13 Chapter 13: Dark sentry

Vulcan, along with his team and Jess, walked down the road. He was glad they had ditched the bikes earlier as they noticed caravans of wagons and horses passing by them from both directions. Several people noticed their group and eyed them intensely. They stood out with their leather armor and dark cloaks easily, looking menacing and not to be messed with. They soon reached the line leading into town and lined up. It took a while until it was their turn to get inspected by the guards.

"Names, and reason for visit?" asked the guard inspecting them.

"Vulcan, and my group is here to register as Adventurers," he said as he shoved a bag of coins into the palm of the guard. "We hope to pass smoothly without any more interruptions." The amount was way more than the entrance fee. Vulcan had found it on the pockets of the mercenaries and still had a decent amount of money to spend after the bribe. Jess didn't say anything through the whole interaction since she knew they would ask Vulcan to show his face and expose his real identity.

After bribing the guard, Vulcan asked Jess for directions to the adventurers guild, which she showed them. As they walked around the medieval town, Vulcan noticed several small thieves moving through the crowd, pickpocketing kids. A brave one tried to take his pouch from him, but he caught the thief and shoved him away. The kid ran off lucky to be alive or turned to the guards. Certain areas had groups of thugs hiding in the alleyways as well.

"Seems like the town has plenty of crime," Vulcan remarked to Jess.

"Well, the guards have plenty on their plate once the lord of the town sent more than half the soldiers and guards to the war. They don't have enough manpower to catch all the ruffians," she explained. As she finished her sentence, she noticed a couple of those ruffians harassing a man and his wife going through the alley. Jess couldn't help but intervene, and since she was with him, his group followed, and they caught the men beating up the man. The thugs didn't realize they had been surrounded until Jess kicked one away from the woman, and the rest were taken care of by the sentries. They allowed the couple to get away and go on their way. The couple thanked them, and left before it got more chaotic. The thugs weren't so lucky as their weapons were confiscated as well as their coins and beaten up.

"Jess, we don't have time to save everyone, please stick to the plan," Vulcan said as she finished kicking a thug in the ribs while he laid on the ground.

They continued walking until they found themselves in the town center. A lot of well-decorated shops were seen as well as the tall four-story adventurers guild building. A wooden and metal sign with swords and the crest of a shield hung in the front. Several armored individuals in groups could be seen entering and exiting.

They entered through the two large doors, and inside was filled with a bustle of people calling out for others to join them on a quest, others were going upstairs, while some were gathered at a board that covered an entire wall to the right with quests posted up. They instead headed towards the long and large counter desks in the back where many were lined up. Jess led them to a desk that was empty with a receptionist writing things down. Their group made enough noise when walking up for her to look at them from her work.

"We would like to register with the adventurers guild," Jess said as she began the interaction. The receptionist looked at all of them a little confused but gathered herself and pulled out a sheet for them to sign.

"If you are registering as a party, then please write down your group name, cultivation stage for all members, and lastly a payment of a silver coin for all of you," the receptionist instructed. Vulcan was ready for this since Jess had informed him beforehand that the guild required its members to reveal their cultivation. The only problem was that he didn't cultivate, so he didn't know if he would pass their small test to check his cultivation.

"We would like to keep our cultivation a secret," Jess said as she finished writing everything down on the thick piece of parchment. They had decided their group was going to go by 'Dark Sentry'.

"If you are keeping your cultivation a secret, then you will begin at the very bottom of the ranks. But if you were to disclose your rank, then we will appropriately give you a Rank according to your cultivation stage," the receptionist explained. Jess refused but mentioned she already had an adventurer's rank badge.

"Let me explain the ranks then. We follow the same ranks as the cultivation ranks. So if you are an Earth stage practitioner, then you will receive this Earth rank badge," she said as she took out a badge made out of shiny black stone. The stone had the number 3 engraved on it. "The 3 means 'peak Earth stage.' It goes one for low and two for medium. After Earth is Bronze, Iron, Silver, and last Gold. As you will have to start at Earth rank, you will have to complete 10 quests at the same stage and last a Bronze rank quest to increase your rank. From there, the number of quests for each rank increases," the receptionist finished explaining.

They paid the fee, and the receptionist left to go in the back for their badges, except for Jess's since she was already registered. After a few minutes of waiting, she returned with their badges.

"Congratulations on registering with the adventurers guild. If you need a quest to pick out, the board is on your right. Please choose from your respected ranks, but since you have a Bronze rank and a group of more than 10, then you will be able to choose a Bronze rank quest. If you complete five of those, your next rank up will be a lot faster. If you need a drink or food to recover, please visit our bar on the 2nd floor, and if you need a room for the night, we have plenty of affordable rooms. Just go to the 3rd floor and ask the receptionist desk there for more information," she explained before returning to her work.

Vulcan inspected the black stone badge and went towards the quest board. "So what's the plan?" Jess asked as she stood next to him at the board.

"There's no rush. We will complete the odd quests, gather information about the town, especially about this 'war' that is going on. After choosing several quests, we will then find an inn to stay and make it our base of operations," said Vulcan as he picked out a quest for guard duty for a store.

"You can only pick 3 quests at a time, by the way," Jess mentioned as he was going for a fourth quest. With his quests picked out, he headed back to another counter for quest-related matters.

The receptionist this time was a more enthusiastic young redhead. "Hi, ready to start questing? Let's see what you picked out," she said as she grabbed the three quests and examined them.

"These are ongoing quests, so if you ever feel like doing them again, you can talk to the quest giver and continue working with them. If not, then you could just report to the guild, and we will leave the quest for another adventurer to pick up. I also need to remind you, since you picked up three quests, that if you were to fail the quest or cause harm to the quest giver, then you will be fined or even arrested by the town guards. With all that being said," she stamped the quests and handed them back to Vulcan. "Happy questing, and good luck!"

Once they finished at the guild, they went out into the town to find an inn. They found one that wasn't too run down and was modest looking. As the group entered the inn, the cheery atmosphere lowered once their group was seen entering. Almost everyone had eyes on them, and a young waitress walked up to them.

"Welcome to the Dawn Bear Inn, will you be eating or renting a room?" she said as she carried several mugs and plates.

"We'll take enough rooms for all of us and for a week's stay. One warm meal and drink for my room, please," Jess said, and the young waitress looked at her confused as to why she only needed one meal.

The girl snapped out of it soon. "That will be 5 silver and 20 copper, please. If you need to draw a bath, just let us know, and we will bring a tub up to your room," she said as she took the coin and gave them their keys. Afterwards, they headed up to their rooms. In total, they had four rooms. Jess would share a room with Vulcan. This didn't bother her since he was not a human man, and she felt at ease knowing he wouldn't try anything with her.