The Beginning of an Adventure

"Hey!" Azraea shouted. I turned round to see her beginning to chase a man. I quickly followed so that I wouldn't be left behind.

The man was running fast, and seemed to be carrying something in one hand. It was Azraea's money bag. Now I understood why she was chasing him. I started to run harder so that I could catch up with her.

"You can't run from me!" Azraea called to him, "I will catch you! Fighter Arts: Alacrity!"

Suddenly, Azraea started to glow with a dim blue light. Her movements became faster and she rapidly gained on the thief. Was that some sort of magic? Upon seeing her speed, the thief began to run faster. We managed to follow him to a clearing outside of town. After seeing that he could run no longer, the thief stopped and turned.

"Now as I see it, you have two choices." Azraea told him, "Either you give me my purse and turn yourself in, or I turn you in myself. Make your choice."

"Why should I?" the thief called back, "Either way I end up with the guards. I'm better off running. I won't hand it over!"

Azraea's arm twitched a little. I could see a faint black energy lightly cover her. It vanished after a second, and Azraea darted at the thief. She grabbed him in an armlock before he could react and held him in place with some major strength. He couldn't even try to escape.

"Hey Keita." she called out, "Find some rope will you? I need to tie this guy up."

"Right." I replied.

Quickly, I looked around for anything that could bind him. I rushed over and picked up a bundle of rope from the side of a house. Then I brought it over to Azraea, who quickly wrapped it round the thief and tied it tightly. He was now unable to move his arms, and Azraea was holding him in place.

She kept her hold on him and dragged him into town with little effort. Her strength was amazing, she could probably take on a body-builder with that strength. I followed her as she dragged the thief up to an armoured man. She dropped the thief at his feet.

"I have a purse thief for you." Azraea told him, "Give him due treatment will you?"

"Yes." the man replied, "Thank you for bringing him to us. We'll make sure he's treated right." With that, Azraea walked back over to me.

"Now let's get back to business, shall we?" she said.

"That was amazing." I told her, "How are you so strong? You held him down all on your own, and you dragged him along like he was a stone. And what was that skill? Can you teach me that?"

"Really?" Azraea asked, "I wasn't doing all that much. It's all just practice, I've been training myself for a while now. Maybe you could do it in time. As for that skill, well that's just something I picked up a while ago."

"How long have you been training in order to get like that though?" I questioned, "Surely you must have trained for years?"

"Yes." Azraea told me, "About…twelve years now. I've been training to be an adventurer ever since I was five. I always looked up to them, how they were free to do what they wanted, how they had the enjoyment of exploring new places with their friends…Sorry if I'm going on a tangent here."

"No, no." I replied, "I'd like to know as much as I can if we're going to be exploring together."

"Hang on…" Azraea thought, "If we're making a party, does that make us friends?"

"That depends." I responded, "Do you want to be friends? I don't mind. It might be nice, to have friends."

"That's fine." Azraea replied, "It's always good to have friends in the world. It's even better to fight alongside them…we're here."

Azraea stopped outside of a large building. It was a lot better designed than the surrounding houses, like the owners were much richer. It had a fine oak door with a snake handle, and through the door I could hear the sounds of cheering and merrymaking.

When I opened the door, I could see many tables surrounding a fire-pit. People were sat at the tables, cheering and drinking. There was the sounds of a lute. At the fire was a woman playing it, setting a cheerful tone for the whole building.

"So…" one man said, clearly drunk, "I…I swung my sword right? And I…hic…took out four trolls in one strike…Pretty good right?"

"That's nothing!" responded another drunkard, "I took out a whole nest of imps on my own…ugh, my arse was burning for days after…"

"Polite lot, aren't they?" I asked Azraea sarcastically.

"Well." she replied, "If they did it, might as well brag about it. That's what they're thinking right now."

Something I noticed about everyone in here was that they all wore a pendant of sorts. Each one was made of a different metal. A ranking system perhaps? Suddenly, a woman approached us.

Unlike the others, this woman was dressed professionally. She had long, blond hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and her eyes dazzled in an azure colour. She had a bright smile on her face as she looked at us.

"Welcome." she called, "Are you two new here? My name's Erika, I'm in charge of the Sherpstal branch of the Adventurer's Guild."

"Hello Erika." Azraea replied, "We'd like to sign up as a party. Could you show us how?"

"Certainly." Erika responded, "Just follow me, we'll go somewhere a bit quieter."

Erika led us past the obnoxious crowd and into a small room. In this room was a cluttered desk full of papers. There was also a mirror. Erika went over to the desk and picked up two of the papers.

"Now, let's begin the sign-up process." she announced, "To start, you'll need to take one of these papers. Just give your finger a little prick and place a blood seal on the paper, your details will show up shortly afterwards. This is how we determine your tier, and what kind of jobs you're most suited for."

Without further questions, I bit down on my finger and caused it to bleed a little. I placed a drop on the paper, and it began to glow. I could see writing being formed on the paper, and in a matter of seconds, it was finished. Now I was faced with yet another problem.

"I can't read this." I told Erika.

The writing was all in a language that I didn't know. I think it was in German. That's about all I could tell. The only thing that I could read on there was my name.

"It's fine." Erika said, "I can read it out for you."

She took the piece of paper and looked it over. Erika raised an eyebrow whilst reading through it. A smile grew on her face.

"Well aren't you an interesting one?" she commented, "Says here that you're a level fifteen Magus. Quite a rare class here, a supposed master of both blade and magic. Wait here, I'll go get you a Grimoire. Should have some blank ones stored away in the back."

She handed me the paper again and took her leave. Whilst she was gone, Azraea rolled up her paper and tucked it into a pouch under her skirt. It was very secretive. Erika came back with a small book in her hand.

"Here we are." she told me, "Your Grimoire. Use it to record the spells that you use, you'll find it useful. Just plant another blood seal on it and it will show you what spells you already know."

Erika handed me the Grimoire and I opened it up. I wiped my bleeding finger over the first page and it glowed in the same way that the paper did. This time however, I could actually read what came up. It was in Japanese. It read:

'Fireball, Chain Lightning, Spirit Sword: Jigoku.'

"What language is that?" Erika asked, "I don't think I've seen it before."

"It's my homeland's language." I replied, "It's…a very far away place."

"Anyways." Erika announced, "Next is the Mirror of Potential. Using it gives us a good idea as to what your latent power is, and just what level you might reach."

She pointed to the mirror in the corner of the room. It looked a little like Reinhaldt's mirror. I walked over to it along with Azraea. She seemed…nervous about this. What was there to be nervous about?

"I'll go first." I said, "How do I use this?"

"You just have to touch the mirror." Erika instructed, "That's all."

I did as instructed, but my hand hesitated as I noticed something. I couldn't see my sword in the mirror. Maybe that was what made it unique? I laid my hand on the cold glass of the mirror. It began to glow a faint red and I saw myself. Something was different about it.

It was me in the mirror, but there was something else. It looked like some kind of ghost behind me. A woman, with very long crimson hair and two scarlet eyes. She had a wicked smile as she quickly vanished from sight.

"Hmm." Erika commented, "Looks like you have the potential to become a level fifty Magus. That's pretty high, almost at the level cap for us Humans."

She acted as though she didn't see the same thing that I did. I moved away from the mirror and let Azraea use it. She moved sheepishly toward it and stood there for a few seconds. She held out one hand, it was shaking the tiniest bit as she debated whether or not to lay her hand on the mirror. I wonder why?