CHAPTER 3: THE GUILD TRIAL
The regional guild post sat three days' walk north of Harlow's Bend, a squat stone box with a slate roof and a yard of packed dirt that smelled of sweat and iron. A faded banner flapped overhead: the crossed sword-and-shield of the Verandil Adventurer's Guild, Branch 17.
Kael arrived with 32 other hopefuls. Most were seventeen to twenty-one, sunburned, loud, clutching spears their fathers had carved or second-hand shortswords bought with harvest coin. A few already wore the gray novice sash that meant they'd tested once and failed. Kael carried nothing but a belt knife, a waterskin, and the same patched clothes he'd worn chopping wood the week before.
The examiner was a scarred woman named Captain Rhen. One eye milky, the other sharp enough to shave with. She didn't waste breath.
"Rules are simple," she barked. "You go into the scrub forest south of here. You bring back three tokens: one red ribbon from a horned hare, one intact dusk-lily bulb, and one iron tag off a feral gobbo. Do it alone. Do it before sundown tomorrow. Anyone still breathing at the end gets ranked F-minus at minimum. Die, and we burn what's left. Questions?"
A boy near the front raised a hand. "What if we only get two tokens?"
"Then you stay a civilian," Rhen said. "Next."
No one else spoke.
They herded the recruits through the gate like cattle. The forest swallowed them one by one.
Kael stepped off the path twenty paces in and felt the difference immediately: the air was cooler, heavier, threaded with the green smell of sap and old blood. The canopy cut the sunlight into knives. Somewhere far off, something screeched and was suddenly silent.
He breathed once, slow, and started walking.
First problem: horned hares. Fast, low, and mean. Their spiral horns could open a thigh if they got momentum. Village boys hunted them with dogs or snares. Kael had neither.
He found tracks within the hour—small, splayed, deeper on the left where the horn added weight. Fresh. He crouched, touched the broken grass, and felt the old habit rise: observe, record, repeat until the world gave up its pattern.
He followed the trail.
The hare exploded from a fern brake when he was still ten strides away. It came straight at him, ears flat, horn lowered like a lance. Kael's body moved before thought—he twisted hard left, felt the horn graze the meat of his forearm, hot and bright. The hare shot past, wheeled, and charged again.
Second pass: Kael dropped his shoulder and took the hit on the bone of his upper arm instead of the soft inside. Pain flared, white and singing, but the horn skated off instead of punching through. The hare stumbled, confused by the resistance.
Third pass: Kael caught the horn with both hands, used its momentum to pivot, and slammed the creature's skull against a tree trunk. Once. Twice. The body went limp.
He sat back on his heels, breathing hard, blood running warm down his left arm. The cut was shallow—more scrape than gash. He pressed it, watched the bleeding slow faster than memory said it should. The ache dulled from fire to bruise in under a minute.
He stared at the drying blood on his fingers.
Eighteen hit yesterday. This was the first real test.
He tied the red ribbon from the hare's ear to his belt. One token.
The arm still hurt, but the pain felt… negotiable. Like a dial someone had turned down one notch.
He moved on.
Dusk-lilies grew in wet hollows guarded by something worse than hares. Kael found the hollow by the smell—sweet rot and wet dog. Three goblins crouched around a patch of pale blue flowers, arguing over a cooked rat. Green skin, jagged teeth, iron tags dangling from leather cords around their necks.
Kael had never fought anything that fought back with intent.
He picked up a fist-sized rock, weighed it, and stepped into the clearing.
The first goblin saw him and squealed. All three charged.
Kael threw the rock at the closest one's face—cracked its nose, sent it staggering. The second slashed at his thigh with a bone knife. He twisted, took the cut on the outside of his leg instead of the artery. Pain flared again, familiar now.
He grabbed the wounded goblin by the throat, slammed it down, and drove his belt knife through the soft spot under the jaw. Hot blood sprayed his wrist. The third goblin stabbed him in the side, shallow, panicked. Kael roared, caught the wrist, twisted until bone snapped. He finished it with the same knife.
Three bodies. Three iron tags.
He sat in the mud and lilies, ribs heaving, side and leg bleeding, and waited for the world to go gray.
It didn't.
The stab in his side quit pumping after thirty seconds. The slice on his thigh clotted while he watched. The pain was still there, but it was background noise now, like wind in leaves. He pressed an experimental finger into the side wound—skin already knitting, pink and tender but closed.
"Hehe... Hehe...HAHAHAHA. YES!!!"
He laughed twice, short and sharp, then once with an almost booming voice. It sounded too loud in the clearing.
Luckily he didn't attract any unwanted danger, but I digress.
Adaptive Habitation wasn't subtle. It was a hammer, not a whisper.
He harvested a dusk-lily bulb, careful of the sap that could blister hands. Wrapped it in broad leaves. Added the three iron tags to the red ribbon on his belt.
Night was falling. Most recruits would camp, too scared to move in the dark. Kael walked.
He reached the guild post an hour after moonrise. The yard was lit by torches. Only 4 others had returned early—two gray-sashes who knew the forest, one farm boy with a broken arm cradled against his chest, and a girl with a bow who looked like she'd rather be anywhere else.
Captain Rhen stood at the gate, arms folded. Her good eye narrowed when Kael stepped into the torchlight covered in blood that wasn't all his.
"Tokens," she said.
Kael unhooked the ribbon and tags, dropped the wrapped bulb into her palm. She turned the tags over, counted them slow.
"Three goblins," she said. Not a question.
"Yes, ma'am."
"You're bleeding through your shirt."
"It's mostly stopped."
Rhen grabbed his wrist, turned his arm to the light. The horn-graze was a pink line. She lifted the shirt without asking—saw the side wound already scabbed, the thigh slice sealed.
She let the cloth fall.
"Name."
"Kael Varin. Harlow's Bend."
"Never tested before."
"No."
Rhen took a charcoal stick and a slate board from the table behind her. She wrote something, scratched it out, wrote again.
"You're not F—," she said finally. "Based on what I've seen and considering this is your first trial, your rank is E—. Barely. You're reckless, under-geared, and you move like someone who's never been hit before today."
She paused, looked him in the eye.
"But you're still standing, and your wounds look three days old. I've seen healers who can't do that."
She handed him a strip of green cloth.
"E-minus provisional. Wear it. Tomorrow the survivors come in. Then we see if you keep it."
Kael took the cloth. It felt heavier than iron.
Behind him, the gate was still open. Somewhere in the dark forest, 27 kids were learning how big the world was.
He tied the green strip around his upper arm, right over the pink scar the hare had left an hour ago.
It didn't hurt anymore.
He smiled, small and private, and went to find water and a place to sit before the next bell rang.
The ladder had started.
He was already climbing.