With the warming weather, Rose Town returned to its former bustle.
The adventurers who had headed south to escape the winter or returned home to rest and recuperate came back to this little town, where opportunity and danger lay only a step away, one after another as if by prior arrangement.
The Adventurer Guild's main hall was the most direct place to feel that bustle.
Compared to the deserted quiet of two months ago, the hall was now roaring with voices.
The air was thick with the scents of leather, metal, ale, and sweat—the smell of opportunity and hormones.
Warriors clad in all manner of armor stood in groups of three or five, loudly discussing last year's gains and their plans for the new year. Rangers carrying bows and crossbows wiped down their arrows, their sharp gazes sweeping over the commission boards. A few rogues wrapped from head to toe in tight coverings crouched in the corners, sizing up the passing crowd.
The quest boards were even more crowded, plastered with commissions of every kind.
From "Clear the Goblins from the farm" to "Escort a merchant caravan to Trout Town," to trivial odds and ends like "Find a lost pet cat," all heralded the opening of the new year's adventure season.
Behind the counter, several receptionists, Clara among them, were run off their feet. Even the professional smiles on their faces had grown somewhat stiff from being repeated so often.
Aside from the familiar old faces who appeared punctually at this time every year and greeted one another like old friends, there were many new faces in the hall.
They threw themselves headlong into this profession full of unknowns and dangers, either carrying dreams of becoming legends or simply hoping to change their impoverished fate.
"The first step to becoming