The Adventurers Guild in Harbordeep was wildly different from the Adventurers Guild in Holmstead.

Rather than a bustling tavern, the doors opened into a series of tall desks, arranged almost like a counter, akin to tellers at a bank, with a pair of doors at either end of the wide rectangular foyer.

"Step up," a middle-aged man called, gesturing towards Bob.

Bob hesitantly walked over to the desk, where the man sat on a stool behind the desk.

"Badge?"

Bob handed over his badge and reached up to scratch Monroe's ears.

"Holmstead, my, you've come a long way, haven't you," the teller said, "allow me to welcome you to the Adventurers Guild of Harbordeep, I'm Jakob, and I'll serve as your agent while you're here."

"Agent?" Bob asked carefully.

Jakob grinned at him and replied, "Guild leader wants us to be called agents, but the truth is we're just clerks. You need information on where to find something, you want to put yourself up for a group, or if you're looking for access to the library, the ritual room, or whatever, I'll be the person you ask."

"If I'm not at my desk, you can leave a note with any of the other agents; I'll be ready for you the next time I'm at my desk," he said genially, "which is five days a week, so you might end up waiting a couple of days if you happen to have a request that lands on one of my days off."

"Alright," Bob said, "thank you for being my agent then."

"I'm planning to delve the Dungeon here in Harbordeep, and I was hoping to have a room here at the Guild for a few weeks," Bob said cautiously, "are there any available?"

Jakob squinted in thought and said, "I think so; let me go check; I'll grab you the token if there are."

With that, Jakob hopped off his stool and hustled through a door in the center of the wall behind the agent's desks.

Bob took a longer look around the room.

There were ten desks, although only three others were staffed, and none were occupied.

A woman read a book behind one, a woman carefully sharpened a dagger behind another, and the final desk was staffed by a young man juggling what looked, to the untrained eye, like balls of lightning.

The foyer itself was stark and lacking any ornamentation, projecting a dour, businesslike attitude.

A far cry from the warm, boisterous atmosphere exuded by the tavern in Holmstead.

Jakob hurried back into the room and up to his desk.

"There were a few rooms still available; you said you'll be staying for two weeks?"

Bob nodded and replied, "Yes, although I may stay longer depending on how well things go."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Jakob said confidently, "you'll just need to let me know no less than three days in advance if you're going to be here longer."

"Would you like to take your meals in the Guild?" Jakob asked.

"I'd prefer to," Bob said, "it might be different here, but where I'm from, we try to keep crystals inside the guild."

Jakob chuckled and shook his head, "It's different here, Bob," he grinned, "everyone accepts crystals as currency, at a value of one crystal per bronze round."

"You're correct that keeping your necessary business inside the guild is good policy though, Stars know we're hard-pressed enough in Harbordeep," Jakob grumbled.

"At five crystals a day, the room will cost you seventy crystals for two weeks," Jakob said.

Bob blinked and shook his head as he dug into his satchel, pulling seventy mana crystals from his inventory and placing them on the counter.

Jakob pulled a ledger out from under the desk, placed it on one corner, and carefully wrote down Bob's name, badge number, and was writing the duration of his stay when Bob interrupted him.

"Ah, before we complete our transaction," Bob said hurriedly, "I'll need to pay for extra meals for my familiar," he tilted his head towards Monroe, who was sprawled across his shoulders bonelessly.

It was Jakob's turn to blink.

"I thought that was some sort of decoration your town had developed a custom for," Jakob grinned as he walked around his desk and examined Monroe.

Monroe, sensing another devotee approaching, raised his head and opened his eyes, carefully inspecting this newest human-servant.

"Stars," Jakob breathed, "he's gorgeous!"

Looking suddenly chastised, Jakob tore his gaze from Monroe and asked, "Or is it she?"

"Monroe is a boy," Bob said, "and he is very handsome."

"Here," Bob grunted with effort and slid Monroe off the Makres and poured him onto Jakob's desk, "you can give him a pet if you'd like."

Jakob's grin widened, and he shuffled over to give Monroe an experimental pet.

Monroe sensed that this devotee was hesitant, so he engaged his purr motor.

"So soft," Jakob breathed as he started to pet Monroe with more confidence.

Bob took a moment to consider the idea of just dumping Monroe in front of anyone he had to interact with in order to make a good first impression.

Reaching down to scratch Monroe's ruff, Bob noticed the approach of another agent, who had abandoned her book in favor of investigating the massive cat sprawled indolently across Jakob's desk.

"May I?" She asked as she looked longingly at Monroe.

"Certainly," Bob said, "Monroe may have a maximum hand to cat capacity, but so far, we've not reached that limit with half a dozen people petting him."

"I'm Zoey," she introduced herself as she gave Monroe's ear a tentative rub.

Monroe switched his purr motor into second gear, and a low rumble filled the foyer.

"Bob," he said as he watched Monroe soak up the attention.

"What's this harness for?" Jacob asked as he found his petting impeded.

"That," Bob said with a smile, "is Monroe's half of the Magnetic Kitty Retention System - Makres for short," he explained.

"Allow me to demonstrate," Bob reached down and hefted Monroe back onto his shoulders where the magnets pulled together with a click, and Monroe draped himself bonelessly.

Bob demonstrated the Makres' ability to keep Monroe secure before sliding him back off.

"That's why I thought he was a decoration," Jakob said as he resumed his worship, "he didn't move when you walked in the door."

"Gary Edlund from Nikki's Leather and Armor in Holmstead designed and built it for me," Bob said, "if you'd like one, just send a message through the Guild."

Zoey bit her lip.

"I've always wanted a familiar," she said, "but I don't think I could bear the thought of bringing a pet into combat."

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"Oh, Monroe doesn't fight," Bob hastened to assure her, lest he be thought of as a kitty abuser, "but I do have armor that attaches to the harness to keep him safe if something were to take a swipe at him."

"So it'll be eight mana crystals a day with meals for Monroe included," Jakob said as he unwittingly took his life into his own hands by exploring the possibility of playing with Monroe's toe beans.

"Twenty percent tax," Jakob said apologetically, "rounded up to the nearest whole number."

"Two crystals for a room, two for meals, another two for Monroe, and another two for the tax," Zoey explained.

Bob nodded and pulled another forty-two crystals out of his satchel and deposited them on the far side of the desk.

Jakob gave up on his thrilling adventurers of toe bean adoration and moved the new crystals over into the existing pile, and carefully finished writing the details of Bob's stay in his ledger.

He closed the ledger and placed his hand on the cover.

A second later, the ledger flashed a muted blue, and the pile of crystals sank into the desktop, a token appearing in their place.

Jakob smiled and pulled a familiar room token out of his pocket before scooping up the token on the desk as well and handing both to Bob.

"I'll show you where everything is," Jakob said, gesturing for Bob to follow him.

Zoey let out a soft sigh of disappointment as Bob hefted Monroe back onto his shoulders, and he smiled at her and said, "I normally eat breakfast at six, lunch at twelve, and dinner at six if you want to visit Monroe."

"I'll see if I can't arrange with Edith to cover my lunch," Zoey said with a bright smile before she headed back over to her desk.

Bob followed Jakob as he walked over to the door at the left-hand side of the foyer.

"This is the 'Servants door,'" Jakob grumbled, "used to be just called the door," he shook his head, "you haven't tiered up yet, so you'll have to use this door."

He looked Bob in the eyes, catching his gaze, and said quietly, "Do not, under any circumstance, use the door on the other side."

Bob glanced over.

The door on the other side looked the same: four feet wide, ten feet tall, solid hardwood, maybe oak, bronze fittings.

"That door," Jakob continued, "is reserved for Adventurers and Nobles tier six or higher, and I've seen more than a few tier five Adventurers beaten nearly to death for mistakenly using it when drunk."

Bob followed Jakob through the servant's door, down a short hallway, and around a right-hand turn before the hallway ended, and he found himself in a low ceilinged tavern.

An actual bar ran along the wall in front of him, with a wide staircase at the end leading to the next floor. Square tables, each with four chairs, were arranged precisely across the room, which stretched a good hundred feet back.

To the right, the room stretched fifty feet before ending with a railing separating it from another space.

The floor of the space next to the tavern was four feet higher and made of stone, the banister rising from it like the bars of a prison cell, an image amplified by the fact that the banister reached the ceiling of the tavern.

From what Bob could see, the other area was a mirror of this side. A bar ran along the far wall, and tables were spaced out with chairs around them.

There were not so subtle differences. Rather than fifty feet across, it looked to measure eighty or more. The ceiling was likewise fifteen-foot as opposed to ten, and the tables and chairs were ornately carved and engraved, a stark contrast to the plain, even utilitarian furniture on this side.

Even the lighting was different. The side of the tavern he was on had dull, lifeless balls of light interspersed on the ceiling, lighting the room unevenly and creating dim spaces. This wouldn't have been so bad had each table had a light above it, but instead, the lights were arranged in what had to be a deliberate fashion, as not a single table had a light directly above it.

The other side had the same strips of light that he'd encountered in the tunnels through the walls, bright and even, creating a well-lit environment that left nothing in shadows.

"Let me guess," Bob said softly, "this is the servant's tavern?"

Jakob scowled and nodded.

"I was in here from time to time with my Da'," he said, his voice taking on a lilt, "when I was just working out my path, and the whole tavern, it looked more like this," he gestured around the servant's tavern, "although the lights and tables were better placed."

He gestured for Bob to walk with him, and they started walking down towards the stairs.

"Then one night, the Guild gets shut down for 'Renovations,'" he scoffed, "and the next morning there's all this," he gestured towards the other tavern.

"First few folks who ventured to the other side without being tier six were dumped in the foyer, beaten bloody," Jakob shook his head as they walked up the stairs, "and it was quickly understood that if you wanted to stay healthy, you kept to the servant's tavern."

Bob followed Jakob as they walked down a hallway lined with doors, side by side, barely four inches between them.

"I reckon Holmstead is different, aye?" Jakob said, "I've never heard of it, so I imagine it's pretty small with only a few tier sixes, if any."

"I think there is only one, but he keeps to himself," Bob confirmed cautiously.

Jakob nodded, and they stopped in front of a door labeled 'SQ 47'.

"I'm guessing 'Servant's Quarters'?" Bob said with a sigh.

Jakob tapped his nose and smiled, "You're catching on quick, just drop the token into the slot and turn the handle."

Bob noted that the mechanism was identical to the one used in Holmstead and was slightly surprised to see that the room the door opened into was actually larger.

He walked through the door with Jakob trailing him.

It was less a room and more of a suite. He could see a bedroom through a door to his left, a tiny kitchen on the far wall, a bathroom to the right, and a dining room table with six chairs in the area between.

"This is actually a bit nicer than the rooms in Holmstead," Bob said.

Jakob gave him a quick, sharp smile and replied, "The toffs would've preferred to gut the place and have us sleeping in closets, but the cost of these rooms was prohibitive enough to stay their need to put us in our place."

Bob looked around the suite.

"Air, Water, Fire, Spatial Expansion, Weight Manipulation?" Bob guessed.

"Quite," Jakob said as he regarded Bob thoughtfully, "I'm guessing you're a caster then? The only one you missed was Invocation for the sunlight."

Jakob reached over to a slender bronze rod mounted to the wall and slid a ring further up the rod, causing the ceiling, which had been emitting a dull light, to glow golden, filling the room with natural sunlight. Or artificial sunlight, Bob mused, although he couldn't tell the difference.

"Each room represents three thousand crystals or so worth of enchantments," Jakob said, "and even the richest of nobles balked at wasting that many resources."

"Although," Jakob went on, "I'm given to understand that the rooms they put in on the other side are magnificent."

Bob looked around the suite.

"Somehow, I'll manage," he said.

Jakob nodded and led Bob out of the room and back downstairs to the bar.

"You just need to present your meal token to the barman or a server, and they'll log it," Bob nodded and gave a closer look at the meal token.

It was shaped like a fork and spoon crossed over a bowl. Bob chuckled at that.

"Your token is good for six meals a day; you can take them whenever you'd like, the kitchen runs all day and all night, although breakfast is only available from midnight till noon," Jakob advised as he guided Bob to a table, gesturing to a server as he sat down.

Bob slid Monroe off his shoulders and onto the table where the big cat sniffed the tabletop experimentally, turned around twice, and curled up in the middle, his tail wrapping around to cover his eyes.

"He'll wake up for lunch," Bob said.

Jakob shook his head as he reached out to stroke Monroe's tail.

"So one of my other functions," Jakob said as he used his spare, non-worshipping hand to pull out his ledger, "is to schedule your delves."

"Schedule?" Bob asked.

Jakob nodded seriously and replied, "The Dungeon in Harbordeep is the largest, deepest, and best-curated Dungeon on the continent."

"As such," Jakob continued, "everyone from the smaller towns and cities without a Dungeon that deepens into tier six, such as yourself," he nodded to Bob, "comes here to push past their local limitations."

Jakob went on, "The Dungeon does have limited space and monsters, so we need to manage who goes in, for how long, and when."

"The Dungeon here is the new standard for the Adventurers Guild and features a Gateway that will allow you to descend quickly, or perhaps, more importantly, to retreat should things go badly," Jacob explained, "In order to access any given floor of the Dungeon, you'll need a token to pass through the gateway."

"Each token represents a five level spread, from one to five, six to ten, eleven to fifteen, etc.," Jakob continued what was clearly a well-rehearsed speech, "and you'll need to purchase a token for section, which will be provided by the Guild, and will cost five hundred mana crystals."

Bob shook his head, and his mouth fell open for a moment.

Jakob grimaced and leaned forward, whispering, "We used to tell people that upfront before they booked their rooms, but the Guild Leader changed that about a decade ago."

"The Guild will, of course, loan you a token for a very generous rate of fifty-mana crystals per hour that you delve," Jakob finished unhappily.

Bob chuckled.

Jakob blinked.

Bob reached into his satchel and pulled out five hundred mana crystals and deposited them on the table as he said, "I'll be delving on the twenty-sixth through the thirtieth floors."

Jakob smiled as he opened his ledger and added a line of text beneath Bob's entry.

Closing the ledger, Jakob piled the mana crystals onto the cover before closing his eyes.

The book glowed a dull green, and the mana crystals disappeared, replaced with a familiar token.

"Here you are," Jakob said, passing the token over, "once we have you scheduled, I'll show you how to use the token."

Bob nodded and then quietly asked, "How many people fall for that scam?"

Jakob shrugged, his shoulders falling into a slump, and replied, "Too many," he shook his head, "I see it all the time; they come here with a couple of hundred mana crystals in their pockets, thinking the costs will be the same as the Guild back home."

"And fifty mana crystals per hour is a very ambitious goal," Jakob said, "even with a well-practiced and balanced group."

"They normally run through the crystals they brought with them within a few days," Jakob grumbled, "the smart ones stop then and go home to spend some time gathering the crystals they need to make it," he shook his head again, "but some of them keep pushing until they've put every crystal they earned here back into the loan, and end up either going home with little to show for their efforts or worse, having to take any work they can find here in Harbordeep until they can afford to go home."

Bob nodded. He had hated taking on student loans, and he'd managed to pay them off by the end of his first year at Fermilab. He had overheard others' conversations, though, and he knew that some of the undergrads had accumulated staggering amounts of debt.

His teenage years in Watts had given him a firm understanding of the real effects of predatory lending.

"Now, I know you'll want to find a group as soon as possible," Jakob went on, "and I can help you to that end."

"I won't ask you about your path," Jakob assured him, "but I'll need to know, roughly, what you can do in terms of damage, crowd control, healing, etc., in order to find you a group."

Bob's thoughts raced.

He needed to keep his head down. Everyone in the world grouped up together to tackle the Dungeon.

'Fuck,' Bob thought.