Grace walked back and looked at the worried faces of her friends.

"No worries. We'll get this straightened out. Best if Quinten handles this himself, anyway. Fuck nuts there is about to lose his job. So that's a positive."

"Lose his job?" asked Jasmine.

"Yeah, he has one thing to do. Register candidates. He refused to.

Fuck him."

Daniel cleared his throat. "Grace de More-in-yah?"

“Moroingi. Pronounced More-In-Yay. My family name." She refused to acknowledge his smirk.

“Are you important, Grace?" asked Amy quietly.

“Hmm. Debatable. Quinten should be here any second.”

The sound of the entrance door slamming open reverberated through the open entryway. Loud footsteps of metal on stone echoed toward them.

Striding toward them was a man in gleaming white plate mail. Light seemed to shine from him. He strode directly at Grace, with a smile beaming across his face.

"Grace! You're back!"

He wrapped her in a massive hug. Daniel could see a gleaming sword slung on his back. Emblems covered his armour. He recognised the one central to his chest. It was one of the human gods and a prominent one.

Grace punched the man high in the shoulder. It made a loud clang sound. “Let go of me, you oaf."

Quinten let go and beamed at her. “It's been too long. How'd it go?"

“I have it."

Quinten beamed. “I knew you could do it! None better. The King will be pleased."

"I sure hope so. Last time he didn't seem so happy with me."

"Ah, but now all will be forgiven."

"Gods, Quinten, you pally types are too much about forgiveness."

"Nonsense," the paladin said, and finally deemed to take notice of the four others and turned to them. “Who do we have here?"

“Quinten, I would like to introduce you to four of your new candidates, from right to left, Jasmine, Daniel, Amy, and Amber."

Quinten beamed at them. “My pleasure. Welcome to the school. I hope your testing is successful."

“About that. First off, your asshat of a bureaucrat, trying to hide in his office over there, refused to register my friends. And I asked nicely, Quinten. I really did."