Edwin heard a door slam, then silence. Unsure what he was supposed to do, he looked around the room. The boards on the wall caught his eyes, and he approached the closest one. It was empty. So was the next one, but the third held a combination of exchangeable wooden slats and writing.

Ducal request: 1 Direwolf (min)

Location: Monthorne, 4D SE

Difficulty: 5

Party size: 1

Received: 4/2/248

It took Edwin a few moments to figure out the shorthand, but when he read the last line he gasped. 4/2/248 was the date, the fourth of day of the second season, summer, of the year 248 after the arrival in the new world. Year 248.That meant he had been gone for just over fifty years. Walter was stunned. He had been aware that it had been a long time, but truly seeing it beyond any doubt hit him harder than he had expected. Fifty years. What did he miss? He may not have left any real friends behind but seeing the sheer scope of his absence made him wonder about the people he had known. What about his teachers? Some of them had been nice, supporting him when it became clear that he had a knack for rituals. And his colleagues? They might have been a tad incompetent, but most of them had been decent enough people. The merchant he had sold his father’s shop to… The guard at the city shield who, by some strange chance, was almost always on duty when Walter had to do maintenance or came for research… The girl at his favourite bakery… Master Kellert. They were all gone. Gone, or completely different people. His life was really, truly over, and there was no going back. Had he made a mistake?

The sound of a door opening and approaching footsteps echoed from the corridor behind him, and Edwin slapped his face, shaking his head. He needed to stop being maudlin right now. He was Edwin, adventurer-in-training, and he could either man up and act like it or cry in a corner about the things he chose to leave behind.

“There you are.” The attendant’s voice sounded behind him.

Edwin contorted his face into a smile, noting that it already felt easier than before. He turned.

“Just having a look.”

“Well come on then, time for you to get started.” She spun and briskly walked deeper into the building.

Edwin followed her down the corridor until it spilled them out into a large yard. He was standing on a covered, wooden deck, looking straight at the high walls of the Guard Fortress. Wooden training dummies stood on his left, several large dueling circles were laid out in front of him, and far on the right he saw what looked like archery targets set up against the wall.

While Edwin had been gawking, the young receptionist had turned right and walked along the deck.

“Good morning Mennick.” She called, drawing Edwin’s attention. She was addressing a gray-haired man sitting against the guild house’s wall with a pipe between his teeth. He looked up, smiling at the girl.

“Good morning, Fiona. What brings ye out here this early?”

“I have a new recruit for you.” She gestured at Edwin. “I just finished up with him, he’s all yours.”

Mennick studied Edwin with discerning eyes, then sighed. “Exam, eh?”

Fiona chuckled. “No, actually. Training.”

“Really?” The old man asked, sounding surprised. He stood up from where he sat and casually approached Edwin. “Ye look like a strapping young lad that can take care a’ himself. Ye sure ye don’t want to skip the training and get right to the exam?” Standing before Edwin he didn’t look very imposing. Mennick barely came up to his chest, didn’t look particularly well-muscled, and wore a simple cloth shirt and trousers. Edwin regarded the adventurer with narrowed eyes, then looked at Fiona. The young receptionist Looked on with a suspiciously blank expression on her face.

Edwin chuckled. “I think I know what’s going on here. Let me guess: You get a lot of tough guys here who don’t really think they need training, so they ask for an exam. And you like that, because it gives you a chance to take them down a notch and show them what they are lacking. Am I close?”

Mennick raised his eyebrows and looked back at Fiona. The girl laughed “I guess he got you there old man.”

The instructor scratched his head, looking back up at Edwin with an amused glint in his eyes. “I guess ye did, boy. I’m Mennick, head instructor. What’s yer name? “

“Edwin.” He replied, shaking the offered hand.

“Well, Edwin, ye’re quite right. Lots of young hotheads out there thinking they’re the gods’ gift to mankind or Lionel Lidion reborn just ‘cause they won a barfight or chased off a fox once. When they come here they need a little ‘attitude readjustment’ as we call it. Ye sure I can’t persuade ye?”

Edwin laughed. “If it’s all the same to you I’d much rather skip the beating you would no doubt give me and get right to the point where I agree with you that I need training. Because I really do. I have never been in a physical confrontation, and if you forced me to fight you I would probably just run away.”

“Alright then, as ye wish. I have to warn ye though, I won’t take it easy on ye just ‘cause ye aren’t a fool.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. So, when do we start?”

The older man grinned evilly. “I s’ppose we start now. Let’s put all that energy ye have to use, eh? Run around the guild house, touch the back wall of the archery range, come back around and touch that front corner over there.” He gestured to the side, where the guild house met the Fortress’s wall. “Got it?”

“Sure. How many times?”

Mennick laughed. “Till I tell ye to stop. Now start runnin’.”

Edwin shrugged and started jogging past a grinning Fiona when the old man called after him. “And don’t go steppin’ in front of the targets!”

Looking ahead, Edwin saw that the archery targets near the back corner of the grounds had grown several feathered shafts during his brief conversation. When he rounded the corner, he found their source. The guild house was shaped like an inverted T, with the horizontal bar forming the front of the building towards the central square. The vertical part of the structure was surrounded by the training grounds on all three sides and walls to separate the property from the surrounding houses. Instead of being square, like Edwin had initially assumed, the northwestern corner of the compound was extended quite a ways between the surrounding houses, forming a long corridor that evidently served as an archery range. While the targets were visible from the western side of the building, starting from the base of the T-shaped guild hall a wooden wall allowed people to walk alongside the range and all the way to its start without fear of being skewered. In the other direction, the tall wall of the Guard Fortress prevented stray arrows from causing harm. It was probably the only real way to practice archery in a city with minimal danger, Edwin guessed.

Edwin jogged down the lane, twice hearing arrows whizzing by through the spaces between the barricades that were slightly angled towards the shooter. Soon he reached the place where the archers stood – if there was a snazzy archery term for it, he certainly didn’t know it. It was a slightly raised wooden platform with a high roof at the back, probably to provide a dry place to store things and watch from. There were two people on the range, and they looked up in surprise when Edwin jogged out from behind the barricades.

“Good morning!” He greeted cheerfully, which they both chorused back. Continuing to the back wall, Edwin gave it a light slap and started back down the lane. Running past the two men, he looked at them out of the corner of his eye. One of them was young, barely more than a boy, short and slim with a brown mop of curly hair. He held a crossbow which he was currently reloading with deft hands. The other was older, maybe in his forties, with a stocky build and relaxed posture. He stood next to the boy, watching Edwin go by.

Edwin disappeared behind the barricades again, starting on his return trip. He was somewhat surprised to see only one other recruit. The Pel Darni Adventurer’s Guild protected an area several days’ travel in all directions, with dozens of small towns and hundreds of villages and hamlets. During Walter’s time, adventurers had been a highly sought-after profession, promising excitement and adventure to young men and women who craved it. It had been the town guards and the army who had trouble recruiting. He really needed to find out what had happened in the meantime.

Rounding the corner, Edwin jogged past Mennick and slapped his hand against the wall. Fiona was nowhere to be seen; she had probably gone back to her post. Starting another round, Edwin looked at the old trainer, but Mennick was leaning back against the guild house, his eyes closed, quietly puffing his pipe. Edwin chuckled. It was a nice morning; the sun was up but the air was still comfortably cool. If the instructor wanted him to run for a while, Edwin didn’t mind at all. Walter had not exactly been the epitome of physical fitness, and Edwin found that he thoroughly enjoyed pushing his body with the wind whistling past his face. He sped up, his long legs eating away at the distance.