He crumpled the scroll in his hand, the thin paper bent as he squeezed it. He stared at the guild master’s door before him and hesitated. Dark brown wood, with a silver frame that sparkled from regular cleaning, made it seem expensive. The fact that it was ten feet tall made that expense frightening, and blue the permanent blue lighting of the building made the door feel ominous. They really should change from the blue lights to the colorless ones, even if they were more expensive. The door was as imposing as the old woman behind it. The guild master was a nice enough person, but she wouldn’t be happy with his objections. Assignments were completed without questions or hesitation, his connection to her wouldn’t matter one bit. It was practically the motto of the Scribe’s Guild to never discuss anything of import, so most people in it never talked about work and never with the guild master.

Ness was about to do just that, and he didn’t like the idea. One hand held the scroll tightly, and he moved the other through his black hair. He pushed it back as best as he could and flattened any loose ends. He alone had the privilege to meet the guild master freely, and she would tolerate far less if he didn’t look neat. As such he patted down the black vest of his uniform and adjusted his tie briefly. He made sure his shirt was tucked in properly, and adjusted his glasses. As he pushed his glasses up his nose, he wondered why he was even wearing them. Slowly, he took a long breath and pulled his glasses off. The guild master would understand.

Knock! Knock!

His gloved hand struck the door loudly. He had already made sure that no one else was inside, but he still knocked regardless. The last time he had walked in uninvited had ended in a month of work without pay. It was not a fate he wanted to experience again. He waited patiently for the response, and after a few seconds, he got one.

“Don’t just stand there. Come in.” The voice from the other side was old and snappy. Her voice held all the responsibility of someone who acted like they had lived far too long already.

He sighed audibly as he pushed open the door, and he tried not to sound annoyed in his response. “Last time I did that, I got punished, Granma.”

His grandmother smiled slightly when she heard the familiar name. The name that had stuck around, ever since he mispronounced grandmother as a kid. Granna, it wasn’t her name, but she hated it when he addressed her any other way. Back when he had first moved to Lenid, he struggled not to blush when saying it.

“No, I did that because you lost three gold coins gambling. The door thing was just an excuse, although if that is the reason you have been so quiet recently, maybe I should punish you again.” She replied easily while continuing to scribble away on some document. Despite being nearly eighty, her hands moved in a blur across the page.

Wait, really? The sudden realization that his hard work and fear had been for nothing made him fumble a clever response. He decided it was time to bring up the assignment. She couldn’t have a clever response for that one. Just thinking about it made him angry, and the anger helped him compose himself.

“Fine, that doesn’t matter anyways. What in the shades, is this?” He held up the now crumpled scroll to her.

She didn’t bother reading it but she did set down her gilded pen. She didn’t say anything, just crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her large cushioned chair. Her black eyes met his and didn’t waver in the slightest. Both of their eyes were colored black from their skills, so he couldn’t see where her iris ended, and her pupil began. She saw the same thing in his own gaze as he matched her. Then he faltered.

“Sorry, but I’m serious. I’m not doing this, I’m a scribe, not a warrior.” He broke first. He hadn’t meant to curse but it had just come out, and ‘shades’ wasn’t the worst thing he could say. Despite the apology, he pushed her for a response.

“Yes, and all you will be doing is writing letters. It is perfectly safe.” Her voice didn’t sound annoyed, but condescending as she disregarded his anger.

“I can do that here; I don’t need to go the eastern front for that. I’m a scribe, I’ll die!” He couldn’t keep his voice straight and had been nearly yelling at the end. Plus, he was angry. How could his grandmother send him to a battlefield? He had lived with his grandmother for almost five years now, and he felt betrayed and alone.

She scoffed. “Please, you’ll be perfectly safe. I’m sending you to Fort Westriver. You and I both know that it is safe. There is standing agreement to spare any non-combatants too.”

“I feel like you’re missing the point. I’m a scribe. I have no talent or skills to help me survive anywhere near a fight. And the agreement means little, or am I supposed to tell a random fireball to leave me alone since I’m a scribe? I feel like that won’t work.”

“If you say, ‘I’m a scribe’ one more time, I will stab you. And don’t get sarcastic with me.” She threatened him openly as she lifted her pen. He nodded. Her grandmother’s pen could cut through solid steel if she wanted. Her best skill [Nothing May Stop My Words] was her most famous and powerful ability. It literally made it so that she could write on whatever she wanted, and anything between her pen and the canvas got cut away. He had seen her use it literally to chop down a tree. He swallowed loudly. She wasn’t done speaking though.

“The fort has never been attacked in over a hundred years. Furthermore, You are the youngest, and most fit scribe here. Not to mention you have [Language Comprehension], which is the only requirement of the job. Finally, they said they would reward you with a blue job crystal.”

“Seriously?” Now that was something he almost didn’t believe. Not the part about him being the most fit. Everyone else in the guild, other than his grandmother, was kind of fat and old, and he was mostly fit. He had a little bit of extra fat around his face, but it wasn’t anything egregious. It was the last bit that surprised him. A blue crystal was valuable, and it could turn his life around. It would’ve tempted almost anyone. Anyone but him. He smiled as he noticed the hopeful look in his grandmother’s eyes. He made his next words especially sharp.

“I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to become an enchanter or spellscribe.”

“Well, you’re a failure as a scribe. You have two absolutely worthless skills. [Inkwell] is useless in a guild, and [Basic Penmanship] is just crap. Unless you gained another skill without me noticing, you have no use here. You need [Fast Writing] or [Quick Hands] to work in a proper guild.” His grandmother’s words cut like a knife. He didn’t have another skill to show her, and his skills were indeed bad. They were fine, maybe even good, on a battlefield. In a city like this, they were garbage. It had just been a matter of luck, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

“So what? Just because I’m a bad scribe, you want me to go and die? Really?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. You could’ve been a farmer, woodworker, or something else. But you chose to be a scribe because you thought I would go easy on you. If you don’t want to sweat while you work, then do the work that I give you.” She was angry now and was shouting right back at him.

“I have no talent for any of that, especially fighting. Does being successful really matter?” He didn’t shout this time, he just sounded disappointed and a little resigned.

“How can you know where your talents lie if you never put in the effort needed to see that talent bloom? And it does matter. Trust me. Trust my experience. Nobody is happy in failure. Try your best on this job and get those final two skills. Then when you get the blue crystal, if you still don’t want to use it, I won’t force you to use it. You can just sell it and live comfortably.” She stopped shouting and spoke gently, but with the certainty that only someone old could have.

“Fine.” He grumbled the word now that he was fully resigned to his fate.

“Good, I already informed Jasica to get some supplies ready. You can pick them up before you leave, you’ll even get a personal identification badge for this.”

His eyes lit up at that information, and he glanced up at her. A personal badge was expensive. It was worth fifty gold pieces, which was half a year of his wages. That bit of information did make him feel a little better. He nodded at his grandmother and turned to leave. His grandmother cleared her throat loudly.

“Forgetting something?” She said it sweetly and slowly rose out of her chair. He saw her struggle a little bit and noticed the worry on her face too. With almost no hesitation, he walked over to her. She stood there; a head shorter than him. She wore a thick floral-print sundress that was so yellow it might offend someone. Its baggy sleeves swayed as she spread her arms open.

Even after everything that had been said, he loved her. He bent over and let her pull him into a hug. She squeezed him tightly, and he repeated the gesture though he tried to be gentle. Her skills let her do amazing things, but her body was still frail and she always felt so small at times like these. Her gray hair brushed against his face, and he really felt just how old she really was.

“My little Mess. Be safe and get cleaned up, maybe then I won’t be able to able to call you that anymore.” His grandmother whispered the words to him. He couldn’t help but smile at the stupid and familiar pet name. The mission meant that he wouldn’t see her for several months, and that fact only hit now.

He pulled away first, and almost asked why. If she was going to act like this now, why send him away? Then he saw the expression on her face and stopped. In some twisted way, she was doing this for him, and it hurt her just as much as he.

“Thank you, I’ll see you soon Granna.” He smiled at her and walked away quickly. He was too old to rely on his grandmother anymore, but he also didn’t want to leave her either. Well, after all of that, he could at least try his best.

He didn’t linger. Mostly because he didn’t have that much time left in the city period. The caravan he was supposed to join was leaving in four hours. He left his grandmother’s office and ran for the stairs. The Scribe’s Guild was large, and he passed several noticeably open doors. People had been listening in to their conversation. He ignored the smiling faces who waved or said goodbye as he ran. When your grandmother ran the guild, every old person tended to treat you like their own grandkid. He didn’t have the time to talk to each of them, and just one conversation would start a dozen others.

He ran through the hall, which was lit by mana crystals. It was the most basic type since blue was the natural color of mana. Each other type required an enchanter and was expensive. Most people just used normal candles or lanterns, but his grandmother hated the idea of fire within the guild. So, every part of the build was given an ominous blue glow. Even after five years here, he hated it and the color blue.

The bottom floor of the guild was massive and empty. The walls were brown like the rest of the wooden building, but they were covered in so many paintings that he could barely see them. The floors, on the other hand, were completely bare. His grandmother outright rejected any type of carpet, claiming that they would be a pain to care for. Despite all that, the counter that the receptionists stood behind was incredibly elaborate. The wood was carved and covered in small etchings. It was covered in a story. It was a retelling of how the first Scribe’s guild was formed. He ran up to the desk, ignoring the line at the opposite end of the room. There were maybe a dozen people in it.

He spotted Jasica at the end. She was a poor receptionist, in that, she never actually spoke to any customers. She basically solely handled jobs for Granna, of which there were precious few. He ran up to her. She was a bird beastman, or a harpy as they were typically called, and she had a set of wings rather than human arms. They were multicolored and beautiful and were the primary reason she was appointed. She could fly, which made her especially good at running messages for Gran. She smiled at him as he approached and shoved a bag toward him with a taloned foot.

“Thanks!” He nodded to her as he grabbed the bag.

“It’s the job.” She shook her head slowly. Her ponytail swished back and forth; the rainbow hair drew his attention immediately. Jasica was incredibly beautiful, and he had even asked her out once, only to find that she was married and over a decade older than him. Apparently, harpies just looked young.

He opened the bag eagerly and pulled out the small metal plate, a thin chain was connected to it too. He saw Jasica’s eyes widen at the badge. She knew what it was. The plate was about as long as his thumb and twice as wide. He didn’t hesitate to bite his finger and press a drop of blood onto the thing.

Slowly words started to appear on it. On one side his name, age, and job appeared. On the other, It displayed his skills. He turned it over in his hands examining both sides with glee as the information engraved itself into the metal.

Name: Ness

Age: 22

Major Job: Scribe

Minor Job: Locked

Inkwell

Locked

Basic Penmanship

Locked

Foreign Language Comprehension

Locked

Open

Locked

Open

Locked

He didn’t care that it told the world he was a failure. So, what if most people his age already had all five of their skills and are saving up to buy another job crystal? None of that mattered to him as he stared at the precious object. The tool that would save him from having to get appraised at a church. They didn’t charge anything, but people with money were expected to make donations. Plus, there was always a long line. Now, he just got to keep this, and no one could take it away from him either. Well, he guessed they could steal it, but it wouldn’t matter. Once someone bonded a badge, it would stay tied to them forever. It was already his most valuable item.

He spent a full five minutes just holding the thing, before looking through the rest of the bag. It was a traditional brown backpack in appearance. There wasn’t anything remarkable inside, but the bag itself was valuable. It was a dimensional bag, a small one, and it would be extremely useful. Currently, it held several changes of clothing, bathing stuff, and some writing supplies. That was all that could fit inside, but he was glad to have it nonetheless. Other than that, the caravan would provide him with things like food, water, and a place to sleep. Just like that, he had everything he needed. Now it was time to spend some of his savings on things he didn’t need but wanted to have anyways.