“Wha— What?!” The lizardfolk yelped weakly. “You… have a question? What… ugh… what makes you think I’d answer any question of yours? In fact, that already was a question! So there, you asked one! Happy?”
Azim stood silently, looking down at the reptilian intruder.
Groaning, the lizard man finally said, “Ugh… I guess I’m not in any position to tell you anything.”
He coughed, interrupting his words, and sat up slightly. “Gah! That punch of yours is real nasty, man. Alright, alright, I really don’t want ya’ to kill me, so what do you wanna’ know?”
The android looked around and saw Leone finishing up with the buildings. Rather than dousing the flames with any kind of extinguishing source, the young man had simply broken up the charcoal roofs so finely that the fires quickly brined through them and went out on their own, leaving the rest of the buildings undamaged and the people safe. Some of them seemed worried that their homes were now without roofs, but Leone appeared to be working it out with them. Azim did not bother to listen in on the details. However, knowing that the fires were out and that everyone was safe gave the robot as much of a sense of relief as he could feel, aware that he could take his time with the stranger without worrying about other priorities.
“Why did you attack this town?” Azim asked calmly. “Your arrival appeared random and your tactics senseless, so I do not believe you were acting out of anger or vengeance towards anyone at this outpost or in the rest of the town. So why did you do it?”
“Oh, I see what you’re getting at, you think I was doing this for some kind of initiation or something, huh?” chided the lizardfolk, coughing as he spoke, still trying to get breath back in his lungs. “For the one of the guilds?”
“What guilds?” questioned Azim, who did not know what the reptile was referring to.
“Don’t… mm… don’t play dumb,” retorted the lizardfolk, who thought Azim was just feigning ignorance. “The guilds of rogues. Or, sorry, the factions within the Guild of Rogues. Excuse me, ‘Mr. Technical’. You think I’m going through an initiation for one of the factions. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, man, but I’m not. So you won’t be getting in through me.”
“I do not know what the Guild of Rogues is, or what these so-called ‘factions’ are. I apologize.”
“Oh, you do— Really?!” the lizardfolk was shocked. The Guild of Rogues was not secretive by any means. Sure, they tried to stay a bit under the radar so as to not draw too much attention to themselves, but they were not trying to keep themselves a secret, nor did anyone ever think they were supposed to be one. The Guild of Rogues was famous. Legendary. Not every member in it, of course, but the guild itself, sure. People from all across the land wanted to join, the most daring of adventurers hoping to earn their place, and even those who simply met a rogue of the guild found themselves starstruck. How could this guy not have ever heard of them? He must have been some small-town hick, the reptilian man thought.
“You’re just some small-town hick, aren’t ya’?” prompted the lizard man. “Though if you are, how’d you get all that fancy armor? No way you made it yourself, you’re way too scrawny to build something like that.”
Before Azim could respond to the scaly man, he continued, “Aw, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But yes, the Guild of Rogues. I’m trying to join ‘em. I was trying to keep it a secret, but if you don't even know who they are, then what’s the damn point?”
“I am sorry if I upset you, however I can not condone your actions against this town.”
“Well that’s the thing, I chose this town on purpose, I wasn’t just looking for the first place I found. I know that the residents of Smithford are all terrams. I know that all the homes and smiths and stuff are built to withstand intense heat. I know that there actually aren’t too many things here that are actually flammable, pretty much just the charcoal roofs and some of their goods. I purposely picked this place because I knew I wouldn’t cause too much real damage, but could still say I lit a town on fire and stuff. You know? It was all just for the story. I didn’t actually wanna’ be a villain.”
“I understand.”
“Wha— You do?” stammered the lizardfolk, who almost wasn’t sure he had heard the robot correctly.
“You are not the first person I have encountered who has acted in such a manner. I am still learning to be a judge of character, however I do not believe that you are a bad person.”
“Oh, well… thanks. Though I am sorry for all the trouble I caused. I was hoping I could be in and out pretty quickly, not get too many people hurt.”
“You did send that man into his smith shop with a spell bottle.”
“Oh damn, yeah… I might’ve gotten a little carried away. It was just cause the... well, I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.”
While the two were talking, Leone finally walked over to see how Azim was doing. The robot could see that the young man was starting to sweat rather profusely. “Whoo!” the young man yelped. “Man, it’s getting hot! You feeling it, buddy? Right, what am I saying, of course you’re not. How are things over here, kick his ass good?”
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“You are rambling,” replied the android.
“It’s the heat, man, it’s got me light-headed,” retorted Leone. “I’m not really big into heat. Anyway, what’s going on over here? Why’s he sitting so casually? He looks like he’s gonna’ share with us some… spices…”
“He says he is interested in joining the Guild of Rogues.”
“What?! The guild? Really?? Ha ha ha ha, that’s rich man. I was watching you guys. Azim, here, took you out with one punch! One! What’s the guild going to want to do with that?”
“He says he was only here because he figured this town would not be so easily destructible. He was hoping for some form of initiation from the Guild of Rogues, hence the assault on this town. However, he did not want to hurt too many people or cause too much unnecessary damage, so he chose Smithford because he knew his fireworks would not actually burn too much.”
“Yeah, what he said,” the lizardfolk piped up.
Leone was silent for a moment, taking in what Azim had said with the utmost sincerity. After a few seconds, he said,“Why would you ravage a town if you’re trying to get into the guild, though?”
“What?” asked the reptilian man, confused by the question.
“Well, that’s not how the guild accepts new recruits, I— Did you even get assigned a mission by a rogue?”
“What now?” the confusion continued to show itself.
“Dude, are you— You can’t just do some crazy shit and then tell the guild, ‘Hey, I did some crazy shit, am I in now?’ It doesn’t work like that. You have to be assigned a mission by a guild member. There are some other steps after that, obviously, it’s not just one test and you’re in, but that’s the gist of how you start. You definitely can’t do it on your own, though. And most importantly, a mission is never raiding and setting fire to an entire town, you freak! I mean, what is wrong with you? The tests are usually like… stealing something, or hunting someone with a bounty, you know something that doesn’t affect an entire community! Oh Viyona, man, what the hell?”
“Aw, shit, really? I’m sorry man, I already told your friend I was sorry but… damn, I am really sorry.”
“I mean, what did you even think was going to happen? That you’d just eventually tell some rogue you hopefully run into that you set a town on fire, and then ask to join their fancy club?”
“I mean, when you put it like that…”
“Dude!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I already told… Azim… here, right…? I said I was sorry, and that I didn’t really mean to hurt anyone. That was another reason I chose to come here rather than somewhere else, I knew the terrams here wouldn’t be that affected by—“
“My man, you sent the outpost’s smith flying into his shop, only for the roof to crash down on him!”
“Okay yeah, that sounds bad.”
“Because it is! Go apologize, and try to explain why you thought it was a good idea to do all this. And after that, remember what I said, and don’t pull some shit like this again!”
With Leone’s final words, the reptilian man scrambled to his feet and scurried over to the residents of the outpost, who were coming to together to make sure they were all okay. The lizardfolk was left alone to deal with the consequences of his intrusion, apologizing for what he had done and trying to explain why he had done it. To no one’s surprise, the terrams were not amused. Despite the heat starting to get to the scaly intruder, he offered to help repair the outpost however he could, which the terrams accepted. As Azim and Leone walked back to rejoin Riva and the terrams at Outpost 6, they saw the smith of Outpost 3 sneaking up on the reptilian man. He wrapped an intimidating arm around the lizardfolk and offered a not-too-friendly smile, who practically melted at the sight of the rock-covered man.
Reuniting with Riva and the terrams from Smith 6, Leone told them all what had happened. He mentioned how he had joked with the residents of Outpost 3 about the irony of the situation; a fire-resistant town built with heat protection in mind getting attacked by a wannabe arsonist. He then disclosed the irony was intentional, citing the lizardfolk’s purposeful choosing of this town to “light up”.
“According to that man, he was seeking some sort of initiation for an association known as the Guild of Rogues, though Leone informed him that such tactics would not be effective toward gaining their attention or recognition,” clarified Azim.
“The guild?” Bolur asked. “Those guys are cool! Don’t think I’ve ever met one, though.”
“Then how do you know they’re cool, dummy?” quipped Cahven, punching his buddy in the shoulder.
Leone interjected, saying, “Well, I know that that guy definitely wasn’t.”
Azim did not say anything more, though he looked back to the outpost they had helped. He saw the reptilian man cleaning up the damages he had caused, lugging around huge helpings of iron and steel while the other terrams did their part and chuckled at the misinformed lizard. Clearly, despite his early impressions, the townspeople were not too upset with him. It had helped that he really had not caused that much damage, because by the end of everything, he had more just been a nuisance than an overwhelming bringer of terror. While it looked like he would have his work cut out for him for a while, Azim could tell the lizardfolk would be fine here.
The android returned his attention to his companions, rejoining their conversation to hear them talking about the Guild of Rogues. They all seemed to have different opinions on them. Riva, for one, did not know much about the guild, however, from what everyone else was saying, she was gaining interest. Meanwhile, for an enthusiastic individual, it seemed to Azim that Leone did not think that much of the guild, or found it somewhat lame. The young terrams were the most excited, talking about it like they were part of some guild appreciation fan club.
They didn’t know much, but they mentioned that once a rogue from the guild had actually stopped at their outpost, complaining about the heat. Bolur commented how the two of them found it funny considering the man was wearing about four layers of clothes at the time, but they refrained from saying anything. Other than that, the two could not remember many other details about him. Rather, they each claimed to, but they each remembered things about the rogue that the other disagreed with. Cahven blamed the fact that it had been about 2 years ago, admitting that the two of them did not have the best memory when it came to small details like that.
Azim spoke up, saying, “I do not know much about this guild. In fact, I did not know of its existence until today.”
The two young terrams were shocked, but mostly just because they were so fascinated by the topic. Leone spoke up for them, remarking, “You don’t know about the existence of a lot of stuff, bud. We gotta’ help with that.”