The woman didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. The nervous anger on her face said it all. Terry knew that he might well have overestimated the strength of his position, but she at least thought he might be right. It was also pretty clear that she didn’t like what that could mean for her.

“Well,” she finally said, “maybe I’ll just kill you, and deal with it that way.”

Terry had thought it might go down like this. Murder did seem to be the default solution to even minor problems in this world. So, he wasn’t entirely surprised that it happened, but it was still a little off-putting to have anyone threaten him like that right to his face. He did his best not to let his rising discomfort show. He nudged the other-knowledge, and it seemed unimpressed with the threat. He took that to mean that he could probably survive a fight with her if it became truly necessary.

“How sure are you that you can get it done?” he asked.

There was a tense moment where neither of them moved or spoke. The woman glared at Terry as if she was hoping she could make him back down through sheer force of personality. He just met that glare with a calm expression that didn’t reflect his inner state at all. He didn’t want to fight her. He definitely didn’t want to kill her. That would be a whole world of problems he didn’t need on top of the problems he already had. Just when Terry thought she was going to try to make good on the threat, she let out an exasperated huff of breath.

“Fine,” she said in an annoyed voice. “What do you want?”

Now that he was apparently getting his way, Terry didn’t really know what to ask for. He’d thought a bit about it, but he just didn’t know enough about this world to know what held real value. Sure, there was always money, but there was also magic. Did that mean there was a magic sword in the back that he could get? At the very least, he wanted to get a better sword than the ones he had. While they were functional enough, other-Terry had seemed less than impressed by them. It seemed he was quiet for a bit too long because the woman slapped the top of the bar.

“I don’t have all day. Let’s wrap this blackmail up.”

A thought struck Terry.

“What are the advantages of being a member of the guild?” he asked.

The woman looked momentarily taken aback. She’d clearly expected demands for money or at least something other than a random question.

Rolling her eyes, she adopted a droning tone and said, “Membership in the guild offers several advantages. You can access quests commensurate with your skills that provide compensation upon completion, get discounted training and equipment, and stay at the guild halls for a member rate which is typically less than the cost of a local inn.”

“And how does one join the guild?”

“Joining the guild requires that you be assessed and assigned a rank, complete two quests with a party, and pay an admission fee.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a hassle. You’re just going to give me a membership,” said Terry, before he hastily added, “and a better sword.”

The woman had the gall to look appalled, as though he’d suggested sacrilege.

“I could never do that. That would compromise the integrity of the guild.”

“Did you actually hear the words that just came out of your mouth?” asked Terry in a flat voice. “You’re going to try to tell me you care about integrity?”

The woman’s cheeks turned pink.

“That’s different.”

“It’s not. So, let’s go. Phony up some paperwork and give me a badge, or whatever the hell it is that you people use.”

“I… I can’t. I have no idea what kind of skills you have.”

“What kind of ranks do you have?” asked Terry.

“There are five ranks. They—”

“Great. Which is the lowest?”

“Five,” said the woman through clenched teeth.

“So, those are the idiots you don’t trust to do anything alone, right?”

“Yes,” admitted the woman grudgingly.

“And I expect you start to get a lot of attention around rank two, which probably makes rank three the middle-of-the-road people. Experienced enough not to stab themselves with their own swords. Basically reliable people but not impressive enough that anyone is going to pay them any special attention. Do I have that right?”

“Yes,” said the woman again, seeming both annoyed and surprised that he had worked out their social hierarchy so fast.

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“You’ll make me a rank three, then.”

“I already told you—”

“Stop,” said Terry. “We both know you’re going to do it because it’s so much less expensive than you thought it would be. It’s also the fastest way to get me to leave. So, just skip over the meaningless protests and get on with it.”

The woman stood there, fuming in silence, and Terry could almost see a chibi version of the woman stamping her foot. Growling under her breath, the woman spun away and stormed out of sight for a minute. She came back with a stack of papers, a sword, and something that looked a bit like a bifold wallet. She slammed the pile of stuff onto the bar. While she started filling out paperwork, Terry picked up the sword, which was like the ones he already had. He tried to remember the name of that particular kind of sword. It wasn’t a katana. Those were those curved Japanese swords. Terry racked his brain. What are those Chinese swords called? It came to him. They’re called jian.

He drew the weapon and poked at the other-knowledge. It roused itself and seemed to examine the blade through his senses before it gave off a vague sense of approval. Good enough, thought Terry. He untied the sword on his right hip and replaced it with the new sword. By the time he’d wrapped up that process, the woman seemed to be done with the paperwork. She shoved one of the papers at him and pointed to the bottom of the page.

“Sign there,” she said through clenched teeth.

He did as he was instructed, even if it did take a second to work out how to make the vaguely quill-like pen device work. Then, the woman slapped the wallet-esque thing down in front of him. He picked it up and opened it. Inside was a bronze piece of metal that looked the same as the plaque outside. The only difference was a symbol that the other-knowledge translated as a three etched into the metal. He nodded and gave the woman a knowing look.

“What?” she demanded.

“Come on. Do you expect me to believe that these things aren’t magically bound to a specific individual? How else would you keep people from picking them up and pretending to be part of your guild?”

If her head had been physically capable of exploding from rage, he was pretty sure it would have happened then and there. It had been an obvious ploy. Pretend to give him a badge, then report that some dastardly fiend had stolen one. However, it occurred to him that it might have only seemed obvious to him. He had come from a world where digital verification of things like credentials was commonplace. In a world without mass communication, you’d need some other way to ensure that people in an organization that was spread out all over the place were who they claimed to be. In a world with qi or magic, what else would you use but magic?

With the veins in her forehead visibly throbbing, she pulled out two needles, keeping one and handing him the other. She poked the pad of her thumb and pressed it to the badge. He followed suit. The badge briefly flared with an inner light, and Terry felt something take hold inside of him. That must be the binding, he thought. He considered the badge, then the woman. She came up with a plan on the fly to get that other guy killed, which means she’s probably built in at least one or two contingencies to deal with me. Before she could react, he swiped the stack of paper off the bar and started reading. It became clear that she’d intended to throw them all away because most of the pages weren't filled out. He shook his head at her. He felt a surge of something from where the woman was standing, and her fist lashed out at him.

Terry felt the increasingly familiar surge of warmth from his stomach. A second later, without any input from him, Terry’s hand caught the woman’s fist and stopped it cold. There was the snap-crack of skin striking skin. He wasn’t sure who was more surprised by it. He managed to plaster a bland look onto his face while she stared uncomprehendingly at her fist wrapped in his hand. Wait, thought Terry. Am I a hidden badass? He immediately rejected that idea. This was a small place. He doubted the cream of the crop were to be found here. He’d come out ahead against the locals, but that didn’t mean much. Still, that was the second time this woman had tried to end his life. Not sure if he had the strength to do it or not, Terry started to bear down on the woman’s hand. At her sharp cry of pain, he discovered he did have the strength. A voice that he was pretty sure was mostly other-Terry came out of his mouth. It was cold, flat, and deadly.

“We have now reached the end of my patience with you.”

“I’m sorry,” she almost shrieked. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know! Please stop!”

Terry wasn’t sure what she was going on about not knowing, and he didn’t dare ask out of fear of exposing some crucial weakness through ignorance. He heaved an annoyed sigh and released her hand. She cradled it against her chest, which Terry thought was overly dramatic. What he’d done might have hurt, but he hadn’t broken anything. He dropped the papers back onto the bar and tapped them with a finger.

“Do it right,” he ordered.

Looking much less defiant and a lot more afraid, she picked up the quill-like device and hurriedly filled out all of the parts of the paperwork she’d skipped the first time. When she was done, he flipped through the pages. The other-knowledge’s translation trick seemed to apply to the written word as well. He lifted an eyebrow at her and waited. She picked up her needle, poked the pad of her thumb again, and pressed it to the last page next to his signature. He took the cue and did the same, pressing his thumb on the other side of the signature. There was another pulse of light from the badge and something seemed to click into place inside of him.

“You’re going to file this properly, correct?” he asked.

The woman swallowed hard and nodded.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then, if all goes well, we’ll never see each other again.”

At that, Terry slid the badge into a pocket, picked up the old sword that no longer had a place to live on his body, and walked toward the door. As he was about to step through, the woman called after him.

“Why join the guild when you’re one of them?”

“I like my privacy,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

He’d meant it as nothing more than a way to sound mysterious, but she seemed to take it as a veiled threat from the way she flinched. Shrugging internally, he walked out the door and down the steps. He wondered who the mysterious them she mentioned were. When he reached the bottom of the steps, he found a kid staring longingly up at the guild building. He was maybe in his early teens.

“Joining the guild?” he asked the kid.

The teen shook his head.

“Can’t. I can’t afford to. Weapons are expensive.”

Terry looked down at the now superfluous sword in his hand. He held it out to the kid, who seemed to grab it by reflex before his eyes went wide.

“Happy birthday, kid,” said Terry as he walked away down the street.

Terry snickered to himself as the kid’s stunned words drifted after him.

“But it’s not my birthday.”