Chapter 25

Fortunately, Jordan’s plan worked. Once she was appropriate for leaving the bathroom, the dark stain mostly dried—to the point of being less noticeable, at least—she went and changed pants, then returned to Natalie with a fresh skirt from her locker.

Changed, Natalie stuffed the ruined one in her backpack. Getting it clean was going to be a headache. Maybe she’d end up throwing it away, and deal with being down one. Eventually, she’d have enough tokens to buy a fresh set—though Tenet uniforms weren’t cheap.

Overall, a minor headache. Though ... maybe worth it, considering how it had happened.

After escaping the bathroom without drawing any eyes because of the mishap, she had to deal with the other inconveniences the debacle had resulted in. The stickiness on her legs and thighs. So, a shower.

It was less of an ordeal than she had feared, taking an afternoon shower rather than one early in the morning. There were two others in the block she picked, and while she had to carry her change of clothes into the shower stall while mostly clothed—unlike the seeming norm of undressing at the lockers—nobody gave her an odd look for doing so. As she’d thought, being a mild prude wasn’t something anyone particularly cared about. Maybe eventually someone would say something ... but then again, probably not.

So maybe even she could even sleep in, rather than waking so early like she had. Except ... no, she had other reasons to be starting the day early. Her ‘relief’. Her libido did, clearly, need to be kept in check. The skirt was better at hiding her issue than tight pants, but still not perfect. Ignoring her problem wouldn’t make it go away, and indeed, would only make things worse. So, it might be best to continue waking up early and relieving herself.

Dressed and ready to go out again—since there was still several hours before curfew—she met Jordan at her barracks, who had likewise showered and changed into something more casual.

They set off for their first item of business: the role guilds.

The role guilds were odd institutions. Like Harper had touched on, they’d been more critical in old days—had been closer to entities of themselves, and persisted even past graduation. Now, at least from what she had heard, they weren’t much more than...

Well, fraternities.

They still had a practical purpose for existing: they were conglomeration points for similarly-classed individuals to mingle. Harper had specifically mentioned ‘networking’ inside the role guild—who better to learn your class than from peers with a class similar to yours?

And even if skills didn’t match up to a ‘typical role’, the role itself had independent principles to learn. A tank needed to draw attention and keep teammates safe; how to do each could be taught, in some regard, independently of skills and class.

Jordan’s role was determined: rogue. Natalie’s, however, was more in flux. Funny enough, as her class evolved, she might find herself falling into any of the other four roles that Jordan didn’t fill: tank, fighter, mage, or healer. The last two were unlikely; almost certainly it would be tank or fighter.

For now, she intended to check out all four guilds. Why not? If nothing else, she’d get to meet people and learn more about Tenet. Eventually, Natalie would have to lock herself into no more than two guilds—so, probably fighter and tank, or tank and mage—but since the year had just started, the guilds were recruiting, and expecting newcomers to be feeling the various groups out. It wouldn’t be odd if she looked around several.