The plaza that housed the guild halls wasn’t far from the red-lantern district or Alchemists’ Row. It lay just to the east in the city center, north of the marketplace. It was easily the largest district in the city, rivaling the likes of the grand temple district and the opulent nobles’ quarters. Neither of which Autumn had visited yet. Only the palace dwarfed the district in scale.
Eight massive buildings, housing eight guilds, surrounded a wide plaza upon which milled a scattered crowd of burly craftsmen, battle-scared adventurers, wealthy merchants, and a handful of spirited bards. The soft sound of strummed mandolins and lyres filled the evening air amidst sporadic chatter and movement.
In the dead center of the plaza stood a stone fountain of glittering waters. Within which rested a towering statue of a heroic demon. There was no name adorning the infernal figure, nor were their features especially distinct, but there was a supernatural weight to them that drew the eyes as if to say: Here lies a Hero.
It wasn’t magic, per se, but something else, something older. Something stranger.
Legend.
Autumn tore her eyes away from the statue to look at the buildings, seeking out the Guild of Adventurers.
While there were eight buildings, nine if you included the skyscraping tower looming over the district from the mages’ quarters, there were in actuality more than eight guilds. However, those of a smaller and less influential nature shared buildings with other guilds closely related to their own sphere of influence, thus banding together into the eight guilds that most people came to know.
In no particular order, they were: the Guilds of Merchants, Farmers, Artisans, Scribes, Brewers, Builders, Performers, and lastly, but certainly not least, the Guild of Adventurers. The city’s mages, wizards, and other magically-inclined individuals had their own conclave within their district, and rumor had it that the thieves and pickpockets paid tithe to a guildmaster of their own. But that was just a rumor.
Each of the guilds had their own symbols, rules, mottos, and creeds.
The Guild of Merchants was made up of a vast conglomerate of trading houses and merchant families that stretched from Duskfields to Perdition, the empire’s capital, and out to every corner of the empire and beyond. It was thanks to this guild that the empire’s coffers never truly ran dry. Commerce was their lifeblood. They possessed a symbol of a gilded scale upon a golden shield. “Coin weighs greater than a hundred crowns,” was their motto.
The Guild of Farmers, while not as wealthy as the Merchants’ Guild, held a great deal of power within the city and the region. Their union of farmsteads planted, tended, and harvested all the grain and livestock within the barony, and, in conjunction with the Guild of Merchants and Guild of Scribes, oversaw the distribution of the food stores to the greater Empire. The symbol of a pair of wheat stalks adorned a simple banner on the front of their guild, alongside the words: “Plant and harvest.”
Next along were the scribes. Their guild was made up of three guilds alongside a handful of smaller bureaucratic unions, namely the Guild of Librarians, the Guild of Cartographers, and the Guild of Bookmakers. Their duties were fairly self-explanatory. If one wanted to buy a map, a book, or research a particular topic, you went to the Guild of Scribes. “To wield the sword, one must master the pen.” An intricate banner hung outside their guildhouse-turned-library displaying an open book and a quill.
The guilds of Brewers, Builders, Artisans, and Performers were all loose collections of a variety of small to tiny guilds that’d all banded together to not be browbeaten or absorbed by the larger guilds.
The Performers’ Guild, for example, was made up of the guilds of Musicians, Minstrels, Actors, Mimes, Playwrights, Mummers, Dancers, and Troubadours, while the Artisans' Guild was made up of the guilds of Glassmakers, Alchemist, Tailors, Blacksmiths, and more. While small, together, these guild unions held enough sway to hold their own against the bigger and more influential guilds.
Their symbols and mottos varied just as much as the guilds themselves did.
The Performers’ symbol was that of a smiling jester’s mask etched with the motto “Beauty in a silique” across its forehead. The Builders had a pair of crossed work hammers and the motto of “Bricks build civilization." The Artisans’ Guild displayed an anvil, a flask, and a sewing needle for their symbol, and the phrase “Many skills, many virtues” for their motto. Lastly, the Brewers’ motto was “Ferment, then drink” scrawled in gold lettering on a barrel lid beneath a painted mug of overflowing beer.
While all these guild halls were interesting, and Autumn dearly wanted to explore and learn more about them, they weren’t the one they’d come here for. That honor lay in the last, and largest, most bawdy and raucous of them all – the Adventurers' Guild.
The adventurers’ guildhall was the largest of the lot, and busiest to boot. Warriors of all creeds and colors, armor and dress, mighty or magical, streamed into and out of the grand building, either fresh-faced and off on a quest or returning bloodied and bruised but victorious.
Watching for a short spell, Autumn spied a great many demonkin entering alongside a swath of elvish, dwarvish, and beastkin faces as well as a few stranger races she couldn’t identify from a distance. She still didn’t see any humans besides herself.
Currently, the guildhouse doors were invitingly open.
“Come on,” Nethlia said, leading the way.
Autumn followed her quickly, as did Pyre. As they got closer, the boisterous raucous of joviality and merriment grew louder and louder. A drunken adventurer was tossed through the open doors to the cheers of his fellows, crashing down the short flight of steps in a cacophonous clatter. He groaned on the ground in an intoxicated haze, not eager to rise anytime soon.
Stepping around the drunk and his claimed stony bed, the trio swiftly climbed the steps he’d crashed down, heading towards the guild’s entrance. Overhead, a sign shaped like a shield wearing a helmet, that in turn was wearing a wizard’s hat, swung joyfully in the summer’s evening breeze. A windrose was painted upon the sign, alongside the words “Mind the step” in gold font.
What a strange place!
Autumn entered the Adventurers’ Guild for the first time.
Immediately, she was beset by an amalgamated stench of ale, pipesmoke, weapon oil, and musky sweat. It was a foul concoction that she feared she’d soon grown inured to. Standing dewily in the doorway, the fledgling Autumn glanced around the hall laid out before her with wide, virgin eyes.
The main chamber of the Adventurers’ Guild was cavernous, taking up the majority of the guildhall as it stretched up multiple floors towards a high ceiling laden with exposed pipeworks. The pipes were of copper, and they twisted and curled around themselves as they plunged down the center of the hall like a brainstem, descending towards a massive, circular bar where a slew of well-dressed, but rough-looking bartenders plied hundreds of thirsty adventurers with cheap drinks. Mug after mug splashed beneath hundreds of taps.
Silk-swathed balconies ringed the intoxicant arena, offering privacy to small teams and individuals from the second floor up while a series of stone fireplaces rested below on the first floor, burning away merrily as they warmed the hall and its patrons. From the walls hung colorful banners, painted shields, gleaming weapons, and the taxidermied heads of various monstrous beasts.
Individuals and teams chattered away at low and high tables that lay burdened with spoils alongside steaming food and foaming ale. Gold glinted and enchantments glowed.
There was so much going on, Autumn didn’t know where to look first.
A lone piratess lounged lazy by a fireside with her booted feet kicked up on a low table, picking dirt out from under her demonic nails with the sharp end of a dagger. Her eyes were a sunset, and her skin like cherries. A pair of short, impish horns barely peeked through her head of messy, crimson hair. The demoness possessed an incredibly slender but athletic body, swathed in a long, piratical coat, tight pants, and a loose white blouse.
Sensing Autumn’s eyes upon her, the piratess looked over and gave the witch a roguish grin and a flirtatious wink.
Autumn quickly turned her eyes elsewhere.
A harmony of instruments caught her ear and her gaze. Further into the hall, a collection of bards and musicians had gathered to compete with one another. They were a motley bunch, all color and flare. Silks, finery, and all manner of hair colors adorned them alongside guile and beauty. Charisma oozed from that corner of the room like a charming plague.
A bardic elfess danced a gay tune with her graceful, lissom frame. Her golden locks swayed like ocean currents to the melody. Her dexterous fingers played across the strings of a polished violin that she wielded like a mighty blade. A courtly twinkle sparked in her eyes as delicate laughter spilled from her lips.
The music picked up in tempo, and so did the elven damsel’s playing.
Glancing away from the musical battle, Autumn started looking around again curiously, when a massive, half-giant of a man with the head of a bull pushed his way past her. “Outta the way,” the minotaur rumbled. The crowd parted before him as he strode purposefully towards the bar.
“We’d best stop standing in the doorway,” Nethlia said as she gently tugged Autumn to the side, heading towards a set of stairs that led up to the second floor. “Registration is on the second floor.”
Tearing her eyes away from the fantastical sights and sounds, Autumn followed her.
Pyre didn’t go with them. “Well, it was nice meeting you,” she said, glancing longingly at the thronging bar. “But I’m going to get a drink. See you, or whatever.”
Autumn blinked as the embersoul walked away with a wave. Wait? How old was she again? Right, a different world, she thought to herself. Who knew what the drinking age here was? Besides, it wasn’t like she had a leg to stand on as it was. According to her home, she wasn’t of drinking age either.
Following behind Nethlia, she quickly ascended the flight of stairs to the second floor.
The second floor wrapped around the main hollow like a ring. Silk-lined private balconies and booths made up the inner side while the outer part consisted mainly of offices, storerooms, functionrooms, bunkhouses, private bedrooms and adjoining bathrooms. There were a plethora of arenas and training rooms on the first floor, alongside an impressive kitchen.
While following behind Nethlia to the offices dedicated to guild registration, Autumn surreptitiously peeked into a few of the private booths whose inhabitants had left their curtains open.
In the first, she spied a gathering of priests and priestesses. They were a multi-doctrinal, multi-ethnic group who’d gathered to discuss matters of religious and adventuring concerns. The only god or goddess that Autumn knew the name of was Nusurara, and she’d briefly glimpsed a painted depiction of the god/goddess of love. And while she’d love to learn more, now wasn’t the time.
In the second, she beheld a card game unlike anything she’d seen before. Not that she’d played many in her life. Adventurers’ Gambit, it was called. There were portraits of legendary adventurers painted on the cards held in the players’ hands, along with monsters on the ones in the center of the table. Autumn didn’t quite grasp the rules from her quick observation, but it seemed like the players needed to construct a party with varying stats to defeat the monster in the middle.
Currently, there were several muscular demons playing and betting against a small, gnomish man with wild purple hair. The demons looked quite humorous as they hunched over the low table with the tiny cards in hand.
As she watched, the gnome placed a subtle illusion over his hand that turned it into a winning one.
The demons cursed while the gnome swept up the pile of coins gleefully and gaily, pocketing his altered deck with haste before the demons caught on. And as he passed Autumn by, he gave her a wink, and slipped one of his ill-gotten coins into her hand so smoothly that she didn’t feel the ghost of its touch until he’d vanished into the crowd. No matter how hard she looked, she saw neither hide nor purple hair of the minute fellow.
So distracted, Autumn almost crashed into a dwarf heading the other way.
“Oi!” he bellowed. “Watch where yer goin’!” The dwarf’s accent was so thick that even Autumn’s Old-One-granted magic had a hard time deciphering his words.
At just a hair over four-foot, the stocky dwarf only came up to the bottom of Autumn’s breasts and the top of Nethlia’s waist. A thick mane of unruly, woody hair clad the dwarf’s broad pate while a dense, groomed beard hung down to their barrel-like waist, tucked securely into their leather belt and adorned with a collection of bone-carved runes.
Unlike nearly everyone else in armor she’d met so far, the dwarf wore a heavy set of steel chainmail under a loose robe. And at their waist hung a steel mace with a head shaped like a gemstone.
“Sorry,” Autumn apologised as the dwarf grumbled past her.
It was at the third curtained nook that she smelt a strange perfume lingering faint in the air. It was subtle and sweet, like a spring bloom. Pretty, in a scent. Smelling it reminded Autumn of flowers, of grass and home. Yet, for all its gentle coaxing, the smell sent fear thrilling down Autumn’s spine, and made her heart beat like thunder’s drum.
It was the scent of the Feywild!
Autumn was sure of it. She could never forget the smell. It wasn’t the same as summer’s bright dominance, or the cloying ferric tang of the redcaps, nor was it the woody pine of the titan trees, but it was similar. Adjacent, at the very least. A cousin to that which haunts her.
Glancing within the booth, her dark eyes alighted upon a dryad fair, clad gay in a dress of vibrant spring. Living ferns and intertwined vines adorned her like armor and cloak, shielding her soft wood skin from harm. Thorns and wicked burs decorated her armored arms and legs while blooming flowers sat within her auburn hair. A pair of wooden antlers sprouted from her crown, stretching tall within the booth.
A spear made from green wood and sharp dewdrops rested beside her relaxed form. With hearing keen, she heard Autumn’s gasp, and turned her amber eyes towards the witch looming within the bounds of the booth’s curtained entrance.
Tense silence engulfed the human and fey-descendent.
Before anything could develop, for weal or woe, a deep masculine voice boomed behind Autumn. “Is there a problem here?”
Flinching, Autumn wheeled around and came face-to-face with a broad, muscular and masculine chest. Panning her eyes up, she met eyes with the bovine orbs of the minotaur that’d brushed past before. He held a pair of drinks in his thick hands – one sized for him, the other for the dryad behind Autumn.
A heavy tower shield rested on the minotaur’s back, almost as imposingly tall as himself, while a thick billyclub hung upon his belt. Other than a leather skirt, he didn’t wear anything else.
Suddenly, Nethlia’s voice darkened the air behind the minotaur. “I don’t know, is there?”
The demoness had noticed Autumn halting, and had come back just in time to witness the burly minotaur seemingly squaring up with her smaller friend. She looked ready to throw the other party off the side of the balcony, for all the weight and height he had over her.
“There’s no problem,” Autumn said, quelling her beating heart. “Just thought I knew her. My mistake.”
Grunting, the minotaur snorted a blast of hot air into Autumn’s face before brushing past her to join the dryad, handing her a sweet-smelling mead. The woodland being had the grace to look apologetic for her discourteous companion.
Autumn herself had to coax her own companion into leaving as Nethlia looked more and more like she wanted to bash the minotaur’s head in with each passing moment. “Leave it,” she whispered. “It was my fault anyway.”
“He shouldn’t have been so rude to you,” Nethlia said, placing a protective arm around Autumn’s shoulders that sent a pleasant jolt shivering down her spine. “Should’ve punched his snout in.”
Smiling quietly to herself, Autumn pushed the demoness towards their destination, trying her hardest not to get distracted anymore by the strange people and stranger sights around her along the way. Eventually, they ended up where they wished to be, and joined a short queue leading up to a series of staff counters manned by cleanly dressed and attractive members of the guild’s staff. It kind of reminded Autumn of lining up at a bank back home.
While waiting in line, Nethlia fumbled in her pack for her outdated ID, holding it in her hands with a cute nervousness. “I’ve never really been good with paperwork,” she admitted shyly.
Autumn giggled quietly.
With the practiced pace the guild receptionists set, it didn’t take all that long for the short line to shrink, and for the pair of demoness and human to end up at the front of the line.
“Next!” the receptionist squeaked out. She was a short woman. Not a dwarf, but a faun-halfling. A pair of fluffy doe-like ears emerged from her head of braided brown hair, framed by a pair of curling ram horns that were capped with blunted copper tips. She had hooves rather than feet, and square pupils hidden behind a pair of reading glasses perched on her button nose.
Currently, she was wearing a guild uniform that consisted of a tailored white shirt, leather pants, sturdy boots, and a belt-and-thigh harness that held everything an adventuring guild employee might need, from fresh scrolls to quills and inkwells to a sharp knife and a healing potion.
“Oh, wow! You’re a big one!” she squeaked seeing Nethlia. “Oh! Where are my manners?! Ahem! Welcome to the Guild of Adventurers! My name is Zenmia Stoutbottle of the Northern Stoutbottles, and I’ll be your receptionist for today! Now, this line is for new applications, returning adventurers, and the reissuing of lost identifications! Is there something I can help you with?”
Finishing her spiel, Zenmia smiled up at them from where she stood on a wooden stepstool.
Startling, Nethlia stepped up to the desk with Autumn in tow, trying desperately, and very much in vain, not to loom over the much shorter receptionist. “Um, one returning and one new application. I’m the returning one,” she said, thrusting her old ID almost into Zenmia’s face. “Also, if it’s possible, I’d like to sponsor my friend here.”
The ID that Nethlia held looked very much like a driver’s license, only etched into a small copper plate rather than printed on plastic, and possessed differing information written in Common. While the predominant language of the empire was Infernal, the lingua franca was Common.
Zenmia, the receptionist, took the ID from the statuesque demoness brightly, not losing her smile for a moment. “Sure thing! Let me just scan this for you and see if you’re still in the arcane database!” Saying so, she placed it on an arcane device beside her, that flashed brightly before letting out a jingling chime. “Oh, ho? Miss Nethlia, it looks like you are in the database! And a returning gold-rank to boot! The guild is more than happy to welcome you back!”
Nethlia let out a heaving sigh. “That’s good to hear. I was worried I’d have to rejoin at a lower rank.”
“Nonesense!” Zenmia giggled. “The database rarely loses track of members of the guild, retired or otherwise. Now, it’s one gold to reissue an ID, but once that’s done, the guild would happily accept your sponsorship!”
The gold coin was swiftly handed over and Nethlia got a new ID back. She tucked it away into her pockets before Autumn could peek at it.
For Autumn, a slim piece of paper was slid in front of her. “Now,” Zenmia said, drawing Autumn’s flighty attention back to her. “With Miss Nethlia’s sponsorship, we can bypass a couple of trees worth of paperwork, alongside a lengthy background check and trial period, but there are still a few important pieces of information we need from you, including a two gold fee. I also need to go over some rules.”
“If you are unaware, the guild operates on a rank system, with new applicants starting at copper, before moving up to silver, gold, and finally platinum rank. To move up, you need to complete an increasing amount of quests, keep a good reputation, and gain accreditation from higher ranked members. Unfortunately, as your sponsor, Miss Nethlia is inapplicable as an accreditor for your rank accession.”
Autumn nodded along with the information that Zenmia was giving her. Looking down at the sheet before her, it was just asking for general information – name, age, combat class, current residence, marriage status, next of kin, that sort of thing.
Just as she was starting to fill in the information she was willing to provide, or could, Zenmia awkwardly cleared her throat. Looking up, she saw that the faun-halfling was looking a little embarrassed. “Um, I’m sorry I didn’t mention this before, but could you please write down your information in Common? I don’t really want to bother the scribes guild for a translation this late, sorry!”
Translation? Autumn blinked, looking down. She flushed as she realized that she’d been writing in English rather than Infernal or Common. “Sorry, force of habit.” With a metal flick of a switch, Autumn focused on writing in Common and scrawled down her information. In a flash of spite and wilfulness, she also wrote down her age as eighteen years old.
Happy Birthday, Autumn.
A two gold fee had her issued with a fresh copper card, alongside a warning. “As a member of the esteemed Guild of Adventurers, you are expected to conduct yourself with honor, to be kind not cowardly, and to explore the corners of the world with grace, quelling all evils where you can find it. If you breach these rules, you’ll be forever barred from the guild. Is that clear?”
Clutching her ID to her chest, Autumn nodded solemnly. “Crystal, Ma’am.”