Metropolis - Goldilocks: Capsule Bay 57 - Unit 4

Tuesday, May 12th, 2089 | 11:16am

Finding a guild was proving to be a lot harder than Aya had anticipated. The first place she had checked was JailBait, but they’d turned her away before she’d even finished saying her name. Apparently, the two guilds had a mutual understanding to stay out of each other's way. There were enough Regs to go around for them not to have to go at each other's throats. It was a weird truce, but it ruled that option out from the get-go.

Luckily, she’d tried contacting them over Forum first just in case something like that happened. She wanted to keep her location secret from Serving Time for as long as she could. There was no way of knowing if they already knew she had made it into town, but she wasn’t going to put it to the test. Having discarded the only other convict guild she could think of, Aya checked the forums for any other guilds that were recruiting in the area.

Some, she immediately rejected for seeming too immature, small, weak, poor or just downright dumb. Others, turned her down before even going through an interview process. This was mostly due to her convict status, but the Forum fiasco surely didn’t help. It was also slowly getting around that she’d stirred the hornet’s nest when it came to Serving Time and everyone wanted to keep their distance, much in the same way Donovan did.

A full two hours later, she still had nothing. She was at her wit’s end when she got a message from Foot. In it was a large screen shot of a slain horse-like beast with an alligator snout and scales. The background was a swamp of some kind, a totally different environment than Aya had grown used to. It was green and wet.

[Cool right!?]

Was the message attached to the picture.

[Very!]

Aya replied, shook her head and laughed. The kid had left saying he was going to slay bad guys, but she wasn’t sure how swamp monsters qualified. If he really wanted to kill bad guys…

The moment the thought occurred to her, she sat up straighter. She’d been planning to form her own guild later on the line, but what was stopping her from doing it now? If no other guilds would take her, it only made sense for her to make her own. The only issue was, she was going to have to find people that could afford the war she was about to start.

Aya took out her Contact list and sighed at the paltry number of players on it. First, she sent a message to Foot and Frank, as they were the highest level players she knew and probably the ones with a decent amount of gold. In addition, they did not seem to care about inciting a war with Serving Time. The offhanded way in which they killed a party of Serving Time members, which caused them to be labeled as PKers, was either incredibly admirable or incredibly stupid. Aya chose to interpret it the first way lest she convince herself that only insane people would form a guild with. She needed to take what she could get.

Next on the list of invitations were Xavier and Obelisk, both of whom turned her down because of their own guilds. She sent a message to Asterisk as well, just in case the orc decided to join when she logged on, but doubted the woman would do it when Obelisk didn’t. Donovan, she didn’t even bother messaging. Aya knew very well what his stance on the Serving Time subject was.

She then carefully scrolled through the rest of her Contacts, mostly people she’d Contracted for small jobs here and there over the last couple of days, complete beginners for the most part. For her guild plan to work, she would need enough players with good credit ratings to counteract her own extremely negative one. New players, with no credit history to speak of, weren’t very useful in that regard, but at this point, she might not even be able to get the minimum guild requirement of five players to join.

Currently, she had one, including herself. Over the next ten minutes, she formulated invites to the rest of her Contact list, including the beginner players. Aya was deflated. She’d walked into a random pub to avoid the public as much as possible. Things weren’t so peachy for her as it was and she didn’t need Serving Time to find her and make things worse. She’d almost finished going through the entire list when she came across MageSlayer. His review had left a special place in her heart, but in that moment all she cared about was the fact that he and his friends were accountants.

From her experience with them, she knew their combat abilities were even worse than her own, which were already very poor. They had obvious drawbacks and weaknesses, MageSlayer being one, but Aya still wanted to smack herself in the face for not thinking of them before. If there was one group of people she could incentivize to join her guild with a financial plan, it would be accountants.

She was a bit reticent about laying all of her cards on the table. There was also the added danger of Serving Time finding out about her plan while they could still do something about it, but she did it anyway. In order to gain the accountants’ trust, she gave them all the details of her plan and asked for input, if they had any, considering it was mainly relying on a financial takeover.

Aya had half-expected them all to be at work at this time of the day and was thus surprised when MageSlayer and Emry, two of the accountants, quickly replied to her PM.

MageSlayer: I just read your proposal. I wanted to reject it, but Emry sent it out to our colleagues before I could stop her. Unfortunately, that means we will be working together. I don’t trust you though, so you’re going to have to sign a Contract before we do anything together.

Emry: Thank you for thinking of us. I’d be honored to join your guild.

Aya still didn’t like Marvin, the mage. She wanted to tell him to shove it where the light didn’t shine, but forced herself to remain calm. The chafing of her cloak was really getting to her and she just wanted the whole process to be over already.

Aya: Ok. With the four of you and me, we should be able to register our guild before I get the other players organized.

She replied, trying to avoid as much conflict as possible while pretending to have everything on the fast track to success. She actually didn’t know if Foot and Frank would join her at all, but what was the point of defeating guild-confidence before it even existed.

Marvin replied a couple minutes later.

MageSlayer: I got Esteell and Midas to send in their guild acceptance forms, so now we just have to go to the GuildHall. Let’s meet there in ten minutes.

Aya still didn’t like the man’s abrasive nature, but she consoled herself with the fact that he could be usable as a paper-pusher. She liked him less than Emry, but he had been more useful up to that point. Emry remained silent after her initial message and Aya was surprised to see both MageSlayer and her in front of the GuildHall. The mage barely waited for Aya before he started walking into the large, old building. The female warrior on the other hand, bowed her head and gestured deferentially for Aya to proceed first. Aya barely remembered the woman from their questing together and now she finally knew why: the woman was a mouse, afraid of leaving a shadow. Aya had no idea why the woman had chosen to be a warrior, but just about any other class would have suited her more.

Soon distracted by the building’s arched mosaic windows and massive, ancient wooden door, Aya went inside. The old building was a lot more impressive than the library had been. Its age and architecture pressed upon her, making it harder to breathe. Aya had never seen a building like it in her life. The ceilings were so high, she could barely make out the detailed carvings on the stone.

“Stop gawking!” MageSlayer snapped. “You look like a preschooler who's just gotten their first pair of glasses.”

Aya gave him a confused look, not knowing why he cared.

“It’s embarrassing!” he growled under his breath, grabbing her firmly by the wrist and pulling her forward.

Aya had seen the building from the outside and knew it to be huge, so she was surprised to reach a counter not far from the entrance. Squinting, she looked around at the walls, trying to figure out if they just made the room look like it took up the whole building. During her inspection, MageSlayer walked up to the counter, slammed his hand down and said,

“We’re here to register a guild!”

The old robed woman behind the counter raised an eyebrow at the man’s behavior. Aya cringed and watched the old woman set aside the scroll she was reading to deal with the mage. It was obvious from the pulsing vein on her forehead that the man had already gotten on her nerves. The counter they stood at spanned the whole room with five attendants spaced equally apart. Two others were also occupied with small groups of players, and another with a literal horde of over twenty players.

Aya thought it was overkill to bring so many people to the guild-registering process, but she hadn’t spent much time researching in it so she had no clue if it was normal or not.

“How many of you are there?” the old woman asked from behind the counter.

“Seven,” MageSlayer answered before Aya could speak up.

He didn’t even ask Aya to confirm before announcing it. Flustered, Aya could only hope that Foot would agree to join her guild. As if hearing her thoughts, she got a message from the boy in that exact moment.

[I’ve always wanted a guild! But Frank has never been a people person. He likes you though. He doesn’t like Serving Time. He doesn’t like convicts.]

Aya read the message and let out a relieved sigh. She was touched. She knew that the kid probably didn’t realize that what Frank had said about convicts actually included her, but decided to disregard it. In that moment, she was just relieved that things had worked out. She had no way of knowing until the guild registration process was complete, but she was almost certain that the accountants’ slightly positive financial standings, combined with Foot’s and Frank’s overly positive ones, would be able to counteract the sinkhole that was hers. At least, enough to take out another loan.

“Who is going to be your GuildMaster?” the woman asked flatly.

“Me, that is, MageSl—”

“Wait, wait, wait, hold on!” Aya said, almost missing out on the exchange because of Foot’s message. “That’s not what we agreed on. I’m creating this guild, I will be GuildMaster.”

Aya wasn’t sure what the GuildMaster duties would be, but she wasn’t about to be led by the pompous, self-righteous ass in front of her.

“The strongest should be GuildMaster,” he said with an air of superiority. “You are level fifteen. I am level eighteen. You do the math.”

“Oh, I did do the math,” Aya answered, trying to keep her general annoyance at the day at bay. “And by my count, the players I recruited are at a way higher level than you. So, by your ‘math’” she said, using air quotation marks to make her point, “one of them should be in charge.”

“How do I even know you’re telling the truth about them?” MageSlayer asked. “I brought along our teammates’ forms, have you?”

Aya quickly sent them out and hoped that Frank and Foot would be quick to reply.

“I don’t appreciate the way you’re speaking to me.” Aya saw Emry biting her lip from the corner of her vision. “Do your teammates know you’re behaving like this? Maybe I should find other people to team up with.”

“You wouldn’t…” MageSlayer said, but Aya saw the uncertainty in his eyes. “If you did, we’d broadcast your shitty little plan all around town!”

Emry: No, we wouldn’t.

Surprised, Aya looked back at the woman to see a little glint of steel in her eyes before she blinked, looked away and lowered her head.

“You do that,” Aya said, bluffing as she turned around to leave.

It took three nerve-wracking steps for the mage to speak up again.

“All right! All right, fine!” Aya turned around to see his pissed-off face. “But in that case, I get to do the negotiations at the bank. I don’t trust you,” he said, squinting suspiciously at her, as if his words hadn’t already made the point.

“The feeling is mutual,” Aya returned coolly. She really didn’t want the mage in charge of negotiations. If the proceedings in the Guildhall so far had been anything to go by, he had absolutely no sense, tact or feeling for other people’s emotions.

A drop of sweat ran into her eye, stinging it with salt. Added on top of the general discomfort of the day, her mood just turned from foul to worse. She looked up at MageSlayer, wanting to get into an argument to put Marvin in his place. She even opened her mouth, ready to let him have it, but at the last moment, she saw Emry and decided against it. She’d gotten what she wanted, and if she had to make a little compromise now, it surely couldn’t go that badly.

“Fine,” she said, already regretting it.

Aya stepped forward to continue the guild registration process with the now-very-annoyed woman behind the counter, when the mage put an arm forward, barring her progress.

“No, not fine,” he said. “First, you show me the forms from these high-level friends you claim to have and then you sign a Contract with the terms about the negotiation.”

Aya imagined herself kneeing the man in the balls. It calmed her enough to take a deep breath and give him a forced smile. He was an irritating man for sure, but she wasn’t about to let her emotions get the better of her, especially when a big chunk of it was attributable to her current physical comfort. Aya adjusted her robe.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Fine,” she said, taking out a Contract.

“How do I know these Contracts of yours even wor—” he stopped when he noticed Aya’s steely look. “Fine,” he said.

It took them another five minutes to agree on the final terms of the Contract, but they finally both signed it and moved on. Aya had to give up the right to even utter a word during the later negotiations with Qanelin, but she comforted herself with the fact that Marvin was an accountant in real life. Surely, he could not completely suck at financial negotiations. He also had a point when he said that three people were one too many when it came to negotiating. She drew the line at being present, though. She wouldn’t be able to go against any decisions Marvin made, but she wasn’t about to let the guy go unsupervised.

Walking up to the counter for what would hopefully be the final time, Aya noticed that the old woman was gone. Looking around, she spotted her discussing something with another attendant. Aya tried to get her attention, but she said, “One moment please,” holding up a finger. “I’ll be right with you.”

It took the woman ten minutes, but Aya figured she probably deserved it after the spectacle she and MageSlayer had created. What goes around, comes around.

“Do you have at least five Outwolders?” the woman asked, annoyance still clouding her voice. “I see only three.”

“Yes, we do,” Aya said, gesturing MageSlayer forward with his forms. Simultaneously, she checked her inbox and was relieved to see the two forms along with a short message from Foot.

[Let’s be the Slayer Guardians!]

“What will be the name of the guild?”

“…Slayer Guardians,” Aya said.

“What th—” MageSlayer began.

“You got all your requests, now it’s the other player's turn,” Aya said calmly, as if handing out instructions at kindergarten.

“That sounds like some kid came up with it,” MageSlayer said derisively, crossing his arms. “What is he, twelve?”

“No,” Aya said rolling her eyes externally and internally thinking it was probably closer to ten. “Do I have to remind you that your name is MageSlayer? I thought you’d be happy with the name.”

His eyes widened, his face reddened, his mouth opened, but no words came out.

“Everything is set,” the woman behind the counter said. “Now if the GuildMaster, and only the GuildMaster,” the woman said doling out her own derision, “would come with me.”

Aya nodded and followed, leaving her two new guildmates behind.

The old woman with tiny spectacles led her around the counter and through a small door. It was surprising to see something so small in a place that had been so ostentatious about everything else. Or at least, that is what Aya thought before she walked through the small and simple wooden door. It was pitch black and several degrees cooler than it had been outside. The moment the door closed behind them, there was absolutely no light in the room. She couldn’t even begin to guess at the dimensions of the room, let alone anything else.

“I will take your hand now,” the woman said moments before her dry, papery skin touched hers. Aya was relieved the woman had announced her intention, sure she would have screamed otherwise. The woman started pulling Aya in a direction away from the door. It wasn’t directly forwards, but it was the general direction in which they moved. “Stop now.”

Aya stopped, surprised at how short the distance they traveled had been.

“I will leave you now,” the woman lifted Aya’s hand and put it on something cool and smooth; it felt like a metal bar of some sort. “This is a door handle. This door leads to the Room of Choices. Open it once the door behind me closes and there is no light impurity left.”

“…Ok,” Aya answered, feeling like a response was expected of her.

Aya then heard the woman’s footsteps as she walked back in the direction they’d come from. Moments later, the door opened, blinding her with the sudden light. By the time her eyes adjusted enough to take in the features of the room, the door was already clicking shut. Sighing, she blinked and waited for her eyes to once more get used to the darkness. She wished she’d spent some time looking into the guild creation process because, as it stood, she had no idea what awaited her behind the doors.

Taking a deep breath, she steeled her spine and pressed down on the door handle. Aya had no idea about what she’d been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t what she found. The room was also completely dark, hiding any features it could have had. Her mouth gaped open anyway when she saw spheres of blue and white lights floating around the room, dozens of feet into the air. She knew the building was tall, but not that tall. It was architecturally impossible.

Are you ready to begin your Guild Configuration?

Yes | No

A window appeared, and she was forced to take her eyes off the glowing spheres and concentrate on the task at hand.

[Yes]

The window dissolved into a stream of blue and white light, much like the ones making up the other spheres in the room. Then the stream surrounded Aya and also became spherical in shape before lifting her off the ground and taking her away from the door where she entered. Looking around, she realized that each floating sphere had a person doing their customizations in it. Luckily she couldn’t see anything else in the room, not even exactly how far from the ground she was.

Welcome, Slayer Guardian GuildMaster!

Brought back to the moment, Aya read the notification and sighed, but she refused to agree with MageSlayer on the point and merely rolled her eyes before reading the rest of the message.

There are some tasks that lie outside the realm of possibility for the individual. These same tasks are often made possible by multiple individuals standing together as one. There is power in numbers.

Don’t try to conquer Corruption by yourself; you will fail as many before you have. Era became a target the moment its most important group, the Gatekeepers, fell apart. Let this be a lesson and a constant reminder of the importance of teamwork through the rest of your journey in Era.

Now, please, it is time to choose a coat of arms for your group of hardy companions. Unity is important. There is unity in a name, Slayer Guardian, but there is also unity in an image. Choose carefully, for this cannot be modified in any way.

First, she was given the option of colors. She chose white and dark blue. Then she was asked to choose or customize her coat of arms. Initially, she started customizing it using the building blocks given to her. She figured Foot would like something that had swords and lions on it and five minutes later, she realized she was turning it into a mess, trying to guess at what a five-year-old would want in an emblem.

Sighing, she deleted it and started from scratch, choosing the completely separate option of drawing it out herself. Aya chose to use the dark blue as the background color and the base shape of a shield. It might be a little too cliche, considering the Guardians thing, but Aya thought that Foot would enjoy it. She also did it so she wouldn’t feel too guilty for taking liberties with the rest of the design. As an artist, she just couldn’t let an image she was associated with be a terrible mismatch of ridiculous cliches.

She wanted to draw something meaningful and deep, but the more she thought about it, the more elusive the concept became. By the time she was about ready to tear her hair out, Henry squawked at her feet and Aya looked down. She frowned at him for disturbing her concentration, but then a thought occurred to her. If the name was a joke and the background was a joke, the coat of arms might as well be a joke that they could all enjoy as well. Aya knew how Foot felt about Henry, and for some reason she wanted to please the boy with a surprise. She wouldn’t be where she was without all of the selflessness he had displayed. Perhaps it was just an innocence and age thing, but she appreciated it nonetheless.

Aya was careful and spent the next ten minutes capturing Henry’s essence for the coat of arms using white on the dark blue shield background. Then she handed it in and was asked a couple of questions about the values of the guild. It would probably be used to characterize their guilds as mercenaries, cut-throats, professionals, and other groups that guilds used to identify themselves. Aya carefully directed her answers to portray the guild as carefree adventure-seekers, one of the broader categories she’d come across. Serving Time was after her and her prison mates could be an eventual problem; basically, she wanted to avoid the spotlight for as long as she could.

Next, she was given options about what positions to give and who she wanted to appoint to them. Having absolutely no clue about what to do without more information, she was glad to see the option of skipping that step. It was something she’d have to look into.

Finally, she came to the end of the configurations.

The Slayer Guardians are now fully set up. You now have a final chance to go back and change anything you want. Would you like to change anything, or are you ready to fight against Corruption?

Aya wanted to tell the game to shove it. She’d been scavenging for every copper from the moment she’d arrived, trying to be more of a profitable player. All this lore about Corruption meant nothing to her; what she really needed was some hard gold. She selected the ‘Yes’ option anyway.

The lights in the glowing sphere around her started to move more and more quickly, spinning her around as they clashed and whirled, creating little clashing light shows all around her. Aya felt like she’d been swept up into a storm and was watching as lightning battled itself all around her, and soon enough, she was falling. It took her less than a second to recognize the falling feeling as the same one she’d felt during her Teleportation skill. Another second and she was standing in front of her two guildmates. Emry looked bored, but MageSlayer was downright pissed. The moment he saw her, he uncrossed his arms, headed towards her, grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her along with him towards the exit.

“Could you have taken any longer?” he asked in clipped tones. “I’ve seen like five guilds come and go while you were in there doing God-knows…”

Aya looked back just in time to see another GuildMaster pop into existence out of thin air. The tall, thin robed man looked about as daze as she felt. She had no time to examine him any further, as MageSlayer pulled her through the GuildHall’s doors a moment later.

“Which way?” he asked brusquely.

“To the bank?”

“No, to the cemetery,” he mocked.

“There’s only one bank in Durrenheim,” Aya said trying to keep her patience about her. The small reprieve the guild customization process had given her was already wearing out.

“Yeah? That’s great,” the mage said rolling his eyes. “Where is it?”

The moment Aya realized the man had never made a transaction with Qanelin or even been to the bank, she started regretting the Contract she’d signed. She wouldn’t be able to contribute to negotiations, not even when her reputation with the banker was much better than MageSlayers, meaning existent. Furthermore, she couldn’t believe an accountant had made it to level 18 in the game without visiting the bank. Aya was not looking forward to the meeting as they made their way through the winding streets in the direction of the bank.

Fifteen minutes later, Aya found herself in front of the Durrenheim City Bank with two guild members by her side. All three of them had their coat of arms displayed on top of them. Aya’s was right next to her convict status. While she could see both Emry’s and MageSlayer’s, she knew that you couldn’t see that of players outside your guild unless they expressly chose to reveal it. Most guilds didn’t. The only way Aya ever discovered if a convict was part of Serving Time was through association and guesswork, not their guild symbol. In fact, having never paid it much attention, Aya wasn’t even sure what it was.

“Are you sure about this?” Aya asked, turning her attention to MageSlayer. “I could still do the negotiations. There is a Contract, I won’t—”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re capable of running away with the gold. Don’t worry,” MageSlayer said. “I just don’t want you to waste it is all.”

“…” with nothing to say in response, Aya just followed mutely in tow as they made their way to the bank and then into Qanelin’s study.

Happy to be inside, and away from prying eyes, Aya took off the scratchy cloak. She was drenched with sweat and knew she must look quite the sight, but she doubted her exterior even began to express how she was feeling at that very moment.

As they sat down, Aya noticed the time. With less than half an hour before Goldilock’s lunch time, she brought up a countdown clock in her overlay. All that she could do was to keep an eye on it and hope that MageSlayer was as good as negotiating as he thought he was.

“Well,” Qanelin said, talking to her. “That was fast.”

“Yes, I—” Aya said.

“Ya-da. Ya-da,” MageSlayer interrupted. “He’s an NPC; don’t bother.”

MageSlayer then turned to Qanelin and said, “You’re talking to me now. Let’s get down to business.”

The banker looked both shocked and insulted by the interruption. Aya wanted to punch her new guild member in the face, but she controlled herself.

“Yes, Miss Aya told me she was interested in—” Qanelin began again, trying to resurrect the civility MageSlayer had so effectively eradicated.

“Serving Time’s loan, yes. No need to repeat all that,” MageSlayer said flatly. “Why don’t you just tell me the specifics of the loan already. The term, the interest, the time frame, the payment schedule…”

“…Certainly,” Qanelin said.

Aya watched as all emotion fled the banker’s face. She sighed, knowing that the accountant had just squashed any and all desire Qanelin had of making them a good deal. The hardest part of watching MageSlayer do the negotiations was knowing that she couldn’t stop him. The mage had made it quite clear that he was to be in charge of negotiations.

Had any of the other two accountants, Esteell or Ashworth been along, Aya doubted she would be having the same problem. Emry was as passive as any person Aya had ever met. Aya doubted the female human warrior would do anything even if the woman disapproved of MageSlayer’s actions. Unable to contain herself, Aya opened her mouth and spoke.

“Wai—”  

Not even a second after she tried speaking, her tongue froze and Aya experienced worst pain she’d ever felt zapped through her body in the space of a moment. Her entire mana bar was depleted with her near-breach of Contract. Knowing her health bar would be next, Aya scowled, crossed her arms and tried not to witness the horrendous scene in front of her.

The mage had a smug grin on his face while he once more resumed his conversation with the banker as if she wasn’t even there,  “You said the guild still owed how much?”

“428,000 gold,” Qanelin replied. “But their guild was valued at a lot more than that.”

“How much?” MageSlayer asked, not giving the banker time to elaborate.

“1.4 Million gold,” Qanelin said, and again, before he could elaborate, MageSlayer was already speaking again.

“Oh, wow,” he said. “That’s a great deal.”

Aya wanted to bang her head against the wall. Negotiations 101: never, ever, ever agree to the initial offer. Negotiations 102: never, ever, ever seem excited about a deal; always walk away looking slightly put off, even if you’re not.

Aya strangled a sigh. There was absolutely nothing she could do other than to learn from the mistake. Contracts 101: never make stupid deals with stupid people.

“It is,” Qanelin said, triumphant excitement beading in his eyes. “We’ll make you a great deal for 500,000 gold, even.”

“500,000?” MageSlayer exclaimed, getting Aya’s hopes up, thinking he was about to try to negotiate. “That’s great! I thought for sure it would be more…”

Or not. Aya could feel the blood pounding in her head as she tried to contain her irritation. Aya saw a vein in Qanelin’s forehead twitch, but didn’t comment. Apparently, it was an emotion they both shared. She wanted to strangle Marvin, the accountant, as the documents were signed. Did the man not see the signs? The bank was on its last legs; the last thing it needed was to chase after some defaulted loan. If he’d agreed to pay upfront what they had now as a guild, which was 189,000, he would have been able to cut the price in almost half.

They would have walked away from the bank with almost no debt.

Instead, they walked away with huge interest payments that they would need to make in the very near future just piling onto her already very volatile situation. Even further in debt, she was ready to strangle MageSlayer as she walked out of the bank. To top it off, had to put up with his smug attitude.

“Well,” he said, smile wide on his face, “that went well.”

Aya wanted to scream at him, or at least shove his head into a wall, but instead she just smiled blandly. She was GuildMaster now and he wasn’t going to be able to screw anything else up. She needed to get her hands on the Guild rules and make sure that bozo never got near any of the finances again.

Emry looked at her apologetically, showing that while totally spineless, she wasn’t nearly as daft as her friend. Aya sighed, not sure what kind of people she’d gathered to be in her guild. In her plans, she’d always imagined a group full of strong individuals, hand-picked for their particular skills in battle, negotiation, intelligence and other strengths, but in the end, all she ended up doing was gathering as many people as she could to fill ranks.

She sighed and left the accountants the first chance she got. The Guild channel was a new addition to her overlay and she would need to spend some time going over the configurations, but first, she had some real stuff to take care of. As she watched the timer she’d set up dwindle to zero, she tried to comfort herself with the fact that MageSlayer had at least made the negotiations go by quickly.

It didn’t work; she wasn’t comforted.