NOVEL NEXT 1.25 – The Guilds
Fortunately, Jordan’s plan worked. Once she was appropriate for leaving the bathroom, the dark stain mostly dried—to the point of being less noticeable, at least—she went and changed pants, then returned to Natalie with a fresh skirt from her locker.
Changed, Natalie stuffed the ruined one in her backpack. Getting it clean was going to be a headache. Maybe she’d end up throwing it away, and deal with being down one. Eventually, she’d have enough tokens to buy a fresh set—though Tenet uniforms weren’t cheap.
Overall, a minor headache. Though … maybe worth it, considering how it had happened.
After escaping the bathroom without drawing any eyes because of the mishap, she had to deal with the other inconveniences the debacle had resulted in. The stickiness on her legs and thighs. So, a shower.
It was less of an ordeal than she had feared, taking an afternoon shower rather than one early in the morning. There were two others in the block she picked, and while she had to carry her change of clothes into the shower stall while mostly clothed—unlike the seeming norm of undressing at the lockers—nobody gave her an odd look for doing so. As she’d thought, being a mild prude wasn’t something anyone particularly cared about. Maybe eventually someone would say something … but then again, probably not.
So maybe even she could even sleep in, rather than waking so early like she had. Except … no, she had other reasons to be starting the day early. Her ‘relief’. Her libido did, clearly, need to be kept in check. The skirt was better at hiding her issue than tight pants, but still not perfect. Ignoring her problem wouldn’t make it go away, and indeed, would only make things worse. So, it might be best to continue waking up early and relieving herself.
Dressed and ready to go out again—since there was still several hours before curfew—she met Jordan at her barracks, who had likewise showered and changed into something more casual.
They set off for their first item of business: the role guilds.
The role guilds were odd institutions. Like Harper had touched on, they’d been more critical in old days—had been closer to entities of themselves, and persisted even past graduation. Now, at least from what she had heard, they weren’t much more than …
Well, fraternities.
They still had a practical purpose for existing: they were conglomeration points for similarly-classed individuals to mingle. Harper had specifically mentioned ‘networking’ inside the role guild—who better to learn your class than from peers with a class similar to yours?
And even if skills didn’t match up to a ‘typical role’, the role itself had independent principles to learn. A tank needed to draw attention and keep teammates safe; how to do each could be taught, in some regard, independently of skills and class.
Jordan’s role was determined: rogue. Natalie’s, however, was more in flux. Funny enough, as her class evolved, she might find herself falling into any of the other four roles that Jordan didn’t fill: tank, fighter, mage, or healer. The last two were unlikely; almost certainly it would be tank or fighter.
For now, she intended to check out all four guilds. Why not? If nothing else, she’d get to meet people and learn more about Tenet. Eventually, Natalie would have to lock herself into no more than two guilds—so, probably fighter and tank, or tank and mage—but since the year had just started, the guilds were recruiting, and expecting newcomers to be feeling the various groups out. It wouldn’t be odd if she looked around several.
The guild halls were separated from the campus, a decent—though not overly long—hike from everything else. Their isolation, Natalie suspected, was at least somewhat intentional. Even she had heard how much trouble the guilds got into. As she’d mused over, in the modern day and age, they were effectively frats, as much as they were the guilds of old. The parties thrown in the various guildhalls were allegedly legendary. Tenet’s student body knew how to both work hard and play hard. Again, likely a by-product of a stressful, competitive environment.
As the guilds came into view, Natalie’s eyebrows raised, and Jordan hummed in appreciation. The five buildings ringing the enormous open area—the Union Plaza—were impressive even by Tenet standards. Each of the five guilds sat at the point of a five-tip paved star—the Plaza. More than any individual structure’s grandness, though, it was their dissimilarity to each other: the character behind each. Certain roles tended to attract certain sorts of people, and she could almost make out those stereotypes in the construction of each hall.
Each had its own thematic color: green for healer, gray for tank, blue for mage, red for fighter, and black for rogue. Likewise, each guildhall flew a prominent flag from the tops of their buildings, adorned with the simplistic—yet striking—icons associated to the role. The caduceus, a tower shield, a wizard’s hat, an axe, and a wicked curved dagger. These symbols were common for adventurers and delvers alike—they were the symbols imprinted on badges that declared a person’s role, used the world over. However, the flags were more elegant, more detailed than their more-common counterparts. The bare-bones symbols were expanded upon with a flourish.
Honestly, some bordered on gaudy. The mage’s flag especially; the top and bottom were lined with gold bands, and speckling the wizard’s hat were arcane symbols—crescent moons, stars, and odder—of various sorts. Mages did tend to be a pretentious sort, from what Natalie had seen. But maybe that was her bitterness speaking, because of how utterly incapable she was when it came to spellcasting. Easy to call them pretentious nerds and be done with it. She’d have to get over that. She’d probably be asking plenty of mage-guild members for help over the coming weeks, months, and years.
Since tank was the role Natalie would be filling for the party she, Jordan, and Sofia were cobbling together, she headed that way after saying her goodbyes with Jordan; Jordan, obviously, went for the rogue’s guild.
Natalie admired the tank’s guildhall as she approached. Each structure was impressive, but in different ways. The tank’s guildhall was, expectedly, stoic. It was a fortress more than a building, a slab of carved gray stone, crenelations and battlements lining the top. Windows were covered by thick iron bars, and the front door was flanked on either side by two statues: both hunkered down, shield raised against an unseen blow. As she finished climbing the steps, she peered around to catch a glimpse of their faces, but thick helms hid them from sight. It was odd how much emotion was packed into the statues, even so.
She didn’t linger; she finished walking into the guildhall proper, carried along by the steady stream of other students. She was hardly the only freshmen to have come checking out the guilds, having finished with uniform fittings.
Inside, she blinked around at what she saw.
