Dim light barely seeped through the canopy of the forest, the sounds of insistent self-satisfied chirping trilled, and the two combined made it impossible to sleep in any longer. David groaned as he sat up. He wasn’t used to sleeping on the ground, he hadn’t been much of a camper back in his world, his friends would joke that he preferred a good book to a good time. Maybe they were right, he did miss the books now, especially after the desperate fight they’d gone through the night before. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed, he wanted to sleep, or to relax, or to run away. He wouldn’t though, I’m better than that. He started to pack up his tent.

The rest of their trek through the woods was uneventful, dark and spooky sure, but uneventful. David’s nerves were raw, his body tense as they hiked through the forest. He still felt like there were eyes on him albeit less judgemental ones now, maybe it’s the trees, ha! I mean… wait. Maybe it really is the trees. Who knows? David shook his head, he was constantly getting lost in his thoughts. His head just couldn’t stay in the moment. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t really had to before, between his phone, his PC and his books he could always be distracted. He could disappear into any of those fantasy worlds whenever he wanted. Now he was stuck in one, and it was deadly.

“We’re almost there now.” Maria called out to him, she was standing at the edge of the tree-line, the light of the sun was radiant as it streamed out around her. David ran forward, out of the woods into a sea of massive rolling fields. The grassy hills stretched out into a distant horizon on his right, water extending the view for miles. To his left, in the distance, a huge mountain range pierced up into the clouds, the middle of their towering stone face marked with a strange thick strip of blue stone that glimmered in the sun. The fields surrounded a small village, rural wood and brick houses nestled by a swath of golden wheat and stout green bushes in field after field of farmland.

“Wow.” It was the most empty space David had ever seen. Even the village with its large fields was a small blip, a lonely inhabited space within a vast untouched land. There was so much unexplored, untamed. The world was wild, and exciting - new and undiscovered. David felt a burning ambition swell, the heat of it in his chest similar to the heat of his magic, a thrumming powerful thing.

“Yeah. It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

“It is. It’s exciting.” David didn’t notice Maria’s concerned gaze, the way she studied him, gulped and then turned to lead him to the village. He was too lost in his thoughts, too consumed by his dream: his mind filled by a flourishing civilization - one he would help bloom.

“Where do we go first? I want to see everything.” David was glancing left and right, he was full of frenetic energy, meandering from one side of the street to another. He briefly examined food stalls full of those strange sour fruits he’d tried earlier, small storefronts selling clothing and trinkets, he was even interested in the tiny houses that littered the side of the wide dirt road that ran through the centre of town. He never lingered too long though - he didn’t want to be left behind, Maria strode with purpose to the very middle of the town where a stone water fountain filled a circular clearing. One very large building, the biggest he’d seen outside of the castle lay to one side of the clearing. It was much wider than it was tall, made entirely of wood with a huge sign hanging over it’s front door reading: “Adventurer’s Guild”.

“Well. Huh, I’ll be damned.” Maria pushed in the large wooden saloon door at the front of the building before gesturing for him to follow her inside.

It was everything he’d hoped for. Tables filled with strange characters drinking beer and chatting rambunctiously about a wide range of topics. It was too perfect, he felt almost at home in its familiarity. He grinned. I wonder if someone’s going to pick a fight with the newbie! He overheard a nearby table talking about hunting errant goblins. One of the members of the party, a woman with a bow on her back and her hood up, had leaned forward on the table and was excitedly explaining about the new bounty and how she’d happily bring back a few of the ‘little green bastard’s’ ears. Maria tapped his shoulder, and said,

“Let’s get you registered, come on.”

“Ok.” He followed her up to the main counter, a burly tall man with tanned skin was waiting for them there.

“Ah Maria! How good to see you! It’s a surprise to have you visit all the way out here. Are you looking for-” He paused, having noticed David. “That’s a new face. Rare to see you bringing in fresh blood. I assume you want to register.” He produced a sheet of paper and pulled a feather that had been sitting in the inkwell next to him, handed them both to David and then gestured to the nearest table before saying: “I’ll explain our system once you’ve got the paperwork filled out.”

Maria sat next to David as he filled out the page. She tapped her fingers on the bottom of her chair, a nervous habit she’d picked up from her father. She couldn’t really focus on his answers, not like it matters if he lies here.

She was shocked this was working. Her father had poured over conversations with past heroes, records of their beliefs and the pieces of information they’d shared about their world. He’d come up with this scheme, a plan to get David out fighting sooner, to make him feel comfortable in their world, to make him feel like he knew what was going on. Just to accomplish that he’s creating a fake institution, a fake ‘Adventurer’s Guild’, what are we going to do when we go to another town? Convert another town centre and hire more people? What is dad thinking? This has to come crashing down eventually.

She felt sweat drip down her back and her muscles clench slightly, her hands curled up into tight balls. Most of the people in the room were mercenaries and a few were direct employees of the crown. The very idea of an adventurers guild was so strange to her but David accepted it instantly. Why would a kingdom ever cede control of its defense to some third party? Defense was central to the role of nobility and abdicating their responsibility to that degree would break the bonds of trust that held the whole system together!

As the king her father provided opportunity, direction and security to all his citizens, anything less was failure, a betrayal of the power that they gave him. Anything less would lead to rebellion, they’d seen that before - neighbours torn down in a sea of flames and righteous rage that their leaders had sown the seeds of. She shivered but then snapped herself out of her thoughts, shaking her head slightly as she saw David finish writing.

They went back to the counter. Maria heard Aryn explaining to David about the tiers of adventurers, they’d decided to give them letter grades from S to E. He explained the number of successful requests that were needed before an advancement test could be taken and how you could only take requests up to one rank higher than your own.

She saw David nodding as if this all made perfect sense. It made no sense to her: Why is the first letter S instead of A? Why does an adventurer get a rank alone instead of a party rank based on how capable and diversified its members' skillsets are? How do small towns get the money to make hunting and other defensive requests? Most of all, why does this all make sense to him? How in the hells does his world work?!”

Maria realized that for the first time she was curious about him, with no other motive. She wanted to know why this all seemed so natural to him, she wanted to know about his world and what kind of strange systems it must have. He was different from what she'd expected and known all her life and he made her father so worried, so desperate for control. Was he actually all that dangerous? She didn't know but he didn't seem it. She hadn't even tried to know him, I guess I'll have to start to. She smiled at him and thought, who are you really?