Varren wasn't a big city.
It was the kind of city that existed because someone decided to put an inn at a crossroads, and then other people decided that where there's an inn there's business, and where there's business there's people, and where there's people there's problems, and where there's problems eventually someone opens an adventurer's guild to get paid for solving them.
That was Varren. Functional. Unpretentious. The kind of place where nobody asked where you came from as long as you could pay for your room.
Kael arrived mid-morning with the red slime on his shoulder and four copper coins in his pocket.
---
The Varren Adventurer's Guild occupied a gray stone building on the main street that had survived three fires, two floods, and a plague of worryingly large rats according to a sign someone had nailed to the door and never removed. Inside, it smelled like old wood, last night's beer, and that specific kind of sweat produced by people who did dangerous physical work on a regular basis.
Kael knew it well. This was his third time walking into a guild.
The previous two hadn't ended well.
The receptionist was a woman in her thirties with her hair tied up any old way and the expression of someone who'd been in this job long enough to have seen everything and be surprised by nothing. She had a pen in her hand and a registration book open in front of her, and she didn't look up when Kael approached the counter.
"Good morning," Kael said.
"Mana rank, partner beast, or special skill," she said without looking up.
"Sorry?"
"Registration requirements. Mana rank E or higher, active contract with a partner beast, or documented special skill. Tell me which one you've got and we'll start the paperwork."
Kael opened his mouth.
Closed it.
"What if I've got one of the three but like, the worst possible version?"
The receptionist looked up for the first time.
She looked at Kael. She looked at the red slime sitting on his shoulder with the calm of someone who'd been there their whole life. She looked back at Kael.
"That slime have a bond contract with you?"
"Not yet. But it's willing. I think."
The receptionist didn't visibly react to that.
She set her pen on the counter with the precise motion of someone making a minor administrative decision.
"A bond contract with an F-rank slime is technically valid under Article 7 of the General Guild Regulations," she said, with the tone of someone reciting something they never expected to have to recite. "We've never processed one here because nobody's ever walked in with one, but it's in the rulebook. I can look it up if you want."
"Yes, I want," Kael said.
She looked it up. It took twelve minutes. Kael waited standing. The slime waited sitting on his shoulder. Three adventurers who passed by the counter looked at them with expressions ranging from curiosity to contempt depending on their personal rank and mood that day.
The receptionist came back with a procedures manual so old the corners were permanently bent.
"Article 7, Section 4," she said. "'Bond contract with unclassified creature or creature ranked below E: valid for registration. Adventurer rank assigned: equal to creature's rank.'" She looked up. "F-rank. The lowest in the system."
"I know," Kael said.
"F-rank missions are herb gathering, minor pest control, and errands within the city."
"I know."
"Pay is two copper coins per completed mission."
"I know."
She looked at him a moment longer.
Not a doubtful look — something closer to minimal respect for someone who knew exactly what they were getting into and chose it anyway.
"Need the bond to be formal," she said. "The slime has to actively accept the contract. Normally beasts do it with mana, but slimes don't channel mana in a standard way so—"
Lyra put part of itself on the form the receptionist had pulled out.
Both people looked at the slime.
The slime did nothing else. But where it had touched the paper, it left a perfectly circular reddish mark that glowed for two seconds and then set like ink.
The receptionist looked at the mark. Compared it to the manual. Found the page for non-standard contract validation.
"That... works," she said, with the tone of someone mentally updating their definition of what could happen on a normal work day.
She wrote. Stamped. Processed. Opened a drawer and pulled out a thin metal plate the size of a palm, gray, with a single letter engraved in the center.
F.
She slid it across the counter.
Kael took it. Held it for a moment. It was lighter than he expected. Or maybe he'd expected the weight of finally having it to make up for what it cost to get.
It didn't. But it was real. It was his.
"Welcome to the Varren Guild," the receptionist said, going back to her registration book. "Mission board is to your right. Rules are on the sign by the door. Don't do anything that forces another adventurer to rescue you because we charge for that."
"Understood," Kael said.
He turned toward the mission board.
It was an entire wall covered in paper slips organized by rank with a color code that took thirty seconds to figure out. Gray for F-rank. White for E. Green for D. Blue for C. Red for B. Gold for A. The gray slips were in the bottom left corner, the smallest space on the board, with exactly six available missions.
Kael walked over to read them.
Lyra, on his shoulder, read them too.
Kael noticed it from the corner of his eye — the way the slime scanned each slip with an attention slimes shouldn't have — and decided it was a behavior mutation. Some animals learned to mimic their owners' visual attention. That was probably it.
His eyes went to the gray slips.
Lyra's eyes went to a blue slip in the center of the board.
Mission C-17: Investigate shadow wolf activity in the northeast sector of the Lesser Forest. Reward: 40 silver coins. Minimum required rank: C.
Kael didn't read it.
Lyra read it twice.
---
Kael picked the simplest of the six available F-rank missions: river herb collection on the southern edge of the Lesser Forest, no reported dangers, pay of two copper coins. The kind of mission designed specifically for people who'd never done a mission and needed to do one without dying in the process.
Perfect.
He reported it to the receptionist. Signed the acceptance slip. Received a basic map of the area with the location circled.
"Delivery deadline: tomorrow noon," she said. "Herbs have to be fresh or they don't count."
"Understood."
He walked out of the guild with the F-plate in his pocket and the first mission of his life in his hand.
The sun was high. The road to the forest was straightforward. He had water, he had his sword, he had the map.
And he had a weird mutation slime on his shoulder that was still staring north with an attention slimes definitely shouldn't have.
"That's south," Kael told it.
Lyra turned its gaze south.
"Good," Kael said, and started walking.
They'd been on the road for five minutes when something crossed his mind and made him stop for a moment.
He pulled the plate from his pocket. Looked at it.
F.
He smiled. Just a little. The kind of smile you save for when no one's watching.
He put it away and kept walking.
Lyra glowed softly for one second.
Just one.