Marco and the rest of his party walk into the recruitment area that they were given directions to, unable to find it on their own after numerous attempts.


    “Hello! Welcome, what can we help you and your friends with today?” A nice older woman says from behind a cluttered desk. Gray curly hair and bright blue eyes decorate a weathered face, showing years of hardship and struggle. A small name tag on the left side of her chest reading, Angela.


    “Hello, we are looking to round out our party with a [Dark] Warrior or Rogue, ideally looking for a candidate with dual Affinities but we know that is a large ask.” Marco says, greeting Angela with a small.


    “That sounds doable young man. We have some candidates available that fit not only your first requirement but also the second, possessing two Affinities.” Angela says, grabbing folders from her desk. “We have three people that will fit your criteria however, one of them is an older elf who just lost their party and may not be the best fit personality wise.”


    “Okay so two candidates.” Marco immediately stops considering the older elf candidate and knows the others agree with him, all of them decided earlier that it would be best to have everyone in the party of similar age and experience. “It would be best if we could meet them.”


    “Of course, can’t let people invite people to their party without meeting them now, can we?” Angela says, checking the folders one more time before putting them back in the large stacks, she then pulls open a drawer and grabs two stones and channels Mana into them. “It should just be a few minutes for them to show up. Feel free to have a seat.”


    Angela gestures to the comfortable looking couches that line the edges of the room and the party members sit at one with a small table in front of it, sinking lightly into the cushions.


    Several minutes pass, the team making small talk amongst themselves, getting to know each other better. Simple and mindless questions like favorite foods, colors, and other things like that.


    Marco smiles at finding out Ben’s favorite color is purple and his favorite food is some local form of pot stickers; a small pan-fried dumpling filled with seasoned mushrooms, cabbage, and green onion. Shen’s favorite color is dark brown, just like his element and his favorite food is a food from The Svarog Mountains, a spiced veggie stew served with rice.


    Soon, the first of their candidates arrives, a young dwarven man, he introduces himself, a Slavic accent to his words, “Hello, I am Garreth Coldforge, of the Svarog Mountains and the ice that surrounds them. I am a [Dark] and [Earth] Warrior and Rogue.”


    “Hello Garreth, I’m Marco and I am a [Salt] Mage, to my left here is Ben of House Ivory and he is our [Light] Healer with some control spells, and finally Shen of House Lockheart, our [Earth] Warrior and Tank.” Marco introduces everybody, “We are currently looking to fill a secondary damage role, focusing on setting me up for bigger hits and controlling the battlefield.”


    “I am a Rogue like a mentioned with my main focus being speed and whittling my opponents down. I use [Air] mainly for a speed boost with a couple of slowing spells and slashes thrown in.” Garreth says, “I use small hand axes with an additional sharpened spike on top as my main weapons.”


    “Hmm, not exactly what we looking for. He would be better in a team with him acting as the main damage-dealer.” Marco thinks to himself.


    “Awesome, we have another candidate to meet but when we make our decision, we will have Angela use the calling stone once again.” Marco says, standing and shaking Garreth’s hand and watching him leave.


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    Shortly after Garreth leaves the other candidate arrives and quickly introduces herself, “Hello, I am Lucia Ebony. [Dark] and [Fire] Rogue with a focus on debuffing and control tactics.” Lucia introduces herself and her combat style.


    “Hello Lucia,” Marco greets and goes through the introductions just like last time. “She seems to be what we are looking for. Focus on enemy control and tactics rather than going for the big hit.”


    “Greetings Lucia, you seem to be a good fit for our team however, we would prefer to see you in combat before we agree to anything long term.” Ben says.


    “Of course! That makes sense, would a friendly spar work? I don’t know if I trust anyone enough to go on a mission with total strangers, no offense.” Lucia says. The young woman is beautiful, dark brown skin, black curly hair, and black eyes filled with confidence and a touch of distrust.


    “That is understandable! Let’s find a practice arena and beat each other up a little bit.” Shen says, laughing a little.


    They all leave the recruitment area, waving to Angela as they exit the room. Asking for directions to the nearest practice arena Marco leads the way down to the ground floor and down one of the winding hallways, walking for about twenty minutes before they reach the section that contains practice areas.


    “Alright, normal sparring rules apply here. No killing or crippling blows and let’s have a good spar to learn about each other.” Ben says. “Let’s start with the damage-dealers against each other and we can move on from there.”


    Marco steps forward, smiling and stretching light as he summons his [Salt Skin], having pulled his upper armor on during the trip to the practice areas. The solid white armor spreads from the very center of his chest, forming plates around his most vital areas before running down his armor reinforcing it, turning black leather and cloth into gray speckled white.


    “On your mark, Lucia!” Marco says, ready to summon [Salt Bolt] at a moment''s notice.


    “On three! One, two, three.” Lucia summons a [Cloud of Darkness] around Marco, causing him to summon a set of six [Salt Bolts] to hover around his body. A small knife skates over his leg armor, the back of his thigh protected by [Salt Skin] thankfully, he spins while firing a bolt toward the Rogue, slowing the speed drastically.


    Hearing no exclamation of pain, Marco continues to track the area around him, more small knife strikes hit areas of his armor. Seemingly testing his defenses before going for stronger blows, Marco notices the small knicks in his armor are much hotter than they should be.


    “That’s a sneaky bit of magic right there.” Marco thinks, spinning the bolts around his body faster, trying to ward off Lucia. A bolt explodes eliciting a small yelp of pain from the human woman hiding in the shadows, more bolts streak toward the woman.


    “I concede, I cannot go any harder without risking more permanent damage.” Marco says, lifting his hands in surrender.


    “That is some serious armor!” Lucia says, appearing from the black cloud that slowly dissipates.


    Shen decides to go next, [Earthen Armor] flowing up his body to full encapsulate the Tank. Lucia once again begins the fight and summons the [Cloud of Darkness] once again, Shen immediately fighting back with a small [Quake] his conjured hammer slamming into the ground and shaking violently, causing Lucia to stumble.


    Shen brings his hammer around to where Lucia just was but misses the quick fighter. A small line of dust sprinkles from where a small knife tries to enter the back of the Tank’s thigh. He kicks out, [Earth] covered foot impacting leather coated chest and Lucia ends up flying across the room to land gracefully on her feet like a human-shaped cat.


    She hurtles across the room in a flash of fire and smoke, almost immediately behind Shen once again, Lucia swings her knife nowhere close to Shen’s body but a crescent of [Dark] Mana follows the movement of her blade, biting into the armor nearly to the skin. Shen immediately summons more armor to fill in the gash and the pair of fighters quickly reach an impasse, small cuts and gashes immediately filled in like it never happened.


    “I’m going to call it!” Ben says, “Lucia, you are a terror in that cloud of yours.”


    Lucia smiles brightly, “Thank you!”


    “Lucia, we would like to offer you a spot on our team.” Marco offers. “You are terrifyingly competent on the battlefield and seem to hold similar values as we do.”


    “I accept.” Lucia says with a beaming smile.


    They all smile and chat lightly on the return trip to the barracks, where Lucia will be moving into the fourth bed shortly. They make the twenty-minute journey in companionable conversation and the friendly atmosphere continues into the barracks room.


    “She seems like a perfect fit, and I get to cook for someone that isn’t a vegetarian!” Marco thinks to himself.