Runeblade

Sitting at the table with the truthstone in a room enchanted with silence, Ro—the Guild receptionist—smiled at him and waved at the other chair.

“Chop chop, we don’t have all day.” she teased.

Kaius sighed and walked over to the offered chair, Porkchop following to lay at his feet. Though, with his new size, Porkchop could still easily peer over the table's edge. Which he did, playing the part of a placid warbeast.

“So, it's really just an interview? Will there be any intrusive questions.” Kaius asked, curious about the process. He’d always heard tales of brutal sparring matches with Guild officials to earn the right to join, and increase in rank.

“Ehhhh,” Ro answered, tilting her hand back and forth in the air. “Kinda. Most people do have to take a test, but most don’t walk in here missing two fingers, with a dozen little scars on their face from preintegration. Most definitely don’t have a warbeast that looks right out of a Duke’s menagerie, nor do they take a dozen analyze skills straight to their Mask and then keep on their feet, and they absolutely do not walk in here draped in the exact sort of hodge-podge collection of artefacts that a proper Delver would have.” she explained, shooting him a look like he had been a little bit of an idiot.

“Ah.” Kaius said. He’d definitely already given the game away, at least a little.

“Yes. Ah. Hence why I rushed your ass into this silence room, so that we can have a little chat and get you some protection.” Ro replied. “Not that you’ll find all that much trouble in Deadacre, but still, rumours do what rumours do. Spread.”

Kaius frowned, he hadn’t even really stopped to consider that, but he did have to say it made a certain kind of sense. Maybe if he’d been level forty or fifty, but a level twenty? That made him stand out. Almost certainly not enough for anyone to reasonably suspect any of his more dangerous secrets, but enough that he would be a person of at least passing interest.

Ro leaned forwards, setting her elbows on the table. “So, before we jump to the whole interview thing, I thought I would ask you a few questions. Nothing personal, nothing dangerous, just a few generalities. What do you think?”

Porkchop grumbled, shoving his huge head on his lap and forcing his nose under Kauis’s hand, perfectly hiding him as a talented, but nervous youngster whose bond jumped to provide reassurance.

“Damn, you’re good.” Kaius said, scratching his brother behind the ears.

“Best at lying to the Matriarchs in the whole Den, and don’t you forget it.” Porkchop replief, leaning into his touch.

Kaius let a touch of a quiver slip into his breath. “I reserve the right to refuse to answer.”

Ro smiled. “Of course, of course. Now, what are you doing here? Why the Guild, and why Deadacre?”

“I really am from the north, lived near the Sea my whole life. Deadacre was the closest settlement I knew of with a guildhouse. As for why? Backing, and a place to grow in strength until I'm less of a minnow in a wide, wide ocean.” Kaius explained, pausing every few moments to choose his words.

Ro nodded, tapping the table. “Vague, but you can't expect much else in a world with secrets like ours.” she smacked the table with her fist, the bang loud enough that Kaius nearly jumped out of his seat. “Well, that's good enough for me.”

“I…what?” Kaius asked. He’d been expecting some kind of interrogation, some kind of pressure to obtain leverage. Not a single question, with a weak answer.

Ro gave him a flat look. “Boy, I'm the manager of a branch of the Delver’s guild. Sure, Deadacre is a remote hole in the dirt, but there are standards. People get shipped in, out, move all around doing my kind of work.”

Ro was the manager of this branch? That was surprising to Kaius, only the branch master and vice master would have seniority over her. He was about to ask why she was spending her valuable time on him, when she cut him off with a wave of her hand.

“Shush. Like I was saying, I've been around the block. You reek of a dispossessed scion. Too strong, too sure, too trained, and too fucking green.” Ro continued.

Kaius froze, his heart skipping a beat as soon as she said the word ‘scion’. Porkchop lifted his head and fixed her with a flat stare, his hackles raising.

The manager of the guild was entirely unflustered by the display, fixing his brother with a cold stare that screamed of barely restrained violence. In a blurring display of speed and control, she swept her bastard-sword faster than the speed of thought from where it rested against the table, levelling it directly in line with Porkchop’s eye. Idly, as the electrical storm of processing the sudden change worked its way to his brain, Kaius noted that it was still sheathed.

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“And don’t even get me started about you, Porkchop. A fucking greater beast? In my guild house? and you didn’t expect me to notice? We’re barely a month’s walk from the Sea!” Ro said, her voice frustrated to the point of verging on anger.

She flicked her eyes back to him, hammering him to his chair with a will of steel. “Too. Fucking. Green. So yes, I wanted to know why the fuck you are here, and yes, the fact you need backing tells me everything I need to know. You’re stuck in the Sea without a tent, and need help. Probably also want to stab some bastard of a usurper or three, have a handful legacy skills you are holding onto for dear life—maybe more if you managed to befriend a fucking greater meles—and probably genuinely do need as much backing as you can get. That sounds about right?” she stared at him challengingly.

Kaius sat rooted to the spot, his mouth flapping ineffectively for a moment, before he slumped in defeat. He was about to answer before his brother beat him to the punch.

“Yeah, that's about right. Is any of it going to be a problem?” Porkchop asked, giving up all pretenses.

Letting out an explosive breath of air, Ro rocked back in her seat, her blade seeming to instantly shift back to leaning against the table as she put her arms behind her head.

“Thank the fucking gods you play the part of a gormless twit well enough, but it pissed me off to see you do it. No, none of it will be a problem. Scions are a copper a score in the guild, everyone’s running from something, and this is something of a safe haven for those who want out of the madness… Never managed to meet one quite as eye-catching or as fresh as you though.”

Kaius groaned, leaning forwards as he put his arms on the table to take his weight. “Does anyone else know? That Porkchop is a greater beast? We knew it would get out eventually, but we wanted to build up some strength and renown first.”

Grinning at them both, Ro kicked her feet up, each heel clacking loudly as it smacked the wooden table top. “No, despite everything you both have good Masks, and most wouldn’t recognise a greater beast from a type so secretive, even if a few rumours do stretch all the way here. You should, however, recognise that most people like me are paid to know those sorts of things.”

“Now,” Ro continued. “I will say this once, and say this simply. I don’t give a shit about any of that unless you make it my problem. So don’t and we will have no issue. The real and frank matter is that everyone who makes it out of Iron rank to transition to Steel has secrets, and Steel ranks are the true run of the mill workforce of the Guild. Everything lower than that is just…prospecting. You, unless you are some gibbering idiot, are probably going to make it there, if my instincts don’t fail me.”

Kicking her feet off the desk, Ro rocked forwards on her seat to aggressively slam her elbows down on the table. “That means that I have another tool I can use to stop this utter shit show of a phase shift from tearing this city to shreds. So no, you don’t have to take a combat test, and I'll even throw in a few artefacts on lien that you can pay off with a couple missions, to boost your Mask. When you’re ready to go a little more ‘public’ about being a special little boy, I’ll help it go well. That’s the only special treatment you get though. In return, you do your fucking hardest to be a model member, deal?”

Kaius breathed, digesting her words. He could…accept that. Hells, this was probably the best case scenario. This is what he wanted, after all. Backing, and most backing came with a hell of a lot more strings attached then ‘run around killing monsters and getting paid for it.’

“Deal,” he said with a nod.

“Thank fuck, you’re not a total moron. Put your hand on the stone and channel some mana into it.” Ro replied, gesturing to the truth-stone set into the table.

Kaius did so, the glassy gem feeling icy to the touch. His mana connected to the working, and it locked a thin stream of the energy in place. A strange sensation of fingers ghosting over his soulspace tickled through his centre, though he did not know how it worked.

Ro looked at him. “Great. Do you accept the Guild taking a five percent fee of contract rewards, taking a minimum of one contract every year, swearing off acts of banditry, crimes against rational peoples, and cold blooded murder?”

“Yes.” Kaius answered; the clear gem beneath his hand glowed blue in response.

Ro smiled at that, a small thing. “Fantastic. Do you agree to never defraud the guild on contracts or other matters, to never pretend to represent your opinions as representative of the guilds own, and to never impersonate the station or likeliness of a Guild official?”

“Yes.” once more the stone glowed with a clean blue light.

“Do you plan to join the guild to sow chaos in its ranks, leveraging your membership to create discord, or otherwise destabilise the guild as a whole?”

“No.”

“Do you intend to cause other guild members undue harm without cause, if doing so may materially benefit you or otherwise?”

“No.”

“What’s the lowest layer of the Depths you have delved?”

“The second.”

“Good fucking job, you fucking madman. That means I can bump you to Copper, no lousy Wood rank for you.” Ro replied, fixing him with a grin. “Now, last one. Do you have a bond skill, and can you ensure your companion will not attack other enlightened peoples without provocation?”

“Yes.” More blue light.

“A clean sweep, nice job. Catch.” Ro flicked something through the air towards him, the object blurring in metallic orange.

Kaius lurched, lifting his hand up just in time for something cold and hard to slap into his palm with a stinging thwack. He turned it around, finding a copper medallion much like the bronze one he had seen the hairy chested man outside use. On one side, the embossed logo of a dead tree, the sigil of Deadacre. On the other, the symbol of the guild, a crossed sword and staff.

Staring at the emblem in astonishment, Kaius looked up from it to meet Ro’s eyes.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” she grinned back.

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