You awaken to the sudden jab of a boot between your shoulder blades.
"Wakey wakey, Sleeping Beauty. It's your turn for watch."

Sitting up, you grumble, "Dammit Lem, it's our last quest together.
Would it kill you to wake me a bit more gently, just this once?"

The burly swordsman cracks a grin: "No can do, pal. Gotta make sure you're nice and wide awake, right?"
He tousles your hair jovially and heads to his own bedroll as you take your post.

Last quest. A strange thought.
You've been working with Lem and the rest at the Nirzal's Reach adventurer's guild for so long, they're practically family to you.
But now that family must go their separate ways.
Ever since the famous elite guild, 961 Professionals, set up shop in Nirzal's Reach, the flow of work for the small local guild has been steadily drying up.
In light of the recent death of their beloved Chief, the guild members dejectedly agreed they'd be better off seeking their fortunes elsewhere.

And so you and your old comrades took on one last quest as the Defenders of Nirzal: escorting a merchant caravan headed for the great metropolis of Kethyria.
There, the others from Nirzal's reach will head to 961Pro's headquarters to apply for membership. You, on the other hand, have something else in mind.

Reclining by the coals of the fire as the sun begins to break over the horizon, you recall the flyer you found posted in Nirzal's Reach.
"765 Productions Adventurer's Guild seeks experienced adventurer to help us grow..."

By midmorning the caravan has arrived in Kethyria.
After bidding tearful farewells to your now-former comrades, you make your way to the address listed on the flyer.

A bell attached to the door tinkles cheerfully as you enter,
and an attractive young woman seated at a nearby desk looks up from the papers in front of her to greet you.

"Welcome to 765Pro! How can we help you today?"

"I hear you're looking for experienced adventurers to join your guild?"

"Oh, you must be the gentleman who wrote to us!"

"Yes, that would be me."

"Excellent, excellent! We have so many rookies on our roster these days, Ritsuko's been going crazy trying to train them all.
Having someone with your background on as a Producer will be a huge help!
Here, the Chief asked me to prepare a set of profiles to introduce you to our girls.
You should try to familiarize yourself with each girl's capabiliites -- you'll be picking who to take with you for quests, after all."

She hands you a sheaf of papers bound with a simple clip.

"Um...did you just say 'Producer'? Would you mind telling me what that is? Is that the same thing as a Trainer?"

"Hm...more of a mentor than a trainer, I guess I'd say. It's what we like to call the experienced members who guide rookies in our guild.
We call them 'Producers' because they 'Produce' more skilled adventurers from the rookies,
and teams tend to 'Produce' better results with a Producer along to help, you see?"

"I...see."

Well, it seems that this guild has a sort of peculiar way of doing things. But that's not a bad thing, you suppose.

Looking around, you see that there are about a dozen girls lounging about the guildhall, several of them looking your way with evident curiosity.
It's not uncommon for adventurer's guilds to have a lot of girls, given the female sex's proclivity for magic, but the sheer numbers here are rather unusual.

Well, time to get to work. You shove the papers the clerk gave you into your pack.
Reading is nice and all, but if you want to learn a comrade's capabilities, there's no better way than the hands-on approach.

You call out into the room, introducing yourself. "I guess I'm going to be your new... 'Producer' starting today.
I'm gonna cut right to the chase: who wants to head out to the sparring yard and show me what you're made of?"

A few girls come rushing forward eagerly, and a few more come over with a bit less enthusiasm. The rest go back to their previous activities.
Not quite the turnout you'd hoped, but it's a start.

You can see the sparring yard through the window, so hoisting your gear you stride confidently across to the back door, beckoning to the girls to follow.

As you enter the sparring yard, you find it's rather small, but should be adequate.

Dropping your pack and blade, you stride over to the rack of practice weapons and select an arming sword.

Hefting your shield, you then turn to the girls who followed you out. You see that seven in total came along. "Alright, so who wants to go first?"

Four of the seven leap forward, practically tripping over themselves in a clamor of "Ooh! Ooh! Me! Me first! Me!"

"Alright now, one at a time, one at a time. Let's start with you there, the boyish-looking one with the cestuses. What's your name?"

You notice her wince a bit at the word "boyish", but steps forward and introduces herself with a smile.

"My name's Makoto Kikuchi!"

"Alright Makoto, tell me, what's your fighting style? I can see you don't use a weapon -- are you a mage, or just a brawler?"

"Nope, no magic, just martial arts!"

"I've got a shield you know. Are you sure you can handle it?"

Makoto smiles broadly and sinks into a fighting stance. "Why don't we see?"

"Alright Makoto, on my mark. 3...2...1...Start!"

In a blink of an eye, she launches at you with a vicious flying kick.
You deflect the blow easily with your shield, but the force of the impact sends painful shocks up your arm.

Makoto, for her part, lands slightly off-balance (jump-kicking a shield-user? Not exactly the brightest tactic there.),
an opening which you try to exploit with an attack...but she's managed to twist off to your shield side, and easily hops back from your sword as you pivot and slash.
Ordinarily you'd try to bash her with your shield in that situation, but with your arm numb from the impact...

Hm. Perhaps that opening kick was cleverer than you first thought...or was she just lucky?

You advance with a downward slash, which she nimbly sidesteps and returns with a left hook to the ribs.

Ouch. Even through the brigandine, you could really feel that. Against an unarmored foe, that probably would've broken a few ribs...

But now the adrenaline is pumping, and your body isn't about to stop for a little pain.

She's too close to hit with your blade, but you bring the pommel around for a backhand strike to her right shoulder.

The fight continues like this for a bit, fairly evenly matched, perhaps slightly favoring Makoto. But finally, it ends.

Makoto manages to close in and take your legs out from under you with an expert sweep, sending you crashing mightily to the ground.

She follows you with a downward punch, which impacts with a thud just next to your head.

You note with concern that her fist sank a good centimeter or two into the sod...judging by the smile on her face, you suspect the miss was deliberate.

"Good fight, Makoto. You win this one."

Makoto leaps to her feet and pumps a fist into the air triumphantly. "Heehee, al-right!"

You stand up and brush yourself off. "Alright, give me a bit of a breather, and then I'll let another one of you have a crack at me."

In addition to the ones who were eager to fight earlier, there are still the three other girls watching. You could invite one of them to have the next bout.

The one with the rapier doesn't look particularly enthused, but she came out with you so she must want to spar, right?

"You there, in the back. How about taking the next round?"

"Ah, sure. My name's Chihaya. Chihaya Kisaragi."

"A pleasure to meet you, Chihaya. I see you have a rapier -- are you a fencer, then?"

She looks aside uncomfortably, crossing one arm across her torso to clutch the opposite elbow. "Um, not exactly. I sing."

She...sings?

Wait...you've heard of people like that...

"Ah, a spellsinger, right? Neat! I've never actually met one before, let me see what you got!"

"Alright."

She draws her blade and holds it upright before her, inhaling deeply through her nose.

"3...2...1..."

In stark contrast to Makoto's swift assault, Chihaya hardly moves a muscle when you give word to start.

Instead, as you barrel forward, she simply opens her mouth...

And sings. Oh, gods above does she sing. Her clear soprano rends the air like the peal of a great bell.

You can feel the music resonating deep within your bones,
elevating you to heretofore unexperienced planes of rapture as the angelic figure before you gracefully sidesteps your clumsy blow.

You watch in dumbstruck awe as she twirls behind you and --

Ow. Owowowowow. You snap abruptly back to your senses as a sharp pain stabs into your back.

The spar isn't finished just yet, but damn was that a huge slip on your fault. Keep it together, keep it together...

Chihaya still hasn't stopped singing, but with a little mental effort you manage to keep your wits about you now as the fight continues on.

Perhaps noticing your clarity, she shifts her song, changing key and rhythm to something more frantic and upbeat.

Is it just you, or is she moving faster now?

Yep, definitely faster.

She reacts so quickly now that you could swear she was looking into the future to see your moves before you even make them.

All told, you never manage to land even a single grazing blow.

After wearing you down for a few long minutes, Chihaya finally brings you to your knees with a rapid flury of strikes as her song rises to a soaring finale.

"Well...", you say, gasping for air, "that was certainly...*pant*...interesting. You certainly whipped me good, there. Nice work."

"I think...I'm gonna lay down for a bit...before the next bout..."

As you collapse in the grass, the girl with the ribbons comes running forward, looking very concerned.

"Are you alright, Producer? Chihaya-chan, don't you think you might've gone a little too far?"

Chihaya looks very shaken by this accusation. "H-he's a veteran, I figured he could handle it.

Besides, isn't the point of this sparring to gauge our abilities? Right, Producer?"

You open your mouth as though to speak, then begin coughing violently and finally lay still, doing your best to breathe as shallowly as possible.

The redhead in the back screams. "Aaah! Chihaya-chan, you killed him! You killed Producer!"

"W-what? No, there's no way I -- I mean, he couldn't be -- I was using a practice sword and -- and he has armor and -- and --"

One of the twins pipes in "Chihaya-oneechan, I think you really got a little too serious this time..."

"A-Ami, you too?"

The one with the big ponytail peers at you suspiciously. "Are you sure he's really dead?"

Ribbon rushes over and kneels at your side. "Producer! Producer! Hang in there Producer!"

She places her hands over your chest and closes her eyes.

A white glow appears where her hands are, and you can feel the pain from the bruises you sustained in your bouts with Makoto and Chihaya melting away.

Ribbon girl has healing magic. Good to know.

"Woah, woah, alright, hey, don't waste your mana on me, I'm fine, really.

I admit that wasn't as funny as I thought it would be, but think of it as a learning experience.

Combat isn't all about knowing how to use your weapon and avoid the enemy's.

In a real life-or-death fight, you need to be prepared for all kinds of underhanded tricks. Know how to tell when your foe is bluffing.

Don't assume that an enemy's out of the fight just on appearances alone.

I once saw someone I know get killed because an orc he thought was dead was actually just biding its time."

The younger ones seem impressed by your apparent wisdom ("Nii-chan, you're so smart!"),

while ribbon and Makoto simply seem thrown for a loop by the rapid turn of events.

Bushy ponytail looks skeptical -- you're pretty sure she can smell your bullshit, even from the other side of the yard.

Chihaya fixes you with a smoldering glare dripping with disapproval, then turns on her heel and stalks off back into the guildhall with a disgusted "Ku!"

That went well.

Right, so after those last couple matches you'd really like a bit of a breather.

Now, which of these girls looks like she definitely won't run circles around you...

There. The little redhead. Let's try her.

Putting on a big smile, you stroll over to her. "How about you next, little lady? What's your name?"

"U-uu! My name's Yayoi Takatsuki! I fight with a hammer! I can also use a little fire magic, but I'm not very good at it.

I'm not as strong a fighter as Makoto-san or Chihaya-san, but I'll do my best!"

"Haha, well you're quite enthusiastic aren't you? Come on, then, let's see what you're made of!"

As you watch her grab a padded sparring hammer from the rack and strap on a small, battered wooden shield, you wonder how wise it would be to go all-out against her.

You're afraid you might hurt her if you use your full strength, but on the other hand the girls at this guild have proven surprisingly strong so far...

You square off against Yayoi, somewhat impressed by the intense look of determination she has despite facing down an opponent twice her size.

"Alright Yayoi, on my mark. 3...2...1...Go!"

You begin to advance, shifting to circle around when you notice she's also moving forward.

You take a swing at her, which she manages to block, but she's visibly knocked off balance by the force of the blow.

You follow up with a shield bash, knocking her to the ground.

Seeing tears welling in the corners of her eyes, you step back. "Are you alright to keep going?"

She answers in the best way you could've hoped for: she leaps to her feet and charges in, hammer spitting flames as she strikes your shield with a mighty battle cry!

(Okay, so maybe "mighty" isn't the right word -- frankly it's more cute than anything -- but it's the thought that counts.)

It quickly becomes clear that she's really no match for you, but what she lacks in strength and skill she more than makes up for with pure spunk.

Though she hardly scores a single hit on you, she never gives up. Each time you knock her down, she climbs to her fight, ready to continue.

Ultimately it's you who calls the match to an end.

For all that she refuses to show it, you can tell she's getting worn out, and by now you have a pretty clear idea of what she can do.

"Well, there's definitely room to improve, but I love your persistence! With a little practice, I'm sure you'll become a fine adventurer!"

"U-uu! Thank you very much, Producer!"

After Yayoi, you spar with each of the other girls who came out in turn.

The one with the ribbons is named Haruka Amami.

In your sparring with her, you find that she's not an exceptionally good fighter

-- most notably, she's rather clumsy, actually tripping on her own feet a couple times.

She also (as you found earlier) has light magic, demonstrating decent mastery of healing and defensive enchantments, with some offensive capability as well.

All in all, neither her combat nor her magical skills strike you as particularly impressive, though her cheerful, friendly attitude is rather endearing.

The one with the big ponytail is name Hibiki Ganaha.

It turns out she's actually from one of the islands in the Southern Sea, and uses a traditional form of shamanic magic.

She's not a bad shot with that bow of hers, and proved to be quite capable with a hunting knife in melee,

but her real power seems to lie in her ability to summon powerful beasts to aid her.

In a simple fight you could probably beat her nine times out of ten (though she'd still give you a run for your money),

but with those summons involved, all bets are off.

Finally, the twins, the one with the short ponytail named Ami Futami and the one with longer ponytail named Mami Futami respectively, appear to be rogue types.

They're not afraid to fight dirty, and also seem to have some minor illusion magic.

Individually they're not too hard for you to deal with, but when they talked you into trying them both at once you got thoroughly trounced.

Even moreso than you would've expected going two-on-one.

You also noted that they're fairly rambunctious...might be a bit difficult to keep in line when the need arises.