Chapter 32: We have to...train?

 Allan: Healer hopeful, kitchen helper. Bringer of bad news. 

My party is waiting outside with a bated breath. I do my best to smile, and they all pale. 

"He knows?" Dean asks. 

"Well," I begin, but he starts to curse in a demonic language. 

"Darn! Xavier doesn't give refunds. Just how did he find out?" Dean finally speaks in the common tongue again. 

"He said that he saw the truth in our minds," I say, and they all pale even more. 

"How am I going to take over the world, if the guild master is going to read every plan as soon as I think about it? From my brain, no less," Atha whines, and Augustine makes a step forward. 

"Don't you think he could have... bluffed?" He asks. 

"He knew that we blew up Alice," I say. 

"Bobby," Atha, keeps on insisting that the turtle was named Bobby. I don't know why. Not that it matters anymore. The guild master comes out of the room, and levels us with a glare. 

"A moment of silence for the dead turtle," he orders, and we all line up, keeping our mouths shut all the while. 

When a minute has passed, the guild master moves towards the stairs. We don't follow him. He turns around, and glares at us, until we do. Guild master Warren leads us to the training hall, and points at the rolls of animated dummies before us. 

"Here is the deal, you pyromaniacs," he says, when we just stare at him. "Do you want to blow up something? Then blow up a dummy, for crying out loud. Once I send you off to some real quests, your ability for blowing things up will end up getting useful." 

Vincent holds up his hand. The guild master points at him. 

"Yes?" He asks. 

"Sir, Dean and Atha are the ones who can blow up things. Well, mostly Dean. Atha does it accidentally, the turtle was..." Vincent begins, but the guild master glares at him. 

"Silence," he says. "I won't suffer people who would tattle on their partners!" 

"Sorry," Vincent mumbles. I think he just wanted to get away with learning something to do with explosives. 

"Anyway, you all show promise," the guild master says. "Promise for future failed quests." 

My shoulders slump, just as those of the rest. For a second there, I thought he would praise us. But, no. That is not to be. 

"You also show the seed of being great," the guild master says. "But you will fail so many times before that happens, that I wonder if I should just kick you out of the guild now, and save myself the future lawsuits." 

We remain silent after that. What can we even say? We did blow up the turtle. 

"Train," the guild master commands, and claps his hands. Instantly, we are surrounded by dummies, who are out for blood. 

"Just tap them on their vital spots. Or, blow them up. Whichever works for you all," he jumps out of the circle of dummies, and walks out of the training hall. 

"Look, fresh meat," one of the dummies says. 

"They look so green, they..." whatever the dummy might have said was never to be heard because Dean blows it up. The fire spreads to the two dummies closest to the blown up one. 

"Freddy," a white dummy with a headband scream, and rushes towards the remains of the dummy who nearly ran his mouth at us. "You monsters! He was a senior citizen. Only an hour away from retirement!" 

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"Dummies can...retire? And do what, replant themselves in the forest?" Dean says, chuckling between each word. 

"Formation," one of the dummies yells, as all the dummies begin to get into formations similar to the official party formations. "We will be avenged!" 

"Yeah! You adventurers come in here, and you attack us, when the only thing we want to do, is read!" The white dummy yells. 

"You are not supposed to read, dummy," Dean chuckles at his own joke. I am beginning to get a bad feeling about this. "You are supposed to be turned into sawdust by adventurers." 

"Attack!" The white dummy yells. 

Now, I'd like to say that we did our best to stand our ground, but if this is our best, I don't want to see our worst. Probably trying to talk the dummies into getting bored? The staff the guild master gave me proved dead useful.

 I mean, it has all the elemental affinities. Plus, healing spells. A tornado made by the staff, and powered with my mana, mixes in with Dean's flames, and Atha's mud spikes. 

It blows plenty of dummies towards the exit, but it also picks up the benches that are by the door, and throws them in all directions. Just as we are about to congratulate ourselves on a job well done, the guild master comes into the training hall...and gets sucked in the tornado. 

"Allan, cut the mana," Augustine yells, as he begins to play a calming tune. That helps keep the rest of the dummies at bay, and even lowers the enraged screaming of the guild master to a couple of lower octaves. 

"I don't know how!" I yell back. The crystal in the staff begins to pulsate, and I begin to feel weak. "How do I stop this thing?" 

Atha rushes to me, but before he can reach me, I fall down on the ground. 

When I wake up, I am in a hospital bed, with everyone in the party lying around me. We are all in casts. I don't think I am burned anywhere, but my legs and my right arm hurt.

"You blew away the Guild House," Augustine tells me, in a muffled voice. 

"I did?" I ask, amazed that something like this could have happened. 

"You are now rank D," Dean says in an awfully cheerful tone. "D for Disaster!" 

"The guild master worded it this way?" I ask him. He gives me a thumbs up. 

"Are we... unemployed now?" I ask them all. 

"Well, if by unemployed you mean forced to sign an exclusive contract with the guild, so no other guild scoops us up, then...no?" Vincent says. "We all have a rank up!" 

This last bit of information gets me out of the loop. Still, I can't help but say.

"D for Disaster?" I ask. 

"Yeah," they chorus. 

"The next one is C for Calamity, the one after that is B for Bastards, A for Assholes, S for Security Deposit Guarantees, SS for State Security Deposit Guarantees, and, finally, we have SSS for Super Special Security Deposit Rake in Guarantees," Dean says. 

"The guild master is going to use us to rake in insurance money?" I ask then, feeling dread pooling in my stomach.

"Yeah," they chorus once more. 

Oh, no.