Hajin followed the other applicants out of the main hall into a corridor that ran much further back than the front of the building allowed for, with a ceiling that climbed away out of the torchlight.
Iron-banded doors lined both walls, each one cut with runes that hummed at a pitch he felt in his teeth rather than heard.
'The street shows a guild office and nothing else,' he thought as the floor began to slope down under fourteen sets of feet, 'so somebody folded a fortress in under the city and left the door small.'
Allen walked at the head of the line with his hands still loose behind his back, though he did not turn around when he started talking.
"Most people think a Ranker badge means a bigger paycheck," Allen said without slowing his stride, "so they take the title, then stop training the week after."
"They see the rank and think the work is finished," he continued, letting his voice carry down the hall, "then they coast until something out of a gate corrects them."
