“Alright, that’ll be all for today. Thank you for your cooperation.” Grey says with a faint smile, the thick folded papers were under her armpit as she gives one clap and a short nod. “Also, if you’re asking for the time, we’ll be placing a clock up here—“ She throws a thumb behind her where the double-doors leading out to the back of the Guild led out, “—and we’ll be nailing it against the wall somewhere there. But, you guys took longer than I thought you would so I suggest you all go to the library first. Josh will accompany you guys upstairs and explain why. After all that, you’ll all come back in the evening to the dining hall and we’ll announce your Talents and your teammates.”

At this, they all nod. Charlotte hoots along to Robin’s frantic ‘whoos’.

“Teammates for our party, right?” Asked Alisson in a drawn out manner, trying to pick up on the gamer lingo with an unsure tone.

Grey nods with a smile, “Yep.” She looks back to the crowd and amplifies her voice, “They’ll be your teammates for as long as you’re here. We’ll pick teammates with Talents that’ll fit in each team, so we’ll have melee, long-ranged, versatile and another addition whether it be another melee or long-ranged or versatile or a support instead.”

“Four people in one party.” Noah adds as Grey agrees with a smile, “Yeah, exactly. We’ll be having…” She thinks for a moment, “…Around six teams with four people each. Yeah. Anyway—“ She waves her hand to Josh, “Go bring them to the library, we’ll handle down here.”

Josh, who stood by Grey’s side, then walked in between the gap separating the two tables and nods to them, “Let’s go. They’ll take care of the plates.” He says and gives one side glance to both Noah and Grey who just give him a comforting smile and thumbs up.

The teens look to each other, then to the plates, then stood up. The bench legs screeched against the rugged flooring, forks and spoons clinked as they were neatly placed on the plates before the students stood and left.

As they see the fading backs of the teens being led upstairs, Noah then walked over to the first table with a sigh. “You know, we should hire some NPC maids and butlers or something.”

Grey scoffs, making her way to the second table as she puts away the stack of papers, they zipped into a light blue color before dissipating from her palm. “Like we have the money for one of those. We’ve got to be frugal about this, Noah.”

“Says the one who buys more clothes than any of us.”

“I’m a girl. Girls like clothes. Especially when I can dye them into any color I want.” She says with an increasing mock smile. Noah shakes his head, dark brown bangs tickling above his brows as he quickly cleans the first table. “Right. Hopefully we can teach them NOT to be like you.”

“Gee, thanks.” She merely says, wondering if the four of them would even be able to teach them well, considering their statuses back in the classroom.

They were extras.

Nobodies.

Just some more people who added to the noise in the back of the class.

But either than that, they had no well-known reputation that made the whole school gawk at their existence, like some of their classmates.

Either way, Grey shouldn’t be thinking of that. She’s one of the, if not, most approachable and friendliest of their class. She could get along with anyone if she wanted to! Hell, she made friends with Crystal from the second class who literally called her a ‘stupid bitch who doesn’t know her place’. Turns out, Crystal was just insecure about having someone like Grey be so happy all the time. Grey thanks the one time she found Crystal drunk at a local bar as she spills her entire life story to her.

“What are you smiling about?” Noah asks, squinting. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Eh, nothing in particular. Just thinking about…”

There was one person who she was worried about though.

“…Someone.”

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

“Orlando?”

Josh calls out to a quiet Orlando who was currently gliding his fingertips across the clear glass table top, his eyes were glued to the world map beneath it.

Josh had led the group up the third floor to their V-floor. While the others have already filed inside the library, Orlando stayed behind to check out the strategy table in the center of the room. The table that donned the entire world map of Everoe.

“There are only three continents on here.” He states, his brows furrowing at the map, his dull blue eyes sometimes being visible through the reflection of the glass.

“Yeah. Though, this world isn’t as big as Earth.” Josh shrugs, holding open the door to the library as he waits for him. “Come on, you guys need to get your books.”

“My books?” Orlando repeats in question, finally turning to Josh as he retracts his hand. Orlando walks forward slowly as Josh tries to hide his impatience, only blinking slowly as he explains. “Well, I told that to you guys while we were climbing up the stairs. Since we’ll be teaching you guys, you all need to get your books. We’ve prepped them by the table but if you want you can go look through some of the books in the library.” Josh, being a rather plump fellow, had to walk inside the library first before letting Orlando pass.

As he walked through the library door, he was greeted by a spacious room of large bookcases lining the walls. A large Palladian window was placed across the way where the slowly dimming sky stared back at him. He turns his head to see the pillars that held the room up were bookshelves as well as even the floors and small tables by the corners were littered with dusty and new foreign looking books. The scent of old paper and dusty wood hits him as his swivels in place, taking in the sight of the paper wonderland.

He found the others inside were separating into different areas of the library, either flipping through books with confused looks, talking to each other and or looking around the interior just as he did.

“Your books are here.” Josh walks past Orlando as he points to a couple of stacked books by one large rectangular table that was pushed into one corner of the room. Orlando follows as Josh pats the top of the stack, “You’re kidding, right?” Orlando said with a narrowed gaze. “There’s like… Twenty books in there.”

Josh laughs before patting the top book of the stack strapped with a ribbon. “Nah, it’s twenty-four.”

Orlando’s eyes widen as he walks closer past a pillar, almost tripping on a lone stack by the side before grabbing the sides of the strapped pile of books with a lazy slap. “Christ…”

“Don’t worry. Unlike our old text books, each book here has like… 10 or 20 pages only.”

“They look thick.”

“They ‘look’ thick.” Josh emphasizes before leaving Orlando and begins to walk towards the door, clapping his hands loudly to get their attention. “Alright everyone, come over here and listen up.”

They all turn to Josh, giving quick nudges to each other as they slowly approach closer into a semi-circle. Josh begins, “So, in this game, we have this intangible space where we place our belongings called an inventory. It’s where the weapons I showed you guys earlier go to.”

A series of ‘oh’s’ echo in the library as they nod their heads to each other, finally understanding that little mystery.

“Now I’ll be teaching it to you in a simpler way. Unlike how we did.” He muttered the last part a bit bitterly before shifting his footing, “Now, it’s pretty easy once you think about it. Just imagine an open space that you can place and remove your things.” He snaps his fingers as he realizes something, pointing to them. “Ah! Like our lockers! Think of that but a bit… bigger. Oh, and without a padlock.”

“Fine by me, I never placed a padlock.” muttered Mason with a cocky grin before Josh continues. “So, I want everyone to hold your stack of books.”

Everyone proceeds to groan in weary sorrow as they lugged up the heavy stacks of books up by their hands, holding it by the bottom. Their hands shake in place as they await further orders. “Alright now, unlike in the real world, Magic is automatic and more common. So if you think about placing your things somewhere else, it’ll go there. Try it.” Josh waves his hands for them to test his theory.

They give hesitant glances to each other, either unsure how to start or how to even think of something like that.

“The use of imagination…” Nick says his teeth bared and his lips pulled down, anxious before a high pitched squeal pierced through the tense atmosphere.

“OH SHIT! I DID IT!” Robin bounces in place as he presents his empty palms, the slow dull fade of blue proving enough evidence that he has indeed done the feat.

“Well damn, Robin.” Nick said with a small smirk, “I didn’t know you could sing soprano.”

“Fuck off, four-eyes. At least I actually did the thing, let’s see you try it.” He said, his face smeared with cockiness.

Others gave off comments about how “If Robin can do it then I can do just as much.” or “It’s that easy? Well okay then.”. Alisson followed not too long after Robin, then came along Evan and Augustus, then the rest picked up the whole concept of inventory storing in less than ten minutes.

“I got a question, Josh.” Asked Nick who thankfully was able to finally grasp the concept of transporting physical objects across an extradimensional plane of existence called their imagination. No big deal.

Josh, who has been silently chuckling to himself at their reactions, turned to Nick as he slowly approached him. “Huh? Oh Nick, yeah. What is it?”

“If doing ‘this’ is pretty much… Well, easy as actually putting stuff in a bag physically. Then would mastering magic, like what Noah did, be easy for us to grasp? Or…” Nick trails off, his fingers curling as he waits for the response of a ‘Yeah, pretty much’.

The Commander makes a doubtful look, scrunching his nose up as he crosses his arms to Nick. “Uh… Well, no. It’s not as easy as you’ll make it seem. Like actual physical training, it’ll take weeks for progress to actually show if you put your mind into it.”

“Ah, alright.” Nick nods, his eyes glancing to the sides of the bookshelves of the library before adding. “We’re allowed to look through the books here already, right?”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course it is. Grey’s just a bit on edge on our budget since she’s uh… she’s our group’s secretary. The books in here aren’t really cheap.”

“I mean, it’s understandable. Now that we’re here… In Everoe.” Nick pushes his eyeglasses back up, which Josh notices and squints. “When did your glasses break?”

“Dude, they’ve been broken since I woke up.” He says before removing them, squinting at Josh as he looks down to his cracked glasses. “For real? I… didn’t notice. Sorry. I can go out to buy you some new ones, and don’t worry about the grade. The glasses in this game are ‘magical’.”

“What’s new.” He says with a roll of his eyes, “But they are! The lenses are crafted from a special kind of material of glass. They’ve been enchanted to match anyone’s grade! But uh… It’s pretty fragile. Unlike ours, those glasses are framed with hard wood.”

“Better than going blind. When do you think you’ll get it?”

“Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.” Josh says before noticing the rest of them finishing their rounds of applause to Travis who seemed to finally understand the concept of ‘imagination’.

“Okay, very good. Now, just to clarify, you all have a maximum capacity for your inventory. Of course, you can’t store THAT much in there.” He said before tapping his forehead, “If you store a bunch of stuff in your inventory and you’d think you wouldn’t remember, you will. The magical thing about it is that you know just how much space you have and how much you don’t.”

“How much CAN we put in?” Caine asked, tilting his head. “For now, you can store up to two or three different weapons with a few clothes and some items, food, etcetera. Soon enough, we’ll be teaching you how to expand your inventory.”

Josh sees their looks of curiosity and beams, “Well, if you guys want to practice using your inventory, just summon and unsummon a few things back and forth to get used to it. But for the meantime, I want you all to come outside.”

He opens the door to the library and exits, they all follow with quiet footsteps, someone in the back trying out to call back their stack of books as it suddenly appears and slams hard against his foot. A string of curses parades out of Mason’s mouth as he picks up his books and unsummons them back as a bundle.

As they exit, they make their way upstairs to the fourth floor. Their chambers.

“What are we doing back here?” asked the freckled wimp, Wynn could only imagine what could come next as he sees Josh’s expression as he faces them.

Their chubby Commander looks across the people before him and points to the first person, “Seth, can you come over here please? I’d like to demonstrate my next lesson.”

The walking porcelain doll of a teen raises his brows, a bit surprised for him to be called in first as he simply nods his head in response with his usual blank face now settling in.

Now facing Seth, Josh begins. “In this game, you can’t simply steal anything from someone’s inventory or if someone else is holding it. We’ll get into detail about THAT soon but for now, I’ll teach you the simple mechanic of ‘trading items’ in Everoe.”

As he says this, a line of fire starts to draw out in front of Seth, he takes a step back in shock as the line seemed to follow. Like an invisible match lit a long wick through absent air. Under the blazing line rolled out what looked like a small scroll. The paper was blank till writings started to form, like it was being burnt onto the paper rather than scribbled. The burnt writings read out…

Would you like to trade with Josh?

“You’d see the paper asking you permission to trade. You can say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, Nod or shake your head. It works either way as long as it knows the difference of confirmation from the player or not.”

“What are you giving me?” Seth inquires, moving his finger up to tap the paper in front of him as he notices it’s actually not tangible. His finger seamlessly pokes through the image, like an illusion. The paper’s side was rippling from where it was poked through.

“I’m going to give you your new uniforms and clothes.” He says with a smile as the crowd’s eyes widen at the items. “Uniforms? We have our own uniforms in here?” asked Caine from the back which Josh answered quickly.

“We technically don’t have uniforms specifically for Prestige but we’ve bought uniforms, already implemented in the game, and clothes for you guys to use while you’re here. They’re better than—“ Josh gestures to their already tattered Prestige uniforms. The boys’ white button down collars were soiled and dirty, wet from the sides as they slept on rather soaked terrain. Their coffee brown long pants were just as dirty with a few scratches and ripped parts out from the bottoms that showed their already worn-out black leather school shoes. The same went for the girls, but with their skirts being just as torn as the boys’ pants were.

“—Yeah. So, you’ll all be taking a bath. After your bath, you’ll all be wearing your new clothes and please do take care of them. Repairs aren’t cheap either.” Josh left out the part where these were still beginner clothes so the repairs wouldn’t be that drastic.

Seth nods his head to the paper as it dissipates with this bright flourish. In his mind, he could see a new set of outfits pop into his inventory. They were a bit… new to him. Though, he shouldn’t be surprised at this point. It merely just caught him off guard.

“Armor… casual wears, sleep wear, shoes, towels and… oh my.” Seth squints in absent air, seeing his inventory form across his mind as he checks it.

“What is it?” asked Robin, curiously peeking from the crowd as Seth turns to Josh with a hand to his mouth. “Do you have underwear for the girls too?”

Josh stammers out a quick response, “Y-Yeah but I was told by Grey to be the one to give it!”

Robin’s face turned into a sour expression. “Wait… he gave you underwear?”

“Yeah and they’re not really the decent kinds of briefs that I’d expect. They’re a lot more… open? They’re like really plain, longer than I thought they’d be and very rustic—“

“We’re on a budget.” Josh explains as he waves for Seth to move on, “Underwear is getting more expensive than actual clothes, so be thankful we have enough money for working underwear.”

“If it works, it works.” Wynn states with a shrug.

The others exchange awkward glances before they were called into a line by Josh, one by one, each getting their sets of clothes, shoes, towels and medieval underwear in a quick trade.

“It says it’s called ‘Braies, medieval underwear for men. Tie the rope around your waist and you’re good to go’, what on earth.” said Augustus with a taken aback look on his face as he holds his cheeks with both his hands.

They all recoil in awkward ‘eugh’ before turning their attention back to Josh and, in hopes, trying to move on to the next subject.

“Once you guys take a good long bath, you can bring your old clothes back to your chambers and set it aside. We’ll get them tomorrow.” Josh says, “To change into your new clothes, it’s pretty much the same way you summon and unsummon your things. Though, these are your clothes we’re talking about. But since our old uniforms aren’t registered as actual items in a game, you need to remove it physically. Same with uh… your undergarments.”

The girls couldn’t help their faces contort into a disliking expression. “Okay… But please let Grey be the one to get the ‘girls’ old uniforms and stuff, okay?” pleaded Alisson with pinned brows.

Josh nods his head, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be sure to tell her now go—“ He slowly ushers them to the way over to their bathrooms.

“Go on. The water we get is from a nearby river, the rest of the dirt goes into another part of the guild that burns and removes potential filth that goes through there. Sadly we only have cold water.”

All of them pull their shoulders up at the feeling of cold water against their still adapting skin to the new cold atmosphere. “I know. It sucks. But we can’t really do anything about the water system here yet. So, just bite your tongues until then. Okay? Okay. Come downstairs when all of you are clothed in your Adventure Wear next to your uniforms.” Before they can protest, Josh has already made his way towards the staircase, his back slowly fading as he walks downstairs, leaving them to their inevitable cold bath.

“Great.” Robin grunts before entering the bathroom first, summoning out this very scruffy and old looking towel. “I call first bath!” He yells out, breaking the silence as the rest start to rush in the bathrooms, wanting to get this freezing torture over and done with.

In a solid hour or two of waiting for everyone to finish taking their baths and at least brushing their teeth, with what they found placed on one of the large mirrors with a ledge on it. Those toothbrushes weren’t the softest, as one fell victim to the spiky ends of one of them.

“Are you okay, Arthur?” asked a worried Evan.

“Why me…” Arthur groans in a bit of pain as he holds the side of his throbbing cheek were the gum has finally stopped bleeding.

The boys took longer than the girls, considering that they didn’t really need as much time as the girls. Unlike the girls, there were six stalls with three only being the shower and tub area.

They were surprised to find vials of glass by the edge of a closed wooden window inside each stall, only the shower and tub stalls, and saw the stamps of ‘HAIR VIAL’ and ‘BODY VIAL’. The contents were a viscous blue for the hair and a dark green for the body, the blue smelling like a mix of sweet fruits and the other having a soft aroma of herbs.

“Is it just me or does that body vial smell like mint?” said Augustus, slowly walking out of the male’s bathroom with a towel over his soggy light brown hair, his forearm pulled up to his nose as he took a good whiff of his still drying skin.

A few others came out with a sneeze, rubbing their arms with a shiver. A cold shower and a cold house never mix well.

Once they finished taking their cold baths, they all took a good look at each other, complimenting the other and noticing that they all had the same Adventure wear. Apparently Orlando was the only one who noticed the clothes being said to be ‘unisex’ when he checked its info.

They all sported the same colors as they had a short dark brown scarf around their necks, resting till their shoulders. They had on a vest with the same dark brown color as their scarf. It had some buckles as its straps to accentuate the look as it also had on a black belt strapped just above the hips that covered their belly button region. They had an undershirt with a dull grey color, having a small design of dark brown laces against their chest. They’ve got knee-length black pants that had an odd-diamond shape design on each leg. Their shoes were all the same too, if not some had a bit of a small difference in shade, but other than that, they all had the same dark brown colored boots that covered way above their ankles.

“Man these braies are so—“ Robin tugs against his crotch area with a sniff, “—open. I can feel my balls hanging freel—“

“TMI, ya’ weirdo.” Charlotte scolds, covering Alissons ears who instinctively pulls her head down with her hands balling into fists, the sudden physical contact of anyone could make her freeze like a cat being held by the neck.

They hurriedly walk towards their own quarters, girls going to theirs and the boys to the other. Orlando was the first to arrive to the door as he grabs onto the knob, turns and pushes.

The long rows of bunk beds greet him as he walks inside, footsteps creaked against now different colored rugs, the rugs were a soft dark navy with the beds’ blankets and pillows a dull teal. The room had small lanterns dotting the sides of their walls, in between the gaps of the bunk beds that were pushed up to the walls. Each bunk bed had a small light-toned wooden table next to it where they could probably place their belongings, and each bunk bed had the following ladders attached to it.

“Should we decide who bunks with who?” asked Kaden who excitedly raises his hand, “If so, I wanna go with Robin!”

“Um… No. Weirdo.” Robin merely says, muttering the last bit before Orlando cuts in, “I suggest we all bunk with ‘buddies’ later, when we receive our teammates. That way, we know who to be closer to whenever we wake up.”

“Yeah, I agree,” followed Evan as he places his dirtied uniform down on one of the tables closest to the door. “Let’s leave our stuff here for now and discuss it later.”

There were a series of nods before they quickly left their things and hurriedly went out, seeing the girls waiting for them to exit.

“What took you guys? We were only there for a few seconds.” Asked Ava who was later followed by Lala and Hope as they made their way to the staircase.

“We were deciding if we needed to pick our bunk buddy.” Explained Wynn, “But we wanted to pick later after we get our teammates.”

As they explained their idea to just pick a bunk buddy later to the girls, they’ve reached the bottom floor in a few minutes and are greeted by the newly placed clock on the dining hall’s wall.

It was already six-o’clock, how time indeed flies when you’re having fun.

The tables were cleaned out, not a single speck was seen on the table cloth of the end two tables as they noticed the windows were dimmed, the outside now showing off its now setting sun as the clouds grey out. Grey stands in waiting, talking to Rio before adjusting in place. Now that they thought about it, where was Rio the whole time they were inside?

Grey pats Rio by his shoulder and looks to the approaching teens with an anxious look, there was a glint of excitement that flashed across her wide eyes as she smiles.

“Everyone please sit down. We’ll be announcing your Talents and teammates for the rest of your time here in Everoe.”