Moments after Sulika and Aldritch separated.

Sulika froze in place the moment she laid eyes on the inside of the guild. It was just so… normal? Weren’t things supposed to be different this morning? She’s devoted years of her adult life to the guild. And yeah, she hadn’t spent nearly as long as some other hunters; She’d spent a year working as a porter in a mining team before being transferred to Eli’s team. Then she’d spent an entire year working as an ‘apprentice’ hunter, where the average time was three to four months, spent a few months as support mage in Eli’s team before finally moving to her own team a little over a year ago.

The year she spent as an apprentice was still a sore spot for her. She’d tried to get promoted nine times, but Eli insisted she wasn’t ready every time. To this day, Sulika remained angry at Eli over his constant denials. She was ready, gods damn it. And looking back on those days now, Sulika knew why Eli didn’t allow her to advance.

He was trying to get her into bed… And she was still royally pissed that it worked. She knew why it worked; he showered her with gifts, attention, and praise that she wasn’t used to. So, every time he rejected her promotion, she believed the honeyed coated aspersions that always followed.

“I want to promote you, you’re the best support mage I’ve ever seen… But you’re just not good enough at attack spells yet. The moment you set foot inside a dungeon is the moment you die. Everyone knows it, I’m just the only one willing to tell you the truth. So, just listen to me for a little bit longer, okay? I promise, soon, everyone will know how good you are.” And she listened to him…

Honestly, the actual job of an apprentice wasn’t so bad, so that certainly helped ease the burn from constantly being denied a promotion. You keep everyone’s gear in shape, prep rations, torches, and keep the team office cleaned for their return. So long as you did that, you got a salary of 5 silver coins to keep you happy… But apprentices weren’t allowed to enter dungeons, which was the main reason Sulika wanted to be a hunter in the first place.

Apprenticeship was ‘supposed’ to help the hunter decide if they were really serious about risking their lives, while giving them just enough to do to keep them busy for the few months they were in office.

At the end of that period, they had a meeting with the guild master, or vice master if the GM wasn’t available, and were forced to decide whether to advance to a full guild member or leave the guild. After all, they didn’t have the resources to maintain apprentices forever. So, something had to give eventually. Well, after a year of no meeting with the GM, he actually came looking for her. At first, he’d assumed she was deliberately avoiding the meeting to keep her position as an apprentice. A few others had tried that path before- all of them were kicked out and blacklisted from the guild for wasting their time… The GM assumed it was going to be another one of those talks.

Sulika was just grateful he let her explain. He didn’t have to, but Sulika knew that was just how the GM was; Honest, noble, and didn’t tolerate liars. She hoped to use those traits now to save her friend’s jobs. They’d done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to lose their careers just because they followed her orders.

Sulika solidified her determination as much as she could and approached the front desk with a professional smile on her face. A part of her wondered if they’d immediately turn her away, but that fear proved unfounded the moment the receptionist looked up and smiled upon recognizing her.

“Hey, Abby.” Sulika said, greeting the twenty-something year old receptionist by name. Abby was a pale-skinned beauty with premature gray hair and the bluest eyes Sulika had ever seen. All receptionists were asked to wear the same uniform, which consisted of a white jacket with the guild seal sewn into the right breast of the jacket, blue button-up shirt, and black pants. What shoes they wore was up to the individual's discretion, though it had to look professional.

“Hello, Sulika. Looking… beautiful as always.” Abby said after eyeing Sulika’s clothes for an extended moment. “Long night?” Abby asked. The curious gleam shining within her baby blue eyes said, “I really wanna ask why you look like you skipped down the walk of shame, but I’m too professional to do so.”

Sulika looked down at herself and winced. The morning was so, so… Well, confusing. She’d just thrown on the same clothes she’d worn yesterday. Sure, Aldritch had ‘purified’ them, which removed the smells, but it was clear to anyone with eyes she hadn’t really showered, and her clothes had that ‘slept in’ look. “Yeah, you can say that.” Sulika laughed nervously.

“Hmm…” Abby replied and gave Sulika a knowing smile before moving on to business. “So, how can I help you, captain?”

“Is the Guild Master in? I need to speak with him about something.” Sulika replied, thankful for the opportunity to switch topics. She wanted to deny anything had happened, but also knew it wouldn’t do any good under the circumstances. If she denied it while looking like she did, Abby would just assume she was denying it for the sake of denying it, or worse, she’d ask about what did happen. Better to just get on with her day and let Abby think whatever she wanted. Wasn’t like she’d be able to meet her again after today anyway…

“He is, but I gotta warn ya. He isn’t in a good mood. If you still want to meet him, I can probably get you in, in about thirty. That work?”

“Yeah, that’s fine… So, uh, he’s really mad?” Sulika asked. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was the reason for his anger. What had Edward said to him?

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Abby looked around to make sure no one was listening, then motioned for Sulika to lean closer. “You didn’t hear this from me, okay?” She asked, and Sulika nodded. “The Guild Master is pissed. Apparently, he had an important meeting with the vice-master this morning and the VM never showed.”

Sulika blinked out of shock. “Really?” She asked incredulously. Edward was an ass- Okay, that was too kind. He was a major ass. But it was well known that he was as dedicated as they come. The main reason the GM could spend so much time away from the guild was because he knew the VM would be here to pick up the slack. “Has anyone contacted Edward?”

“The GM tried, we’ve tried, even the security goons have tried. He hasn’t replied to anyone’s message spells. Personally, I think the GM is about ready to send out a search party.” Abby laughed- she stopped almost immediately and looked around to see if anyone heard her. “Are you working today?” Abby asked while pulling a small scroll out of the top drawer of her desk.

Sulika recognized the scroll as a Messenger scroll. Messenger scrolls were often white, but sometimes appeared yellow due to the method used to make them. They had a black hardwood bar that served as the main support of the scroll, which the paper then wrapped around and was sealed by a generous helping of wax.

The guild made the Messenger scrolls in-house to act as emergency communication devices, and Sulika could see the guild emblem carved into one end of the hardwood bar that peeked out a bit from the left side of the paper. These scrolls functioned in a similar manner to the magic Snowball used, but it was a one-time use item- and you didn’t have to worry about it getting an attitude if you forgot to feed it.

Sulika shot a pointed look at the transparent monitor sitting on the desk beside Abby before answering the question. “Nope. I’m not here as an employee today.”

"Wish I could take a day off..." Abby grumbled. She let out a frustrated sigh, and funneled a bit of mana into the scroll while it sat on the desk- The wax seal snapped, and the scroll unwrapped itself as if it had come alive. Abby used a nearby pen to write a quick message to the GM in the center of the scroll. Once she was done, she funneled a bit more mana into the rod, and the paper responded by coiling itself around the hardwood rod. With that done, Abby grabbed the guild seal sitting next to her, opened a small wooden box which appeared to be full of black slime, and dunked the seal into it. She pulled the seal out a second later, and stamped the Messenger scroll, sealing it with the black slime.

“There.” Abby said and lifted the scroll. She funneled a bit of mana into the scroll itself, not the hardwood rod, and the effect was immediate; Lines of bright blue appeared at the bottom of the roll of paper and rapidly spread to cover the scroll from top to bottom. An electric charge arced from Abby’s fingers to the scroll- the paper shifted hues from white to black as if it’d been scorched by lighting, then it crumbled to dust in Abby’s hand, leaving a black residue on her fingers and ashes on her desk. With a huff, Abby pulled a trash bin from beneath the desk and swept the debris away. “Anything else I can do for you?” She asked while pulling a white jar from yet another drawer of her desk. Sulika grimaced when Abby opened the jar and revealed it to be full of a white, fatty oil. She then proceeded to scoop a finger’s worth into her opposite hand and commenced scrubbing off the black residue.

Sulika recognized the oil, even had a jar of her own in her office locker. The oil was called ‘Catagar’s (Re)solution’ and was favored by artificers and enchanters for its ability to ‘eat’ corrosive materials and inorganic mixtures while leaving organic materials untouched. So, of course, Catagar began selling it as a hand cleansing cream. It worked… But it also smelled a bit like ammonia, so Sulika preferred not to use it.

“No,” Sulika swallowed the urge to gag. “Thanks, Abby.”

“Anytime.” Abby replied and stood from her chair. “Now I get to go find an artificer and ask why our systems are still down. Sounds fun, right?” Abby asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“I was wondering.” Sulika admitted. “When did that happen?”

Abby shrugged. “No one knows. Been down since some time in the middle of the night. Do you know Iroxi; the bronze dragonkin? She was promoted to front end manager about two weeks ago?”

Sulika shrugged. She didn’t know everyone who worked at the front of the guild… Come to think of it, she didn’t really know many people who worked at the back end of the guild either.

“Well, anyways, she got here around five and they were already dead. Artificers have been working on it since seven, but it didn’t look like they were any closer to fixing it an hour ago than they were when they first started. Lucky us, that means we get to do everything the old-fashioned way.”

“That’s rough. Anything I can do?” Sulika asked, and she actually meant it too. If there was anything she could do to help out, even if it didn’t benefit her, she’d still do it. The front end of the guild was how the quests got from the citizen’s mouths to the hunter’s ears. Without them there to assist the civilians, situations would go unreported. And in some cases, that could result in the deaths of who knew how many people.

“Nah, I’ll be right back. Realistically, there’s nothing I can do either. I’m only going to ask because my boyfriend is one of the Artificer’s working on the system and we were supposed to have lunch together. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, though.” Abby sighed.

Sulika watched her walk away before turning and walking over to the waiting area. The waiting area was a large, roped off space within the lobby that could somewhat comfortably seat thirty-seven people. There were four such areas present within the lobby, and she headed for the closest one. She joined the three people already waiting there and dropped into one of the uncomfortable leather chairs... She had only been sitting for forty-eight seconds before a panic-stricken Abby came sprinting into the lobby. The two-inch heels of her sandals rhythmically *clacked* against the floor as she ran to Sulika’s side.

She slid to a stop beside Sulika’s chair- then realized what kind of state she must have been in. Her styled hair was disheveled, her breathing was labored and loud enough to be heard from several feet away, and her jacket was lopsided and hanging off one arm. Abby took a second to compose herself while holding up a finger in the universal sign for ‘one moment’... With her breathing calmed down, Abby straightened her jacket and said, “The Guild Master requests your presence in the training hall… Your immediate presence.” Abby whispered the last bit into Sulika’s ear and gave her an apologetic look.

Sulika grimaced. She recalled what Aldritch said right before he left - “Call me if he gives you a hard time.” He’d said… Well, she was tempted to call him right now, but she held off. She was a big girl, and she could do this on her own… Probably.