by Kaden Reed
My lifelong small gnome friend was laying on a cushion next to me as I idly flipped through the content that was on the Magical Entertainment Network. The picture from the caster was setup to project from a runestone, sitting in between us, on to the opposite wall in the room. We couldn’t afford a screen to hang on the wall, so we had to make do with the picture being warped and the color being off in places were the wall was damaged and stained. After a year of living here, we barely even noticed the defects anymore. So much so that it was a shock to see a perfectly projected picture on displays at the store.
Marty and I had spent almost the entire day in front of the caster, anxiously waiting for the mail to arrive. Since today was the day that the mythical acceptance letters sparsely interspersed among the thousands of refusal letters would be distributed, the mail service tended to take an abnormally long time to get to everyone due to the sheer volume that needed to be processed. Now that this was nearing our twentieth application period that we had applied for since we moved to Glasden City, we tried to play it off like we were old hands at the waiting game. Desperately clutching onto anything we could in an attempt to fend off the encroaching fear, even for only a few minutes, that we were going to be rejected again. However, there are only so many times that we can watch the same reruns of old scripted shows before the monotony being projected onto our wall began to have the adverse effect and make us feel even more restless.
Without the desired temporary distraction of escapism, I felt as if I could count each grain of sand that passed through the hourglass. My back straining under the weight of the slow passage of time. Now having to combat boredom and crippling anxiety, we were both fraying at the seams and will likely resort to running through the streets and howling at the twin moons soon. Just to have something to do.
The caster landed on Life on the Frontier, a reality broadcast about several families that lived in a village close to the boundary that marked the edge of the frontier. The trailers always showed snippets of monster sightings or tales of the border patrols responding to incursions, but the show itself was mostly the typical boring drama. However, it was undoubtedly the only thing even mildly interesting being casted this late in the evening.
“Come on, it needs to just get here already. Ugh, I hate this Afton,” Marty impatiently fiddled with a loose thread on his cushion, “it has to be our turn, right? This is the nineteenth time we have applied since we moved here four years ago.”
“Some people have applied every time enrollment was open,” I muttered in a tone that I hoped wasn’t obvious that I was just as nervous as Marty was, “and they were never selected until they eventually gave up. We are only twenty-two though. If we aren’t selected this year, we will just apply again as soon as enrollment opens the next time.”
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” Marty squealed in frustration at the thought, “I can’t go back to working that crappy night shift janitor job. If I have to scrub one more coffee stain out of the carpet of a clumsy desk jockey that got a little excited when the only hot woman in the building said hi, I think I might just jump off the roof of the building.”
Smiling inwardly at the sound of frustration in my friend’s voice, “yeah I understand that one. Trying to get any random laborer job in the market isn’t any fun. The best I have gotten lately is a couple of silvers a day. At least you get five and its steady work.”
“I don’t care,” Marty said, “I’m not going back there tomorrow.”
I glanced at my best friend next to me and couldn’t hold back a sigh of resignation at the determined look on his boyish face, “you say that every time we submit our applications.”
“Yeah, well, this time I mean it,” Marty started kicking his small legs up in the air and letting them bounce off of the cushion he was laying on.
We sat in silence as the image being projected onto the wall cycled through the opening sequence to the ‘Life on the Frontier’ show. A deep bass dirge accompanied the snippets of patrols chasing a monster through a forest, panoramic shots of the open frontier’s scenery of almost untouched forests, rivers and lakes, and stylized images of some of the border patrol soldiers and families that the show selected to follow during this season of episodes.
“I still think-,” my thought was interrupted by the sound of mail hitting the floor in our small hallway. Before I could utter another word, Marty launched himself off of his cushion and scampered to the small pile of letters.
Marty was back in the room in short order, clutching a couple of letters in his small hands. Sorting through them quickly, he found the letter from the Akashi Dungeon Administration. His hands shaking, he dropped the remaining letters on the floor and began tearing into the eagerly anticipated envelope.
The thick parchment inside of the envelope tore slightly as he pulled it roughly into his hands. Eyes scanning the page, he started mumbling to himself, “Greetings from the Akashi Dungeon Administration. We have reviewed all the applicants thoroughly...,” skipping down the page, “we are pleased to inform you that your group application to take the Khanri Trials has been approved…,” Marty’s voice trailed off in a stunned silence.
“You aren’t screwing with me? Did we actually get in?” I stared at my friend as he stood holding the letter in mute shock.
“I am not screwing with you Afton,” his voice was soft as he reread the letter over and over again. Finally looking up from the letter he met my eyes and a huge grin split his face under a mop of brown curls.
“We did it!” both of us yelled in unison and started jumping up and down.
Exclamations of, “about freaking time!”, “took them long enough!”, and “by the Dungeons, we are going to be Khanri!” rang out in a cacophony of excited shouts that accompanied the fist pumping and hugs of sheer joy.
Panting slightly, we started to calm down once the initial burst of gaiety passed, “when are we supposed to report for the Trials?”
Smoothing out the letter that was somehow crumpled during our celebration, Marty scanned the page, “Marty Reddell and Afton Price are expected to report to the Akashi Dungeon Compound for processing by ten in the morning on the eleventh of Candor. The Khanri Trials will be conducted later that day…,”
“That’s only two days from now,” I uttered, “just think Marty, in two days we are going to be Khanri!”
“And we have the League of Dungeons Championship tomorrow,” Marty exclaimed, “this weekend is going to be amazing!”
“Khanri are seriously bad-ass and in two days we are going to be one of them,” Marty flopped back down on his cushion, staring up at the ceiling with a blissful look on his face.
Sitting back down on my cushion I ruminated “recruitment has been increasing steadily over the last few years. I can’t remember ever reading about so many new Khanri being inducted in so short of time. Don’t you wonder why?”
“Maybe there are a lot of old Khanri that are retiring and they need new people to fill the vacancies,” Marty put his arm over his eyes and yawned, “it’s not like the Dungeon announces a schedule in advance anytime they are going to accept applications. It just happens when it happens.”
Since we moved to the city to be close to the Dungeon in our pursuit of becoming Khanri, an announcement was delivered over the evening news segment of the Magical Entertainment Network any time recruitment was open for applications. Without any schedule known to the public, it usually meant that the evening news was the most watched program on the network for exactly that reason.
“It is just odd,” I muttered, “something must be going on that we aren’t being told about.”
In an obvious bid to change the subject, Marty declared, “the Trinity will bring home the win for Akashi this year,” he reached out and punched my arm, “just wait Afton. Glasden will finally be recognized as a power by the other two nations.”
“I hope so Marty,” I sighed, “Glasden is basically a city-state. The other two nations have two or four Dungeons apiece. S
tatistically, they have far better odds at winning than we do.” My mind drifted while remembering the lessons that our teacher tried to ingrain in us while we were at school.
The world of Ignotia beyond the immediate proximity of the borders of our three nations was largely a mystery. The Frontier as it is referred to on our maps and history books has been explored to some degree but finding nothing but ever-increasing numbers of dangerous monsters, few exhibitions go beyond our fortified borders anymore. The cost in manpower and gold is too prohibitive to be considered worthwhile.
Of the three nations, our home country of Glasden had the infinite misfortune of being placed in close proximity to the two much larger nations of Ashon, to the southeast, and Thieria, to the northeast. Glasden has a small city of barely a hundred thousand souls that live in close proximity to the Dungeon Akashi, with several dozen small rural villages in the vicinity of the city. The trip would only take someone about six days to walk from our northern to southern borders, and only slightly longer from the western to eastern borders. Although the city of Glasden is officially named Glasden City on all the maps, due to the small size of the area, almost everyone simply refers to the city and the surrounding countryside as Glasden. The villages in the country mainly support the farmsteads and serve as distribution hubs to funnel goods to the city. Glasden has no resources that are particularly valuable, and our military is not much better than a militia. If it wasn’t for the Dungeon’s Compact almost two-hundred years ago that forced Thieria and Ashon to recognize Glasden’s sovereignty, our larger neighbors would have already carved Glasden up and added it to their own assets.
Our neighbor Thieria to the northeast, is heavily forested along Glasden’s northern border but the forests eventually gave way to a large mountain range that spans for hundreds of miles to the north. Since Thieria is called home by two major races, it is ruled by a council that convenes several times a year to handle affairs of state and to vote on united goals. Despite the council, the two races have reputations of acting independently, following their own desires, regardless of the council’s rulings.
The thick old-growth forests that stretch for leagues within the borders of Thieria are the racial home of the Lunasti elves. An aloof race of long-lived elves that prefer the company of nature and other elves. The Lunasti consider most other races to be children that must be guided. However, the history books caveat that their guidance sometimes consisted of their armies striking across the border and seizing territory from the misguided children that were their neighbors.
The elven homes within the forests are considered to be among the most beautiful architecture in the land. A mix of sprawling treehouses and burrows that extend underground among the roots of their fabled trees. Their cities appear to be more grown than made. Only Lunasti are allowed to live within their natural homes. The other races that chose to live with the Lunasti are only allowed to erect their buildings in zones set aside for their use. Unfortunately, the reputation of these zones being slums have spread far enough that I have heard of their terrible living conditions while growing up in my home village of Dor’s Crossing.
The eternal halls and strongholds of the Laidir dwarfs dwell within the mountain ranges that inhabit the northern portion of the nation of Thieria. As a secretive race, the Laidir only allow outsiders to visit their trading outposts on the surface. A handful of tales of the cities under the mountains persist in the world. Despite their reclusive nature, the stories of the majestic arms and armor that the Laidir create are famed throughout the nations and many sell for small fortunes. Due to the Laidir rarely allowing outsiders to visit their halls, it is considered a great honor to be granted access to their deep cities where the mythical great forges are said to be operated day and night.
The Laidir dwarfs and the Lunasti elves each have a Dungeon that they have erected their racial capitals around. Although the races independently operate their own Dungeons, it is a requirement from the Dungeon Administration that anyone that would like to apply to be a Khanri, must be allowed to submit an application, regardless of race or nationality. Even with this rule though, it is still uncommon to find any Khanri other than the Lunasti or Laidir within their respective Dungeons.
Although Thieria is several times larger than Glasden, Ashon is an order of magnitude larger than them both combined. Ruled by an emperor, whose royal line reaches back into the Age of Monsters, a divergent melting-pot of all the races call Ashon home. Several large trading hubs have been erected along their shared border with Glasden and Thieria. Although the smallest trading hub is larger than the entire city of Glasden, the Ashonians deride us country-bumpkins for never seeing a proper megalopolis like they have surrounding the four Dungeons that they have claimed.
The legends of those four cities assert that they have such an abundance of energy that people have to walk around with shades on at night because the lights are so bright. Master craftsman from all fields of study travel to Ashon to setup their shop so they can serve the citizens and grow wealthy as a reward. While growing up, I often heard that work is easy to come by in Ashon and no one ever goes hungry. The coffers of the Emperor are said to flow to all citizens in Ashon and even the poorest laborer has a nice house with all the amenities to go home to at the end of the day.
Looking around our dingy apartment, I was starting to think that a free house wouldn’t sound so bad when Marty interrupted my musings.
“Hey Afton,” Marty sounded annoyed, “you there? Have you heard a single thing I have been saying? You have that thousand-yard stare again.”
Sounding a little sheepish, “sorry, I just got distracted. What was it you were saying?”
“While you were daydreaming, I was saying that it didn’t matter that it was statistically improbable because they don’t have the Trinity,” Marty retorted while squinting his eyes and shaking his head at me, “they are the best team to ever have entered the competition. There is no way they are going to fail. You saw them in the quarterfinals.”
“They won their match but lost a member in doing it,” even though it hurt me to admit it I continued, “it wasn’t a stellar performance.”
“Key word there – won!” Marty cheered, completely disregarding my other point.
“Against the lowest ranking team,” I interjected some realism before Marty got carried away, “all of the upcoming matches are going to be progressively tougher.”
“And that is why it is called a competition my friend,” Marty cheerily retorted, “stop being so glum, the Trinity has got this! Then we are going to join Akashi as Khanri and be unstoppable! Mark my words, by this time next year our names will be celebrated, and posters will be printed for kids to put up on their walls!”
I smiled at the thought, “fair enough. Afton the Guardian and Marty the Mesmer!”
“Bah!” Marty waved his hands in rejection, “anything but a Mesmer! I don’t even see why they are a class. I’ve never even seen one in competition because they are so weak.”
“If the Dungeons created the class, I would hardly consider them weak,” I responded, “from what I heard from old man Brig, Mesmers are almost entirely support. They probably wouldn’t be a good choice for a three-person team in the competitions but likely rock when it comes to fights in the Dungeons.”
“Meh, I don’t doubt that retired Khanri” Marty screwed up his face, “but I want to be powerful. A Magus would be my first choice, but I suppose a Mender wouldn’t be too bad. Healing and cursing monsters isn’t as cool as dropping a fireball on some fools, but I’ll settle for it if I have too. As long as get to play with magic, then I will be happy.”
“I just want to point out that if all you care about is playing with magic, then being a Mesmer should qualify then,” I chuckled as Marty rolled his eyes at me.
“I don’t care if they play with magic,” Marty threw up his hands in protest, “not being able to do direct damage or even heal a teammate, how good can they actually be? Seriously now, I would feel com
pletely worthless if all I could do was cast support magic, then have to get out of the way while the real classes did the fighting.”
I shook my head at the often repeated argument, “I still think that if the Dungeons created the class, then it can’t be nearly as bad as you are thinking,” not wanting to rehash everything for the thousandth time, I changed the subject, “I like the versatility of the runes for Guardians,” my mind wandered as I recalled the little I was able to find out about the Guardian class, “having dozens of runes and picking which ones to equip before going into a fight. It would require a lot of strategy-”
“Which you will definitely struggle with,” Marty interrupted as a nut he must have found on the floor bounced off my head, “I can’t see you being a Guardian.”
“Thanks for that,” I said while running my hands through my hair to ensure that I won’t find a nut in there a week from now, “despite what you say, I think the Guardian class would be perfect. Having the ability to be able to be equipped for a wide range of situations just sounds really awesome. I heard some of the most powerful Guardians have over a hundred runes.”
“Guardians are a jack-of-all trades, but a master of none,” Marty responded, “don’t you want to be the best at something rather than average at everything Afton?”
I paused at his words, even though we have had this same discussion multiple times since we were kids, with the Trials looming over me two days from now, it transformed this from an academic debate to an all too real possibility. The thought of being stuck with a class that neither of us desired, for the rest of our careers as Khanri, filled us both with trepidation.