Sitting cross-legged on the floor of her office, Rune stared at the wooden coffer holding her reward. The completion of her [Guildmaster] quest had come, as promised, with a fresh pile of gold coins. They glinted in the light, stacked high, at least a hundred of them. Maybe more. She would have to count.

"Holy biscuits," Rune murmured, unable to tear her eyes away. "That's a lot of freaking money, Gryphon."

Gryphon meowed loudly in agreement. Rune idly scratched under his chin, the gray-haired cat straining upward to give better access.

"It's even minted properly," she mumbled, leaning forward and plucking a gold coin out of the box to study. "Not even like they're from a dungeon. Straight up, magically appearing, minted Liren gold coins. What the heck."

Gryphon bumped his head into Rune's knee, who had briefly gotten lost in her astonishment.

"What should I do with it?" she asked, obediently returning to petting him.

It wasn't like there was an obvious choice. Or rather, there were too many obvious choices, considering how far behind Rune's guild was. They needed a training yard. A vault. A proper dining room. A proper common room. To put it plainly, the entire house needed to be torn down and rebuilt as a standard guildhall. The [Schematic Builder]'s simple six-bedroom house had been all she could afford, and while it did the job—it put a roof over their heads—it certainly wasn't the 'real thing.'

"Being a [Guildmaster] is hard," Rune complained, falling backward and splaying her arms out. She flailed her limbs in impotent frustration.

In response, Gryphon climbed onto her stomach and started kneading.

"Even cheating, is it possible?" she asked the air. "I've got a skill that makes gold out of thin air for doing what any Guildmaster would have to, but it still feels like I'll get nowhere. We've only just got our first members, and they're level ones." In Flint's case, not even that. He had no class whatsoever.

Not that she was complaining about the three arrivals. She was ecstatic she'd gotten anybody to join her guild. Rune was entirely aware of how little she offered. That they were willing to pay guild dues for such a meager suite of benefits was a blessing.

Though, unlike most guilds, the income she would be making from guild dues was almost irrelevant. Paltry, compared to what she earned for completing her class quests.

[Guildmaster].

What the heck kind of class was that, anyway? She'd never heard of anything like it. Sure, classes came from anywhere, and imitated common societal roles, like [Banker] or [Builder] or [Farmer] or almost anything else under the sun, but [Guildmaster]? Rune hadn't found even the smallest mention of such a thing. Only peripheral classes like, perhaps, [Manager] or other administrative-leaning roles, which were already uncommon on their own.

As far as she knew, she was the only [Guildmaster] in the entire world.

And the class was strong too.

Not in the throw-fireballs-that-can-blow-up-buildings kind of way, but strong nonetheless. Because Heavens. She'd just gotten a chest filled with gold for doing literally nothing.

Okay, not literally nothing, but recruiting Vesper, Morgana, and Flint had hardly been some impossible task.

And she'd be getting another reward soon, too. One quest had been to recruit her first members, and another was for them to make their first dungeon run. Seeing how they had been eager to get going, that next payday would be coming shortly. By the evening, likely.

She doubted the quest would give her another pile of gold—'first Guild member' seemed like a big milestone, with an appropriately large boon—but the rewards did seem to be uniformly ridiculous.

Which was good, because she would need every copper her class was willing to give. There was so much that needed to be done, and none of it cheap.

Again, Rune groaned at the daunting future ahead of her, flailing her arms in complaint. Gryphon meowed in protest at his suddenly unstable resting spot, having settled down to sleep on her stomach.

"So?" Rune asked, craning her neck up to meet his eyes. "What do you think? What should we spend this on? What needs doing the most?"

Gryphon considered the question with the gravity it deserved. Eventually, he meowed and jumped off of her.

Rune mulled over his input.

"We still need our first craftsman," Rune said, slumping back down onto the floor. "That much is obvious, since it'll finish that other quest, which'll maybe give us another big reward. But putting in a blacksmith's forge, or whatever they need, won't be cheap. Only have one room open, too. We're gonna have to figure out our housing situation sooner than later, if we want more members." She perked up. "But now that we can actually afford to equip a craftsman, one might want to join. And then we'll have something real to put on our advertisements, so adventurers will be more likely to check us out." Having personal guild craftsmen on standby was one of the biggest selling points for membership, to the average dungeon dweller.

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But actually getting that craftsman would be a more daunting task than getting a few level-one, down-on-their-luck beginner adventurers like Vesper and them. Not just because a magical craftsman took a much larger investment to supply, but also because they tended to have a lot of options on where to work.

And Rune's guild? Not the first choice for any respectable artisan, especially when, up to this point—and possibly even still—she hadn't even been able to promise them the environment and supplies they would need.

Sitting up, she admired her newly earned windfall, the coffer freshly filled with gold coins.

"Still," Rune said, finishing her thoughts aloud. "That's totally our next step. Finding a craftsman." She patted Gryphon, who had rolled over to nap in that ridiculous way of his, with his stomach exposed to the air. "Gonna head into town, Gryph. Hold down the fort, won't you?"

***

Recruitment didn't go well.

Rune had earned a bit of a reputation in Quarrygate. Even if she hadn't been woefully out of her depth when she had first arrived, an eighteen-year-old trying to start a guild would have been the talk of the town on its own merit. Alongside being clueless and young, Rune also lacked anything remotely approaching the requisite funding for such an endeavor. Combine all of that with her…personal quirks…and she knew everyone in town considered her a joke.

An affable joke, she preferred to imagine, since people were generally friendly to her, even doing their best to help in small ways, whether advice or connections, but a joke nonetheless. She guessed she couldn't even fault them for that. Considering…everything. But she definitely wished people took her more seriously.

Most of the craftsmen of Quarrygate were already spoken for. In an adventuring town, almost all ended up working for a guild. In regular cities, it was more common to see independent practices, though even then, it would be unusual if they didn't have some ties and preferential contracts with guilds. Guilds were, after all, the primary buyers of magical gear. The average [Farmer] or [Lumberjack] would definitely like to have strength potions, or necklaces that improved their stamina, for example, but it simply wasn't feasible from a cost perspective. The only people who could afford—or needed badly enough—the expensive results of magical craftsmen were adventurers.

Since Quarrygate was past its pop-up phase, though certainly still burgeoning, Rune's only opportunity for snagging a craftsman would be finding someone who had just arrived. And likely someone low-level, new to their class. Obviously, even with her fresh windfall of gold, and promises to build them a proper blacksmithing forge or whatever else their specific class needed, a level twenty-five, competent craftsmen would never work for her. Why would they?

But that was fine. Rune didn't need the best of the best. She and her guild members could grow together. It would make success all that much better when The Gryphon Company was the premier guild in all of Quarrygate, as she'd promised Vesper and Morgana. When that happened, people would finally take her seriously.

Sitting in the Craftsmen Association, waiting for her turn to speak with the receptionist again, Rune briefly lost herself in those daydreams.

"Excuse me?" a tentative voice asked.

Rune's eyes refocused. She looked in the direction of the person who had spoken to her.

Then up.

And up.

"Oh, wow," Rune said, her eyes finally meeting his. "You're a big golem, aren't you?"

The golem blinked at her, and Rune blushed as she realized how unprofessional—and probably a bit odd—that sounded. She'd always had difficulty controlling her mouth. Words tended to fall out without checking in with her brain first.

A young girl—also a golem—accompanied the man, hiding behind one of the pillars that were his legs. Rune tried to offer a smile to the girl, but she only glared back at her.

The Gemforged weren't an unfamiliar sight for Rune. Though they also weren't something she saw every day, or, well, hardly ever, since she had moved up north. But her surprise stemmed from his sheer size, not his race.

After a brief pause at Rune's accidentally frank greeting, the golem-man let out a hearty chuckle.

"That I am," he agreed. "It's nice for someone to just say it, for once."

It was Rune's turn to blink. "Oh?"

"The people of Quarrygate clearly haven't seen much of my kind," the golem said wryly. "You're the first to be so straightforward. As if they think every Gemforged is as tall as me." He shook his head in amusement.

"Oh. Um. Yeah," Rune said. "I'm from Petrat, which is, uh, a small town you definitely haven't heard of. It's on the southern border." So, bordering the Snarl. "We had golems passing through every once in a while." Not frequently enough that Rune was wholly used to seeing them, but she was well past the point of having her eyes glued to them in fascination whenever one passed by.

Though, Rune would admit they were seriously interesting to study. Rock people that moved as fluidly as organic life. Of course they were interesting to look at. Elves and such were at least made of flesh and bone, not all that foreign, but golems were something else altogether.

"That explains that," the golem said with a nod. "The southern border, huh? I suppose we're both a long way from home." After a brief pause, he added, "I'm Gabbron."

"Rune," she offered back.

"The Guildmaster, correct?"

"O-Oh. Yeah. That's me." Had he approached her for a professional reason, then?

"I was pointed your way," Gabbron explained to her. "You're looking for a craftsman?"

Her eyes widened. She straightened up in her chair. "I am, yes. You're one?"

They were at the Craftsmen Association, so that was hardly surprising. In fact, Rune was the odd woman out here. Guildmasters didn't generally have to seek out their members, at least not so actively; they were supposed to come to her. Rune's trip to the Craftsmen Association was honestly a bit of an embarrassment. Showing her desperation.

"Oh, and sorry," Rune said. "Who's this?"

With Rune's attention returning to the young golem girl hiding behind Gabbron's leg, the girl narrowed her eyes and, for whatever reason, glared even harder at her.

"This is Cora," Gabbron said. "She's not used to meeting new people, but she's friendly once she warms up." He nudged her with the leg she was clutching to. "Say hi, Cora. Don't be rude."

"Hello," the girl replied angrily.

Rune hid her amusement. "Hi," she returned cheerfully. She fiddled at her neck. "I like your necklace."

The glower continued. "Thank you. It's an opal."

Gabbron spared an amused and slightly exasperated look for his … daughter? Rune guessed that hadn't actually been clarified. Then turned his attention back to Rune.

Rune straightened up, trying not to look too eager. "So," she said. "I'm assuming you're looking for a guild to join? What kind of craftsman are you?"