We walked back into the Guild and its marble floors, its high columns, its hanging chandeliers. We stepped past the barrier set up on the back side of the Main Hall, behind the clerks desks. I waved hello to Elise as we took a turn up a spiral staircase. She seemed stunned that I even had the gall to be walking with the disciplinary head towards my doom and still be able to smile and wave.

My boots galloped on the wooden floor of a hall way at the top of the Guild. {Clop. Clop. Clop.} A delightful sound that seemed more ominous the closer we got, like the turns of a grandfather clock at a long hallway that stretched on forever.

Stroganov up front and my Guai behind me, we made for a unique entourage of all kinds of shuffling steps. At the very end of the straight hall wide and tall enough to fit buses, was the Office of the Head, and to his right, through a simple wooden door, without a single fanciful things about it was the Vice Head’s Office. I only featured a nob seemingly cut out of stone and placed there, rough, unsanded. Stroganov knocked four times, and entered without waiting for acknowledgment.

“Vice Head, Andras.” He bowed his head and the knots of his bandanna fell over. He had thick black curls underneath, wild but glossy.

I stepped in and my Guai followed. The Vice Head wore a turban on his head, with a flashy red ruby in the middle. He was tall even as he sat in his big leather and cushioned chair. He had four hands, all of which were occupied with something different. His eyes were large, larger than human eyes should be, as big as my closed fist, they shone like real emeralds, as if the crystal had been subbed for an iris. His skin was the tone of sun baked clay in a seaside town.

He carried the thickest mustache known to man, and a jaw that could cut the wind as he moved. He wore nothing on his seemingly oiled up body-builder’s torso, and I couldn’t see below his waist. Through his nipples he had two piercings of pure Gold and a chain that ran over his ribs and to his back, up and over his shoulders, all the way to his dangling earlobes. At that end of the chain, two stones of sea blue, which seemed to move with unknown currents as if they were not just jewels of very pretty stone completed the over the top ensemble to make him look as dissimilar to the impression his office gave as possible.

“Hello Andras, with no Last name. I am Mesh Gildar, Vice Head of the Pristine Branch. An A Rank Traine. I own a farm to take care of all my Guai. I have been coming Second in the Local Trainer’s League for many years now, and I am going to Kill the Head of the Guild one day, even if it is in his sleep.” The exotic man, with declarations more surprising than his looks waited from me, with his large emerald eyes, a response.

“I feel like whatever introduction I make will not be as interesting as yours, which is a shame. I am just Andras because I threw away the name of my Father, I come from another Realm, and I will one day Rule over the Best City both this Realm and My own have ever seen.”

“See you can do it.” He smiled, his teeth had a pink hue and they shone in the light very much like teeth shouldn’t. “Interesting~ So your aim is to surpass me.” That was a very egocentric way to view another man’s dream, but if that got me some brownie points and allowed me to lessen the punishment for my transgressions, then you’d never find me argue.

“Tell me, Andras. For a man with such lofty and faraway dreams. Why did you let a man as mundane as Crocket get the better of you? Why did you let him become a set back?” One of the four hands stopped whatever work it was doing and begun to rub with two fingers, the raven black mustache atop Mesh’s lip.

“I misjudged the privilege given to Trainers.” I had concluded within myself.

“Why would you misjudge? You can’t, if you want to reach the top of this Realm and Become a Frontier Lord.” He didn’t even take breath, he fired the question right away.

“Because I’ve never had a Bond like this, I couldn’t because of magical restrictions in my Realm, with anyone. He tried to take her, and use her. Just the image made me sick enough in the head to forget myself.” I answered, the words flowed like water out of my mouth.

“You feel some sort of possessiveness over your Guai. Why?”

“Because I feel they are precious in many ways. Not only are they my way to fulfilling my material dream, but they can potentially be the people who I most trust. I’ve never completely trusted anyone before, My upbringing won’t let me.”

“…” He paused. “I’m split between two questions. I’ll present them both.” I smiled. This was a test then.

“Why should you trust them? That Emerald Princess doesn’t have the most friendly reputation. Also, People?”

“I’ll answer the second one first. Even Frey that doesn’t speak the human tongue, she can understand me, she is as intelligent as me. Why should she not be a person? With her own rights? To get to the first. If I can’t trust them, where I can see our bond together in the Aether System, who should I trust?”

“They may act for you, but they will always do it from their perspective, what you want and what they think is best for you may not always align. When things get tough, when they turn heavy, that shall be a point of contention.”

“That is all the more reason to trust them with my life. Who is to say that I know best? I clearly don’t, I punched a guy who wasn’t even a threat, he could have never grabbed Temesia anyhow. Not to mention that I couldn’t care less about the past or the trouble their blood brings them. They haven’t done anything harm me personally and that is enough.”

“If they are people, then why do you capture them, and keep them with you, must they follow you everywhere? Are they Slaves?”

“They can go wherever they like, if they asked me right now to leave I would release them from our bond. But I believe together we can make something better. I want to solve Temesia’s problem, I want to learn what is Frey’s past, I want to know what Ingrid hides behind her playful act, and what Secret’s dwell within my Emerald Princess and her royal, apparently, ancestry so I can help her come out the other end a more complete person. I think that this is the magic this realm truly has to offer.”

He turned his hands to me, palms turned up as if saying, ‘Go on.’

“Humans are Social Creatures, in my Realm we tamed wolves and turned them into dogs, and kept them as company since before we could speak. Yet dogs can never be enough, we search out life long partners in wedding, and friendships that fulfill us, because that is what makes life bearable to us. But here, here completion is not just a word, it’s an achievement. Guai are more than just friends, wives, sex partners, combat tools, a path to power. Guai are a unique existence that exist in symbiosis with Humanity, and they allow both themselves and us, to reach the pinnacle of existence. If Attaining the System is Awakening, then what Guai offer is Ascendancy through Unity.”

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“Well spoken, it seems you had that ready.”

“I don’t want to have slaves, and it was about time I put my honest opinions and goals about my Guai out to them, you just gave me a good chance. You didn’t touch upon bonds though. Can I trust them?”

“You dare ask a question to your examiner? Do you know that you could very well have your license as a Trainer taken from you? That is part of what our client demanded in his letter.”

“You wouldn’t. I think you like me. I know I do, this was a fun conversation.”

{CLAP!}

Mesh clapped all four of his hands together. He kicked himself away from his desk and stood. ‘Maybe I went a little too far there. Shame, I truly felt something click. We could have been friends.’

From behind the desk rose nothing but a swirling cloud of clay sand, catching the light and glimmering like star dust. He wore a pine green sash around his waist, and below it there were no legs, or body to be seen. The Guai, and not the Vice Head, rose, levitating, and crossed his hands over his torso, two of them did a little gesture, a circle of interconnected fingers with the two indexes pointed towards the sky.

“That was indeed a good conversation. I am Mesh, Acting in place of the Vice Head who is busy at the moment… And most of the time as well, doing other important things we won’t get into. Well met Andras. I hope you’ll excuse me for a moment while I go get the Vice Head herself to pass down judgment. Don’t worry, we won’t be too harsh.”

The Genie morphed into smoke and left the scene, his hat left floating in place. I turned to my Guai and saw them all, even Mara, stifling in their laughter. Temesia struggled to come close to me, a hand over her mouth holding it closed. She brought the other forward. “Here… Let me help you get that.” She pushed my chin up from the ground and closed my mouth.

“Did… Did you all know all along?”

They didn’t respond, Frey fell to the floor, her fist slamming down hard. I could feel her telling herself not to laugh. Ingrid could not even resist any more. She held her belly and rolled all over the room. “SIAHAHAHAHA! AHA! AHAHAH! HE THOUGHT IT WAS A PERSON!” She screamed.

Mara got herself under control first, especially now that Ingrid had let it all out. “Guai know other Guai, unless under very special circumstances. I don’t blame you though. You’ve only seen one Guai that was Male, and it didn’t speak, or look nothing like a human male. Mesh, is a very well known Guai, and also the Vice Head’s only Guai. He is a fully Mental Type Guai, and I don’t know how many Aspects he holds.” She explained.

“You can grow the number of Aspects you have? Well, Hold?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t had much in the way of theory, not that I had the time.

“Sure you can, they must be within your Type though.”

“Do you get to choose them? Do you get them depending on your actions? Are they random? Actually, Types for that Matter. How do they Work?”

Before Mara could answer a few wooden planks in the wall shifted aside and from a mundane door at the other end came with strust a most mature woman. Mature didn’t even cut it. A Rose at full bloom, with all its thorns still on the stock, wild and untamed, yet so irresistibly tempting. “They are born with their Types. All a trainer can do is help them evolve to Unlock them. Each Guai is different but bloodlines do carry over most of the time.”

She was tall, wore high heels, a skimpy dress of dazzling red, not of fabric though, but shining stones. She had curvaceous Black hair that reached to her similarly curvaceous hips and well trained perky buttocks. Her breasts fell out of her tight dress, both from the top and through the sides. She was lithe, and everything about her maturity was accentuated, she pushed the ceiling of seductiveness.

She had a beauty mark, a mole, below her lip and a bit to the right, cat shaped emerald green eyes, curved brows, and a button nose that gave her a higher class feeling. She walked, sleepily over to her desk, plopped her heavenly buttocks on that damn lucky chair and crossed one leg over the other. I caught a glimpse of her no-panties fashion statement, and felt all the blood leave my brain and rush to my dick.

“I heard. You’re decent. Take this Quest, and give the Charwood Fox to Crocket, punishment over.” She said, disinterested.

“No.” The blood returned with a burning passion.

She looked at me, raised a single brow. “Why do you think you have the right to defy me?”

“Because I exist. I can defy whatever I want, whether I have the strength to back it up, that is an entirely different issue.” She leaned forward, her breasts spilled onto the desk, thick and creamy. I could see down the crack and into her dress, I thought I caught view of something dangerous, once again. and pulled my eyes away.

“Andras was it? What do you think you’re doing right now? Checking me out? You wanna have a go at me? Do you think I am so easy? That I give my sex away for free? You want to take me right here? Or are you planning on taking me in the Guild provided rooms, with four Guai stuck in that humid place on top of us two?”

“I would do none of that, Vice Head. I have my hands full with trying to understand my Guai at the moment. I don’t have the time for Extra-trainer affairs.”

“Then are you looking down on me? Because I am a woman? Do you think I can’t be harsh? Do you think I’ll do whatever you like? Or maybe you think that I’ve already had sex with that Old farmer Crocket, so whatever you say will be used against you, and won’t change your fate?”

“I never said any of that Madame Vice Head. I am neither looking down on you, nor am I looking to bed you. Please do not accuse me of such sexist thoughts with nothing to back them. Do you just expect men to have such thoughts about women as if they are mere objects?”

“Yes, in fact. I do. That is reality… Mesh?” She stood straight, her brows were furrowed. Mesh smiled and shook his head. “I told you Ero, he was clean. Cleaner than most.”

“But you did check me out.” She turned to me.

“I’m afraid to say I did. Sorry if I offended you. It’s… a bad habit.”

“It’s just a habit, and a habit of men. I take no offense to it. If I did, I would have never survived more than a day in this damned Society.” She waved away my concerns. She twirled herself in the chair around once and then stopped. She stood and and paced a little behind her desk. Mesh was content by staying afloat, arms crossed, a chuckle about to tumble from his lips at any moment, with the turban having been placed safely upon his bald head once again. He seemed pretty certain of his assessment of me. I hope I don’t disappoint.

“You’re from another Realm.” It wasn’t a question so I merely nodded. “You don’t have Guai there. Nor do you have the System?”

“We have no magic, as far as I know. There were always tales and myths and legends, some times they had to do with gods and divinity, others not. Though I think there truly is no magic there, or we just haven’t found a way to harness it.”

“Interesting, but beside the point. Are you willing to humor me a bit?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. She stepped around the desk, slowly, her heels hit the ground with a heavnly sound adored the world all over. Her demeanor changed with every step and I audibly gulped as she dropped a strap of her dress below her shoulder. Casually, as if by mistake. She came to me and bent over, she placed a finger, thin and long, on my sternum and it traveled up to my neck and chin. “What would you have to do, to get with me in your world?”

“I? As I was? I wouldn’t even shoot my shot. You’d probably be with some guy or many guys already, sending you gifts of gold and silver, with paid trips to exotic resorts in the other side of the world. I wouldn’t have the money, the clothes, the attitude, the charming smile. I was just a depressed office worker, a secure job, I was renting. I didn’t have a mansion. That is all IF, I ever got to see you all dolled up like this in the bars I used to hang out. You wouldn’t be there, but eating dinner in some expensive five-star restaurant, shopping in some exclusive part of town. That’s how smoking hot, Miss Vice Head is. Way above my Level, I’d say. Not to put myself down. But that is just how it went.” I was being very honest here. Maybe a little too honest, I didn’t know what she wanted, maybe she sought to find a man that would shoot his shot despite the odds, but that is not the feeling I was getting from her. She was testing me by playing it her sexiness up.

She returned to her chair. She smiled at me the most dazzling smile I’ve ever laid eyes upon, two rows of brilliant pearls. “I’ve made up my mind. I like you Andras. I shall give you much leeway today, in the future, when you’re a bit more of a trainer, I want you to come into my office and we can have a nice chat over tea about that world of yours, where woman are flown around the world for simple sex. How about it?”

“Sure, I can tell you all about my world. You’re the first to have asked.”

“I had a suspicion you see. You just answered a very important question.” She placed a hand under her chin to support her head, Suddenly a wind picked up out of nowhere and files flew about the room before falling neatly before me and her, laid out perfectly on the desk

Mesh left along with my Own Guai to the secret room to the Side, to have fun without me or something, and we were left alone. “Onto your Punishment.” She grinned.