The four of us make our way through the city with me in the lead as I am the only one who knows where the guild’s headquarters is situated. Once we turn into the street where I last remember the entrance was, it’s plainly obvious how filled the street is with all kinds of merchants, with their activity all centered around the entrance to the guild.

“Is it a merchant’s guild?” Sam asks.

“Uh, not particularly.” I reply. “It was a guild founded by alpha testers but I assume they have some crafters and stuff like that too…”

“Those don’t look like players to me.” Max comments.

“Maybe they are just interested in the things the guild says. If they have crafters they surely need supplies too.” I raise my shoulders, but it’s best that we just approach, we’re not going to find out anything by just standing here.

We continue marching towards the building. While a couple of the merchants look at us as we approach, they all just mind their own business, probably literally at that. We walk through the open front door to the guild, only to find it almost as busy inside as outside with a lot of discussions going on. There now is what looks like a reception desk, next to a closed door behind which the rest of the guild house is. It is interesting to see as this was not here before, wall, door and reception desk included.

We arrive at the reception desk just when a merchant angrily storms past us.

“Damn, what the hell is wrong with him?” Sam follows him with her gaze as he leaves the room.

“Didn’t like that we didn’t want to accept his business.” The Langor man from behind the counter replies, without looking away from the paperwork on his desk.

“Did he do something wrong?” Carol asks.

“He doesn’t treat his employees fairly and because of that is able to bid far below other merchants when it comes to contracts, we don’t condone such business practices however.” Finally the guy does look up at us, brushing away a red strand of hair from in front of his glasses. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Uhm, we would like to see Crystal…” I reply.

“Do you have an appointment with her?”

“Uh… no… Hilda just said we could come here to ask for her. Apparently she has a couple of quests.”

“Hilda… Hilda…” The man’s eyes suddenly go wide. “Ah! You are Élise's sister! Yes, please come in.” He stands up himself and walks to the door to open it for us, using some kind of spell. “I’m sorry, it’s just been a bit busy lately because we want to open new trade routes towards the new continent which we need new business partners for. Crystal should be on the first floor.”

“Thank you.” I smile.

“Try not to burn yourself out too much with the busywork.” Sam smiles as well.

“Ah, don’t worry, our shifts are really not that long and mine is almost over.” The man gives us a smile and waves us in.

Big guild stuff is surely something else as opposed to our mansion back in Hofudstadr.

We enter the bar area directly behind the door, inside there’s a couple of parties of players having fun and drinking aloud. Definitely a lot more people than were here last time. When the door closes behind us some people look at us and continue on with their drinking, a couple others however keep staring wide-eyed at us, mostly at Sam and I.

Max and Carol don’t really notice however and just look around the bar’s interior. “Wow, this is totally different from the other pubs in the city.” Max comments.

“I guess that’s what you get from bringing people over from Earth.” Carol replies, looking with hungry eyes at some snacks that people nearby are eating. Those people in question quickly shield their food from her. “Rude.” She sticks out her tongue which gets reciprocated by the rogue’ish looking Nekote at the table.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I roll my eyes and push my friend along towards the staircase. “We can get you some snacks later, Carol. First, let’s go talk to Crystal.”

Sam snorts.

“W-what?”

“I just found it funny that that comment comes from you.”

I pout. “I just would like to snack in a more… private… setting.”

“I understand, I understand.” She chuckles and pats me on the head. Sam then looks at our friends. “Ami got a point though. Let’s not antagonize other people over a salami and do what we came here to do first.”

Max and Carol follow that advice as we make our way towards the staircase, although that doesn’t really stop Carol from making faces at the other Nekote who gladly keeps returning the favor.

Up the wooden stairs we go, the landing and the surrounding hallways being a lot less busy than the area below. It does not take very long for us to find the door marked with a name-tag that says ‘Crystal Glass - Guild leader’.

I knock on the door twice after which we hear some movement inside. Instead of calling us in, Crystal just opens the door. The moment she sees me a smile creeps on her face. “Amicia! long time no see!” She pats me on the head and gives my hair a good ruffle.

“Hey Crystal.” I smile back. “It’s not been that long ago.”

“Not in real time, that’s true. But time works in wonky ways.”

“Can’t deny that.”

“Wow, so you are really made out of crystal.” Max comments.

Crystal laughs. “I am.” She then looks back at me. “I take it these are your friends?”

“Yes, this is Max and this here is Carol.” I point towards my two friends in order and then I point at Sam who’s standing next to me. “This however is my girlfriend, she’s called Sam.”

“What’s up.” Sam takes me in close by the shoulder and smiles at Crystal too.

Crystal nods happily. “That’s very nice to hear. Would you like to come in for a second to discuss your quest options?”

“Ah, you already heard about it?”

“Hilda sent me a message that you would probably be heading over, yeah.” She beckons us into her office, we follow. “She asked me not to give you a quest that was too hard, but from what I heard… that wouldn’t really be an issue, wouldn’t it? Hilda didn’t really give me any details. But we do have other sources as well.”

“Uh… how much exactly do you know?”

Crystal sits down on a cozy looking sofa and picks up a steamy cup of what I think is tomato soup from the table. “Let’s just say that some ex-guild members of ours were at a certain siege and others were also present in a certain holy city.”

“Oh.”

Crystal starts laughing at my reaction and then offers us to sit down as well. “Does anyone want some soup? Two members who specialize in ice and air magic have come up with it, it actually works really well. Still in the experimental phase though.”

The four of us all agree to which Crystal gets up again to each gives us a cup of soup.

“In short, at least the leaders of this guild who had seen you before kinda know what has been going on. The news about a new Goddess doing the rounds also didn’t really miss its mark.”

“I guess that was to be expected…” The soup does smell rather good if I have to be honest. And after taking a sip, the taste only confirms the same.

“Am I allowed to ask what exactly you mean with ex-guild members?”

“Well…” Crystal sits back down to get back to her own soup. “When we learned about what exactly the Theocracy of Osvik had been doing, we were not very happy with the members who had gone on to join them in their fight. We kicked most of them out because we as a guild really don’t want to stand for that kind of nonsense.”

“I assumed as much by your mercantile policy.” Sam replies.

“Ah, looks like Rudy told you about that.” Crystal smiles. “But yes, those guild members may not have been fully aware of what was going on. But they should have been a lot smarter about it.”

“I hope you didn’t lose too many members because of it.” I fidget a little.

“Not really, it’s an unfortunate situation but luckily those members were all quite new. It were not members of the old guard, so to speak, who got involved. That said, it’s also not like we just dumped those members. We did give them recommendations to go to some other guilds we are friendly with. I heard they were doing well there, but we all found it better not to directly associate with them anymore. Now they can start somewhere else with a new slate.”

“Hmm. I think I’m pretty happy just rolling around with a friends group instead of doing guild politics.” Max replies. “It sounds rather convoluted, especially being its leader.”

“I can definitely understand.” Crystal chuckles once more. “But anyway, we were going to talk about giving you girls a quest, weren’t we? So let’s get down to business.”

-So we can has some funs!-