It’s a wonder we kept ourselves from doing some seriously silly giddiness like skipping or maybe sprinting there and having to catch our breaths on the steps. Going up to the sober atmosphere of a mages guild like that? That would be so embarrassing. I wonder if newbie mages who grow up in a world with magic ever get tempted to do that when they’re first visiting their mages guilds. Or is it just us people from worlds that don’t have them? Somehow we managed to just walk eagerly. A not completely botched imitation of chill. Not sure how.

Then the mages guild hall itself stood before us, every bit the imposing edifice we knew and loved from the game. In width, the front wall of the guild stretched only about half again wider than the inn we’d just stayed at. But that height. Only the royal castle stood obviously taller. The number of floors couldn’t readily be counted, especially since it held few windows and almost none that were in a row such that they’d obviously match a particular floor. If I had to guess, its rectangular base might be a similar height to a 5 story building. And then a central circular tower itself rose probably at least another 5 stories further beyond the base. Meanwhile the central tower was flanked by four shorter spires, one at each corner of the building. Among buildings erected by magically shaping stone, the mages hall represented the masterpiece of the kingdom’s spell-worked stonecraft with seamless construction that would have been impossible by mundane means, etched patterns decorating the surfaces, and rain spouts and inset statues intricately shaped into gargoyles and various mystical creatures. On either side of the large front doors carved from dark wood with bronze handles, bronze statues of robed mages held up fist-sized gems that glowed purple. And several of the etched patterns in the walls emitted a faint glow in blue, red, or orange.

Maeve: “In hindsight, we should have come last night just to see it at night.”

Simon: “We can always come again tonight.”

Maeve: “Ooh! Good point.”

Entering in through the doors, we savored the sights of the lobby with great display cases showing arcane devices, rare materials, and stuffed creatures including a manticore and a …

Simon: “Wait, is that an opposum?”

Maeve: “Huh. Yeah, I think it is.”

Simon: “Well, I guess this is the only place I’ve seen one on this world, so …”

I shrugged and we strolled on up to the reception desk while taking in the rest of the displays. The reception desk was flanked by wide staircases on either side. The receptionist on duty wore an elegantly embroidered blue tunic. He looked up from reading his tome a few seconds after we reached his desk.

Maeve: “Uh. Hi. We’d like to learn some spells and sell some materials.”

Receptionist: “Registration tokens please.”

Maeve: “Oh. How do we go about getting registration tokens?”

I got the distinct impression from the receptionist’s brief expression that he was annoyed with the apparent bumpkins coming into the guild. But then he went back to customer service voice and the corresponding smile to walk us through the guild policies, procedures, and so, so much paperwork. Paying the registration fee then filling out names, towns of origin, mentors, and magical skill backgrounds was pretty quick and easy aside from what to put for mentor. We both went with “self-taught”. And demonstrating capacity with each of our most complex spells was simple enough. But then there was testing, with hours of written testing to gauge our proficiency with spoken and written runes as well as magical theory.

Why? According to the receptionist, the hourly or daily fees charged for instruction not only vary with the particular spells to be taught but also factor in an adjustment for the prior skills of the student. The less a student already knows, the more fundamentals may need to be taught before the teaching of the spell itself. And in the case of some rare or complicated spells, the only available teachers may be unwilling to take on less experienced students who couldn’t be expected to proceed straight to learning the spell itself.

After the written testing was checked and our results were tallied up, we were directed to a side room on the first floor that turned out to be a shrine to Hecate staffed by two priests. One of them, an immaculately groomed, thirty-something priest with a well-fitted robe looked deeply focused on some sort of ritual involving an incense brazier, various components in bowls, and reading from a book in some different language. The other, a plump priestess who looked roughly the age of a young grandmother and wore an ill-fitting robe – really ill-fitting, to the point it looked frumpy on her – trundled over to us as we came in and introduced herself.

Shona: “Hello. I’m Shona. Welcome to the shrine.”

Maeve: “Hi. I’m Maeve. This is Simon.”

Receptionist: “Honored Shona, they’re registering. We need the current levels.”

Shona: “Ah, fabulous. Always good to see more folks joining in the formal study of Hecate’s gifts. Right over here.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I think I saw the receptionist roll his eyes. But whatever.

Shona led us over to an altar in the shrine. The altar held a sculpture that was sort of a polyhedron except the sides were not exactly at regular angles but might be skewed one way or another versus each other. Each surface of the sculpture depicted a different one among the written runes. While I couldn’t see all of it from my angle and didn’t try to count, I could imagine that it might have had one for each of the known runes of magic in this world. She proceeded to light two sticks of incense, one on each side of the sculpture, with what I presume was a magical lighter. Then she pulled a scroll out from behind the sculpture and cast a fairly intricate spell while looking at the scroll. Although judging from her smooth casting, I’m not sure she needed the scroll to remember it.

Shona: “Simon Drac. Level 4.”

Then she cast it again.

Shona: “Maeve r’Enatus. Level 4. Blessed by Hecate.”

Shona proceeded to tuck the scroll away and then immediately looked giddy and hugged me. Did not see that coming. Neither did the receptionist, who looked ready to catch flies with his dropped open mouth. Hard to say whether that was more from the “blessed” thing or from the priestess’s sudden hug. Meanwhile, the other priest continued with his ritual, apparently maintaining full obliviousness to anything else despite Shona briefly breaking into a giggle and outright bouncing around hugging me. Impressive focus on that ritual.

Shona: “Oh, that’s fabulous. So, dear, are we the first to recognize you with a diagnostic ritual?”

Maeve: “Yes, although a priestess of Tornung told me of it from an oracle she’d received.”

Shona:” Oh, even better. Angus, note that in the registration too.”

Receptionist: “Yes, arch priestess.”

The receptionist, apparently named Angus, tucked his quill and writing surface to his side, turned, and scuttled out from the shrine.

Shona walked us outside the shrine and then asked us where we were from, what brought us here, whether we were a couple …

Maeve: “Uh. T-traveling together.”

Simon: “Y … er … right. Teamwork for taking down monsters.”

Shona: “Hee. Ah, young people.”

… how long we’d been traveling together, what we’d seen on the way, and what we planned to do next, all before we found ourselves back at the reception desk.

As to what we planned to do next, we’re not entirely sure on what exactly is next aside from meeting up with old friends, learning more spells, and battling monsters. I mean, eventually we have to figure out something about Bradov and all that. But that’s not exactly suited to smalltalk with a new acquaintance.

At the desk, the receptionist handed us registration tokens in the form of rune- inscribed quartz crystals and showed us how to hold it to the light to see a set of numbers etched inside each crystal. He said the numbers encoded our tested results and the date of testing. And with the tested results came qualifications for titles in formal address: “Learner” for Simon and “Adept” for me. Shona said the titles are rarely used within the guild except in ceremonious proceedings such as symposiums. Then the receptionist instructed us to focus a tiny bit of mana in our tokens. We did, and each of ours glowed. Simon took a little longer to get his to glow; and the process seemed to frustrate him a little. According to the receptionist, the runes inscribed on the surface of the crystals were tuned to each of us by our initial infusion of mana and so each would only glow for the issued registrant thereafter. Thus how the guild uses them as identification.

With that done, Shona recommended a broker for the remaining Black Wolves. Then the receptionist took our spell learning requests and set up a time for us to talk with potential mentors and the broker the next day. Because by that point, it was dinner time. And Shona invited us for dinner.

Shona’s house sat deep in the Fifth Ring, which was fine with me as that gave us a good excuse to see a bit more of the city. In particular, in a section to which an out-of-towner otherwise wouldn’t have an excuse to go see. Her husband, Conor, somehow had dinner for four already ready when we arrived. I’m not at all sure how that worked out without a text or a phone call, but maybe there’s some sort of equivalent spell Shona might have cast while I wasn’t paying attention. There were beef-ish cutlets, a fresh brown bread, and several vegetables with no precise Earth equivalent, served with red wine.

They told us about their daughter, Samtha, a healer married to an alchemist. And their two young grandchildren, one of whom recently got to three word sentences and the other was just learning to walk. And we recounted the story of our travels for Conor.

After talking for a while after and thanking our hosts for dinner, we walked back to the Sixth Ring to see the mages guild at night. It’s luminous patterns and many-shadowed statuary with magic lights below and moonlight from above were even more gorgeous in person than depicted in the game, which is saying something because they were frankly awesome as graphics.