like the Mage. But, they’re less of attacking and more on giving healing to other people and or yourself.” She points to both them and herself.

“Eleventh and last Talent is Music.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Nick asked, freezing in place before shaking his head in disbelief. A surprised smile forming against his lips.

“Music.” Grey repeated a bit louder, nodding her head as if saying ‘yes. Music’.

“We’d sing our enemies to death?” Nick adds sarcastically before getting a warning glance from Grey, “Hey now, don’t underestimate the power of strumming tunes.” Her eyes wander to Noah who was holding back a laugh, knowing full well how their classmates were underestimating such a Talent.

“Not only is it a support Talent, but it’s… one of the most useful to players, annoying to enemies and hardest to master. Their statuses are called Bards and your weapons consist of any instrument here in the game. Lyre, Guitar, Drum, the works.” She watches as Noah waves his hand in front then pulls his fingers back. As he does, a Lyre settles against his left arm and his right fingers begin to strum against the strings. A gush of wind blows beneath his feet as he tugs against the strings, notes playing beautifully as he pushes his hand back and forth across the Lyre.

“The Bard can aid their party with buffs. Buffs being boosts to someone’s strength, stamina, skill or even inspiration. Bards can also cast different spells to control people or paralyze them, they can poison someone and…” She waves her hands, seeing as they get the picture. “…Yeah, that. It’s actually one of the reasons why Noah is our best PvP player in our party.”

“PvP? Like, Player versus Player?” Ava asked once more, leaning forward to tilt her head down, gawking at the nice looking instrument at Noah’s possession before it disappears once more.

“We can spar with each other? Like FIGHT with our weapons?!” Wynn stands from his seat, a bit shocked at the thought of them pointing a blade at one another.

“Don’t worry, you guys won’t go there ‘yet’, we’ll see.” Grey assures him and pushes her hand down in front of her, as if motioning for Wynn to sit back down, which he soon follows.

“Now, each of you will be picking three choices. Make sure the first choice you have is something you’d really want if possible.” She folds the paper as she announces, putting it away inside her back pocket. “So your choice would also depend on the teams we’ll be giving you guys.”

“Teams…” Mason repeated, holding a finger above his lip as he squints towards their Commander. He wasn’t too keen on the fact that they’d have to be grouped by their pick, Especially Grey’s. After all, it’s not like he was every friendly with the ones present.

“So start writing and don’t forget your name.” Grey finishes as she takes a step back, ushering Noah and Josh to come over. It seemed like they were going to have their own little meeting for now.

As the three started to whisper amongst themselves, the others start to write down their choices, asking some others about what theirs would be and what they’re probably good at.

“I honestly don’t think I can fight anything.” Martin grumbles dimly, crossing his arms as he stared at the empty paper.

“Well, if we’re going to be staying here for who knows how long… Then we’ve got no choice BUT to fight.” Evan said, taking his eyes off of his paper to look at Martin from across the table.

The narcoleptic boy groans, pushing his fingers softly onto his closed eyes as he grabs the pencil and looks back to his paper. “But, I don’t even know how to properly hold a knife in the kitchen.”

“Same.” Charlotte slips in as she puts her pencil down and intertwines her fingers, laying her chin on them and tilts her head. “But you don’t see me complaining.”

“Just write some Talents that doesn’t involve an actual use of a weapon. Like… Mage or Cleric… Or Puppetry.”

Martin sighs, running a hand through his hair before taking Charlotte’s and Evan’s words of ‘advice’.

On the other side was Alisson who carefully glanced over her options. Wynn, who sat next to her, couldn’t help but lean back to peer at her choices.

“Bard?” Wynn asked, furrowing his brows as Alisson instinctively pulled the paper to her chest and whips her head to her left. “Wha… Um, yeah. Why?”

“You chose Bard… Cleric and Puppeteer. Those kindsa Talents, huh?”

“I mean… It’s not like I’m a fighter.” Alisson states dead-pan.

“Yeah but Grey said that we should at least try—“

“Grey said,” Alisson cut him off, “that we should try and I did. She knows I’m not the best in P.E. and to be frank, she knows more about our physical prowess than she lets on.”

Wynn wonders if that was Grey’s-best friend-gut feeling talking or Honor-roll-smarty pants talking, he decided to nod and keep silent. Wondering about the tiniest feeling of nostalgia blooming in his mind.

They were supposed to graduate.

If it weren’t for yesterday, then… They wouldn’t have gone through this.

No, this was just the first day.

Wynn shakes his head. He can’t be a burden to anyone like this. He has to just bite his lip and toss the thought out the window.

Just for today.