Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Six — The Guildhouse
Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Six — The Guildhouse I pushed the front door open with a squeal of protesting hinges and peered inside. The interior wasn’t all that well lit, just the light slipping in from the windows at the front illuminating a lobby area filled with shadows and a thin film of dust.“Hello?” I called out as I stepped in. My voice echoed across the room.I had only ever been to two Exploration Guildshouses before. The large one in Port Royal, which was a stately building, well-maintained and richly decorated, and a smaller one in Awen’s hometown, which had been clean and quite nice, though not as affluent.Maybe that clouded my impression of the guild, because I was expecting something similar here, especially in Goldenalden where the city seemed much richer and the people here had a much greater focus on propriety than I was used to.There were some decorations. The last two guilds had dioramas of dungeons and hand-drawn maps made by members of the guild. This one had glass-covered plinths to the sides with strange weapons and artefacts with little plaques next to them. They might have been impressive if a number of them weren’t missing and the rest weren’t currently being used as scaffolding by enterprising spiders.“This place looks abandoned,” Awen said as she glanced around.“Yeah,” I replied. I had that impression too. “But the door wasn’t locked, and there’s still some things here.”“Nothing of great value, but still enough that I suspect a common thief wouldn’t just leave it laying around,” Amaryllis said.The clink of a door opening had all three of us looking up and to the end of the room. There was a desk there, with a doorway behind it slowly swung open. A sylph stepped out.I wasn’t great at judging the age of people, but I guessed him to be in his thirties or so. A proper adult. He had a suit that was well-cut but a bit rumpled, and he walked with the hunched back of someone who had given up.“Hello!” I called out.The sylph jumped, then spun to stare at us. His confusion quickly gave way to a shaky smile and he scurried around the desk to come and address us properly. “Hello hello,” he said. “Welcome to the Goldenalden Exploration Guild. It’s been some time since... ah, nevermind, I mean to say that you’re all very welcome. Are you looking to hire someone to find something? A scout, a map-maker? Perhaps a dungeon diver?”I shook my head. “We’re not looking for anything like that,” I said. “My name’s Broccoli, and these are my friends Amaryllis and Awen. We-at least Amaryllis and I-are part of the Exploration Guild.”The sylph froze up, his smile turning brittle. “An inspection team?”“Huh? No, nothing like that,” I said. “We’re just normal members.”“Oh! That’s wonderful. Are you looking for a mission? We don’t have many, but there are a few outstanding ones that we could use an experienced team on.”Amaryllis raised a talon. “What’s going on here? I’d suspect that the Goldenalden guild was just not as popular or as well off, but the location of this building and its size suggests otherwise. It looks, at a glance, as if this branch is falling apart.”“What? No, no, we’re...” he tried to keep up his smile, then abandoned that. “Alright, so you’re not wrong. We’re basically skirting failure here.”“What happened?” I asked. “It looks like this was a nice place.” The decor was poorly maintained and dirty, but I could imagine it being quite fetching beneath all of that.“Happened?” he asked. “Ah! Where are my manners? My name is Reginald Leaflock, I’m the current guild master of the Goldenalden branch of the Exploration Guild, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He bowed a bit.“Nice to meet you too!” I said. “Are you the only one here?”“No, no, we still have some staff. Not many though,” he replied with a glance over his shoulder. “Mostly the older members who have been around for so long that they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.” He laughed, but it lacked any humour.Amaryllis shifted, and I could see the calculations flashing by in her eyes. “So, what happened here? The guild looks like it’s underperforming.”“We’re getting along,” Reginald said, but he folded at Amaryllis’ look. “Or we’re trying to. It’s a long story, and not one that I think anyone would want to hear. I’d much rather listen to your own. Are you members from the Harpy Mountains?”“We both joined in Port Royal,” I said.Reginald’s eyebrows rose. “Ah, a nice branch over there. The guild leader is a woman of great repute. Did you have a mission that needed you around here? We might be able to provide some assistance.”“Mister Leaflock, could you tell us what happened here?” Amaryllis asked. “We came because we were looking for some information, but the state of the guild is questionable at best.”Reginald winced. “Well, ah, perhaps we can have this discussion in my office? Though, I’m not sure if it’s a discussion worth having at all.”“You seem worried,” I said.He shrugged a shoulder, a very careless gesture for a sylph. “I don’t think the guild has much time left, at least not this branch.”“Well, now I want to know what happened too,” I said. “But not if it’ll hurt your feelings to repeat it.”Reginald stared at me for a moment, then took a deep breath and shored up his resolve. “No, no I don’t mind telling you what happened. Come, my office is at least a little more comfortable.”We followed Reginald to the back and instead of going around the counter as he had, he led us to the side and headed towards a staircase at the rear. Once we were up a floor, we moved down a richly appointed corridor, and finally into an office.The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.Reginald’s office was nice and big, with a chonky desk in its middle and a few plush chairs for guests. There were paintings of people hanging on the walls, and from the plaques beneath them I guessed that they’re the former guildmasters for this branch.“Take a seat, please,” Regionald said as he gestured to the free seats before his desk.I looked to my friends before pulling one out and plopping myself down onto it. A small puff of dust rose around me that I quickly and quietly got rid of by pushing some magic into my Cleaning aura. I didn’t want to interrupt anything so I kept it subtle. His desk was less dusty, due to regular use.“So, what happened?” Amaryllis asked.Reginald worked his jaw. “I don’t know exactly where things started taking a turn for the worse. We were having a relatively difficult year. Securing government contracts was made more complicated by the army ramping things up and edging into the budget we’re usually allocated, but otherwise we were doing well financially. You have to understand, the Exploration Guilds in Sylphfree are treated... in an interesting way.”“Interesting how?” I asked.“In most countries, the Exploration Guild is primarily made up of two groups: well-off members of the gentry who can afford to mount expeditions, and talented individuals looking for reliable work who can assist with those expeditions. There are always new dungeons to find, ancient ruins to explore, and new cultures to visit and exchange with.”I nodded; that’s what made me want to join, mostly.“But in Sylphfree, there’s a powerful pressure for most to join the armed forces. Most nobles will try to find a place in the military hierarchy, and it’s not as common for one to wish to join our guild. We still have... had, plenty of members though.”“What was the appeal?” Amaryllis asked.“Mostly the ability to move outside of the borders of the country. And we worked closely with Paladins and others of the sort to scout out new dungeons and locations of interest across Sylphfree.” Reginald seemed quite proud. “The Exploration Guild allowed its distinguished members to make a mark in a way that being part of the more traditional sylph culture wouldn’t allow.”“You still haven’t told us how everything turned out like this,” Amaryllis said.Reginald’s proud look deflated. “It started with... I suppose we received a new member. He was very talented, a young human from somewhere. He never really said. He was a hard worker, and while he was rather anti-social he worked well enough with the rest of the guild. He took quite a few missions, mostly mapping out dungeons. There are a few in the nation that aren’t as popular, so they’re not delved as often and our maps of those have become dated.”“I imagine he did more than just that,” Amaryllis said.The sylph nodded. “We didn’t know it at the time, but he...well, he destroyed some of the dungeons he visited. Three of them, as far as we now know.”Amaryllis took in a deep breath and I saw Awen raise her hands over her mouth. As I understood it, dungeon destruction was a big deal. It would probably be really wise of me not to mention the dungeons I’d destroyed.“The Inquisition marched in here and started rooting around, looking for him, but he had disappeared. Worse, he took a lot of paperwork with him when he left. Gold as well. I think the only silver lining in the entire matter is that the inquisition wanted the destruction to stay silent.”“Did they ever find him?” I asked.Reginald shook his head. “No. We lost a few members then and there. Others left soon after. I scrambled to fulfil the missions we still had, but that meant sending less experienced members out to tackle more complicated missions. We had to deal with a big surge in injuries. Then the news broke out amongst the nobility, and a lot of our members who were part of the gentry parted ways with us.”“Oh no,” I said. “They were the ones supplying the guild with money and stuff?”“In part, yes,” Reginald said. “We used to receive frequent donations from the nobility, often in lieu of donating to other organizations.”“Huh?” I asked.Reginald blinked. “Ah, yes, you’re not from Goldenalden. Ah, the nobility are legally obligated to pay a certain amount of their earnings back to the nation. They can get an exception from this if they donate some of those proceeds to certain organizations. Some are military, others are civil services.”“Ah, tax evasion,” I said with a nod.“It’s...not technically that. Anyway, a lot of noble families would donate to the guild, especially those that enjoyed the banquets and meetings which we held here. Which we can no longer hold here, not with the state the guild is in.”“And all of this was caused by a single human?” Amaryllis asked.“One human, yes. At least, I think he was human.” At our looks, Reginald shook his head. “Nevermind, just a rumour.”“Wait,” I said as I leaned forwards. “You’re not sure if he was human...did he ever just change appearance? Like an illusion spell or something, or shapeshifting?”“It was just a rumour. We needed to track him down after all the crimes he committed. So I employed some of the guild’s best to chase him down. They cornered him, but all they found was a scared and confused sylph who didn’t know anything. I trusted those members to track someone down, it was a strange occurrence. Then I heard that something similar happened to the Inquisition.”“What was his name?” I asked.“Drizz, his name was Drizz L. Lizard.”I blinked. “No!” I said as I jumped to my feet. My palm slapped the table. “That’s Rainnewt!”
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Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven — Lost and Found in Translation
Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven — Lost and Found in Translation “Rainnewt?” Reginald asked.“How did you figure that?” Amaryllis asked.I gestured vaguely through the air. “The name. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”“No. No, it really isn’t,” Amaryllis said.I huffed. “Come on. Drizz L. Lizard? It obviously means drizzle lizard, and that’s just a terrible pun for rain newt.”Amaryllis blinked. “None of that made sense,” she said.I stared at my birdy friend for a bit. The clues and all were super obvious, and she was a smart girl. Then it clicked and I felt silly. “It’s a multilingual pun,” I said with mounting horror. Puns were already a bit evil, puns that required translation... that was a whole new level of terrible. Rainnewt really was a villain.“How does it work?” Amaryllis asked. “I don’t see the link between the names.”“It might be because of my autotranslation,” I said. “But the name means rain lizard. A newt is a kind of lizard. That, and Reginald mentioned something that might have been shapeshifting.”“And there’s a solid link with the Exploration Guild,” Amaryllis added. “But then, for him to be able to make that kind of...dare I say joke-with his name, he would need to either have a gift for multiple languages, or be a riftwalker.”“That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “Him being a riftwalker. He’s been destroying dungeons. Reginald! Did the dungeons he destroyed have any evil roots in them?”Reginald leaned back in his big office seat. “Evil roots? Ah, I don’t know? Actually, there was— give me a moment.” He slid his chair to the side and opened a drawer. “I only have these on hand because the inquisition demanded copies of everything related to Drizz. They couldn’t find him initially, so they started to investigate with more depth. That meant going over everything with a fine-tooth comb.” He pulled out a stack of papers and set them on his desk, then he started flipping through them.I watched as he paused on a page, frowned, then turned it around and slid it our way.Awen, Amaryllis and I all leaned over to inspect the paper. Reginald tapped a paragraph near the middle.The Hidebank Dungeon was explored by a local delve team who reported strange growths on the Boss floor of the dungeon. The dungeon has not acquired any new floors since its last survey, but there have been some noted changes in its behaviour.“What’s this report?” Amaryllis asked.“It’s the demand from Riverhide to send someone to explore one of the small dungeons in the region. It’s not a very popular dungeon, so there wasn’t a lot of local interest in uncovering the changes within it. It was one of the first missions that Drizz took. That dungeon was destroyed.”Amaryllis turned my way, a talon resting against her chin. “It’s not much to go on. Circumstantial at best.”“But it’s something,” I said. “Did any of the other dungeons mention plant stuff? Big roots, the dungeon acting weird?”“Not that I’m aware of. Drizz had a knack for tackling dungeons across the nation, but he only destroyed three as far as I’m aware.” Reginald sighed. “Only three. As if that’s not an enormous number of lost dungeons.”I looked at Amaryllis, and she nodded, though it was a little reluctant. “Alright, I’ll admit that you might be onto something.”“You know Drizz then?” Reginald asked.“Yeah, but not under that name,” I said. “I’m not sure, not without seeing them, but it sounds like Drizz might be Rainnewt. He was a man that worked at the Port Royal Exploration Guild. He tried to get Amaryllis kidnapped at some point, and he might be responsible for a bunch of diplomatic problems in the area too.”“Not to mention what he did in the Nesting Kingdom. He set off an explosive that killed and injured members of a sylph diplomatic party,” Amaryllis continued. “He got away with it too, as far as I can tell.”Reginald paled. “He did what?”“Yeah, it was really bad,” I said. “I don’t know if he destroyed more dungeons along the way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”Amaryllis’ eyes narrowed. “Why did you suspect he was linked to the Evil Roots, Broccoli?”I shrugged. “The world told me to fix those. So if there’s another riftwalker, maybe they’re here for the same reason. Trying to start a war doesn’t make sense though. If all he wanted was to destroy dungeons he could be a lot sneakier about it.”“Awa, maybe he doesn’t want to do it himself?” Awen asked. “If he could convince the nations to fight, then one of the first things they’ll do is destroy each other’s dungeons, right? I know that my dad had some procedures in place, if there was ever a war or something, to protect the dungeons closest to Greenshade.”That made some sense, but it was such an awful way to go about doing things. Why not just warn people? Or find another way to get rid of the Evil Roots. I’d proven that Cleaning magic could do it, so I bet there were other ways to get rid of the roots too.“This is distressing,” Reginald said. “But, at this point, I’m not sure what the guild can do about it. It’s obvious that this is a problem that’s much bigger than the guild.”“Hmph, that’s no reason not to try to do your part,” Amaryllis said. “We’ve moved very much off-track. I came here to ask the guild for help finding certain groups in the city. It would help us a lot if we could track them down.”“We’re trying to stop Rainnewt,” I said. “Or at least the war he might be trying to start.”“I can try to help,” Reginald said. “But I’m not sure if there’s much I can do at all.”A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.I shook my head to clear it. There were too many thoughts all bouncing around in there at once, and I only had so much room for thinking things. “Maybe we can help you while you help us!” I said.Reginald sat up a little straighter in his seat. “You think you can help the guild? At this point, we’d accept any help we can get.”“We might be able to help, a little, on the condition that the guild helps us in turn,” Amaryllis said. “Notably, we’re looking for the location of the diplomatic parties sent over for the summit. We have a little over a week to try and convince all the players here not to go to war with each other over the actions of one madman.”“Or madperson,” I said. “Rainnewt can shapeshift. We have no way of knowing who they are.”Amaryllis nodded. “That’s a fair point. I suspect that most nations will have ways of intercepting and preventing that kind of security breach, if only to counter skilled spies and assassins. Warning them of a potential issue wouldn’t be amiss.”“The weakest point of any defence is the people behind it,” Awen said. It sounded like a quote. “Even if everyone has things in place to catch spies, they might not be paying them all that much attention. Though I guess that wouldn’t make sense now, not with everyone being in high alert.”“No, it’s a fair point,” Amaryllis said.I nodded along. Spying and such wasn’t my forte, but I imagined that my friends were probably right. “So that’s what we need. To know who and where the nice diplomats from everywhere will be.”“I think I can manage that,” Reginald said. “I don’t have many contacts left, but I still have some. The guild isn’t lost, not yet. If I can help you with that, what can you do to help the guild?”“We don’t have much money,” I said.Amaryllis shook her head. “Certainly not enough to keep an entire guild afloat.”“Surprisingly,” Reginald cut in. “We’re still staying afloat financially. We had to cut off a lot of services and such, but we had some gold saved up. It’s our reputation that we need to salvage the most.”“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. “But maybe if we cleaned the place up a little that would help? Give me half a day and some gardening tools and I can have the whole place looking like new.”Reginald smiled. “I think that would help, at least a little. I suppose we’re not presenting the greatest image while looking so slovenly.” He nodded, then eyed me, and then my friends up and down. There was a calculating gleam in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel that maybe Reginald was the guild leader for a reason. “You’ve been on some interesting adventures, haven’t you?”“Oh yeah, plenty,” I said.“Any of those recent?” he asked.I considered the trip from the Nesting Kingdom to here. “Yeah, I think a few of them are,” I said.Reginald’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned his elbows onto the table. “Would one of you mind telling the story of your voyage? Truthfully, that is. No need to exaggerate or anything of the sort, just a straight recounting of what occurred.”I glanced at my friends, then shrugged. “I can do that,” I said.“Awa, maybe I can do it?” Awen asked. “I have a good memory for that kind of thing, and Broccoli might be busy cleaning and doing gardening work.”“And in the meanwhile, I have a few small questions I’d like to ask,” Amaryllis said. “Notably, what exactly are you thinking of doing with our story?”Reginald nodded. “That’s only fair. The guild needs a victory right now. Several, in fact. And spreading the story of a successful venture by some intrepid young members might just count as that sort of victory. It’s not much, but I’m sure we can find some mutual benefit from announcing to the nobility of the nation that you’re a force to be respected and admired.”“Ah, I see,” Amaryllis said.It sounded to me like Reginald just wanted to use us to create a good image for the guild. I wasn’t exactly against the idea. We hadn’t done anything too amazing, I figured, but maybe stories about going around and making friends would attract more people who needed friends too.After all, Amaryllis joined the guild because she secretly wanted to make friends, deep, deep, down inside.I bet there were plenty of Amaryllises out in Goldenalden that needed a good friend too!“I like it,” I said. “But no lying or embellishing.”“He wouldn’t be able to in any case,” Amaryllis said. “We had Bastion with us for the entire trip. He would be able to fact-check any part of it, and to most sylph the word of a paladin is assumed to be truthful by default, and usually for good reason.”“Bastion?” Reginald asked.“A paladin who accompanied us on our voyage,” Amaryllis said.Reginald’s brows shot up, and he seemed genuinely impressed.I clapped my hands. “So! Should we do all of this stuff today?”“Ah, well, as much as I would enjoy that, I’m afraid that I can’t uphold my side of the bargain today. The information Miss Amaryllis wants isn’t something I know off-hand. Would it be possible for the three of you to return tomorrow?”“Sure thing,” I said. “Can you set out some gardening supplies? I’m hardly an expert, but I can fix up the front no problem. And I am an expert at all things cleaning.”“I look forward to seeing the results. In any case. Yes, I think we have tools and cleaning supplies laying about.”Reginald stood, and so did we.“You’ve given me a lot of think on. But I think this might be the start of the Exploration Guild’s return to a proper level of decorum. Or at least I very much hope so. Thank you, girls.”“No problem,” I said.
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