"Dady, daddy, Your home," They said, rumbling towards him, into his arms as they had done ever so many times before.
"Ahh, you've grown so Big," Jarec said, twirling them up into his arms. And around in a spinning hug a few times before finally putting them down when out of nowhere, Amanda appeared.
"Husband", She said with that same glaring look on her face that he missed so much.
"Wife," He said back, happy to see her again.
It had been about 2 months or so since Jaret had first left for the wildlands, and in that time, he had missed her dreadfully so. 'Oh, it's good to be home, He thought, happy as could be when suddenly his interface started rumbling, a sign that someone on his contact list wanted to talk to him. "Agh, not now!" He thought/sad, mistakenly shouting the words out loud for the whole world to see.
"My love are you ok", Amanda asked.
"Yes honey, sorry, just work," He said, hating how the look on her face changed to a frown as he said those words.
"Work, Now? You just got home!" She said, her voice slightly raised as if to make a point.
"Yes, darling, I'm sorry. It'll take a sec" He said, immediately turning towards his interface to see who was calling. 'This better be important or I'm quitting the guild and nothing's gonna stop me, Not even the Guildmaster himself. Why I ever join the Guild, I do not know'
You have a call from Guildmaster Blade will you accept the charges (One hundred bronze mana coins)
Y/N
'Oh speak of the devil and he shall appear, yes I'll accept the damned charges', He thought mentally clicking onto the Dam Y button and suddenly the damned man's pudgy face appeared on screen for all to see.
"Hey, Jaret, sorry if I'm calling at a bad time," The Guildmaster said, his face appearing on his interface as soon as the connection had formed.
"No, no it's fine," Jaret immediately said even though this was far from the truth. The Guildmaster after all was his boss after all. He had to keep up a good rapport with him if he wanted to keep his position as Party leader for the Gia adventurers guild, and that was just all there was to it.
"Oh good, I just hate thinking that I'm interrupting your well-deserved time off with your family, you deserve it after that last mission you pulled off in the vale-dungeon. Who names a dungeon that anyway?" The Guildmaster said.
"I believe it was a Pale dungeon not a Vale dungeon sir," Jaret said, correcting the Guildmaster wanting to know what was going on. 'He wouldn't have called me just for idle chit chat right' ‘No. he’s not that stupid, He probably did have a reason for calling. Jaret would just have to wait and endure the idle chit-chat, for now at least.
"Was it? Agh yes. An undead dungeon if I believe. Horrible things if you ask me," the Guildmaster said, slouching back as he did so.'' Why the light allows such things to exist I will never know”.
"Yes, sir". Jaret said, still wondering why he was here.
"Must have taken you a while to destroy it, with all those undead protecting its core though, am I right."
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"Yes, sir", Jaret said, getting slightly anxious as he could see Amanda in the corner of his eye was even now fuming with rage. If this little chat didn't end soon, he didn't know what she'd do.
"Oh good, then. Onto the matter at hand, I guess," The Guildmaster said.
'Thank the lady' He thought as he could literally hear the steam emanating from Amanda's ears. 'I need to hurry this up, or I'm torched', He thought, preying that this little chat wouldn't take any more time than it already. Knowing the look his wife was sending his way from anywhere.
"Now you are probably wondering why you are here. Well, it's simple. A new dungeon has appeared on the map. It hasn't yet created an entrance. But it's close, though. Give it maybe a month or so. Anyway, we need a party to check it out when it does emerge. And your name was at the top of the list. Are you interested? I can give to someone else." The Guildmaster said, referring as he was to the Guilds master rank dungeon map.
The guild had many such maps. What made this one unique was two things.
One, It was a Sage level item, meaning it had been created by someone with both their Mapmaking, pathfinder skills at the sage ranks, something that was incredibly hard if not impossible to accomplish once if not twice. This allowed it to be levelled and even become sentient if certain conditions were met, something that the guild desperately did not want to happen.
And 2 was how over the many years that the guild had had the map it had been upgraded with extra abilities, with the farsight ability being but one of them, granting the Guild the ability to know when, where and how a new dungeon would open up its entrance before it even did. Allowing them to get there far before any of the other local guilds could. Though the map wasn't always that accurate so Jaret knew that he and his party could be searching from up to a few days, too many a month or 2 or even a year if they were unlucky. Though that was unlikely as Jaret's party were lucky enough to have one of the few Mapmakers in the guild and they knew how to use him.
"So you want it or not?" The Guildmaster eagerly asked. Almost too eagerly, in fact. Tipping Jarid off that something wasn't quite right here.
"What's the catch," He asked, knowing for a fact that there must be some sort of catch otherwise the Guildmaster wouldn't be so eager to have him go.
"It's in elf contested Territory, " The Guild-Master finally blurted out after a long drawn out string contest, proving Jarids point for him.
"Agh, hell no!" Jaret said. "No way in hell in hell am I going to Elf territory," He said. 'Once was enough, thank you.
"Come on, Jaret. You're the only senior party leader the guild has that's been up close with the pointy ears and lived to tell the tale". The Guildmaster said, imploring to his better nature like he always did.
"Yeah. And once was enough. Thank you," Jaret said. "Besides, don't you have Garet and his lot? They went toe to toe with the green elves in the war, didn't they?"
"Yes, but Garet's not a senior. Not a greenhorn. But still. He's new. He's not faced the things you have. The horror's, the dungeons, the monsters. He just doesn't have what it takes to be a Guildmaster. Not yet at least''. The Guildmaster said, chuckling, shocking Jaret awake with those last words.
'Guildmaster, what?', He thought, shocked by these sudden words.
"Oh, did I not mention. Both dungeons have been estimated with the potential of at least Epic, possibly legendary. As such Guild rules state that the first to enter the dungeon must be a Guildmaster of a similar rank, to ensure Party safety. And since the guild cannot afford to have any other Guildmaster leave their post for such a long period of time that would be required to scout out both dungeon's potential locations." The Guildmaster said, taking a deep breath in before continuing on.
"The guild has offered anyone who agrees to take this mission on," The Guildmaster said, taking another deep breath "The temporary rank of Guildmaster. With the permanence of the position granted upon discovery of the 2 Dungeons." The Guildmaster said, finishing with a bang.
"I'm in", Jaret said before immediately turning his head to his wife, who by now was humming with quiet red rage. "Honey, I'm going to be a Guildmaster," He said, and suddenly her face was filled with joy.
"Guildmaster, really?"She asked, her face now filled with Joy. "Where?, Is it Qun?, Limes town? Burnham?Red town? Oh. Please tell me it's a red town?”
"Urm. Honey. About that," He said, knowing she wasn't going to like his answer at all.
"I see you have a lot to talk about. So I'll leave you to it." The Guildmaster said, immediately cutting the connection off, leaving a blank blue screen in his wake.