I ended up purchasing the level 1 Guildhall and a Lot within Bastion. Apparently, there were other Lot options in the other major cities of the continent, but Bastion was the economic and military hub of the Consortium. It would have been foolish to build our first Guildhall anywhere else.

That was another thing I had clarified with Harold. You could have multiple Halls, but only one of each level. So theoretically, a Guild could have a Hall for every Lot level. This meant that the largest Guilds could control a level 6 Raid Lot, and a level 5 Raid Lot - not to mention the lower level Dungeons. There were even high-tier Lots that weren’t centered around controlling a Raid or Dungeon entrance. Some came with economic control of an area that could often be lucrative. Others controlled central World PvP locations and served as hotbeds for PvP. I was going to avoid those for the near future…for obvious reasons.

With our Guildhall purchased and situated on our new Lot, I pinged the guys the location and we agreed to meet there.

I strolled through the Player Housing district, following my waypoint marker to our new Hall. I beat the guys there and stopped in front to take it in.

It looked almost identical to the sample level 1 Guildhall I had seen minutes earlier. A simple, two-story house straight out of the Victorian era. Access to the customization options would be inside, at the Control Module, so for now, it was the straight outta the box, cookie cutter S&S version of a track home.

While I was waiting, I opened up my private messages - since I had thousands of them, and getting more by the minute - and promptly exited out of the chat tab. It was a never-ending onslaught of noise like this:

‘Kil urself f****t’

‘I r**e damsuls!’

‘Actor pleb. Get back in my dungeon’

And they only got worse. There was the occasional message that was supportive, and some wondering about DGW, or the skill path competition. But the sheer act of combing through all that vitriol to get to the good ones was draining. I briefly wondered if I could ask one of the guys to go through them? Just copy and paste the whole pile of shit over to Kink or T.

Jeremy was out of the question…that was throwing napalm on a forest fire.

The three of them showed up a few minutes later, laughing together at something as they walked side by side. I felt an involuntary smile stretch across my face at the sight.

These were my friends…

“Yo, Ray!” Jeremy called. “We were just talking about how much money it would take for you to fuck a dog!”

I sighed.

These were my friends…

“No amount, Jer,” I said with a bland expression. “There is no amount that would make me want to fuck a dog.”

He slapped Kink on the arm. “That’s what Kink said! And I said, ‘I’d bet money you’ve fucked worse.’” Jeremy was laughing hysterically at his own joke, poking T and Kink because they weren’t sharing in his laughter. When it was clear they wouldn’t join in, he pouted. “You guys are lame. That was a good joke!”

Kink just shook his head and turned to me. “We were laughing, because we were remembering our little ‘Hold the door’ thing earlier. We looked so fuckin’ ridiculous trying to hold back that wave of gawkers coming after you.” He pointed at T. “T got fucking stampeded! Had to do a graveyard run and gave some dude a traitor mark!”

“No way!” I said, chuckling at that.

Jeremy threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “T getting trampled makes you laugh, but a gay joke about Kink gets nothing! Shows what kinda friend you are.”

I ignored Jeremy, turning back to Kink. “Was everything alright? No one gave you any trouble besides that?”

T laughed and slapped Jeremy on the back. “Jer scared them all away. He latched on to some level 60 guy and started gnawing on his leg!” Jeremy looked off into the distance and smiled, as if remembering. “The dude was afraid of killing Jeremy by pulling him off. Ended up paying him a thousand gold just to let go. It was fucking hilarious.”

“It was pretty good,” Jeremy said, basking in the praise. After a moment, he waved the air in front of him like he was humbly shunning the attention. “Enough about my hilarious jokes. Where’s this new Guildhall?” he asked, rubbing his hands together greedily.

I indicated the house behind us. “It’s this one.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Jeremy looked around, as if trying to find the Guildhall behind or to the side of the house. When it was clear there was nothing else I could be pointing at, his lip curled like he had smelled something rotten. “That?” he asked with disdain.

I shrugged. “It’s the only one we can buy until the Guild levels up.”

“About that,” Kink said. “What’s the plan? We did say open-door policy…but we’re approaching 2000 invite requests.” He looked around at the three of us, each in turn. “That’s pretty nuts, right?”

“I mean…if we restrict their access to anything important. They can only help, right?” I asked. “All their questing, leveling, dungeoning, and so on - that contributes to our Guild’s level. So, in this case, more is better.”

Kink and T shared a look, then Kink shrugged.

“Is this a bad time to revisit the hot chicks stipulation-”

“Shut up!” the three of us said almost in sync.

He put his hands up submissively, but didn’t relent. “I’m just sayin’, Ray’s got a lot of pull right now…we’ll never have a better opportunity than now to cash in on Ray’s celebrity status.”

“You’re right, Jer,” T said. “And we’re gonna use that opportunity - but not to phone smash online chicks. We’re gonna use that to make sure that Ray gets to - oh, I don’t know…keep living!” he said the last part forcefully, causing Jeremy’s eyebrows to rise in surprise.

“Okay, okay, message received, loud ‘n clear, roger roger.” He mimed zipping his mouth shut at T’s murderous look.

“Alright, let’s focus up,” I said. “We’ve got a lot of things to cover, and I was hoping I could delegate some of it to you guys…” I held my breath, afraid they would tell me to fuck off.

“Sure, dude,” T said. “I told Lin your situation and she gave me the week off from parenting.” He flashed a mischievous grin at Kink. “I hate to make light of the whole thing…but Ray shoulda died years ago! A week without the kids is better than a blowjob from the Queen.”

“Ewww,” Jeremy said, stunning us all. He looked around at our surprised expressions, his own expression flashing from disgusted to confused. “Wait, which Queen?”

“Yeah, Ray,” Kink said, ignoring Jeremy’s question. “I took the week off work, man! My schedule’s wide open.”

“That’s awesome. Thank you guys so much!” I said. “First thing, I have a metric fuckton of hate messages with sprinkles of good ones that I’d like someone to comb through. I tried to do it myself, but there was so much toxicity, I just couldn’t…” I trailed off, just the memory of some of those disgusting messages making me feel icky.

“I got that,” T said, raising his hand. “Send them over and-”

“Umm, excuse me,” Jeremy interrupted, an annoyed expression on his face.

I turned to him, my lips pursed. “Yes, Jer?” I asked.

“You didn’t even ask if I was free! For all you know, I canceled my date with that Italian supermodel I met on FuckBuddies.” He said it with a completely serious expression, and I just stared at him with narrowed eyes. “What?” he demanded.

“Jer…you’re unemployed, you live with your parents, and why the fuck would we ask you about your online catfishing date?” I shook my head in exasperation.

He pointed his finger in my face, his eyes full of fire. “Don’t you dare imply Katya is a catfisher! I’ll have you know she invited me to Italy next summer.” He looked to T and Kink for support. “Would a catfisher do that?!”

The three of us just stared stupidly at Jeremy for a moment, then burst out laughing simultaneously.

“Absolutely, yes!” T shouted through howling laughter.

“You fuckin’ moron,” Kink piled on. “She, is a 50-year-old dude that wants your kidneys. Little does he know, your organs have been fueled with chemicals and fake sugar for 20 years! They’ve probably been corroded down to little vestigial nubs. Like those pictures of smoker’s lungs after an 80-year binge sesh.”

Jeremy took a step back, slowly lifted both his hands in the air, then dramatically extended his middle fingers. He swept them across us, then doubled back, giving us all a double exposure of his displeasure.

“Jer’, we love you,” Kink said. “But definitely don’t go to Italy next summer.”

Jeremy grumbled something under his breath, but eventually retracted his two favorite weapons.

“Okay, so T’s on parsing my private messages,” I said, bringing us back on track. He nodded affirmative. “Kink, you think you could craft up a Guild application in a couple of hours? I wanna start directing people to that form as soon as possible. The faster we can get people in the Guild, the faster we can level up and get out of this piece of shit,” I said, flicking a thumb behind me at the Guildhall.

“On it,” he replied.

“Cool.” I turned to Jeremy, squinting my eyes in thought.

He watched me expectedly, but when I didn’t speak up immediately, he threw his hands up in exasperation. “What am I? Some fuckin’ moron?” he demanded. “Oh, let’s not even give Jeremy a simple fuckin’ task because he might fuck even that up!?”

I held up my hands to interrupt his building tirade. “No, Jer’, it’s not that.”

“Then what the fuck is it?”

“Think of it like this,” I said. “Kink and T, they’re kind of like generalists - no offense,” I said to them.

“None taken,” T said. Kink shook his head in agreement.

I turned back to Jeremy. “But you, you’re a specialist. You have certain talents that shouldn’t be wasted. Like a precision missile, I have to aim you at the right target, you follow?”

His eyes perked up at that. “I’m listening…”

“The trick is, where will your talents best be utilized?” I tapped my lip in thought. Sure, I was blowing smoke up Jeremy’s ass. He was more like a biological weapon than a precision missile. But he did have a way of cutting through the bullshit, and fast. My initial thought was to have him vet recruits - his caustic way of communication would weed out the bullshitters and scammers quick. But he’d also hit a lot of…false positives, in a way. I imagined many recruits would be turned off by his lack of a filter and his brash demeanor. So he couldn’t be the first point-of-contact for recruits…But could we find a way to filter the candidates through him in a way that didn’t immediately turn them away?

“My idea for you is that you function as our principal interviewer for potential candidates,” I eventually said. I noticed Kink and T’s eyes go wide at the ridiculousness of the suggestion, but I ignored them. “Your job is gonna be to catch the infiltrators, the scammers, and the fucks that are trying to zero me out.” I turned to T and Kink, my expression dead serious. “In a way, it’s kind of the most important job. Maybe I should have the three of you do it together…” I left that hanging.

Wait for it…

“Nawww, I got this!” Jeremy said, preening self-importantly. “Cutting through bullshit is kinda my superpower,” he added with a smirk.

Kink, T, and I definitely did not snicker at the irony of that statement.

We absolutely did not.