“Welcome to Common Grounds,” A small grey haired man, a bit hard to tell what race he belongs to from my seat in the far back corner, addresses the possible four hundred of us sitting in this amphitheater. He continues, “We are glad to have such upstanding individuals as you working for us. I am the current head of the council, and even though I’m sure you all already know what we are, and what we offer I’m going to go ahead and explain it for you before we begin the placement testing.”

“Just lovely, not only did they place us using our family names, but now I get to sit here for hours while I wait for…,” I sigh and sink a bit farther into my chair, “damn I missed his name… oh well.”

“We are also happy to say that the city grounds are flourishing, and that you can find most anything you need for your training or personal needs, one just needs to look in the right places.” He smiles to us..., maybe... it’s a bit hard to tell from my sinking vantage point, and takes a drink of water before continuing “Now we already have a decent idea in which class most of you will be placed based on the results of your written exams, but the following testing will provide you an opportunity to impress us with your skills in action, and for us to question you.”

He pauses for a few minutes while some more people walk out onto the stage and take their seats behind them, then he continues to speak to the hall, they must be using some kind of Magik for his voice to reach all the way up here clearly. “These are the other members of the council, but they are also the heads of each class, and they are here to discuss a little about their respective groups, so I’ll turn the floor over to them.”

“How long has it been?” I begin to wonder, and look around the room to check if I can see the sun, as the grey haired man takes a seat and a broad shouldered blond man in a dress uniform steps forward to the stand. “I wonder if I could just slip out,” I sigh but while checking possible escape routes I notice that one of the women down on the stage is watching me. “Or maybe I’m just bored and making things up to entertain myself... yeah that’s probably it,” I decide and turn my attention back to the stage as the man begins to introduce himself.

“Good afternoon, and welcome once again. I am Captain Bargas,” he begins, “I head the Knights here at Common Grounds.” As he says this a large green tapestry on the far left of the stage unfurls, and, in silver and white, there is a large kite shield with the depiction of a knight on a horse mid gallop lowering his lance at an invisible enemy embossed on it.

“Kind of flashy in my opinion but what do I know.”

“Those of you that place with the knights will be trained in siege warfare, both holding and breaking.” He tilts his head slightly sideways and continues, “If you don’t know how to ride you soon will, and you will learn the honorable combat of the duel, and you will be part of one of the grandest classes here at Common Grounds.”

“What a pompous ass,” I complain silently as I watch the crowd erupt, “and all of these people around me are just eating it up, clapping and looking pleased and impressed.”

I sigh yet again and get up to go over to the drink table and pour myself a glass of water. On my way back to my seat I notice she is watching me again, and I get a better look at her, she is rather pale and has pure white hair that extends past her shoulders, but she looks very young, maybe a paleborn. I consider her features for a moment, and then I decide that she only looked over to me because I got up and moved. While I was doing this the next speaker was up at the podium, and she had pure white wings, much like a doves, held close to her body, and brown hair that was pulled into a loose ponytail and draped in front of her left shoulder.

She began in a soothing voice “Hello, and welcome to Common Grounds. I am Lady Elsie Ledoux, head of the Nightingales. We are the primary doctors in the city, and we search for those with soft hearts, and gentle hands to care for those in need. Thank you and I look forward to working with all of you in the future,” She tells us and dips a slight curtsy to us, and as she reached the apex of her dip the next tapestry, a beautiful royal blue, begins to fall. Stitched on it, in gold, is a dove carrying a lantern, and she returns to her seat with a resounding applause.

“I wonder if each head has control of their own tapestry?” I ask silently, “Or did they predetermine when they should fall?”

“That might not be too bad of an option,” I yawn while I stretch a bit and examine the blue tapestry a bit closer, “I could probably handle doing that, especially if it is just mixing things.” I think about it for a few minutes before changing my mind and I sigh to myself before getting up to move to the seat closer to the aisle, and I feel a gaze on me again. I throw a quick glance out the corner of my eye and that woman is definitely watching me.

An extremely tan strong looking man stands up and begins to walk to the podium, and he booms out over the hall “AHOY!”

He looks back to a man in the corner and waves his hand to him, and then the man begins to draw a symbol in the air, presumably to limit the previous casting. The man lets out a hearty laugh before continuing with his introduction, “Ya can just call ma Murry, and I’m in charge of da Rodgers.” As he speaks a dark red tapestry unrolls, and on it in stark white, is a skull and crossbones. He continues on, “We will make sailors out ya lot of landlubbers by the end of da month.”

He gives us a toothy grin that I can spot from back here and keeps talking, “How well ya do will determine where we put ya on the ship. We also train ship buildin and repairs, so we’ve got da best ports and yards round. Alls we ask is dat ya know da ropes.” He walks away to light clapping and he waves to the man at the back of the stage how intersects his sigil negating and returning the casting to its original state.

The head of the council stands and speaks up again, “We will take a fifteen minute break and there are refreshments being offered out in the lobby-”

Before he is finished speaking I am up and moving out the doors to the entrance where I lean against the wall and I wait for Melodiana or the sisters to walk out here.

While standing here I get to take a good look at the lobby, and it seems…cold. It’s grand with marble pillars so big it would take three to four people linked to wrap around it, and they stretch the twenty feet to the ceiling. They are decorated with carvings that have been painted to look as if vines climbed up them. The walls have paintings on them as well, and even the floors have rugs and carpets on them, but it all still causes goose bumps to form on my arms.

As I rub my arms a little I spot my target heading to a table to get something, talking with a small group of people about where they hope to be placed that slowly begin to separate towards other tables. I slide through the crowd until I’m beside her and I link my arm through hers which causes her to jump quite a bit.

“Is that really necessary?” she asks me with a bit of anger in her voice as the shock fades away. “You know you could just be normal and call out to me instead of shoving your way through the crowd,” She informs me.

“Yes I am aware, but where would the fun in that be, my brave knight?” I ask her while looking over the selection of food. “See I told you they never have any good snacks at these things,” I grumble while making a sweeping motion to the tables of bread and cheese, “This is just cruel.”

Melodiana sighs, “I already promised you dinner, so can’t you behave for another hour or so?” she pleads.

“Cake?” I ask while looking up at her, pulling my hands together in front of me and pressing myself closer to her.

“F…Fine just stand back a little bit people are staring and they are going to get the wrong idea,” she whispers to me.

“And what idea would that be?” I ask adopting my most innocent face and tone, while tilting my head to the side.

“You know…” she starts and then pauses and starts to clench her hand on the hilt of her sword and shifting her weight from leg to leg, perhaps a nervous habit of hers, before finally continuing, “Let’s just grab a drink and head out of the way, the break is half over already.” She tells me while heading over to the table.

“So who were you talking too?” I ask as we make our way through the crowd to a bench.

“Michael Palter, he is here to try for a position with the Artificers,” She tells me.

“I see.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you think of him?”

“Well he seems honorable enough,” She says while rubbing a small scar on her jaw, “Why?”

“Hmmmm, he smells like… poisonous plants, Jimsonweed if I were to guess.”

“That’s ridiculous,” She complains, “How can someone smell like poisonous plants?”

“Well everyone has a smell, and it can be influenced by many things like their profession, the area they live in, their health, and anything they partake in if they partake enough,” I explain, “And my blood gives me a heightened sense of smell. So when I say he smells like poisonous plants it could mean he works with them, he grew up in a swamp like area where a large amount of them grew, it’s not that by the way, or he could eat small amounts of them with every meal... also very unlikely.”

“So what you are saying is?” she asks with a slightly confused look on her face.

“That he smells like poisonous plants.”

“I see,” After a few moments of silence she sighs and then looks over at me and asks, “What do I smell like?”

“Hmmmm… it seems like time is almost up,” I smile at her, “We should get back to our seats”

Her face adopts a look of disbelief as I stand up and turn towards the doors, “But-”

“I will see you here in a bit, make sure to pick a good place to take me to tonight,” I tell her while waving.

Once everyone is back in there from the lobby and the speakers are back on the stage the orientation continues.

The next speaker is a tall thin bald Lamia man who begins, “Good afternoon, I am Hunter the head of the Fänger retrieval classs. If plassed with usss you will be taught how to hunt and trap dangerousss game such az bearsss, wolandsss, and people.” As he finishes speaking a dull grey banner opens and on it is a single open bear trap, as the banner falls he moves back to his seat and sits down.

The next person to step up to stage is a light blue Undine woman. “Hel…Hello,” she speaks in a quiet tone, “I am Alice Ledoux; I am the head of the Artificers.” She continues in that same quiet tone “If you have found the love of making things we would be happy to have you among our members,” She bows to us before almost running back to her seat as a lovely white banner sets into place revealing a gorgeously stitched loom sitting under a large open window overlooking a brook. She is met with a decent amount of applause, it’s also slightly impressive that she managed to maintain her solid form since most Undine will revert when surprised or embarrassed.

“I wonder how the Valkyrie and she are related?” I ask as I look between the two of them.

A well-built Dargoth woman with short green spikey hair walks up and begins in a commanding tone, “You can refer to me as Master, and I take little maggots like you and turn you into glorious combatants in the ring of battle,” she tells us. “Or you will die trying,” She declares,“I am in charge of the gladiatorial rings here at Common Grounds.” As she says this, a brown banner with a depiction of a golden Gladius struck into a circular area falls into place, and she places her right fist over her breast and walks back to her seat.

“Well she got me more applause than the Lamia did, which is something I guess,” I catch myself yawning again, before I smile as I realize that there are just two more speakers left.

Next up is a shorter man. He begins, “Welcome to Common grounds I am Nathan Webber. I am the head of the archers, crossbowmen, ballista, and basically anything that can be shot at something else,” he laughs... after a few moments of silence in the hall he coughs before continuing on, “We will train you in just about anything that revolves around shooting.” He sighs and a purple banner falls with a longbow resting on top of a full quiver leaning against a wall on it. Despite his attempt at humor, a large amount of applause follows him as he walks back to his seat.

“Hmm…” she is staring at me again, “I would like to know why, though I guess I will at least know her name in the next few moments since she should be next up.”

…

…

A few minutes of silence pass with no one on stage moving up to introduce themselves, and the crowd starts to grow restless and people start whispering back and forth to their neighbors. All the while she just continues staring at me, not moving, not making as if she is going to give a speech, just sitting there with this look of mild entertainment on her face.

A few more moments pass before the final banner falls into place silencing the whispers of the crowd. It is pure black, and on it is a set of gorgeous white wings cradling a bleeding skeleton, when I look back down to the stage the woman is gone as if she had never been there, and I can fill chills run up my spine.

The council head walks back over to the center of the stage shaking his head and begins addressing us once again, “We will now begin the final stages of the placement testing. We have set up multiple rooms with enough proctors that we should be able to evaluate ten of you at a time, and we will begin with the front of the room and work our way back.”

I groan at this, as do many of the people in the rows in front of me, but the councilor carries on, “Once you have been evaluated you will be released into corridors that will take you back to the main lobby and you are free to go about your day. We ask that the other applicants wait here patiently for your turn,” He bows and walks off the stage into a side room.

Another man walks up to the first row and begins giving instructions, I assume based on his hand gestures, on where they are supposed to go for final evaluations.

“I hate everything about this, damn cake better well be worth this,” I whisper under my breath while settling down for what is likely to be a long wait.