~Thorben~

As the sun was setting over the western horizon, Thorben had finally taken a moment to sit and reflect on his time since exile. He’d climbed a watchtower to find some solitude. He had known that starting a guild would take work, but that work had been compounded into greater heights when most of Farfield’s citizens had moved near his guildhall. The project had turned into town-building as opposed to setting up a guildhall. Now, people consulted him as if he was the Duke himself. Endless consultations with the new villagers, and arbitration of conflicts, had filled his days. Though tiring, it had gone well, and they had had no repeats of the Wilkens’ situations. Despite this, he had never imagined that he would go from being an exile to a guild leader/mayor hybrid.

He knew nothing about guilds, or being a guild leader. It’d only been a few months since his exile for brawling with his childhood bully. Honestly, the only reasons he was doing it was that he had a hell of a guildhall fall right into his lap, and the quest experience reward. Sure, he saw the benefit of helping the people here in Drazalar, but he had his own issues that needed his attention. He hoped by gathering a group of people that maybe he could delegate the rescuing of Drazalar. If it got big enough, then maybe they could help more of Baherune. Then, after he got his shit squared away, he could help wherever needed.

He pulled up his quest menu.

Bastion of Hope: Form a guild and recruit members to return Baherune from the brink of disaster. Players recruited (1/10)

HellsFury had jumped at the chance to join his guild, which he’d named Guardians of Baherune. As he met more players, he’d keep an eye out for any that wanted to be a part of a force for justice within Baherune. He didn’t want anyone like those players that he had dealt with when he’d met HellsFury, but he didn’t think they would all be like that. HellsFury had been a surprising source of information on running an organization like a guild. While he wasn’t familiar with guild specifics, he said that we needed to have a simple mission statement, expectations for members, and to hold firm with consequences as needed. He’d offered other tidbits of advice for a while, but it had gotten overwhelming, so he’d told HellsFury they’d talk more later. He’d also asked him to send Tanrin to the top of the tower if he ran across him. His brother had jumped into assisting the townsfolk. He’d made his way to the smithy and engrossed himself in repairs to anything and everything that would help the town. Thorben knew his brother well and figured Tanrin needed the sanctuary of the smithy to process everything that had happened. Thorben wished he could lose himself in the calming repetition of smithing, but his new role as Guild Leader demanded his attention. Abuela was a great guild steward, but he needed to grow his leadership base if he was going to both lead the guild and claim responsibility for the fledgling town.

He did his best to clear his mind as he gazed at the horizon. Letting his eyes linger on the deep reds, oranges, and yellows painting the sky. His breathing settled into a calming pattern and he could feel his stress level decreasing. The scenery soaked in to his mind as he closed his eyes. He tried to be one with everything around him. He still couldn’t become “one with the stone” like the rest of his family, but he enjoyed the sense of solitude simulating it had brought him. A small connection to his parents he could embrace.

He heard his brother’s labored breathing approaching.

“We need to find a place closer to the ground to have these meetings,” Tanrin panted. “As you well know, the gods didn’t intend for Dwarves to be this high in the air.” He sat next to Thorben and waited. Thorben had already updated his brother on the quest to form a guild but didn’t know that he had figured out how to do it. He’d fruitlessly searched his HUD for hours earlier in the day. The quest to build a guild loomed over him. He needed to figure out how to invite people. He had tried verbal invitations, but that hadn’t worked either. It wasn’t until HellsFury had seen his frustration, and attempted to make him feel better, that he’d made a breakthrough.

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“Thanks, Hells,” Thorben had said, patting him on the neck. “You’re a good friend. I wish I could figure out how to invite you to join the guild. When I do, do you want to join Guardians of Baherune?”

“Whoa!” HellsFury said. “Hell yeah, I accept!” He finished.

A prompt had flashed into Thorben’s vision.

HellsFury81 has accepted your invitation to join Guardians of Baherune.

They figured it had been a combination of the physical contact of his hand and the verbal invitation that had done it. So they wouldn’t be able to hang up flyers and watch as members fell over themselves to join. They would have to have a hands-on approach to recruiting. Tanrin listened as he explained what had happened.

“So what’s next, then?” His brother asked after Thorben caught him up.

He’d been brainstorming just that before his brother came up. He needed to decide who to invite to bring his membership roster to above ten in order to complete the quest, but the fact was he only knew a handful of players. Wandering the countryside aimlessly was not high on his list of things to do. There had to be a better way of looking for recruits than randomly inviting them.

“Now I just have to wait until Aldwin and Jerald get here to verify the process. I need to find more people to complete this quest. Even with those two, that still leaves seven more. Unless…” Thorben turned towards his brother and extending his hand.

Tanrin looks him in the eyes and brings his hand halfway up before stopping. “What makes you think I want to be a part of this so-called guild? Especially if you are the leader.” Thorben lowered his hand. Tanrin’s hand flashed up, and he winked as he gripped Thorben’s forearm. “Just messing with you, brother. Sign me up.”

They stood there gripping each other’s forearm. “Tanrin, would you like to join Guardians of Baherune?” Tanrin’s eyes glossed over for a moment, and he froze up. Thorben worried, but after a few more moments, Tanrin’s eyes cleared up.

“Sure, I’ll join your little club,” Tanrin said just before his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he fell over. Thorben guided his brother down to the stone floor and looked him over. He could tell he was still breathing, and his heart beat in his chest. The only odd thing was that his eyes seemed to flit back and forth under his eyelids. A quest update prompt filled his vision.

Bastion of Hope: Form a guild and recruit members to return Baherune from the brink of disaster. Players recruited (2/10)

It worked! Gently, he lifted his brother’s eyelid and watched as his eye moved back and forth before releasing the eyelid. Something weird is happening. I need to get him to Abuela. Thorben thought as he slipped his arms underneath his brother’s neck and legs and lifted. Damn, I forgot how heavy you are. Before he could turn to begin down the stairs, he noticed two things. A cloud of dust was rising in the east, a group of travelers were moving towards the guild hall. He couldn’t tell, but it looked as though they’d drawn weapons. From the west, three burning comets were shooting in a straight line towards the guildhall. The setting sun had masked their approach, but now that the sun had slunk beneath the horizon, Thorben could see them clearly. Three large flaming shapes were flying at an unimaginable speed. A trail of flame and smoke following them. The riders were closer, but whatever the flaming monstrosities were, they were faster. Thorben knew he didn’t have time to take his brother to Abuela and deal with both issues heading his way. He froze in indecision. His mind refusing to catch up with the trifecta of trouble that had come on the heals of his evening rest.

“Fuck!” Thorben screamed. Faster than his mind could track, a massive swirling ball of magma slammed into the tower he stood on, below where they were standing. A hole the size of a small boulder burned straight through it, shaking the tower like a willow tree during a typhoon. Thorben dropped Tanrin, who landed on top of the tower and began rolling down the stairs that he had just climbed up. The impact sent Thorben flying. As he careened through the air towards the parapet, all he could think was: are those fucking flame throwing rock chickens?