Kent was briefly introduced to the woman. To his relief, there barely any and only polite conversation – hopefully allowing him to get away sooner. The newcomer, Agatha, seemed to be rather familiar with Estes, possibly even on friendly terms but – and Kent was sure of that – she would have rather not seen him tonight. The woman was dressed in comfortable wide flowing garments that showed she had a significant amount of wealth relative to Kent. Given how such voluminous yet light fabrics were expensive, if the prices at the foreign market had been an indication. Her clothing was still rather modest, not flaunting her wealth to an unreasonable degree, unlike some of the patrons here that were bragging visibly with ornamental chains, rings, armlets, and other fashionable items.

“So, you wanna take him through the crawling?” Agatha inquired. “Is he willing to sign up with the conquerors? Don’t think they are gonna let him in if he isn’t. Though I guess no one is gonna complain too much if you pay your rates.”

In the two minutes they had known each other Agatha had only once addressed Kent, though she was obviously talking about him almost the entire time. Admittedly not by her own choosing.

Not including him in the conversation was growing a little tiresome and frankly annoying since Estes and his acquaintance were making decisions for him. But Kent really didn’t want to offend Estes or the woman either, so he let the conversation play out.

Once him joining the conquerors came up his mood dimmed. He really would prefer doing anything besides working under the direct supervision of any one noble and that was precisely what conquerors were. Mercenaries in employ of a local lord under the jurisdiction of the crown. Kent really would rather not.

Estes apparently was certain that Kent would be interested in joining even though the ladder kept making denying gestures. Kent didn’t speak up because while he didn’t really want to become a conqueror, he was curious about the institution itself. He should always be able to say he had no qualifications or that he was pressured into the organization by the two others upon registration and with any luck there would be no greater harm done.

What he heard about the organization itself wasn’t bad, they saw themselves as a force of good in the empire after all, under direct employ of the monarchy they would try to uphold it’s no doubt pristine image. Which might also mean taking care of traitless or inquiring further into new members.

Either option less than ideal.

They left the establishment soon after. Abandoning the pleasant warmth of the building in exchange for a slightly chilly evenings air was a bit of a shock. It wasn’t that Kent was actually freezing, the inside had been very pleasantly warm and his attributes prevented the autumn cool from significantly affecting him.

They walked further into the city, but instead of directly approaching the castle they wandered along a few of the roads, keeping roughly the same distance, until they finally arrived at a building looking much like a large barn with two smaller ones attached to each side. Though that only described their form. In appearance they vastly differed. The building was constructed from the same white stone that was common here in the second district and had ornamentation of a castle trimmed for defense.

Contrary to what Kent expected, there were no guards outside, just a few people convening in loud tones. Maybe an argument or maybe just a topic they were passionate about.

Kent ignored them. He wouldn’t want people listening to his conversations, which required him to act the same.

They stepped into a hall, large regardless of standard. Most likely four times his height and dozens of strides in each direction. But the building felt empty. Decorated with nothing, only with functional appliances such as chairs at some of the walls, made the room feel stale. After the impressive outside Kent had expected more.

There were two stairs leading upwards and three hallways extending from the bottom floor. One to the left, the right and one past the counter in the middle of the room.

Kent got pushed to the very same counter by his escort, they only waited in line briefly behind a woman wearing heavy armor before being gestured to come closer.

“Good afternoon, how may I help you?” asked the receptionist. “Estes, Agatha. Welcome back.”

“This young man would like to try for joining the conquerors,” Estes explained. “We’d like to book the crawling if available.”

“I don’t know if I want to join the conquerors,” Kent interjected. He figured it was best to deter all present parties before any real recruiting could take place. “I don’t really know what it entails, much less whether I’m a good fit or competent enough. We were talking about it a bit and they said we could do an evaluation, practice and all that.”

He hoped he hadn’t irritated his escort, but Agatha barely seemed to care about what he said, and Estes was nodding encouragingly.

“Yes, of course,” Estes went on. “He is correct. It’s the excitement that’s getting the better of me. If you could tell us when the next evaluator or recruiter is available, we would be thankful. And if we could meanwhile use the Crawling even more so. I’m willing to pay the standard fee for me at the strength of roughly level twenty.”

“He is level thirteen,” the receptionist interjected. “I think you might be evaluating him a bit too highly.”

“He killed eight turrls in the range of level eleven to eighteen. He should be fine, don’t you think.”

“Fine, fine,” came the response. “I’ll see when Lady Consilium is available. She is the only one in the city currently that has the authority to induct anyone. You could also wait for one of the others with the voice of nobility that are bound to travel through Farburg in the next couple weeks.”

“We’ll kid, you’re royally screwed. No chance of you getting into the conquerors now,” Estes said, almost sounding dejected, before turning away from Kent and opening his mouth to address the receptionist.

But before he could even get a word out the receptionist was already nodding their head.

“Yes, you can rent it for the new kid today. If you get someone to charge it, I’ll allow it for the next week as well. That’s when replacements are supposed to turn up. A bit of practice never hurt anyone anyway and we need strong fighters more now than in a long time.”

Estes smile grew and Kent was sure that he knew what the man was going to say – no ask – next.

“You wouldn’t be able to help a dear friend out, would you, Stefanie?”

“Double the rate for a level twenty charge.”

“Fine.”

“A pleasure doing business with you. Please follow me if you would. I’d advise using the weapons that are made available in the crawling unless you are willing to pay for potential repairs.”

“Yes, yes, I know all that. Explain to the kid.” And with that both of his companions picked up the pace and vanished in the exits behind the counter.

“Well, a pleasure meeting you,” the receptionist smiled at Kent. “What’s your name? I’m Stefanie.”

“Same to you,” he said, trying to put on the most disarming smile he was capable of. “I’m Kent just recently entered the entire trait-business. Had the luck of meeting Estes on a job escorting woodcutters. Apparently, he doesn’t fair nearly as well against turrls.”

She chuckled.

“So that’s what he’s up to without his team. The easy work. I’m not surprised. Though in all honesty, a bit of relaxing is going to do him good. They’ve been a chore more often than not in the recent weeks, frustrated by to not find challenging encounters from what they’ve said.”

“He never told me as much. I just always figured he was taking an easy approach to life. But he really should work on encounters with smaller agile opponents. No wonder they ditched him.”

For a moment Stefanie looked scandalized before noticing on grin on Kent’s face.

“I guess he earned that for dragging you around and even more so if you’ve spent most of the day with him. Either way, they didn’t ditch him as you said. But the Conquerors have a standing contract for the defense of Issar, specifically Reinsteel in this case, that pays very well. Being a front liner, they thought it too risky for Estes to join them in the conflict. Those sorts usually have the highest casualty numbers.”

That dampened the mood for a moment, almost finishing the conversation. That was until Kent realized what they were going right now. At that point it also seemed prudent to identify the other person. Certainly not to satiate his own curiosity, but to better understand what was going on. Kent told himself that he certainly wasn’t nosy.

Human – Glyphbinder - 93

That was a lot higher than Kent expected for someone on front desk duty – and a level that almost certainly required combat to have reached such a high level without looking ancient. And that was ignoring that Kent had never heard such a thing as glyphs or the compound word before. Something he would have to investigate at a later point in time.

“So, you said something about charging the Crawling earlier. What is the crawling, and may I ask, how much mana is required to run it at my strength and how does that change with greater levels – if it does at all?”

“Oh, the formula is quite easy,” the receptionist began. “But it does somewhat depend on whether the person using it is a magic user or a physical fighter. Physical Fighters like you usually require roughly ten mana per level until level fifty or so. After that it’s roughly twenty per level. Once you reach the one-hundreds we require even greater values. So those assessments and training sessions are booked several days in advance. Luckily for you there is a war going on. Other times it is usually a lot more popular to relax in the crawling after a busy day, but currently a lot of fighters aren’t here.”

So I could actually charge it myself, couldn’t I? At least until I get to a higher level. Stefanie continued even more excitedly, as though staring at a wonder she couldn’t comprehend.

“For what the Crawling is I cannot truly answer. It has some dungeon functionalities and is fairly similar in some regards, yet it also differs in a few main areas. For example, you can instantly leave it after entering. The monsters aren’t inherently hostile and are just overall quite peculiar. What I do know is that most of the major conqueror outposts have one. And some say they has been built instead of found, but I wouldn’t dare to presume.”

I bet it had something to do with that dungeon title I gained. Didn’t it have a dungeoneer skill tree which I couldn’t unlock due to it being a crafting tree? He didn’t bring that up, however. Instead, he directed his questions to the first part of her response.

“So, what’s the fee for usage if you don’t mind me asking?” Kent further inquired. If this room really could help as much as a training tool, he would gladly join the conquerors, just for the facility alone. And with rising levels he would even be able to supply the mana himself if it didn’t cost too much to rent the facility.

“Oh, there is no fee for members, besides the cost of the mana. That goes at the rate of around a styca per ten mana or more usually, not entirely linear though. A mancus usually gets you roughly five hundred mana. Of course that’s only the value for mana of types that is in demand or purified mana. Otherwise, as a non-member, you can rent the room starting at ten sceat. Most consider it not worth it after trying it out once or twice, and I’d agree. You can always just ask a peer to go out and train with you in the courtyard to train your katas and most are more than willing to do so at much less risk. It’s a bit different for mages of course, but those usually supply the course themselves.”

He listened to the employee’s explanation for a bit longer as they walked down the hallway and was frankly appreciating the sort of money Estes was investing into him. It felt a bit bizarre to be honest and something he would have to ask about later. Because if he was really dropping close to a mancus on Kent… well Kent didn’t know how to feel about that.