Phoenix was grateful for Traveler’s upgrade as she continued to reference the map of Tulimeir in her book. She quickly realized from the aerial overview it provided that the entire city had been meticulously pnned out from its inception, with the only possible room for growth being vertical.

  The upside of this for her was that it was fairly straightforward to navigate through once she understood the yout. Heading from her dorm back to the AOA building had been a matter of following the main street outside her building north to the first gate from the inner city, going through that into the western storage and logistics district, then south through the next gate leading into the martial district, then continued southeast on the same road till she arrived at the towering skyscraper.

  People all around her seemed busy with various tasks and steadily moved in and out of the slightly intimidating building. Inside was a wide hall that reminded her of reception areas in fancy offices that she saw on TV but with multiple desks lining the area, and she thought perhaps it was more like a bank.

  Above each receiving area were various signs indicating the general purpose. There were two “Mission Receiving” areas, one for Crystal and the other for Sapphire Casters, and the two “Mission Delivery” desks were also divided by Caste. There was one beled “Mission Requests” and another marked as “Licensing.” Then there were “Inquiries” and the st one beled “Disbursement.”

  She made her way over to the line for Inquiries and patiently waited, ignoring some of the curious gnces sent her way and trying her best not to fidget under their gazes. The Wayfarer knew she’d probably be curious as well if someone looked as different as she did here. When it was her turn, she walked up and prompted, “I’m here to pick up my trial pass?”

  “Third floor. Take a right for two halls, then left for another two halls, then a right and third door on the right,” the young clerk said in a bored tone, gesturing to a lift area in the back right corner before calling out, “Next!”

  “Ah, that was right, left, um–”

  “Next!” they called out again, and Phoenix got the hint, moving out of the way to head to the ptform that the clerk had pointed out.

  The ptform systems here weren’t the quietest mechanisms she discovered, pressing a rune that her ability transted as “Three.” Phoenix had gotten a steampunk vibe from the city with the addition of a heavy fondness for stained gss, and this elevator was no exception. The floor itself was a round sb of metal, but she could see the gears against the wall turn and could hear the tiny hiss of valves releasing steam to send the ptform upwards while the curved sapphire-tinted gss doors secured her within.

  It was fairly fast, with the magic increasing and moduting its propulsion, and the lift let her out quickly. She immediately turned right to walk down the hall, not wanting to let more time pass for her to forget. There weren’t nearly as many people on this floor, and there was almost an eerie dissonance between the reception area and here. The literal floor was the same dark gray marble that she assumed must be on every floor.

  She passed two hallways, then turned left. Doors were spread at intervals, but she had no idea what the rooms were used for. Another two hallways ter, she couldn’t remember what the clerk had said. It was two hallways, right? Or was it three? No three doors down then right. Or was it left?

  Phoenix turned left, then passed another two identical hallways with the same paneled walls of bleached wood. The wood stood out to her as she hadn’t actually seen much of it in the city, which she assumed was due to its scarcity on the frozen tundra. She brushed the errant thought away to refocus on directions.

  Was it the second gss door? Wait, it was right, left, right, not another left!

  The Astromancer started to panic slightly and tried to retrace her steps, only to turn a corner and crash into a dark figure that was solid enough that she repelled slightly. She tripped and stumbled while trying to reorient herself. Luckily, she was saved from falling as the figure’s hand reached out to grab her own, quickly halting her momentum and righting her.

  “I am so sorry!” Phoenix apologized profusely, “I–I’m lost and I just–” she gnced up to see a cinderen man looking down at her with a frown, “I wasn’t looking where I was going… I’m sorry,” she finished, attempting to tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

  The stranger was handsome, with strong features, and a little less than a foot taller than her. He had dark ashen skin and fiery orange irises and matching markings typical of a cinderen. Most of his jet-bck hair was pulled back into a short, messy ponytail with some loose locks framing his face.

  The only other thing that stood out about him was the many golden piercings trailing the outside edges of both his pointed ears and a golden metal choker around his neck, engraved with elegant runes, with matching cuffs around his wrists.

  The frown never left his lips as he looked her over, and she asked nervously into the silence, “I, um… I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I?”

  The cinderen’s brow furrowed, and he shook his head in the negative before asking in a low voice, “Where are you trying to go?”

  “I’m trying to get my pass for the upcoming trials,” she expined, still taking in his simple bck tunic and pants that bunched into even darker bck fur-lined boots. The dark garb made his glowing markings and eyes stand out even more, and it felt like they were the st embers among ashes.

  He tilted his head forward and said in that deep bass, “Me too.”

  Then he moved past her, and after a moment of processing his statement, she quickly spun on her heels and followed after him. She wouldn’t deny that her relief was immediate as he guided her through the maze of identical-looking doors until stopping at one that she wouldn’t have been able to distinguish from another.

  Once they were inside the room, a runeforged clerk gnced over, taking in their appearance, and sneered at her temporary guide as he said, “Mission requests are on the first floor.”

  She noticed her strange helper’s face twist slightly in what she read as annoyance, and she spoke up for the both of them, “We’re here to get our trial passes?”

  The clerk looked her over with uncertainty and asked, “Name?”

  “I’m Phoenix Fraser, and my friend here…”

  She gestured for the cinderen to speak, and he stated, “Uriel Karislian.”

  The clerk shot Uriel another disgusted look before ordering, “Wait here.”

  As the runeforged vanished through a door behind him, Phoenix turned to her newest pretend-friend and said, “Well… Nice to meet you, Uriel. Are all clerks in Tulimeir jerks, or does the AOA just have its own special pretentiousness requirements for the position?”

  He gave her a side eye, and the frown he had been wearing earlier returned as he replied, “I think it’s just my presence. Sorry, you have to deal with it.”

  “Nah,” she said with a shake of her head, “The guy downstairs was kinda a prick, too. So, um, you’re going to be doing the trials with me?”

  He nodded, but when he didn’t add to the conversation, she continued a bit more awkwardly, wondering if her feeble attempts at friendliness were coming off as annoying to him, “Um, I… Thank you,” she murmured.

  At his raised eyebrow, she eborated, “For helping me. I really didn’t want to have to go back downstairs and get directions again.”

  The clerk returned then and carefully set two folders between them on the desk. His entire demeanor seemed to have shifted as he bowed politely towards Phoenix and said, “Miss Fraser, my apologies for any slight towards you and your friend. Not many people were left to retrieve their passes, and I made the poor assumption that you were both lost.”

  Uriel gave a short scoff, and she agreed with the unspoken sentiment, wondering what had caused the clerk to so quickly become the supplicant professional. The next words he spoke clued her in, “Your Mentor was able to file most forms for you, which qualified for the deadlines, but we still need your signature on some of them. There is also an additional form that was initially missed. We will need that as well if it’s not too much of an inconvenience at this time.”

  Paul.

  She realized it was Lord Waynd who was the reason for the polite shift. She gave a tense, fake smile as she replied, “That’s fine. Can I fill them out here?”

  The clerk nodded, “Of course, Miss. I will take you and your friend to one of the private rooms.”

  She gnced over at Uriel, who only shook his head at the lie he would have to py along with, and she answered nervously, “That would be great, thank you.”

  When they were left alone in the small room that only held a small round table with a handful of chairs in it, she sat and said, “Sorry about dragging you along.”

  She began looking through the papers and lifted one, asking rhetorically, “Role designation? What is– oh,” her roaming eyes found the folder that had Uriel’s name on it and handed it out to him, “Here’s yours. I don’t want to steal more of your time.”

  The cinderen carefully plucked the folder from her grasp and turned only to hesitate at the door before looking back at her with those ember-lit eyes, “Role designation is what you pn to do as an Adventurer.”

  “What?” she asked in obvious confusion, “I thought Adventurers just kill monsters?”

  His expression seemed to soften as he shook his head and walked back to sit down in another chair next to her, “Yes, but how do you pn to do that?” he asked.

  “Um… with magic powers?” the Wayfarer said, completely lost on what he was trying to get at.

  She saw the corner of his mouth twitch, and she was reminded of Paul with his aversion to smiling. Uriel shook his head again and expounded, “Yes, but do you get up close with a weapon? Do you shoot spells from a distance? Do you heal others who do the killing instead? What is your role within a group of Adventurers?”

  “Oh!” the redhead excimed, the misunderstanding finally clicking into pce, “What Roles are there?”

  “Well, normally, you indicate your range pcement first, so Forward, Midshift, or Backline. Then you fall into one of five broad categories,” Uriel expined, then seemed to recite from memory, “Defender, Mage, Healer, Striker, or Supporter. After that, some will add another specialization, like Banes or shielding. So what do you do?”

  “I um, yes?” she said, thinking of how she moved all over and could shield and heal and fight, “I have a dagger. I mostly use that to kill monsters.”

  “So, a Forward Striker. Do you have more bursty attacks or more Bane-based ones?” he asked, pulling the form she had been holding over to help fill it out with her.

  “Um, well, my dagger adds a mana drain that was listed as a Bane.”

  “If that’s the only Bane you have, that’s not likely worth adding as a specialization. Are your Special Attacks more about unloading high damage at once with longer cooldowns or more steady over-time damage?”

  “I, uh, I don’t have any Special Attacks?”

  He paused and stared at her for a long moment before she rushed to finish expining, “I have a dagger, a heal, a portal, a movement ability, a magic shield, a stealth ability, a tiny defending fairy, and I can make little illusions.”

  Uriel blinked slowly, processing her words, then circled two of the words listed on the form and slid it back towards her silently.

  Phoenix stared at the two words and nodded in agreement with a sigh, “Midshift Supporter is probably best.”

  “I wish you all the luck in the trials,” he added softly and with much sobriety.

  She grimaced and muttered, “Thanks.”