The grand wooden doors of the Koneu Adventurer's Guild creaked open with theatrical flair, sunlight casting long shadows of five very proud, very chaotic individuals onto the marbled floor. Birds scattered. A faint breeze rustled banners. Somewhere in the distance, a chicken clucked in terror.
"Today's the day!" Renna declared, arms raised dramatically. Her rainbow-colored dagger hung at her side like a confetti bomb waiting to explode.
"We're going to be Silver rank adventurers," Alaric beamed, his glowing sword somehow shimmering despite being safely stowed.
"We technically cleaned the sewers," Lys added, adjusting her glasses and trying to sound professional. "That counts for something, right?"
"We didn't just clean it. We sanitized the soul of it," Thorne grinned, lightning crackling faintly around him like static on a balloon.
"Please don't say that in public," Cael muttered, pulling his hood lower over his head. His sigil pulsed gently at his side—still dark, still mysterious, still utterly unimpressive in comparison.
Behind the reception counter, the elf receptionist—tall, elegant, and with a dead-eyed expression that only years of wrangling rookie adventurers could carve into a soul—looked up from her paperwork. Her nameplate read Virelle, but it might as well have said Emotionally Checked Out Since the Last Goblin Incident.
She exhaled through her nose. "Let me guess. Promotion request?"
"Correct!" Renna said, practically bouncing. "We've done heroic work! Slime slaying! Sewer purification! City-scale cleansing!"
"There was a wyvern!" Thorne added, flexing a bicep.
"You ran from the wyvern," Cael corrected. "We all ran. I still have bruises."
"You threw me like a sack of potatoes!" Thorne barked, suddenly offended.
"And it saved your life," Alaric said with a sage nod. "You're welcome."
Virelle blinked slowly. "...Right. Name of the party?"
Lys cleared her throat. "We haven't decided yet."
"You've been registered for weeks."
"Yep," Renna grinned, "But naming things is hard."
"Can we go with Slime Eradicators?" Thorne asked.
"No," Cael and Lys said in perfect unison.
Virelle pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. I'll just log you as 'Unnamed Party #42.' Let's see... sewer job completed, civilian damage... moderate. Collateral reports... considerable. Explosion count: seven."
"Only seven?" Renna frowned. "I swear there were at least nine."
"Church covered the rest. Miraculously." Virelle scribbled something onto a scroll, muttering under her breath in Elvish that might've translated to may the gods have mercy on me. "Well. You've technically met the requirement for a promotion to Silver. Congratulations. I guess."
She didn't even hand them medals. A simple magical glow pulsed from the guild emblem on their ID cards, and their bronze shimmer shifted to silver with an underwhelming little ding.
"I expected, like... fanfare," Alaric said.
"I expected snacks," Renna muttered.
Thorne crossed his arms. "Where's the confetti?"
Virelle stared at them flatly. "Out. Of. My. Sight."
They scurried away like gremlins who had just stolen something shiny, all high-fives and whoops echoing behind them. Virelle sighed, turned to her coworker behind the desk, and muttered, "I give it a week before they level a forest."
The coworker nodded solemnly. "Two days, max."
The moment they turned away from the elf receptionist's soul-dead eyes, the five adventurers dashed straight for the towering quest board like over-caffeinated children at a carnival.
"I CALL FIRST PICK!" Thorne yelled, already leaping three feet in the air.
"No you don't! We agreed no lightning-enhanced jumping!" Lys barked as she chased after him, trying to pull him down by the hem of his cloak.
The board itself loomed tall and noble, pinned with rows upon rows of parchment fluttering like a stack of overwhelmed laundry. Each quest had a colored border to indicate rank: bronze for beginner jobs like "find my missing chicken," silver for slightly-higher-stakes nonsense like "hunt the suspiciously intelligent raccoons in the mines," and gold for death wishes.
"Look at this one!" Alaric said, pointing at a silver-bordered notice. "Escort an elderly merchant through spider-infested woods."
"Nope," Cael said. "You lost me at spider-infested."
"Ooh, ooh, what about 'Investigate haunted mansion near the edge of the Howling Valley'?" Renna wiggled her fingers dramatically like a witch.
"Nope," Cael repeated, now hiding behind Alaric. "You lost me at haunted."
"Why is every quest either haunted, cursed, or exploding?" Lys muttered as she flipped through the pinned stack. "What happened to 'gather herbs by the lake'?"
"Oh! Here's one!" Thorne suddenly bellowed, snatching a quest flyer. "'Eliminate an ogre that's been stealing livestock near the village of Feldmar.' Sounds punchable."
"No punching ogres until we've scouted it first," Cael warned. "I am not dying in a place called Feldmar. That's the name of a guy who sells root vegetables, not where you get flattened by ogres."
"Well, what do you want, oh great Overlord of Strategy?" Renna asked, elbowing him gently.
"I want something safe. Civilized. Preferably indoors," Cael said, plucking a quest and reading aloud: "Assist a noblewoman in cataloguing her antique spoon collection."
Everyone stared at him in disgust.
"No," Thorne said, flatly.
"Coward," Renna whispered.
Lys giggled behind her sleeve.
Eventually, the group settled on a silver-ranked quest that had just enough danger to be exciting, but not enough to guarantee death:
Quest Title: "Goblin Camp Disruption (Possible Explosives Involved)"
Location: South Woods, 3 Kilometers from Koneu
Objective: Disrupt growing goblin camp, recover stolen crates, minimize collateral damage.
Reward: 50 silver coins, bonus for intact crates.
Status: Silver Rank – Team Required
"Disrupt a goblin camp?" Alaric grinned. "That sounds like a blast."
Renna wiggled her rainbow knife. "Oh, I'm going to disrupt the hell out of it."
"Note the words 'minimize collateral damage,'" Lys said, eyes narrowing.
Cael looked directly at her. "Note how no one else heard that part."
"I heard 'possible explosives,'" Thorne said with far too much excitement.
They all turned back toward Virelle with the flyer in hand.
"Ah," she said dully, not even looking up. "The goblin quest. I give it twelve hours before the forest's ecosystem collapses."
"Cool cool cool," Renna said. "We leave at dawn?"
"No," Cael said. "We leave after breakfast. I'm not risking my life on an empty stomach."
"Reasonable," Lys agreed. "We're chaotic, not suicidal."
And with that, the newly minted Silver-ranked menace squad headed out to prepare—with zero plans, questionable gear, and all the confidence in the world.
The group move to the dim stone corridors beneath the church—quiet, echoing, and just a tad too dramatic for a glorified basement. Torchlight flickered against old brick, casting shadows over racks of armor, crates of potions, bundles of rope, and one singular cursed-looking doll no one dared ask about.
The group stood before the ancient, creaky gear storage vault, the door wide open thanks to the old priest's signature on a dusty scroll. A single line was underlined in divine ink, "Take only what you can handle, and may you not doom us all."
"That's not ominous at all," Cael mumbled as they stepped inside.
"Feels like a challenge," Thorne said, cracking his knuckles.
"Oh, it is," Lys said, eyeing the contents.
The storage was surprisingly well-stocked. Iron breastplates. Leather belts. Rusty swords. Shiny swords. Swords that looked suspiciously cursed. Potions of Healing and a suspicious box labeled "Do Not Touch – Firebugs Inside."
Naturally, Thorne touched it.
"NOPE," Cael snapped, dragging him away by the collar.
Ten chaotic minutes later…
Cael, Alaric, and Thorne emerged from the gear vault looking like walking tanks. They wore full iron armor from neck to toe, each piece clinking and creaking with dramatic over-preparedness.
Cael frowned at his reflection in a polished shield. "I feel like I'm about to fight a dragon, not mildly inconvenience goblins."
"You could just wear the chestplate like a normal person," Lys offered, eyeing his iron greaves with amusement.
"I don't trust goblins. Or forests. Or nature," Cael replied.
Alaric tightened his belt and adjusted his armored gloves. "Honestly, I feel kind of heroic."
"Same," Thorne said, flexing unnecessarily in his full suit, sparks of lightning flickering along the edge of his armored shoulder. "No helmet though. Helmets are stupid."
"Yeah," Cael and Alaric said in unison. "Screw helmets."
Meanwhile, Lys stood to the side, dressed lightly in leather armor, quick and sleek. She'd chosen mobility over bulk, slinging a small quiver over her shoulder and strapping thin wind-inscribed greaves to her boots.
"You guys look like kettles," she said plainly.
"Boiling with justice," Thorne flexed again.
Renna, on the other hand, wore what could only be described as "lightly enchanted chaos chic." Her sleeves were rolled up, her cloak barely hanging off one shoulder, and her gear seemed more decorative than practical. She had pouches of elements tied around her hips and her rainbow-colored knife tucked into her boot.
"I don't do armor," she declared with the confidence of someone who hadn't been hit with a club yet.
Cael raised a brow. "You'll regret that the moment a goblin throws a rock."
"I'll reflect the rock with sass and elemental force," she grinned.
Lys muttered, "More like reflect it directly into one of us…"
They grabbed a few essentials—ropes, torches, utility knives, and a few hopefully healing potions—before shutting the vault with an echoing clang.
As they stood in the church courtyard, armored like maniacs with the sun rising behind them, the old priest watched from a stained-glass window above.
He took a slow sip of holy tea and muttered, "May the god protect them. And may god protect us from them."
With a dramatic swish of their cloaks and several loud armor clunks, the group set off—toward the goblin camp, toward adventure, and almost certainly toward disaster.
They hadn't even made it ten steps past the grand gates of Koneu.
The guards waved them off politely, muttering prayers under their breath. Birds chirped. The sky was blue. Hope was high. The road ahead was clear and majestic.
And then—
BOOOOOOOM!!!
A fiery shockwave exploded behind the group, sending up a plume of smoke and forest debris that painted the morning sky with a fresh coat of "what just happened?!"
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Cael screamed, his armor clanking as he hit the dirt.
Alaric rolled midair before landing with the grace of a flaming potato. "I DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH ANYTHING!"
Renna coughed dramatically through the smoke. "Was that one of my spells?? I didn't even cast anything yet—"
"I regret everything," Lys muttered from behind a half-scorched bush.
Standing tall amidst the chaos, surrounded by smoke and glory he did not deserve, was Thorne—grinning ear to ear, his spear crackling with residual lightning. The crater next to him was still smoldering.
"What… did you do?" Cael asked, rising with twitching eyebrows.
"I," Thorne said proudly, "brought a surprise."
He reached into his bag and pulled out a half-scorched explosive cannonball, wobbling with unstable magical energy.
"WHY WOULD YOU BRING THAT?!" Cael screeched.
"To mark the beginning of our EPIC JOURNEY!" Thorne declared like a knight from a forgotten B-grade anime. He punched the remaining cannonball with divine fervor.
It launched into the forest like a divine meteor.
Another explosion. Trees flung skyward. Birds fled. Somewhere, a deer screamed in emotional trauma.
Thorne raised his hands like a champion of chaos and bellowed,
"LET THIS BE THE FIRST PAGE OF MY LEGEND!"
The forest fell silent. The smoke drifted.
Then a shadow loomed above.
From the broken treetops, a massive Wyvern emerged, wings stretching wide, eyes glowing with unfiltered rage. Its nostrils flared. Its jaw dropped open, releasing a guttural, bone-shaking ROAR that could curdle milk.
Cael didn't even wait.
"NOPE!"
Cael and Alaric grabbed Thorne
"WHA–HEY I CAN FIGHT–" Thorne protested, flailing like a furious toddler in plate armor.
"SAVE IT FOR SOMETHING WE CAN ACTUALLY KILL!" Cael shouted, sprinting like the paranoid godchild he was.
The group bolted down the road, armor clanking, potions flying from belts, spells accidentally going off like firecrackers. Lys conjured a gust of wind to push them faster. Renna screamed something about insurance. The Wyvern gave chase, screaming louder.
And thus began the most heroic retreat in history.