Due to the huge number of players that headed right for the guild after the meeting, arriving at the guild hall itself turned out to be a lot messier than I had originally anticipated.
I guess telling upwards of a thousand people to all go to one building and do a quest was not the most well thought out plan that the Levin team had come up with.
The Guild Hall itself was in its own special plaza. Unlike most of the other buildings in the city that were all packed neatly into rows along streets, the hall was sitting on its own in the middle of a large clearing in the southern quadrant of the city.
It was only two stories in height, but what it lacked in vertical real-estate it made up for with its sheer scale. The building itself had to be about as wide as the main plaza, and was easily half as long. It could give even some office complexes back in the real world a serious run for their money when it came to square footage
To the left of the main entrance, which itself was covered by a large balcony that extended out from the second floor, was a patio that was covered in round tables and chairs. A hole cut into the wall made it look like some sort of outdoor restaurant or eatery.
A player in a straw hat stood on one of the tables and cradled a violin on her shoulder. She drew the bow across its strings and I could faintly hear music above the crowd. The rest of the place was packed full of people happily picking away at plates of something that I couldn’t make out from this distance.
To the right of the building, the cobblestone had been torn up and replaced with hard packed dirt. Filling the new space various crafting facilities had been lined up, and various displays and rugs were laid out facing the street. A few dozen players ran back and forth putting down objects that looked pretty similar to the crafting station that Sonnson had used in the main plaza the night before.
That was probably where they’d planned to offer free crafting and gear upgrades. I made a mental note to stop by before the end of the day. While it didn’t look like they were ready yet, I didn’t want to put off making a new weapon too long. Other parties would start coming back with their own monster materials starting today and with the announcement of free crafting that was sure to be spreading like wildfire the waiting list would probably soon stretch on for hours, if not days.
It looked as if the guild was only letting about twenty people in at a time. Every few minutes the doors would open and the line would shuffle forward a few places before returning to a standstill.
If I had to applaud Levin for one thing, they really had managed to keep things relatively organized. Though to be honest I wasn’t sure how much of that was Levin, and how much of that was the AI instilling some sort of order on the players once it realized it had to sort through and cater to so many new players all at once.
Movement on the balcony above the restaurant drew my attention up to the roof. Standing there leaning against the railing was none other than Fenix himself. To his left were two people, both facing away from the crowd. It was impossible to see from this distance if they were players or NPCs but their matching blue uniforms made me lean more towards the latter. Still, seeing him there while I was stuck in line did leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Go figure that he’d get special treatment. Though I did suppose that if he worked with the Adventurer’s Guild to set all of this up then there was a good chance he was in there because of some sort of quest string that I hadn’t done, in other words, all was fair.
Fenix’s gaze swept over the crowd and I thought I saw him staring at me out of the corner of his eye, but when I looked back towards the bannister he had turned away from the crowd and was talking to one of the blue-clad people, who I’d assumed were members of the Guild staff.
About twenty minutes after getting in line I finally was waved up the steps and through the front door. As I got closer I’d confirmed my suspicions about the blue-coated NPCs being associated with the guild. Sure enough, it looked like that was some sort of official uniform for them. That was probably to help players tell them apart from normal NPCs in case they had questions.
The inside of the guild hall itself was beautiful. Unlike the inn that I had stayed in the night before, the wood that was used to make the floors walls and ceilings wasn’t rotting at all. It was all freshly cut and stained in a rich maple color. In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the whole place had been built yesterday. Though in a sense I guess it was…
Immediately upon walking in I was greeted by a long counter that looked basically like what I’d imagine a fantasy bank counter to look like. There were ten booths in total and each was manned by its own NPC.
The first ten players in the front of my group were ushered up to the now vacant stalls leaving the rest of us to look around and marvel at the architecture.
To the immediate left of the door was an indoor dining area that matched with the patio outside. Two NPCs in their familiar blue uniforms of the guild carried trays of food and set them down in the window where they were snatched up by eager hands. It looked like the indoor seating was closed for now, probably to facilitate the bunches of players coming in and out of the front door.
The back left wall came in far enough to completely pass the counter. A double door separated the square partition from the dining area and I assumed that beyond was the kitchen where the food was being made.
The center of the room as I said was a set of bank-style booths. Ten in total. They were pushed against the far back wall, leaving about fifteen meters between the front door and the tellers. Behind the booths was what looked like a series of offices.
Nothing compared to the spectacle that was the right side of the building, though. Forgoing the shorter ceiling that covered the left and center of the guild hall, the right side of the structure was all one large and open room that stretched all the way to the roof where it ended in an A-frame.
A small staircase led down into a carpeted area full of desks and chairs. Bookshelves that were over one story tall lined the southern and eastern walls of the room and rolling ladders like you’d see in libraries were fixed to the cases.
On the northern wall, the back wall of the room, was an L shaped staircase leading up to the second floor, though I couldn’t see what was up there from where I was currently standing. I figured it was more offices, maybe where the Guild Master had their office, and of course, the balcony where I’d seen Fenix a few minutes before.
About two dozen players were all sitting at the desks, stacks of books boxing them in. That was surprising… normally in VR Games, books weren’t actual books, they were just placeholder items filled with gibberish if anything at all. I guess that in this world that wasn’t the case.
What if that meant that important information about monsters or quests were kept in the books here? If that was the case then having people scour over everything just in case was probably a smart move… I guess that Fenix, or someone far smarter than him in Levin, had come to the same conclusion.
“Sir, please step into booth six.” A man said, bowing and directing me to the fourth booth from the right.
“Ah, uh… thank you.” I said. I guess I didn’t even realize that everyone else had already gone to stand in their spots. I hurried over to my assigned NPC and once I got close she looked up and smiled.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
It turned out that signing up for the guild was quite a boring process. Sign your name. Sign a waver saying you won’t sue if something bad happens to you on a job. Weird that they’d even have a legal system like that in a video game… Sign a code of conduct with some basic rules, like don’t interrupt someone else’s contract, don’t lie about finishing a job, and don’t fight with other players. Sign a form saying that all of the materials you acquire came directly from monsters and not from any shady black market deals. All just a normal day at the fantasy DMV…
At the end of all that, the only thing I got for my trouble was a little line in my player profile saying I was a “Bronze adventurer with zero stars”. The ranks were explained. Complete guild quests, gain stars. Get enough stars, get a quest to move yourself up to the next tier. Fail too many quests, and get demoted. Bronze was the lowest rank. Master was the highest. And there were about twenty other ranks in between.
I’d asked the NPC at the counter if I could see the available list of quests, but she said that unfortunately at this time the only ones eligible to accept quests were players in full parties that had at least one tank and at least one healer.
When I asked why that was the case, the NPC confirmed it was a deal that the guild had cut with Fenix and the members of Levin. One had to wonder how they even managed to enact a policy like that in the first place… there were a few hundred of them, if they combined all of their starting gold that would be one hell of a bribe… Oh well. For now that didn’t matter. I didn’t plan on engaging in Fenix’s little power trip either way. I thanked the NPC for her time and turned to leave.
As I was walking to the door I looked one last time over to the library room and stopped in my tracks.
A very familiar woman was sitting at one of the desks tucked far to the right of the library. On the desk in front of her was an open book. Long brown hair flowed from her head and landed on the pages. Her delicate finger brushed it out of the way as traced each line across the page. How she was able to focus with all the noise bleeding in from outside was something I would never be able to understand.
Memories and a faint smile entered my mind and I found myself unable to resist walking down the steps into the adjacent room and across the library to the far back corner where the woman sat. The rightmost wall of the library room was covered head to toe in large windows, casting rays of light into the building making it feel almost like I was walking through a greenhouse.
“Yo.” I said, flipping a chair around from one of the nearby tables and sitting myself across from her. Nell’s head shot up so fast that I thought she would fall over backwards. Her reaction did make me feel a little bit bad, just a little, though…
“C-c-c- Corian! Wh- Why are you here?! Er, I mean… You’re here too?” She stammered, slamming her book shut and sitting up pin-straight. I sighed.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked. She looked into my eyes and blinked. “And I thought I told you, no hard feelings about what happened in ID. You’re not the one who- Anyways, there’s no reason we can’t have a normal conversation.” I said. Nell took a deep breath to collect herself and gave me a warm smile.
“Right. I guess it would only make sense that someone like you would make your way into this game too… How… how are you?” Nell’s gaze had all of the motherly concern that I had remembered. A nostalgic feeling crept into my chest. It had probably been two years since we’d last talked, but she hadn’t changed a bit. Somehow I found that to be a relief.
“Doing fine, all things considered.” I said. I knew that wasn’t really what she meant but I couldn’t help being on my guard, given how we parted ways.
“That’s… good to hear.” Nell said. She took the book that she was reading and folded a corner before pushing it off to the side of the desk.
“Hey, Cor. About before, I-“
“Yo!” A voice that I didn’t recognize called from behind Nell and cut her off, much to my relief. The voice belonged to a girl I’d just seen a little while ago. She had a head of fire red hair and an iron cuirass adorned her body. If I remembered correctly her name was…
“Ascilla!” Nell exclaimed, turning her head towards the new arrival.
Ascilla for her part never let her eyes leave me. Something about that gaze was dangerous… almost… territorial? I’d almost gotten up and excused myself but Ascilla walked up behind Nell and wrapped her arms around her neck and pointed a finger right at me.
“Who’s the beansprout?” The shorter than me, thinner than me, paler than me, girl said resting her chin on Nell’s right shoulder.
“An old, old, friend.” Nell said smiling. I guess that was about right.
“Hmmmm? And I’ve never heard about him?” Ascilla replied, looking me over with an appraising eye.
“Mmm, no… I… don’t think I ever brought him up.” Nell said. She seemed bothered by that somehow. Well that was weird. I cocked my head to the side.
“Girlfriend?” I asked, pointing between the two of them. I was genuinely curious.
Nell went red all the way through to the tips of her ears “I- eh- we- uhm- eh” Yep. She blew a fuse.
“Bahahahaha!” Ascilla on the other hand freed herself from Nell and threw herself into a fit of laughter. “Hell no. We grew up together.” She finally said after collecting herself.
Ahh, childhood friends, huh? That tracked. Nell seemed like the type who could get along with everyone. Even a short-ass firebrand who insulted people she’d never met before.
“Uh, Cor? Was there… something that you needed from me?” Nell asked. I looked over her shoulder at Ascilla who was hovering over the table. Her eyes never left me, and I doubted I could get her to leave on her own without taking Nell with her. I let out a sigh and shrugged. I didn’t actually come over with the intention of starting anything, but now that I was here and she was willing to talk I might as well…
“I’ll cut straight to it. Do you really think that controlling players like this is a good idea?” I asked. I was referring to the limitations on accepting quests, fortunately it seemed like Nell had picked that much up from context.
She paused for a long moment before slowly shaking her head. “I’m not sure. On one hand, I can see why someone like you would be against this… On the other hand, only allowing balanced parties to go out on guild quests will drastically reduce the risk for everyone.”
In the background, Ascilla perked up. It seemed like she was pretty interested in Nell’s answer as well.
The logic was there, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the wrong decision. If it was a system designed by the game that limited who could take quests that would be one thing. But players deciding who was or wasn’t “ready” for a particular quest could get nasty fast.
For instance, if Levin decided that only their members were skilled enough to do the hardest quests, then naturally they would get more levels, experience, and gear than the rest of the players. When items and gear directly translated in a lower likelihood of dying that could lead to some really volatile outcomes…
“Just make sure that blondie doesn’t get to full of himself, yeah?” I said, standing from the table. Nell returned a strained smile.
“He’s a better person than you give him credit for, Cor.”
“I’m sure. Oh, and Nell? Take care.” I said, turning and walking towards the door.
“H-Hey! Wait!” Nell called after me. I stopped on my heels and was suddenly very aware of all of the few dozen pairs of eyes that had stopped what they were doing and that were currently watching our interaction with tepid curiosity.
I stopped and looked over my shoulder at Nell who had stood and walked over from the desk.
“Do- Do you want me to try to match you with a group? I’m sure that I could-“
“Thanks but no thanks. See ya, Nell.” I said, raising my hand and smiling at her over my shoulder before walking over to the door and squeezing my way outside. There was no way that I could let myself take any charity from her at this point…
“… So stubborn.” Were the last words I heard before pushing back out the front door to the guild hall and out onto the street. A bitter smile forced itself onto my face as I sucked in a fresh breath of summer air.
The line to enter the guild had grown exponentially since I had entered… I guess that made sense. Once people learned that a lot of quests were locked behind being registered nearly every player in the game would want to go put their name down and finish that quest.
The queue ended just before the plaza, and more and more people flooded in from all directions to join the queue. I guess that was my reward for sitting through the whole meeting. Who knows how much time that I’d just saved by getting that done early.
My menu let me know that it was half past three by the time I’d passed the fountain. Just enough time to go back to the inn and rent my room for another night and plan for tomorrow. The plan was obvious enough. Get the hell out of this town and over to wherever the next quest hub was and start from there. Hopefully I’d be able to do at least some quests before Levin showed up and imposed their rule on another guild branch… provided they weren’t all connected already by the system. Before then I’d have to do just a few things. In no particular order, they were:
Get a map.
Either sell or use all of my monster materials.
See if there were any quests around town that were fast and easy with good rewards. There should only be a couple of those… usually those were the diamonds in the rough, though so the chances of people figuring out where they were and how to accept them were slim…
As I walked briskly back towards the north and turned onto the road that housed the Inn I had stayed at the night before, a large hand shot out of an alleyway and pulled me off the street.