After the talk with the captain the man whose job she almost destroyed had no choice but to show her around the building on a tour.

"Hey, it wasn't that bad, was it? He didn't look mad or anything so I'm sure it wasn't a big deal?" She felt the heart-wrenching guilt and it was worse when he refused to look at her or answer. Instead, he walked on and began telling her about the strange embassy.

"Because this is also the embassy it's really important you don't go in any of the doors that aren't painted blue. Blue doors mean that the room is intended for the adventurer program, and in some cases, you'll need to use the key you're provided with. Everything else is off limits, we are using this building for several things until some more buildings are renovated or built. Zett has seen a large spike in the population in the last five years so things are a little cramped. "

"So what's this room?" She looked around the room and felt a little foolish for asking. It had two large shelves of books, one large table and chairs everywhere.

"It's the library, it's not much at all but were lucky to even have one for this program. I have seen fauna outskirt settlements with more books than this, but like I said."

"The adventurer program is poor?" She piped in.

"I didn't say that but you catch on quickly. While the other countries do support Zett's idea of an international monster killing group, they are taking their time to offer up support from their coffers because it will benefit the Uscea economy the most. " He rolled his eyes and then realizing he was talking to a new recruit he had quickly followed it with ." Don't let anyone know I said that ." His skin had a strange flush of blue across his cheekbones.

He showed her a couple of the other rooms in the building, all of them scattered with blue doors and many of them on different floors entirely. There was a large map room with bestiaries scattered everywhere, and men and woman copying down information on various wanted signs in journals.

"Whats this room?" She asked Zac curious as a couple of men looked in their direction and then went back to their task ignoring them too busy copying down information.

"This right here is the Monster Room. Wanted posters and documents come from across the world here and are given ranks. If you look over to your left, do you see those boards right there?"

She looked and sure enough, there were three boards. Although the board didn't exactly seem to fit. It was actually the entire left wall that had been divided into three with two dark lines of paints. Filling each part of that wooden wall were posters pinned with tacks and even knives, in one case a shuriken. Where there weren't papers there was just an assortment of holes were some had once hung.

"This is full of requests for the termination of monsters throughout serv. It's categorized into ranks, Onion, Blade, and Crown ."

"Those are ranks?" She looked at him blankly. Was he testing a joke on her? It was almost funny. It just wasn't. Maybe he was a new recruit in the world of humor.

"No, it's not a joke. When you and your party are ready to fulfill some bounty on your own you will start out fulfilling onion quests. When you're more experienced and powerful you will be part of the blade group and if you ever become a superior fighter you will be taking down creatures of the Crown group. For now, you better work hard to even be in the onion rank."

"Which group are you in?" She looked up at him hopeful for some more information. He didn't answer just walked away. She followed almost skipping and stopped herself calming her pace back into a less embarrassing walk.

After showing her around the blue domed building they began descending the narrow hallway stairs again and passing the familiar wall tapestries she realized they were almost where they had started.

"Is the tour over?" She was perplexed. There wasn't that much here where were the baths or the living quarters. Then to her horror, she thought of something.

What if there aren't living courtiers? Then what do I do? I don't have any gold! I'll have to camp out and I don't even have the equipment for that.

What was she going to do for money? She didn't think she had many skills other than hunting. And she hunted in a jungle, not a desert she didn't know the first thing about game or wildlife here.

"The living quarters and the guild hall and shop are not attached to the embassy. It was agreed'ed that adventurers are a bit loud for that."

Oh thank the gods, I don't think I'm cut out to be a tavern wench.

"If the guild hall and living quarters are somewhere else, then why have any of it at the embassy?"

"For the monster room, it's really convenient since the embassy gets the most information on these things. The news is easily able to be brought to the room and the print room for the wanted posters is on another floor of this building so it's efficient for a multiple amount of reasons. Before this program had expanded there was no reason for a guild hall or living quarters because the monster killers were all locals." He brushed his hair out of his face and tucked some of the silky strands behind his ear. Sirina blinked at the normally feminine gesture and smiled finding that it made him seem less like a block of ice and more like a person.

"You know you might not want to give me this tour Zac but you really do answer all my questions." Sirina smiled softly.

He looked down at her his dark eyes seeming to have a spark of light in them for just a moment like they were a night sky rather than a dark pool from the underworld.

He cleared his throat a hint of blue on his cheeks again and Sirina realized now there was no mistaken that it was a blush and her grin widened.

"There's no need to thank me I'm an instructor here when I'm forced into it, its part of the job. I can't have you running around looking like a chicken that had its head recently chopped off, it would look bad for the program.

Ah, the ice man is not an easy one to melt. I wonder what his story is?

When they made themselves back at the entrance to the building and the door was opened Sirina blinked at the bright light and now a bit of wind had actually picked up so the banners now waved its hopeful array of colors.

"Follow me and pay attention, its a bit of a walk and I'm not going to find you if you get lost again."

She followed squinting happily that there was now a little bit of the wind in the furnace of the town and stopped herself from skipping for the second time. Sirina was feeling giddy with excitement like she had when she had first stepped on Captain Julius's boat. Yes, there was a little bit of fear, but her optimism had shoved that aside and there was just an overwhelming amount of excitement. The horror of the spectacle an hour ago was already fading.

She was' once again surrounded by the strange array of constructions. Buildings made of wood, adobe, terra cotta and limestone were everywhere but shared the same faint layer of sand. The streets were well paved of course and walking in them wasn't anything like walking on the beach.

In this particular part of Zett people were paying her almost no attention, there was a lot more variety of people from all over including a couple of other fauna.

This city must be huge if one end has never seen and fauna, and the other end could care less. I really hope I don't get lost here.

Almost completely distracted by a flirting wolf fauna man with an Elldeon woman Sirina almost lost sight of Zac and in a panic ran after him to catch up. He stopped finally.

"This building is the guild hall and the one next to it is the adventurer apartments. " He pointed at the two buildings and looked back at her probably to make sure she was still there.

The guild hall was a very impressive Adobe building with a terracotta roof and a very bold sign with "Zett Guild Hall" written on it that hung from the building sticking out so the whole street could see it.

The other building, on the other hand, was behind it and seemed if anything to be in the shadows of the very large and grand guild hall. Its walls were made of several different types of wood as if the builders had to add on the last minute and had no more of what they had begun with. Its windows were small and dark compared to the grand wide windows of the guild hall and very much mismatched. There was no sign of a way to identify it other than perhaps the adventurers that sat on its shadowy porch.

"Welcome to our home away from home." He gestured at the shadowy four-story apartment building with almost no enthusiasm.

"It looks really nice!" She said eagerly and meant it. It may have been shabby to a lot of the buildings that she had seen around Zett, but fauna happened to be a mostly a nomadic people and villages like the one she was raised in were rare. Fancy housing details didn't matter to her. What mattered was it was comfy though she had to admit to herself she was expecting something a little more grand.

He did look surprised about her reaction though but his raised eyebrow was brushed off by a shrug and he motioned her to follow him.

"So were going to be living together then? You don't have a home here?"

"We are not living together, were living in the same apartment building. There's a difference. You'll be on the rookie floor at the top sharing a room with other adventurers your age. "

"Do all the adventurer's live here?"

"No."

"Where are the others?"

He let out a sigh and shoved his hand through his hair.

"You ask a lot of unnecessary questions." He glared.

"There is no such thing as an unnecessary question." She argued grinning as she distributed her weight on the balls of her feet and then heels.

"If the question doesn't have an answer that relates to saving your life it's not an important question."

She frowned positive that was probably a horrible thing to tell a future pupil.

They got close the porch and one of the men rocking himself on a wooden chair and carving a block of wood into a reptilian looking monster waved his hand at them. He was an older man with chiseled chest and an impressive bushy brown beard with short brown hair. The man was probably no more then fourty and no less than thirty and he had an easy going expression on his face. The other person just sat on the far end of some steps smoking out of a pipe and ignoring them completely. He was a young man and the way he coughed up the pipe he wasn't experienced with smoking either.

"Well hello, there Eldent who's the lovely lady you brought home?" He said cheerfully smiling at her but without any perverted or teasing manner behind it which she had encountered a bit too much that day. She decided she liked him because he wasn't a creep and he had kind crinkly gray eyes.

"This is Sirina Minux, she's going to be a recruit for the adventurer program he said walking up the steps and closer to the man.

"Well hello there then Miss. Minux welcome to your new home away from home I was expecting you. My name is Henry Tyler, I really hope you enjoy Zett, it's a bit gritty at first but it's a good city." He held out his hand and Sirina shook it cautiously. She wasn't sure about it being a good city but it was gritty alright.

"Sirina I'm leaving you here you're in good hands with henry he can show you around more." And then he started walking away. Feeling worried and a bit abandoned she looked at Henry with wide eyes. He laughed.

"Don't worry it's not all men here or anything like that, our best fighters are always women and you'll be sharing one of the larger rooms with some of the new female recruits. Would you like to meet them? Well...One. Only Laura is home right now. She's a Blade Rank now so she isn't part of the mandatory classes.

"Where are the classes held anyway? Zac didn't show me any sort of training grounds at the embassy but I was under the impression it was there?"

"An entrance to the training grounds is behind the embassy but the actual training grounds aren't in the city at all."

"But that doesn't make any sense at all." She muttered confused.

"You'll understand when you see it, but that's a whole other thing to talk about. Let's get you set up first shall we?"

She nodded her head and looked back to see the last speck of Zac disappear with indifference. She frowned. They had spent the majority of the day together and he was the first person she had actually almost befriended that day. It was sort of strange to see him go.

"Don't worry he'll be back, you can usually find him raiding the kitchen in the middle of the night." The young man with the pipe said.

"There's only one kitchen?"

"It's a big kitchen." The young man replied in defense shrugging before turning his attention back to the street where the shadows had become longer and the colors more golden and red with the setting of the sun. She was grateful she had found this place before it had gotten dark. She pulled out the crinkly map from her pocket and looked at it again realizing now that the squares that captain Julius had drawn were not houses...they were entire blocks of buildings. The tiny lines weren't spaces between...they were roads...and the very large lines that she thought had track lines? They were rivers and canals. She had completely misjudged the city. How could one place be so big? And mostly how could a man who navigates for a living be so bad at drawing a map?

"Well follow me I'll bring you to laura!" The man stood up and for the first time, she noticed that he had a peg leg. She felt a rush of embarrassment for not noticing and backed up to give him space. The man seemed to catch her expression but only replied to it with a warm one.

"Don't worry lass, no need to feel sorry for me or anything. I lived as a crown rank hunter in my day, and I exchanged more adventures and stories for several lifetimes for a leg. I think I'm the one who came out with the better deal. The dragon that ate my leg got a lance shoved through its skull."

"A dragon?! I thought they didn't exist anymore!"

"Not the ancient ones maybe, but the smaller ones are scattered here and there in the lands. They survived because they were well hidden, small and forgotten about. The dragon who did this to me had begun getting gutsy and eating large amounts of livestock, though. I wouldn't have lost my leg had I not decided I could do the job alone...but that's also another story." He said wistfully leading her through one of the rickety doors. It made a whining sound and seemed to open with a spring which she hadn't seen before. When she made her way in and Henry let the door go it swung shut on them and not only startled her but slammed into her tail.

" AHHEEE!!BLOODY SON OF A RAINBOW FISH!" Sirina yelled grabbing for her tail near tears. Her poor tail throbbed as she flung the door open and grabbed the fur fuzzed appendage ."

"Oh Pardon, I forgot you had a tail! I should have probably warned you."

She looked at the man glaring for a moment and then calming down.

"No problem." She said smoothing out the fur on her tail and blinking back the tears. She wiped them away with her hand and looked around.   

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I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I hope you like the messy watercolor concept art I threw in! I'm thinking of adding art to all the chapters to make it more colorful <3 any comments, votes or critique is welcome. Thank you for reading!