Vermilion
~
Early the next morning, Vermilion and Ivory had gone to the guild. There, they had found Gisela at the reception desk just like the day before, almost like she hadn't moved from that spot at all.
"Good morning," she smiled warmly at them. Her eyes lingered on Vermilion, but the young man didn't seem to notice. "Lady Elaine told me to expect you. We have everything sorted out for you. There's a few documents you have to sign for formalities, but that's pretty much it. Once you're done, just hand them back to me, and you can be on your way." As she explained this, she placed some documents in front of both the brothers and offered them pens to use.
Vermilion read through the paper, and it looked like a guild application to become an adventurer. "Why do we need to be adventurers for this?" He asked.
"Well, you see, we can't really send you off to join a party of adventurers on their mission if you aren't adventurers yourselves. When registering to become an adventurer, people usually sign right here," she pointed to a doted line at the bottom of the page, "this acts as proof that the person knows that being an adventurer is a dangerous job and could even be fatal. So if anything happens, the guild isn't held responsible for sending out inexperienced fighters on dangerous jobs."
"I see, but wait, does that mean the guild chooses the jobs for every adventurer?" Ivory joined the conversation after he had finished filling out the form. Vermilion glared at his brother as if to tell him he was an idiot for signing the papers before he knew absolutely everything there was to know about the job, but of course, Ivory simply grinned at his brother before turning back to look at Gisela.
"Yes and no. All guilds use a ranking system. Everyone starts from the lowest rank, which is G, and they can work their way up to the highest rank, SS. Unless under special circumstances, like now. So the guild decides which jobs can be done by each rank and then we put up posters for these jobs under their respective ranks on the board," she motioned to a board to the left where papers describing available jobs had been put up, "from there an adventurer can choose which jobs they would like to take as long as it's under their own rank or one rank higher."
"I see, so taking jobs that are a rank higher than your own is how people prove they deserve to be promoted in rank," Vermilion observed.
"Yes, that's precisely it, wow, you're very perceptive. You'd have to finish five higher ranked jobs to get your rank raised, though," Gisela confirmed with a smile. Ivory could practically see the hearts in her eyes as she watched his brother. Poor girl didn't know that Vermilion was the furthest anyone could get from social consciousness, he didn't know what all these looks meant, he couldn't even tell the girl was trying to appear cute and flirty before him. Ivory simply smiled and enjoyed watching the girl try to flirt with his brother while the man continued to be indifferent and none-the-wiser about her advances.
When they both had finished filling the forms, they were handed silver colored cards that stated they were B rank adventurers.
"Didn't you say we're supposed to start off at G rank?" Ivory asked, admiring how shiny the card was and how nice it felt in his hands.
"Under normal circumstances you would have, but you two have been recommended by the king himself, and you're both Chosen. To top it all off, you're being sent to join an A rank mission so you see, this is the lowest rank the guild can offer you," Gisela explained with a small smile.
"That makes sense, I guess." Ivory said.
Not long after that, a man wearing what appeared to be this guild's uniform joined them, and Gisela introduced him as Gian, her brother and the man who was to take them to Raven. Ivory exchanged pleasantries with the man while Vermilion remained silent. Not much time was wasted there as the three men took off on their journey to a small village to the east called S'rinyl.
The village wasn't at all far. Riding at full speed on horseback, they arrived in S'rinyl in the late afternoon. It would soon be evening, and the sun would set. Gian proposed they find a place where they could rest for a little while before they headed to the mountains where Raven was supposed to be at this very moment, Ivory agreed and so did Vermilion, though he did so very reluctantly.
They found a tarven and sat down at one of the many tables. A few patrons occupied the room and chatted away as they drank their beers. Gian ordered three beers and some food that Vermilion had never heard of before. They waited only a few minutes before they were served. Vermilion had barely begun to eat when he felt it, a serge of power coursed through him. He looked up at Ivory to make sure he was feeling it as well, and the little gasp that fell from his lips confirmed it to Vermilion.
Raven was close by.
"What is the matter, you two? Is the food not to your liking?" Gian inquired when he noticed that the brothers weren't eating, and they had barely touched their drinks.
"No, it's not that," Ivory answered almost breathlessly, "it must be Raven. I think he's close by. We were told that once we all got in close proximity to each other, there would be a great serge in our power. We're experiencing that right now, and it's an amazing feeling."
Gian watched them both in wonderment, "I have heard stories about the Chosen and how they got powerful from just being near each other. I always thought they were tall tales our elders told to make the heroes sound greater than they really were, but.."
He let his words hang in the air, and Ivory nodded his head in understanding. He, too, didn't expect to feel such immense power course through him. Before going to live in the castle, he too thought this was simply a legend told to make the Chosen want to find each other but the king and his mage had proved to he and his brother that it wasn't that simple. They had done a test, they had told Ivory to go to the end of the capital while Vermilion stayed in the castle, the greater the distance between them, the weaker he had begun to feel. He hadn't noticed it before because he had lived his whole life by his brother's side, but that exercise taught him that the Chosen really did feed off of each other. Now, as the feeling of power and rejuvenation run through every corner of his being, stronger than how it felt with only his brother around, his belief in the legends was reinforced.
Then the feeling started to fade, as if it's source was moving further away from them by the minute, the same feeling he got the further he got away from Vermilion but ten times more.
"Brother, we need to follow him," Ivory told Vermilion, but the latter had already risen to his feet as if to run after the source.
"Well then? No time to waste, let's go," Vermilion told his brother and ran right out of the tarven. Ivory was hot on his tail, but Gian had to remain behind and pay their bill before he followed the two brothers.
Gian had a bad feeling about this, but he was in the presence of The Chosen, all three of them. There's no way things would go too badly, right?