Chapter 6: [DARK] C006 – A facility to facilitate the faculty.

The guards barely give me a look as I pass through, not seeming all too interested in my presence. I take that as a good sign. The interior is dimly lit, with unlit torches spaced around the ground floor providing ample light for when the windows don't let in enough sunlight.

The floors inside the building have been polished to shine like glass and the ceilings are high with arched openings letting in natural light through gaps in the ceiling and skylight panels that run along either side. This gives the interior a warm, almost cosy glow to it. There is some sort of grand staircase leading upwards with ornate railings leading to more levels above it.

This must be one of their more important headquarters or something given its size. I guess it will depend on whether or not I can even become a member. Asking around about it seems pointless until I've met with someone and they decide my fate. There seems to be a few female receptionists, figures they'd use eye candy during the daytime. One of them catches my attention; tall, pale skin with blonde hair and blue eyes, she looks to be a human around her 20s compared to the older staff who look on average around 30-40 years old.

Her counter is empty, only with a bit of paperwork she seems to be sorting so I walk over to stand before her desk. "Excuse me?" I ask politely. She looks up from the paper she is looking at, smiling politely and answering, "Yes?"

"I'm looking for a way to join and what that entails," I say simply. She raises an eyebrow but then nods in understanding before asking, "What race are you?"

That is an interesting question; it isn't exactly what I expected her to ask considering my visible ears. But I answer her regardless, "I'm an elf." She raises her brows again but then continues, "And what would your skill set be?" I frown slightly but nod before answering, "I've been trained with a weapon for years and I can cast multi-circle magic." That gets her attention and she takes off her spectacles, cleaning them and putting them back on before nodding in approval. "Very well, please follow me." We head towards another door at the other end of the building and enter into a corridor with several doors along its sides, leading into what must be administrative offices for this particular military group.

"First things first then, I'm Karna and I'll be your reviewer today. First we will go over our guilds identity and values before I take you to the training yard and have you measured up against some of our equipment. From there I will take you on a tour of our base and discuss the specifics of membership. Are there any questions for me before we begin?"

I pause for a moment before responding, "No."

She smiles kindly at me and turns around as we continue walking down the hallway. I wonder if this will affect anything or whether this is standard procedure for everyone?

I'm lead to a small meeting room with a table large enough to seat a group of about 10 who might have their full gear with them if they were adventuring together. There are eight chairs around the table and Karna gestures as if to offer any chair to me as she sits down in one herself.

Karna clears her throat and begins, "As mentioned earlier, I am Karna and you are applying to join our guild the 'Retribution of the Lost', as a tier 2 guild we have some affordances but otherwise we take general tasks just as much as missions. How much do you know about the guild system? Is this your first time joining?"

"Yes, I come from the wilderness so I'm not completely familiar with any of this. My people usually travel alone and don't interact much with outsiders." I reply.

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"Well, I shall try to explain it to you then. Guild systems work on the 9 focuses of society. As a tier 2 guild we don't have a specialty yet, because of our location it would be hard to justify us ranking up when we are one of the larger guilds in this town. Not all of the smaller ones can fill the tasks that we help with." She states, raising an eyebrow as if she knows what I'm thinking before she continues, "In order to advance up the rankings you must prove your worth as an individual, or in this case as part of a group, and then you will be judged on that merit."

I nod in understanding, allowing her to continue.

"The 9 tenets of a guild are as follows: Exploring, Strategy, Bodyguarding, Hunting, Gathering, Scouting, Defending, Internal Affairs and Security. Each is a sort of category for a guilds goals and focuses on different qualities and fighters.

Exploring is just that, searching and mapping areas, locating landmarks and mapping. Guilds tend to get only a few of these requests now for more far off lands; and generally tend to be more specialised groups for people who have good movement skills and magic. Meanwhile Scouting focuses more on identifying things within areas, wildlife, monsters, tactical positions and planning. If Exploring is a wide brush, Scouting is an extremely fine brush, aiming for the smallest details.

Strategy usually refers to a guild trying to clear a ruin. Our nation is built on the bones of the past and we value knowledge. So sometimes we have to clear out some of the older ruins to keep it safe for researchers. It can also be a case where we have to attack hordes of a creature which might have overpopulated.

Bodyguarding is an easy one; defending a mobile target which tends to be a person, meanwhile Defending is in regards to a stationary target, usually a building. They require similar skills but at the same time they require different coordination within a party.

Hunting is generally put out for components, materials and otherwise from wildlife or monsters, meanwhile Gathering focuses on herbs, rocks, metals and many of the normal resources.

And the final two, Internal Affairs and Security. Internal affairs deals with more city focused tasks, helping carts unload might be a boring task but some guilds like to focus on supporting the town they are in as they depend on those people for many other requests and goodwill. Some guilds in the capital focus more on Internal Affairs and have some people versed in laws or research and can be hired for assistance in some studies.

Security on the other hand is generally only picked up by higher tier guilds who focus on the city itself. Sometimes this can mean they directly assist the towns guard. Not everyone carries a big two handed hammer but borrowing one to open a door quickly helps. Sometimes this is reserved for small cities or border towns under a long term payment contract so people are being paid to possibly defend their own homes." she stops for a moment checking if she still has my attention and continues once I nod back at her. "So, you understand that much?"

"Yeah, I think so." I confirm. "Although I don't see half of those things being relevant to me, I don't plan to ever really defend someone or something. My magic is more focused for fighting. I could see myself focusing on Exploring, Scouting and maybe Hunting and Gathering. But bodyguarding? Never."

Karna nods in understanding, "Its quite understandable, it is very hard for people to have the skills or interest in all of the goals of the guild system, which is why most guilds tier 3 and above tend to focus on 3-5 of them, both to let their members specialise better and to allow smaller guilds to fill gaps the larger one might not be able to in that city." She pauses for a second and then continues, "As you can imagine, there are many tiers above us in this city. Tier 5 is the highest a guild can get, usually they have a headquarters in most capitals and major cities, meanwhile we are only a tier 2 guild. As for the ranking of individual guild members, that will be our next step once I've finished filling in these forms with you, it will only take a few minutes and we can head over to the training field."

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