7 - Joining the Guild

"Hi. I'm looking to join the guild," he managed to assert once he pulled himself out of his own head. "I have two sponsor letters and a writ proving good standing."

"Well, that will make this easy. You don't know how many people just show up and expect immediate enrollment without any character references," she sighed, leaning towards Joe as if they were sharing a secret. Joe could not help but smile at her amicable nature. She took the pages Joe offered. She opened the first one, and her eyes rounded into saucers.

"You know Count Valloc Randeau? Oh wow! 'Count Randeau versus the Sinister Sphinx' is my favorite. Is he really as good as they say?"

"Definitely," Joe declared. "We would have died for sure without him."

'You are going to have to tell me all about it," she beamed. Noting Joe's sudden look of confoundment, she quickly added, "Oh, not right at this minute, of course. Let's get you set up first, but some afternoon when you're free, maybe?"

"Sounds great," Joe agreed, relieved and a bit excited. "So? What do I have to do for membership?"

"I just need a drop of blood and an oath from you. I don't see any reason with that writ, the Count's recommendation, and the one from the temple of Murrcee, why we can't skip copper and start you right off at bronze. You would have probably tested out of copper anyway. Going straight to bronze saves us a bunch of time."

While she talked briskly, the woman was actively filling out details in another leatherbound journal. With a quick, flourished signature, she blew on the page before setting it aside. Reaching under her counter, the clerk pulled out a couple of items from behind her counter. She dropped them on the desk, flipping her ponytail away from her face, and then stopped. Joe could see her working through some mental list, making sure she had everything they needed to get him set up. While she was pondering, Joe took a second to get her name.

Kendell Bracey: Human: Seeker / Savant 16

He stepped up to her counter and placed his hand on it, then immediately wished he hadn't. Kendell did a double take, but after that second of surprise, she gave Joe's hand not another moment of consideration. It seemed like Joe was the only one who cared that his hands looked like they came out of a Saturday Creature Feature.

After a minute, Kendell had filled out whatever documentation he needed. She then placed what looked like a folded leather case for a policeman's badge on the counter. She flipped it open, and sure enough, there was a bronze shield pinned inside the flaps.

"So you will need a drop of blood on the badge, which you keep. We do not keep samples of your blood unless you buy a resurrection policy with us." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "They are really expensive," she whispered. "I'm supposed to try and get you to start financing one, but honestly, it is better to just buy one if you ever hit it big than to try and pay for one bit by bit."

"Good to know," he replied in an equally low voice, even though there was no one within hearing distance. Kendell was fun. He already liked this port town far better than any community he had yet been to, even sweet Crowfield.

"So, the oath. Once you put the drop of blood on the badge, please repeat after me," she instructed, ending in an expectant pause.

Joe quickly stepped up and took the badge and tapped a claw into his fingertip, only to have the skin hold firm under the sharp talon. He had forgotten how tough his hands were to physical damage now. He lifted his hand to his ear and jabbed the lobe to get the needed drop of blood.

Kendell must have found the sight amusing as hell. She let out a chuckle before continuing with the oath. "I, state your name…"

"I, Joe Morris."

"Promise to protect those in need from the deprivations of beast or brute."

Joe repeated the words as she continued.

"From fiend or phantom."

"From the machinations of the outer planes and realms below."

"I swear to honor the codes of the Adventurers Guild and work not with any god or government to undermine its purposes."

With those last words repeated, Kendell smiled. "Great, that is it. If you want to be released from that blood oath, you will have to file a tribunal claim. Oh… sorry. I was supposed to tell you that first. Sorry. You got me all flustered with Count Randeau."

"No worries, Kendell," Joe expressed. He was amused by how often her eyes kept drifting back to the recommendation Valloc had written him. "I think my first order of business, though, will be to study up on the local area. Can I use your library?"

"Of course. Follow me. I know a great local map."

Kendell took out a small chalkboard with a stand and wrote 'In library' on it before stepping out from behind her counter. Joe got his first good look at his guide. She was about five feet tall and dressed in a strange mix of casual apparel and adventurer gear. The woman wore a loose green peasant blouse, but her skirt was more like a battle kilt. Additionally, her feet were contained by a pair of very heavily reinforced boots. Along her back, she wore a pair of crossed tomahawk-like axes.

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When she caught Joe's eye, she grinned at him.

"They want us to look all nice and proper at the front desk, but heavens forfend if the sharkfolk come boiling out of the bay. Then they want us ready to go at a moment's notice. This is my compromise." She held her hands at her waist. "From here up, I'm all formal and respectable. From here down, I'm all business. I just have to toss on my breastplate, and I am ready to go."

Her eyes twinkled at her own levity, and Joe chuckled with her. She tapped him on the arm to get them moving again, leading Joe deeper into the building. He could see they were heading toward a pair of double doors. One was closed.

Through the open door floated a terrible smell. Joe slapped the back of his hand under his nose to block out the rank scent of sulfur and smoke. Thankfully, Kendell didn't notice the gesture. She walked through the doorway and headed right for a particular stack of shelves. Joe slowly followed her in, scanning the room for whatever was driving his enhanced sense of smell insane.

Sitting at a table was a young man with red skin and a pair of horns sprouting from his head. A classical devil's tail swished under the desk he was working at. While his features and expression spoke of an earnest young man utterly absorbed by his studies, his scent and fiendish features cried out 'demon'.

"Heya Vex," Kendell exclaimed rather loudly. Obviously, the 'quiet in the library' rule did not apply in the Adventurer's Guild.

The young man looked up, and Joe saw his eyes were completely black. It was as if he had no iris or sclera. Just 100% pupil. The demonic youth smiled and waved, but in a second returned to his scribbles and notes. He had a large tome open on his left, and he was alternating scratching out symbols on three different sheets of paper. He would write out a couple letters or lines on one page and then move to the next. After a second, he would move back to the first or on to the third.

Joe just stood and watched this scrivener's ballet until Kendell walked back up to him and whapped him on the shoulder with a rolled-up map. Joe looked at her and then back to the strange behavior of the student.

Kendell watched for a second as well before explaining.

"Oh. That's Vexor. He specializes in gates and portal magic. He once explained it all to me. He said it is hard enough to draw out three dimensions on a two-dimensional page. When you start trying to do it with four and five dimensions, it gets really tricky." She took his arm and led him back toward the front desk. "I have to stay by the door, but I can walk you through the basic region if you like?"

Happy for both the help and getting away from the brimstone scent, Joe let himself be led away. For the next hour, Kendell pointed out what's what in the local area. She would have to stop occasionally to help an adventurer. The people who walked in the door varied widely from each other, but most had a sense of confidence and competency that Joe envied.

The first to come in was a classic fantasy hunter. His broad-brimmed hat had sharp fangs sewn into the band. He wore thick hide armor with a few disks of metal reinforcement here and there. It had seen numerous repairs over time to the point it looked like there might be more new stitching than the original leather. Around his body, he had a pair of short swords, at least six daggers, and a few hand-axes. On his back was a huge greatsword and a trio of javelins.

Kendell greeted him by name. He returned the salutation and handed her a sheet of parchment and his badge. The young desk clerk checked the page against a ledger and touched a wand from her desk onto his badge. A pleasant-sounding chime rang out from the contact.

"Nice one, Edror! You got that tidal hydra that was hunting up by the Tangle. I have it at five heads …"

"It grew another by the time I got there," the man stated in a gravelly voice.

"Okay. Six heads, then." She flipped a few pages in one of her books and read. "Tidal hydras price out at four eighty-three a head, so that comes out to … " she mused as she lifted a device that looked a lot like an abacus up onto the counter.

Before she moved the first bead, Joe instinctively supplied, "Twenty-eight, ninety-eight."

Kendell smiled at him. "Thanks." Looking back to Edror, she asked. " Let's call it twenty-nine hundred then. Do you have a preference of color?"

"Red, if ya got it," the hunter replied. "And give me one in plats, please, m'dear."

"Will do," she answered.

The guild clerk placed two coins made of a deep red metal on the counter. There was a shimmer to the metal that seemed to go beyond just the light streaming in from the large window. Next to them, she placed two sets of coins. One pile was platinum crowns, worth ten gold each. The other was eight elemental coins Joe was already familiar with, the watery undium dribs, worth one-hundred. That meant one of those heavy red discs was valued at a thousand gold. And Joe could see why. There was something about those crimson coins that drew his eyes, making them hard to look away from.

"There you go," Kendell announced.

Edror scooped the reward into what Joe guessed was a dimensional bag since he did not hear any sound of metal on metal once the coins passed through the opening.

"Thank ya, Hon. See ya next time."

When the man had left, Joe addressed the woman next to him. "What kind of metal was that? When you brought them out it … It was like they had a presence to them."

"You've never seen dragongeld before? When a dragon hangs onto gold for long enough, it becomes something more than it was. There is almost nothing better for crafting items than dragongeld."

"Did I catch that right? It comes in different colors?" Joe inquired, leaning over the counter to glance behind the desk.

"Of course. Depending on the color of the dragon that gilded it. I'll show you the next time I open the safe," Kendell stated, bumping him back off her counter with a light poke to his shoulder before returning to pointing out areas on the map for him.

An hour later, Joe had a good idea of the lay of the land around Fort Coral. The fortified town was the hub of half a dozen farming and fishing villages. The region was not part of any kingdom but a collective of communities, of which Fort Coral was the primary.

He had a quest as well. It was not one of the ones from outside the board but a new endeavor, the one she had been cataloging when Joe first arrived.

ENCROACHING APES (Uncommon)

Badboons have overrun the trail to Mount Serabuk. Clear the Badboon troops. Additional rewards are available for determining why the primates have moved from their territory onto the mining road.

Reward: 400 gold per troop

+60 Reputation with the Adventurers Guild

Lastly, he also had a date. Kendell asked if he would join her for dinner when he got back from his quest. It may just be for Count Randeau stories, but Joe was pretty sure she liked him as well. Unfortunately, Joe had never really dated much, if at all, depending on what you called a date. College 'dates' were pretty informal things. After that, he had been unable to date due to his circumstances.

As he left the Adventurer's Guild, he was not sure which he was more nervous about: his first solo quest or his first real date.

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