“We don’t have to go that far,” he mumbled.
Vincent watched the exchange with raised eyebrows.
“Are you two quite finished?”
“You sound like Rufus,” Gary said.
“I don’t think Rufus could pull off that moustache,” Jason said.
Jason liked Vincent. He was a very serious man with a very outrageous moustache, which Jason appreciated.
“There’s been a slight problem with your society badge,” Vincent said.
After receiving confirmation that he had passed the assessment, Jason had undergone the final process of becoming an Adventure Society member. Each member had a badge that served various functions beyond proof of membership. It let members claim adventure notices and allowed the society to track members in case they went missing. It also let the society know immediately when a member died.
Badges were managed by the Adventure Society’s Member Logistics Department, of which Vincent was one of the chief officials. In addition to the assessment and induction of new members, their responsibilities included the dispensation and monitoring of membership badges.
Although the badges were managed by the Adventure Society, it was the Magic Society that created them. Jason had been sent to the Magic Society so they could take an aura imprint from which to make his badge. It was a simple process, just standing in the middle of a magic circle for about a minute.
“Every time a badge is made,” Vincent said, “it’s paired with a tracking stone. It tells us if your alive or dead, and lets us find you if you go missing or die. Yours doesn’t work, though. The stone can’t track your aura imprint.”
“I’ve seen this before,” Farrah said. “Some people have abilities that block magical tracking.”
“That was the Magic Society’s assessment as well,” Vincent said.
Farrah turned to Jason.
“You have the dark essence, right?” she asked him. “A lot of hiding abilities can protect you from location effects.”
“It’s not the dark essence,” Jason said. “It’s one my other abilities. My, uh, out of town abilities.”
Ability: [Mysterious Stranger]
Immunity to identification and tracking effects.
“It seems that I’m completely immune to tracking effects,” Jason said.
Vincent nodded.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Just as long as we know there isn’t someone messing with our membership systems.”
“So what does that mean about getting my badge?” Jason asked.
“There’s not much we can do,” Vincent said. “Your badge will still work fine for your adventuring activities. It just means we can’t track you if you go missing. Or find your body, if you die alone.”
“I can live with that,” Jason said. “Tracking everyone seems a little dystopian, anyway.”
Vincent plucked an object out of thin air. Many essence users had abilities to store objects in dimensional spaces, like Jason’s inventory, or Farrah’s bottomless stone chest. Vincent handed a square, leather object to Jason. It was a badge wallet, which Jason flipped open to see the badge inside. It was a circular medallion made of iron, embossed with a sword and rod crossed over a shield—the emblem of the Adventure Society.
“Congratulations,” Vincent said. “As of this moment, you are officially a member in good standing of the Adventure Society. That badge represents your membership, and the authority that represents.”
“I have authority?” Jason asked, flipping open the wallet like a TV cop flashing his badge.
“Not really,” Vincent said. “There is a certain level of prestige that comes from membership, but any actual authority comes from the contract you are carrying out. A common example is when the city puts out a contract to capture a wanted criminal. Whoever is assigned that contract has the power to investigate and arrest bestowed by the city, but only so long as they are on that contract. You don’t have the rank to take on a contract like that, however.”
“I have a rank?” Jason asked.
“Your rank can be seen on your medallion,” Vincent said. “One-star, iron rank.”
Jason looked down at his new badge. On the iron medallion, underneath the Adventure Society emblem, was a single star.
“The ranking system of the Adventure Society has two parts,” Vincent explained. “The first element is not assessed at all, being a reflection of your rank as an essence user. You’re iron rank, so you’re an iron rank member.”
“Simple enough,” Jason said.
“The second part is not an assessment of your power, but your judgement. That’s the star ranking, and is wholly determined by the Adventure Society. Everyone begins at one star, with the maximum number of stars being three. The number of stars determines the kinds of contracts you can take. One star contracts are pure monster hunts, with no complicated elements to deal with.”
“What’s your star rating?” Jason asked.
“Society officials operate outside the rating system,” Vincent said. “It helps us to work with members, irrespective of their rank.”
“Makes sense,” Jason said. “If you’ve got a two-star official running an operation with three-star members, they might start taking things into their own hands.”
“Precisely,” Vincent said.
“So what about you two?” Jason asked Gary and Farrah.
“Two star,” Farrah said. “Rufus, as well. We were kind of hoping to get bumped up to three after the Vane contract, but that didn’t work out.”
“Rufus gave an honest report,” Gary said. “We didn’t come out looking great.”
“Ironically, you did,” Vincent said to Jason. “I saw that report.”
“I don’t suppose that counts for my promotion chances?”
“Not directly,” Vincent said, “but it may be taken into account in the future. Once other achievements have the society considering you for promotion. Achievements made while actually a member.”
“So what do two and three stars actually represent?” Jason asked.
“In short,” Vincent said, “two and three stars represent a level of confidence in your judgement on the part of the Adventure Society. Two stars means the society recognises your ability to undertake at least some level of actual, unsupervised responsibility. You’ll be able to take different kinds of contracts, such as investigating potentially dangerous situations or unknown phenomena. It also means you can lead small expeditions of one-star members.”
“We never got to two star at iron rank,” Gary said. “In the high-magic areas there isn’t a lot of chance to shine. You spend the whole time following more powerful adventurers so as not to die.”
“Three stars is much the same as two, but more so,” Vincent said.
“Three stars means they trust you to handle yourself when things get political,” Farrah said.
“That’s a fair assessment,” Vincent said. “Three star members are expected to anticipate and manage consequences at a higher level than other adventurers.”
“How do you go for promotion?” Jason asked.
“You can apply,” Vincent said, “usually on the back of some accomplishment. The society prefers to choose for themselves, however. When they think you’re operating at a higher level than your current rank, they’ll do an assessment. We don’t like to see useful assets wasting themselves on work any idiot could do.”
“I think he’s talking about you,” Farrah said to Gary.
“You’re not any higher rank than I am,” Gary shot back.
“There is one important thing to be aware of,” Vincent said, ignoring the pair. “The stringency with which promotions are considered scales upward with power. What is good enough for two stars at iron rank is not the same as at bronze or silver rank, where the stakes are higher. As such, you can expect to drop a star rank each time you increase a tier in power. Unless you’re still one-star, of course. No one really expects anything from you if you’re stuck at that level.”