Greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling, my eyes opened. Wind, from an open window, swayed the curtains which allowed light to coat the room; due to which I saw a bland room of a small table and bed once I raised my head.

Cracking my back as my body rose from the floor, I swished away the curtains to see the lively streets below. Amidst the crowds bustling in the daily chaos I’ve barely gotten used to, I see a figure with white hair similar to Jessica; a couple hundred metres away running towards where I am. They disappear behind some buildings before I could confirm their likeness.

Mesmerized by the dynamic picture outside of my window, I space out for who knows how long; only to be Jolted back into focus by knocking at my door.

‘Sam, please, answer the door for the sake of the gods!’ I hear from… my own head?

‘Sam! Are you still asleep or what?!’ the monotoned voice continues…

“Right…” I mumble, then speak up as the knocking continues, “Miss Ess?”

‘Are you going to let me in or what?!’ they yell, banging on the door continuously.

Finally I fully waken, stretching again as the knocking continued. I then casually walk to the door to let her in.

“Sorry… You know how bad I am at waking up, and I’m not used to the telepathy yet,” I claim as she steps in. Though, without knowing it from her own words, it’d be hard to guess they were a she. Having seen the clear tangent, I go onto asking the real question, “Are you here for a reason, or what?”

‘Sam… Really? You forgot our meeting at the Guild Hall?’ she asked, clattering her teeth whilst doing so which was previously masked by the knocking made me smirk. Though, I didn’t comment on it.

“Ah… Oh well, not like I’m important anyway,” I claimed, shrugging my shoulders.

She smacked me in the chest with her scabbard. ‘How am I going to speak if you’re not there?!’

“Not? It’s just listening to what she wants us to do anyway, I doubt we’ll even get a chance to speak our mind.”

With that said, I walk past her, trading the non-coherent mumbles from the window for my steps down the wooden staircase with S’s steps behind me. We get to the ground floor, where we find the exit blocked by a panting, white-haired woman.

To summarize her looks in one description, she was mature, if not elderly. In spite of her white hair having no dark roots like it was grey turned white, her skin was smooth without wrinkles or blemishes... Although her hair-style and style of bland summer dresses is only describable as ‘old fashioned’.

After catching her breath, she greeted us, “Heya Sam and Ess, you heading out so soon?”

S nudges me to start translating for her as she asks: ‘Jessica, isn’t the meeting soon?’

Although I shorthand it which results in her nagging at me as Jessica answering. Both of which happening simultaneously made me completely disoriented, and I started to feel groggy if not outright sick...

Eventually the messages get across, basically Jessica’s answer to S was: “They moved it to two, plus he just woke up, right? Let’s eat then head out, everyone else is waiting to eat anyway...”

Seeing S look my way, it’s not my mouth which confirmed what Jessica said to S, instead my stomach spoke up in its place.

With that dealt with, she beaconed us to the dining room on the floor. And as she said, six of the ten seats were filled with the others.

As I scouted the room for available seats, Jessica fled into the kitchen and I noted who was sitting where:

At the head of the table, which was also the nearest seat to the room we were looking in, a petite and visually flawless girl, Serv. Her silver hair poked out from her veiled headdress which seemed insane in this weather. It’s hard to say it mattered for her however.

To her direct left was another, slightly more realistic girl who was taller than me, Helen; whose fluffy brown ears perked from her head of medium length and curly brown hair. A brown tail also stuck out from both her dress and chair, which swayed around impatiently. Seeing her face, a ribbon covering her eyes was the only interesting thing, although I would describe it- for some reason- suiting her more than ruining the inherent cuteness of her youth.

Going clockwise further, the seat next to the dog-girl was a man, Grey. He has similar but grey ears popping from his grey hair, almost as if someone was seriously unimaginative when naming him. Whereas his ears were perked up, his tail was far better behaved than the girl’s. His stature was wide enough make the seat his was on seem like a child’s; his height being just as impressive.

To the right of him was an empty seat, then a slimmer person wearing a mask, dubbed Mask. Their physique was thin compared to the previous male. But compared to me, they still had massive arms which were clear from the tight-fitting leather armour they wore even to the dining table.

Further right was a lady who competed with the dog-man for height, Jacqueline. And although her muscles were slimmer than his by far, compared to both the masked person and myself, they were threateningly large. Her raven-black hair and deep green eyes seemed like an obvious hypnotism point, but as me, I averted it without trying. Additionally, her tight black robes and bones adorning her as jewelry made her seem the most eccentric at the table at a quick glance; which, considering I considered myself into this, was quite the achievement.

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Finally, to the left of Serv, was a male with a middling build compared to the others at the table, Charles. His blond hair, chiseled features and sky-blue eyes were probably as hypnotizing to the other gender as Jacq’s, and his white robes adorned with golden crosses added to his angelic image.

As I finished taking in the information, S had already become seated between the gothic lady and the obviously religious man, in the seat closer to the lady. She place her hand down as to pressure me to sit next to her, which I obliged…

Jessica calls from the kitchen, to which Serv gets up to and heads to the kitchen with Grey and Charles. Soon, all four return to the dining room with a collection of seven dishes in hand. Jessica also takes the head of the table, as the flawless lady who sat there stood over the dog-girl and helped her eat. S, Jessica, Mask, Grey, Charles and Jacq all talked together. And since Jacque could also hear S, I wasn’t needed to translate; this making S’s previous talk to me earlier even more pointless.

Talking proceeded from topic to topic, but as I was struggling to eat the meal alone, I ended up ignoring all of it. The meal itself was nice, a perfectly cooked but basic dish of sausages, mashed potatoes, gravy and a variety of vegetables, it was just the sheer amount forced onto my dish which made me both mentally and physically give up halfway… Disappointing S and Jessica in the process.

The food, apart from on my plate, was emptied from the table and the festivities wore thin. So when someone suggested to head-out together, we all silently agreed.

-

Together we took a carriage, riding for about half an hour until we reached a massive building which was our goal…

The building was pristine, and considering the traditional buildings surrounding it, its decors and architecture stuck out like a sore thumb. It was around six stories tall and as wide as three regular houses, being a painted brick cuboid tower with an absurd amount of windows which dominated the area.

There, we got our of our carriage and headed in with the flow of fellow adventurers and guild-folk.

Inside, there was a massive, pretty much empty room which had two full walls of papers which had rather impressive crowds for a lunch-time and a wall dedicated to a large counter with most of the people around them. To emphasize its size, there must’ve been at least fifty people in the room at that point, and it still looked incredibly spacious. To the side of the counters was a door which was wide enough to fit three people at once, which we entered instead of queuing up.

Going up a couple floors, we enter another empty room although this one had luxurious seats and only ten or so people, meaning our number nearly doubled the amount of people here. Although the room was large, it was noticeably smaller than the ground floor’s, also, this one had no papers on the wall and instead had two walls full of numbered doors.

Without a queue, we head to the counter instantly. And instead of having to wait, they usher us to a certain room. And a member of the staff joins us in it, wearing a traditional golden and white gown.

“Do wish for an explanation on what’s about to happen, or do you wish to just proceed?” the staff member asks, and to a six to three vote, we end up hearing the explanation… “Okay then… What I am about to do is seance the Goddess Lithy, who is your guild’s potential sponsor. All of you will have independant talks with her one at a time, and the contents of the talks depends on what she feels like. This will feel weird, but you will talk to her in the dream-realm. So as I say your name, close your eyes and you will remember the talk once you wake. It should take about twenty minutes with this amount of people. Is that a good enough description, or does anyone have any questions?”

We unanimously decide it’s enough, so she continues... calling Serv first. She was passed out for little over a minute before reopening her eyes.

Then it was Jacq, who took about three times that. Next was Charles, Grey, S then Helen, in that order, who all took about a minute or two each as well. Then was Jessica, who took about five times as long as the majority, after which was Mask, who took about as long as Jessica and finally it was me…

I close my eyes and hope it doesn’t take long.

My dream was blinding, with a spotless white room with two chairs and a desk between them. One of the chairs was occupied by a lady, who’s complexion literally glowed golden lights.

As I was looking around, she, in a calm voice, ordered me to sit in the available chair. Which I obliged to.

Looking above me, she glares at it for a while then glares at me, asking, “Another traitor, huh? What are with these… Uh… What are these specially hidden skills?!”

“I can not answer.”

“Can you say which god or goddess?”

“Klast.”

She sighs deeply, face in palm at the news. “Okay… Can you explain why I see ‘Traitor’ in your titles?”

“Yes, but will you trust my answer?”

“That is up to me to decide. State your answer!” she demands, standing up and slamming her palms onto the table suddenly.

“I’m a former slave. I murdered my master, hence the ‘traitor’ and ‘murderer’ titles, and the edit on my name.”

“... I don’t believe you. How did you kill a master without dying!?”

“Look at my skills, and think what should have killed me...”

“Judgement! Explain yourself now!”

“Fine... The master used a collar to make me their slave. So I learned how to teleport the collar off me and murdered him with an arrow before he could do anything about it.” Hearing my matter-of-factly tone, she visibly flinches.

“Okay… You are not dead and I used judgement when you were saying that, so I have no reason to not believe you right now. I must say, however, you are the oddest of your group of oddballs.” Mixing a partial sigh with a yawn, she pauses for a while before continuing, “I am getting a headache and need to chase up Klast now, who is always a pain to contact… So, I will ask you three last questions. First: can I trust you to not become a traitor again?”

“I can not tell the future, but as long as Miss Ess is with me, yes.”

“Will you do your part to repay my kindness?”

“That depends if Klast will let me.”

“... Explain.”

“I can not without Klast’s permission.”

“Fine… Last question then, what is your goal for joining this clan?”

Blushing, I look away answering, “To see miss Ess alive and, or happy.”

The goddess just laughs at this, then eventually states, “Well, I will trust you for now. Remember, what I want is for you to your jobs, and become one of the top ranked guilds in legacy and finance. I don’t really care about you expanding… Oh, and I’ll greet you lot at the headquarters I built every now and then.”

The scene turns dark. Soon noises from the real world come through and I open my eyes.

Knowing I was awake now, everyone focused on the staff member.

Seeing this, their eyes turned from the host’s previous green into the familiar deep blue of the goddess we just spoke to, and said in the goddess’ voice, “Since you seem to be fine and interesting people in your own ways, I look forward to advising you. Upon becoming your patron, I dub you: The Guild of Black Sheep. I wish for our partnership to be a long one.”

With that said, we were shown the exit and promptly looked for some quests to do.

OldBegginings:[Howdy, just here to say I will be updating the series in march as I'm still making buffer to hopefully get through it. Next week being especially terrible due to two midterms. Anyway, not sure if I'm able to call this either comedy or drama at the moment, and unless stated otherwise, will likely not put either for at least the time being.]