Double Trouble - Chapter 13 - Rough Draft

Charlotte

“So, uh, now that we’re done eating… What’s next?” I asked, looking between my various companions at the table. “Another request?”

“Is she even part of the guild?” Mikaela asked, throwing a glance Singh’s way.

“What guild?” Singh asked, her brow furrowing.

“The adventurer’s guild,” Reckt supplied. “Where adventurers go to make a name for themselves!”

“Or to put food on the table,” Mikaela added. “It’s a perfectly reasonable way to make money, after all.”

“If you’re willing to put your life on the line, maybe,” Singh replied, snorting. “No, I’m not part of the guild. Why would I wanna be part of it?”

“Perhaps because it gives you free entrance and exit to the city?” Mikaela suggested. “Something you might find valuable if you stay with us.”

“Uh-huh. Going to be doing a lot of traveling with me, then?” she asked, glancing between us. “Because if you don’t wanna cover my entrance and exit fees, you can just say so, and I’ll happily go on my merry way.”

“First off, it’s only an entrance fee,” Mikaela said, frowning. “And second, how do you not know this? Have you never been beyond the city walls?”

“Town citizens usually have other paperwork that allows them to go in and out,” Reckt told us. “Since they actively live here, and all. It’s just strangers who need the guild’s card.”

“To act as a form of identification?” Miakela asked. “I suppose it does have our names and descriptions on it, so it’s not the worst form of proving your identity, but it still seems like a rather shoddy way of proving your trustworthiness in entering a town. Unless the guilds have some way of blacklisting people?”

“Neah, the guild doesn’t really concern itself with whether you’re a criminal or not, as long as you don’t mess with the guild itself,” Reckt replied. “But it’s not really about trustworthiness.”

“Then what is it about?” I asked, curious despite myself. “I mean, it seems kinda weird that the guild can just give out universal passes to skip city fees, when you think about it…” Not that I’d given it much thought. I mean, it worked that way in fiction all the time!

“The guild branches all have individual deals with their local cities,” Reckt explained. “They pay a flat fee, and the city lets their members exit and enter without issue. It’s the only way the whole business system works, since a lot of the smaller requests aren’t really worth doing if you have to pay a fee just to reenter the city when you’re done…”

“And I suppose it’s of benefit to the city, too,” Mikaela mused, frowning in thought. “I imagine there’s all sorts of things city folks need, from letter deliveries to herbs that are only found in the wild… And it’s not as if the average person has what it takes to travel outside the city, for even short distances. Not when there’s monsters everywhere.”

Reckt nodded. “Merchants often need to hire guards from the adventurer’s guild, too - and if there’s no guild branch, there’s no guards to hire, so the merchants are less likely to come by, and that’s a whole barrel of problems in and of itself for a city or town of any size.”

“That does make sense,” Mikaela confirmed, with a satisfied nod, before giving Reckt an odd look. “Though I wouldn’t have expected you to know all of it. Don’t tell me you’re actually a more capable guide than you let on?”

“Hey!” Reckt complained. “I’ll have you know I know all about the guild! Mom made me study for it before she let me join… said there was going to be a test before I could join, and everything - and there wasn’t! Bet she was just messing with me…”

“Or she wanted you to be prepared for what you were walking into,” Mikaela countered. “If one wishes to spend their life on a particular career, then they should likely be aware of all that it entails, don’t you think?”

“I think the conversation’s starting to get off track,” I piped up. “We were talking about Singh, remember? If she doesn’t join we’re going to have to pay for her every time she enters the city with us.”

“Well, hey, if you don’t want me you can just leave me here,” Singh pointed out. “I don’t mind. Honest.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” Mikaela replied, dryly. “But it’ll be coming from your share of our rewards, if you don’t.”

“Wait, rewards?” Singh asked. “I get rewards? Nobody said anything about rewards!”

“What, you thought we were just going to drag you around on our adventures without giving you anything?” I asked. “You’re the party rogue! Of course you’re making a share… so long as you do your part, anyway.”

“Party rogue?” Reckt asked, wrinkling her brow. “I uh… wait… are you saying she’s a thief?”

“Why?” Singh asked, grinning in a way that showed off her singular sharp tooth. “You scared?”

“No!” Reckt denied, crossing her arms. “I just… don’t really get why we need a thief in the party?”

“Other than it being a classic RPG setup?” I asked. Much to the confusion of Reckt and even Singh, judging from the looks they were giving me.

Mikaela sighed. “She’s with us because she knows of our identities. Charlotte slipped up while trying to stop her thievery, and now we’re stuck with her until we’re absolutely convinced she won’t cause some sort of diplomatic incident…”

“Can’t you just send her to the Tower for holding or something?” Reckt asked. “You only need her out of the way until your journey’s over, right? I mean… assuming it has an end? Why are you traveling, anyways?”

“Because our parents think it’ll do us good to be out of the tower for a bit,” Mikaela replied.

“For a year,” I added. “And I don’t really wanna lock her away just for that long just because I was careless…”

“What about for thieving?” Reckt asked. “You said she was stealing stuff, right?”

“Food,” Mikaela confirmed. “But I fear Charlotte is too soft-hearted to lock someone away for trying to feed themselves…”

“I mean, it’s food. And don’t say that like you argued for it, or something, either! You wouldn’t feel right locking away everyone who learns about us, either!”

“Better than carrying them about with us the entire time,” Mikaela countered. “But honestly, I think a few days with her will be more than enough to decide on her fate. If she behaves well, we can let her go when we reach the next city - one without valkyries about to spill our secrets, and perhaps some money to keep her from needing to resort to thievery…”

“Right…” Reckt said, looking unconvinced. “But… you want her to join the guild?”

“If she’s up for it!” I confirmed. “Hell, I wouldn’t even mind if she joined the party for real! Rogue skills are super useful in a party!”

“They are?” Reckt asked, looking unsure. So did Singh, for that matter, but I nodded firmly anyway.

“They totally are! Like, what if you need to sneak around an enemy? Or get through a locked door?”

“None of my requests so far have involved breaking and entering,” Reckt remarked. “And I’m pretty sure you could just beat up any enemy we come across…”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?” Mikaela asked, eyeing me. “ I get bringing her with us. I even understand the desire to make her an adventurer - it would certainly help to give her an option for money making that doesn’t involve stealing. But if you think she can actually contribute anything to the party, I can only say that you’ve been consuming too much fantasy.”

“Says the girl totally living in a fantasy world,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at her. “Come on, we can at least give her a chance, can’t we?”

“We can certainly give her a chance,” Mikaela agreed, with surprising ease. “But I recommend letting her join the guild on her own time. Unless you want to restart your rookie requests…?”

“Well…”

“Anyone gonna ask me what I want?” Singh demanded, grumpily. “Because I’m not really sold on the whole guild thing, myself, you know? Sounds like an easy way to get yourself tracked.”

“I mean, it’s not like the guilds actually have a way of keeping tabs on you,” I pointed out. This world wasn’t like a lot of the fantasy stories I’d read, with enchanted guild cards or crystals that could be used to keep up to date with your accomplishments. Magic was common, for sure, but arcane spellcraft was still limited by what was physically possible, especially if you didn’t have an absolute ton of magical power like me and Sis. Enchanted items, meanwhile, were basically all holy or divine in nature - not the sort of thing that every guild branch could just have on hand. Hell, I was pretty sure every enchanted item in existence was in the hands of my family, with me and Sis having made the vast majority of them ourselves.

To my surprise, though, Reckt actually looked hesitant. “Well… they do send a copy of your records to the guild headquarters,” Reckt admitted. “That’s why the guild has you make two cards - so they can keep one for themselves, and create another copy for headquarters. They send along words of what requests you’ve accomplished, too. But it’s not really shared between guild branches, unless something really big happens. Like, if you’re wanted for mass murder, the guild headquarters might be convinced to send out notices about you to all the branches… but you’d have to do something bad enough that would wanna pressure guild headquarters to begin with, so… Yeah.”

“Uh-huh.” Singh didn’t look convinced. “Count me out. The less records of me that exist the better.”

“Why?” I teased. “Afraid word of your vegetable stealing will get out, or something?”

“No! I just… don’t like the idea of someone I’ve never met knowing about me, alright?” she muttered, not quite meeting my eyes. “It’s a perfectly reasonable concern!”

“Uh-huh…” Mikaela murmured, eyeing Singh for a moment, before sighing. “Well, I don’t see a point in forcing the issue, so we’ll simply have to do as you suggested and take the fees from her shares. Starting after our next request, of course - we still need to turn the wolfberries in.”

“And try that restaurant!” I reminded her. “Hunger’s Bane, remember?”

“Like I would forget,” Mikaela scoffed. “I might not think with my stomach like you, but I still value you a good meal. I’m honestly quite curious what they have to offer….”

“Sounds like I know where I’m taking you for dinner,” Reckt remarked, grinning at me.

“Really? Even though you’ve already gotten into my pants?” I asked.

“Well… Yeah, but I’m kinda curious what sort of dish they’ll make with the wolfberries, too,” she confessed. “And we did just make a bunch of money… or we will have, once we’ve turned in the request at least…”

“Something we should probably get on with,” Mikaela added. “The longer we wait, the more questions we’ll have to field about how we’ve kept the berries so fresh in our bags.”

“Good point!” I replied. “We should go… just as soon as I’m done ordering another plate of sausage!”

“Another?” Mikaela asked, eyeing me.

“Didn’t you have, like, three already?” Singh asked.

“And you had two,” I countered.

“Only because I was starving! Maybe you missed the memo, but I haven’t exactly had easy access to food of late.”

“Well, neither has Bonny,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at her.

“...Bonny?” she asked.

“Bonny!” I replied, reaching down to grab my bag from under the table, and opening it up a little. Immediately, the horned head poked out, nose twitching as she smelled the lingering remains of our groceries.

“Gah!” Singh cried out, practically falling out of her chair - and drawing attention to us in the meantime, which led to another scream, and another, and…

“Uh… Right… I was supposed to be careful about revealing her, wasn’t I?” I muttered, rubbing the back of my head. “Woopsies?”

~~~

Author's Notes

Bad news - Depression continues to kick my ass...

Good news - I'm getting slightly better at working through it! (Wrote this all today, despite it.) And also, I've got a meeting with my psych tomorrow, which will hopefully lead to new pills and less depression!

In the meantime, I'll work on getting a chapter of either Naughty Magic or Hatching a Heroine done in the near future... We'll see. DX (Apologies again for all the delays. Depression makes it hard enough to get just one thing done a week, let alone two or three.)