The Outlands

Tess waited in line, occasionally looking around her nervously. Fortunately, it seemed that no one had realized she was the Guildmaster’s granddaughter, since no one was giving her a second glance. Or, rather, there were second glances, but they were mainly from young men who were not-so-subtly checking her out, but she had gotten used to those.

It was finally the day for testing ranks, and Tess was currently waiting for her written test, held inside the City’s university. She and her girlfriends had come in together, but they had been put into separate divisions for the written test, likely to avoid cheating. After the written test she would apparently be reunited with her party for a practical exam, but until then she was on her own.

It was funny, in a way; the guild had all sorts of detection systems that would prevent cheating using magic or Skills, but those didn’t really have an impact on Tess. The main ways she would cheat if she was interested in cheating were undetectable by those wards; either she would get help from the gods, which the wards obviously couldn’t detect, or she would use Attributes.

Attributes were considered parts of Tess’s body for this purpose, just like her eyes or ears or any other mundane part of herself, so they wouldn’t trip magical sensors that weren’t specifically tailored to find them. All of this was purely theoretical, as she wasn’t planning on cheating, of course, she was just amused by the thought that she had multiple ways of cheating when the test was usually completely cheat-proof.

The test’s proctor froze as Tess reached the front of the line, surprise crossing his face for a moment before he returned it to professional neutrality. “Ms. Los, correct?” He asked, handing her a sheet of papers and a pen. “You’ll be in seat thirty-two, here is your test and your pen, you will have a time limit of two hours, after which you will need to return your supplies to me. The testing packet will remain locked until I send the signal to unseal it after everyone is seated, so don’t be alarmed when you can’t open it immediately.

“You will be monitored for any sign of magical cheating, and I will be using scrying magic to make sure no one is cheating mundanely. If you need to use the restroom, simply raise your hand. I will give an affirmative or denial, and in the case of an affirmative you may proceed to the back of the room, where we have a restroom.

“Do note that we can check if magic bags are used, and our wards are particularly strong in the bathroom area, to make up for the lack of scrying. Should you be found to be in violation of any of these rules, you will be immediately disqualified and your rank reduced by one. Now, if you would stay still a moment, I am going to inspect you for electronic and magical devices. If any are outside of a magic bag, I would suggest putting them in now.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “Do you have any questions while I perform the search?”

He pulled out some sort of device, and Tess obediently let him scan her. “Do you give this speech to everyone who goes through? Surely it’d be more efficient to give it all at once.”

“Perhaps so, but I like to make sure people are listening.” The proctor chuckled. “You’d be shocked how many people accidentally violate the rules because they weren’t paying enough attention.” He finished the scan, then nodded. “If I may ask, you seem to have a rather large number of bags on your person, as well as highly-enchanted clothing.” He said. “Is there a reason for that?”

Tess scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment. “They’re all one bag, actually.” She said, putting her hand into the pocket of her pants before pulling out her phone. She put it back in the pocket, then withdrew it from another and put it back in. “These clothes double as my armor, and I didn’t even think about it. I, uh, have a change of clothes in here somewhere I’m pretty sure, I’d be happy to change if you would prefer.”

The proctor thought on that, but was interrupted by Graham jogging over. “Glad I caught you, Wilson.” He said. “Have you scanned her yet?”

Wilson nodded. “I just finished. What are you doing here, Graham?”

“The guildmaster assigned me as her personal receptionist for her party.” Graham explained. “She has some extenuating circumstances about her, I just wanted to let you know that I have the full specs for her clothes and know that they can’t be used to cheat. Believe me, no more enchantments could be snuck upon those things, no matter who tried.”

Wilson raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“They were a present from Gramps.” Tess said. “Something to accommodate those extenuating circumstances.”

Understanding dawned on Wilson’s face. “That makes significantly more sense. Though I must ask…why are they casual clothes and not proper armor?”

“Extenuating circumstances.” Graham said. “Sorry, but we’re really not at liberty to say much more, Guildmaster’s orders. Now, I’ve held up the line for long enough, so I’m going to get going, best of luck, Tess!”

He jogged back off, and Wilson gave Tess a nod. “I think I understand. If you have any further questions whilst taking the test, raise a closed fist and I will call you over. Best of luck, Ms. Los.”

As Tess walked to her seat, she couldn’t help but ask her mother a question.

Tess took her seat and waited a few minutes more for the rest of the line to clear, and soon she was sitting in a fully-packed classroom, though “classroom” was probably selling the room short. It was more akin to a lecture hall, with what must have been around one hundred seats as well as an area to the side with desks for non-humanoid people like centaurs or arachne.

“Alright everyone, silence please!” Wilson called out. “The test will begin now, and talking is strictly prohibited! Your packets are now unlocked, when you finish, please bring them to me and you will be free to leave.”

Tess opened her packet and began to skim through the test. On the advice of The Rumors, she was going through and answering all the easy, quick questions first. According to them, it was better to make sure she got all the easy points she could in case she potentially got stuck on a problem. It was apparently quite common for people to not finish the test, and to an extent it was even expected, so showing the foresight to do what you can before moving on to stuff you were unsure of reflected well on you.

Likewise, they had advised her to simply put “I don’t know” if she didn’t know the answer to a question. The test was not scored strictly like the ones Tess was used to from her time in school; instead, it was a tool used to get a grip on a freelancer’s mindset in addition to their knowledge. In the field, simply guessing how something worked was often quite risky, and obvious guesses on the test were similarly risky.

To Tess’s surprise, however, most questions on the test fell under the “quick and easy” category for her. It wasn’t that the questions were all about one topic, the test covered everything from relatively simple math to tactics to identifying monsters, nor was it that the questions were obvious things that everyone would know, but it seemed that Ava’s education in particular had been far more comprehensive than Tess had expected.

That wasn’t to downplay the contributions that The Rumors had to her teaching, but it seemed that almost every place where The Rumors’ teaching didn’t cover something, Ava’s did. Most of the time, that was stuff that would usually be outside the wheelhouse of Tess’s role; stuff that people like tanks or healers would be expected to know, not a scout.

That was the thing, Tess supposed; Ava’s training hadn’t been just about scouting, though that was where the bulk of it had been. Ava had been grooming Tess to fill a generalist role with a focus on scouting, and apparently Tess had absorbed more of that knowledge than she had thought.

In fact, the questions that gave her the most trouble weren’t the short answer questions, which had given her problems in school, but were the multiple-choice questions. Most of the short answer questions asked things like how she would approach a specific group of monsters or what she would do if her party was lost in the wilderness, and those were things that Tess’s training had covered extensively.

On the other hand, multiple-choice questions dealt with more specific information, like what the name of a species of monster was. That hadn’t been covered nearly as much in her training; it had been focused more in the generals than the specifics. Still, most of those questions had to do with things Tess had dealt with in the past, so there only ended up being a couple of questions that she truly didn’t know the answers to.

When she stood up to turn in the sheet, it seemed that only a couple others had already finished, and Wilson gave her a smile as he took her packet. “Very good, Ms. Los. Best of luck in your practical.”

Tess left the room, and began the walk back to the lobby. Yet, before she could actually reach the lobby, she was interrupted by a hand on her shoulder. “Ah, Tess, good to see you!” Alberich, Magic’s Appointed said. “Here to take your exam?”

Tess turned and gave him a smile. “Just finished, actually. Or, the written portion, anyway, I’m waiting for the others to finish so we can do our practical.”

Alberich gave her a smile in return. “Good, how are you feeling about it? You seem to have finished rather fast.”

“I’m feeling pretty good.” Tess replied. “The Rumors, Ava, and Eyfura taught me a lot more than I had realized.”

“Well, they were picked to be your tutors for a reason.” Alberich chuckled. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t chat for too long, I was on my way to my next class and just wanted to say hi, best of luck on your practical!”

“Thanks, Alberich!” Tess replied.

“Oh, before I go, do take this, though.” Alberich said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out three sheets of paper. “This is all the classes and times I’m teaching, as well as an endorsement from myself.” He said, handing the paper to Tess. “If any of these classes interest you, I’d love to have you sit in on one. And, though it’s not a common thing by any means, if anyone asks you about your enrollment or tries to bar you from entering the university, show them this and it should all clear up. There are copies Ellie and Maven too, so please pass the message along for me.”

Tess took the papers, giving Alberich a grateful smile. “I appreciate it.” She said. “I’ll look it over and see what interests me.”

Alberich gave her a smile and clapped her shoulder. “No pressure to come by any means, just wanted you to have the option. I’ll see you around!” With that the dwarf left, and Tess finished her journey back to the lobby.

After about half an hour, Maven entered the lobby and walked over to Tess. “Ah, finished already?” She asked. “How did it go?”

“Easy.” Tess replied. “Suspiciously easy.”

Maven raised an eyebrow. “I would not go that far.” She replied. “But I feel I performed adequately.”

Tess shrugged. “Ava taught me a lot more than I had realized. I feel like I had a good answer to most of the questions. Oh, by the way, I ran into Alberich on my way out, he wanted me to give you this.” Tess said, reaching into her pockets and pulling out one of the papers Alberich had given her. “It’s a schedule of his classes and an endorsement from him, so if we’re ever stopped on the way to a class on campus we won’t get in trouble.”

Maven’s eyes widened, and she grabbed the paper. “You do not recognize the worth of this, do you?”

Tess shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I mean, I know he’s kind of a big deal and that he teaches here, but that’s it.”

“He is the head of the university, and his classes are renowned for being the best the university offers, and they have a constant, long waiting list. It is not easy to get into one, and having taken even one of them is considered a large plus on any professional magic user’s resume. This is an open invitation for…any class in the future, it would seem, and that is something that is practically unheard of.”

Tess and Maven chatted for another ten minutes before Ellie joined them. “Shoulda known you two would finish before me.” She said. “How’d you do?”

“I’m pretty confident.” Tess replied. “I felt like I had pretty good answers to everything.”

“I was not quite so confident, but I feel confident that I will not drag us down significantly.” Maven added.

“Yeah, same boat here.” Ellie replied. “As long as I took things slow and thought about it, it wasn’t a problem. So…you two ready for the practical, or do you want a break? Because I’m raring to go, personally.”

“I’ve been done for about forty-five minutes, I’ve had enough of a break, but I wouldn’t say no to lunch if Maven wanted to.”

“I think it would be prudent to go now. The practical fields will get significantly more crowded soon, we were amongst the first to finish. So…let us be on our way, then.”

Fighterman481

Okay, so there is a distinct possibility that I underestimated my tendency to gab during times like these. It just felt like there were a lot of things that had to be addressed when it came to anti-cheating measures, and Tess tripped a lot of those measures.

And then by the time I was done I realized that we had already hit a full chapter's length and didn't have time for the practical. But, for real next time, we're gonna finish the test and look at results, even if I have to go a thousand words longer than usual, so...look forward to it lol.

And, as always, thanks for reading!