Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Six - The Guildhouse

I pushed the front door open with a squeal of protesting hinges and peered inside. The interior wasn’t all that well lit, just the light slipping in from the windows at the front illuminating a lobby area filled with shadows and a thin film of dust.

“Hello?” I called out as I stepped in. My voice echoed across the room.

I had only ever been to two Exploration Guildshouses before. The large one in Port Royal, which was a stately building, well-maintained and richly decorated, and a smaller one in Awen’s hometown, which had been clean and quite nice, though not as affluent.

Maybe that clouded my impression of the guild, because I was expecting something similar here, especially in Goldenalden where the city seemed much richer and the people here had a much greater focus on propriety than I was used to.

There were some decorations. The last two guilds had dioramas of dungeons and hand-drawn maps made by members of the guild. This one had glass-covered plinths to the sides with strange weapons and artefacts with little plaques next to them. They might have been impressive if a number of them weren’t missing and the rest weren’t currently being used as scaffolding by enterprising spiders.

“This place looks abandoned,” Awen said as she glanced around.

“Yeah,” I replied. I had that impression too. “But the door wasn’t locked, and there’s still some things here.”

“Nothing of great value, but still enough that I suspect a common thief wouldn’t just leave it laying around,” Amaryllis said.

The clink of a door opening had all three of us looking up and to the end of the room. There was a desk there, with a doorway behind it slowly swung open. A sylph stepped out.

I wasn’t great at judging the age of people, but I guessed him to be in his thirties or so. A proper adult. He had a suit that was well-cut but a bit rumpled, and he walked with the hunched back of someone who had given up.

“Hello!” I called out.

The sylph jumped, then spun to stare at us. His confusion quickly gave way to a shaky smile and he scurried around the desk to come and address us properly. “Hello hello,” he said. “Welcome to the Goldenalden Exploration Guild. It’s been some time since... ah, nevermind, I mean to say that you’re all very welcome. Are you looking to hire someone to find something? A scout, a map-maker? Perhaps a dungeon diver?”

I shook my head. “We’re not looking for anything like that,” I said. “My name’s Broccoli, and these are my friends Amaryllis and Awen. We--at least Amaryllis and I--are part of the Exploration Guild.”

The sylph froze up, his smile turning brittle. “An inspection team?”

“Huh? No, nothing like that,” I said. “We’re just normal members.”

“Oh! That’s wonderful. Are you looking for a mission? We don’t have many, but there are a few outstanding ones that we could use an experienced team on.”

Amaryllis raised a talon. “What’s going on here? I’d suspect that the Goldenalden guild was just not as popular or as well off, but the location of this building and its size suggests otherwise. It looks, at a glance, as if this branch is falling apart.”

“What? No, no, we’re...” he tried to keep up his smile, then abandoned that. “Alright, so you’re not wrong. We’re basically skirting failure here.”

“What happened?” I asked. “It looks like this was a nice place.” The decor was poorly maintained and dirty, but I could imagine it being quite fetching beneath all of that.

“Happened?” he asked. “Ah! Where are my manners? My name is Reginald Leaflock, I’m the current guild master of the Goldenalden branch of the Exploration Guild, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He bowed a bit.

“Nice to meet you too!” I said. “Are you the only one here?”

“No, no, we still have some staff. Not many though,” he replied with a glance over his shoulder. “Mostly the older members who have been around for so long that they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.” He laughed, but it lacked any humour.

Amaryllis shifted, and I could see the calculations flashing by in her eyes. “So, what happened here? The guild looks like it’s underperforming.”

“We’re getting along,” Reginald said, but he folded at Amaryllis’ look. “Or we’re trying to. It’s a long story, and not one that I think anyone would want to hear. I’d much rather listen to your own. Are you members from the Harpy Mountains?”

“We both joined in Port Royal,” I said.

Reginald’s eyebrows rose. “Ah, a nice branch over there. The guild leader is a woman of great repute. Did you have a mission that needed you around here? We might be able to provide some assistance.”

“Mister Leaflock, could you tell us what happened here?” Amaryllis asked. “We came because we were looking for some information, but the state of the guild is questionable at best.”

Reginald winced. “Well, ah, perhaps we can have this discussion in my office? Though, I’m not sure if it’s a discussion worth having at all.”

“You seem worried,” I said.

He shrugged a shoulder, a very careless gesture for a sylph. “I don’t think the guild has much time left, at least not this branch.”

“Well, now I want to know what happened too,” I said. “But not if it’ll hurt your feelings to repeat it.”

Reginald stared at me for a moment, then took a deep breath and shored up his resolve. “No, no I don’t mind telling you what happened. Come, my office is at least a little more comfortable.”

We followed Reginald to the back and instead of going around the counter as he had, he led us to the side and headed towards a staircase at the rear. Once we were up a floor, we moved down a richly appointed corridor, and finally into an office.

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Reginald’s office was nice and big, with a chonky desk in its middle and a few plush chairs for guests. There were paintings of people hanging on the walls, and from the plaques beneath them I guessed that they’re the former guildmasters for this branch.

“Take a seat, please,” Regionald said as he gestured to the free seats before his desk.

I looked to my friends before pulling one out and plopping myself down onto it. A small puff of dust rose around me that I quickly and quietly got rid of by pushing some magic into my Cleaning aura. I didn’t want to interrupt anything so I kept it subtle. His desk was less dusty, due to regular use.

“So, what happened?” Amaryllis asked.

Reginald worked his jaw. “I don’t know exactly where things started taking a turn for the worse. We were having a relatively difficult year. Securing government contracts was made more complicated by the army ramping things up and edging into the budget we’re usually allocated, but otherwise we were doing well financially. You have to understand, the Exploration Guilds in Sylphfree are treated... in an interesting way.”

“Interesting how?” I asked.

“In most countries, the Exploration Guild is primarily made up of two groups: well-off members of the gentry who can afford to mount expeditions, and talented individuals looking for reliable work who can assist with those expeditions. There are always new dungeons to find, ancient ruins to explore, and new cultures to visit and exchange with.”

I nodded; that’s what made me want to join, mostly.

“But in Sylphfree, there’s a powerful pressure for most to join the armed forces. Most nobles will try to find a place in the military hierarchy, and it’s not as common for one to wish to join our guild. We still have... had, plenty of members though.”

“What was the appeal?” Amaryllis asked.

“Mostly the ability to move outside of the borders of the country. And we worked closely with Paladins and others of the sort to scout out new dungeons and locations of interest across Sylphfree.” Reginald seemed quite proud. “The Exploration Guild allowed its distinguished members to make a mark in a way that being part of the more traditional sylph culture wouldn’t allow.”

“You still haven’t told us how everything turned out like this,” Amaryllis said.

Reginald’s proud look deflated. “It started with... I suppose we received a new member. He was very talented, a young human from somewhere. He never really said. He was a hard worker, and while he was rather anti-social he worked well enough with the rest of the guild. He took quite a few missions, mostly mapping out dungeons. There are a few in the nation that aren’t as popular, so they’re not delved as often and our maps of those have become dated.”

“I imagine he did more than just that,” Amaryllis said.

The sylph nodded. “We didn’t know it at the time, but he...well, he destroyed some of the dungeons he visited. Three of them, as far as we now know.”

Amaryllis took in a deep breath and I saw Awen raise her hands over her mouth. As I understood it, dungeon destruction was a big deal. It would probably be really wise of me not to mention the dungeons I’d destroyed.

“The Inquisition marched in here and started rooting around, looking for him, but he had disappeared. Worse, he took a lot of paperwork with him when he left. Gold as well. I think the only silver lining in the entire matter is that the inquisition wanted the destruction to stay silent.”

“Did they ever find him?” I asked.

Reginald shook his head. “No. We lost a few members then and there. Others left soon after. I scrambled to fulfil the missions we still had, but that meant sending less experienced members out to tackle more complicated missions. We had to deal with a big surge in injuries. Then the news broke out amongst the nobility, and a lot of our members who were part of the gentry parted ways with us.”

“Oh no,” I said. “They were the ones supplying the guild with money and stuff?”

“In part, yes,” Reginald said. “We used to receive frequent donations from the nobility, often in lieu of donating to other organizations.”

“Huh?” I asked.

Reginald blinked. “Ah, yes, you’re not from Goldenalden. Ah, the nobility are legally obligated to pay a certain amount of their earnings back to the nation. They can get an exception from this if they donate some of those proceeds to certain organizations. Some are military, others are civil services.”

“Ah, tax evasion,” I said with a nod.

“It’s...not technically that. Anyway, a lot of noble families would donate to the guild, especially those that enjoyed the banquets and meetings which we held here. Which we can no longer hold here, not with the state the guild is in.”

“And all of this was caused by a single human?” Amaryllis asked.

“One human, yes. At least, I think he was human.” At our looks, Reginald shook his head. “Nevermind, just a rumour.”

“Wait,” I said as I leaned forwards. “You’re not sure if he was human...did he ever just change appearance? Like an illusion spell or something, or shapeshifting?”

“It was just a rumour. We needed to track him down after all the crimes he committed. So I employed some of the guild’s best to chase him down. They cornered him, but all they found was a scared and confused sylph who didn’t know anything. I trusted those members to track someone down, it was a strange occurrence. Then I heard that something similar happened to the Inquisition.”

“What was his name?” I asked.

“Drizz, his name was Drizz L. Lizard.”

I blinked. “No!” I said as I jumped to my feet. My palm slapped the table. “That’s Rainnewt!”

***