13 Ancient World

Endyre's clock tower rang out the time as they re-entered the city with Jesse in tow. Middle of the afternoon. That meant they had about half the day left to somehow convince Ancient World to hand over Mahku's pardon.

Curt scanned the faces of his companions: Bauph looked pensive, Xujen seemed to be excited about meeting the A-rank guild, Tera appeared to be lost in thought, and Jesse kept asking Curt about what he'd been up to. Curt waved off most of the questions and answered the easiest ones, his own mind preoccupied with trying to figure out how'd they get Mahku to join. Jesse luckily seemed committed to joining Point Blank — for now.

Jesse led the way to Ancient World's headquarters which apparently lurked in the Guild District like most reputable guilds' bases did. The Guild District seemed more crowded than usual, with low ranking members running through the streets at the beck and call of their betters, and the higher ranked members helping their guild prepare for the tournament. Which was less than two months away now. Curt pushed that thought away; not the time to be worrying about that.

Jesse took them through the street that was unofficially reserved for A-rank guilds. The place looked reminiscent of High Town's streets and architecture, with a pretty, paved road and distinguished looking buildings. The one where they finally stopped in front of had stained glass windows, elegantly carved pillars, and a statue of a beautiful woman brandishing a book like a sword in front of it.

"Here it is," Jesse said.

"Looks nice, if a bit snobby," Tera remarked.

"That's what I think too," Jesse said. "All their members think they know more than everyone else 'cause they spend all day with their noses in a book."

"Let's try not to insult them when we ask for the pardon," Curt said as he walked up to the door first. He gave a few quick raps to the rustic looking door.

The door opened to reveal a gaunt-faced man with a pair of gilt framed glasses sitting on his thin nose. He scrutinized the guild emblems that were displayed on each of their clothes. When he saw Jesse he raised an eyebrow at him.

"I thought we told Mahku that we'd accept only one other person," he said, directing his statement at Jesse.

"They're not here to join your guild," Jesse replied. "But we do have to speak with the leader. Is Talmander around?"

The man sniffed. "He is. But he is also very busy. What guild are these people from anyways? I don't recognize the emblem — and I happened to be very well informed, as you would know."

"We're new," Bauph answered. "We're from Point Blank."

"Point Blank, hm?" Curt watched at the man seemed to file that information away mentally. "Well, I'll let Talmander know you're here. If he wishes to see you, then I'll bring you to him."

With that, the door slammed shut once more.

"See? Not really the type of guys I'd like to be in a guild with," Jesse said.

"Their manners do need working on," Xujen commented. "What should we do if they refuse us?"

"We could always just barge our way through," Tera said. "I could probably handle these bookworms easily, but they are A-rank for a reason. I don't know if the rest of you would survive."

"Let's also try not to resort to violence," Bauph said.

"Doesn't seem like a terrible idea to me," Curt said. Honestly, being told to wait when they were on a deadline was almost as irritating as watching the man evaluate them and decide they weren't worth his time. He was all too familiar with the way he looked at them. It was the same way the Yulians looked at the Dusters.

The group spent almost half an hour loitering outside Ancient World, feeling out of place as guild members stared at them suspiciously as they exited and entered the headquarters, before the man returned.

"Talmander will see you, but make it fast," he was saying as he led them through Ancient World's halls. The place looked more like a library than a guild's headquarters with bookshelves lining nearly every wall. "His time is very valuable."

Stopping in front of a pair of double doors, the man briefly knocked before pushing them open. A large, wooden desk occupied the center of the room, and a tall man with steel grey hair and a full beard sat behind it. An old scar peeked out from behind the beard. Upon seeing his visitors, the man — who Curt guessed was Talmander — rose.

"You are the ones from Point Blank, I presume." Talmander stretched out a hand to Curt, who somehow was being treated as the de facto leader again.

Curt grasped the hand and gave it a single shake. Talmander's hands were rough from calluses. Not what he expected from a guy who led a guild supposedly full of bookworms. He expected someone more like the man who greeted them at the door, who already left and closed the doors behind him.

"I admit, I put aside some of my duties for this meeting. I'm curious what a fledging guild like your's needs from Ancient World."

"Well, uh," Curt began, wondering how to break the news that their fledging guild was about to take the ex-dojo master for themselves, and wanted their help to recruit him.

"Mahku and I aren't joining Ancient World anymore," Jesse said before Curt could formulate a diplomatic thing to say. "We're throwing our lot with Point Blank instead."

Talmander first looked surprised before he burst out laughing. "Listen boy," he said once he caught his breath again, looking at Jesse. "I could tell from the first time you were here that you didn't like us. I don't think you fit in with Ancient World either, but Mahku insisted that you two were a package deal, so we extended our invitation to include you."

He spared Curt and the others a momentary glance before continuing. "You're throwing away a lot if you want to refuse. I imagine Mahku didn't agree to this."

"He did, actually," Jesse retorted.

Curt decided to intervene. "It's true. You see, Jesse and I are from the same, uh, country. We're foreigners to Sanora and even knew each other from before. I know it probably wasn't easy to get a pardon for Mahku, and it's really presumptuous for a new guild like us to butt in, so we'd be really grateful if you could still go through with Mahku's pardon."

Talmander took a seat back behind his desk and was silent for a good moment, observing them. His face was serious now, with no trace of the laughter from before. The laughing bugged Curt, but his silence was even more unnerving.

Finally, he spoke. "Getting a pardon for Mahku might've been a difficult, if not impossible, task for a guild like your's. But for us at Ancient World, it was no big deal at all, in fact, it was rather simple. I think I can understand why Jesse would rather join your guild over our's, but why does Mahku also want to join?"

Curt had no answer. He glanced at Jesse who shook his head and gave him a shrug. Why did Mahku agree to join Point Blank? Sure, he was about to refuse at first and only gave in because Jesse insisted. But apparently Jesse wasn't sure why either. Curt hadn't thought to ask Mahku for any more info that could help them convince Ancient World either.

"Does it matter?"

Curt turned around. Xujen had taken a step forward and spoke. Staring straight at Talmander, Xujen continued, "I imagine you were planning to recruit Mahku, an ex-dojo master from Sahnju, to Ancient World to fight for you in the Grand Guild Tournament. I will be honest with you: our guild also aims to participate in the tournament. Why don't we settle this right now, in a duel, with the winner recruiting Mahku. As for the loser, they rescind their registration for the tournament."

At this, Curt expected Talmander to laugh in front of their faces again, but instead, he seemed to take a moment to ponder Xujen's proposition.

"Very well," Talmander agreed to Curt's surprise. "But I'd like to clarify some things. First, Mahku sought to join our guild, not the other way around. And second, Ancient World doesn't need Mahku as a fighter for the Grand Guild Tournament. We have plenty of capable fighters, even if we are a guild of scholars. Research can be a dangerous venture, so many of our members are more than capable of handling themselves and upholding our A-rank status. Lastly, I feel that the terms of the bet favor your guild. Point Blank stands to gain much more out of winning, and same with losing. I was informed that your guild currently doesn't even have enough members to qualify. Therefore, I propose an additional clause to even out the stakes; if Point Blank loses, your guild is to disband immediately."

"Deal," Xujen said right as Talmander finished his sentence.

"I'm game," Tera said.

"There's no way Curt's guild will lose," Jesse said.

Bauph shrugged.

"Fine," Curt assented. If they won, everything goes as planned. If they lost, well, maybe Point Blank wasn't meant to be after all. There was really not much tying the guild together, in any case. But he sure as hell didn't want to lose to a guy who just laughed at them. And looking at his fellows' faces, they also felt the same way. There was only one thing that bothered Curt — why did Mahku want to join Ancient World?

Talmander nodded. "Good. I like those who are decisive. You wanted a duel, correct? I imagine a full day to prepare is enough. We'll follow classic guild dueling rules: elimination style, best of three. I believe your guild has enough members for that."

"As long as the judge of this duel is impartial, I have no complaints," Xujen said. To Curt, it sounded like Xujen was looking forward to the duel. As for himself, Curt wasn't so sure. He'd love to wipe off the smirks of the A-rank guild, but a formal duel didn't sound like his home turf. Rules and regulations got in the way of winning, in his opinion. Then again, if it was a best of three, maybe Curt didn't even have participate.

"Don't worry, we'll use another guild to judge the duel. Come to the Guild District's training plaza in two day's time at noon." Facing towards the door, Talmander called for the door man, who immediately swung the doors open to lead them out.

"I've no idea why Talmander agreed to a hopeless duel," the thin man jabbered as he brought them to the exit. "It's a complete waste of time. What could your guild have done if he refused to those terms? He's too generous to louts."

Not letting them reply, he shut the door once they were all out. As irritating as he was, he was right. Talmander had nothing to gain by agreeing. There was no real reason to have Point Blank disband either if they won — Ancient World definitely didn't benefit from a no-name D-rank guild disappearing. But there was no reason to worry about that now, the important thing was done: get Ancient World to agree to giving the pardon. The hard part was now winning that damn duel.

"Two days," Xujen whispered. He whipped around to face all of them, smiling brightly. "Finally, we will have a chance to prove that our guild is on par with the best of them."

"You didn't really care about recruiting Mahku, did you?" Tera asked. "Not that I care that much either. I am interested in fighting an A-rank guild. Haven't had a good spar in a while. Back in the dojo, most people didn't bother to keep losing to me."

"Good luck to you guys then," Bauph said. "Unfortunately, blessings are banned in guild duels, so I'll be cheering from the sidelines."

"I wish I could show those softies up, but I guess I can't join since I'm not officially a Point Blank member yet," Jesse said with a hint of regret. "Cool name, by the way. Point Blank."

Otto was definitely not participating. Curt couldn't imagine it. Which meant he was the third fighter for the duel. He bet Bauph didn't need those blessings to actually fight, seeing that the man seemed to be mostly muscle, but it felt wrong to make Bauph fight when Curt needed a chance to prove that he was capable too. He could still feel the sting of failing the dojo test. And he knew he only got lucky with catching Tera off guard in that short bout. He had been down in Sanora for a while, and he wasn't sure if he was getting stronger or weaker.

But something had to change.

"You guys head back to the base and let Otto know what happened today. Jesse, let's head back to Mahku. I've got a few things I want to ask him," Curt said.

"I'll come too, I have plenty of questions for him as well," Tera said. She split off from Xujen and Bauph and began to follow Curt and Jesse. "I also have something I've been meaning to ask you, Curt."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Remember that 'duel' we had? You said if I won you'd give me some dirt on Jinpuhn. I know I lost then, so you're not obligated to tell me — and I suspect that was just a bluff in retrospect — but if you do know anything, I'd like to know," she said.

"Oh, that? Yeah it was just a bluff," Curt confessed. Even though she said she expected it, he watched her face fall with disappointment. Which he found strange. Jinpuhn was her dojo master, he remembered, so shouldn't she be glad that he had no unsavory secrets to be uncovered? Then again, from what Curt recalled of the dojo master, he wasn't very likable. But Curt might just be biased.

"Well," Curt began, thinking back to failing the entrance test. He figured after tricking Tera into joining Point Blank, he owed her something at least. "He held a little entrance test for everyone. To tell you the truth, I failed."

This brought Tera's spirits back up. "You failed? How?"

It felt kind of nice for her to be so shocked about him failing the test. Brought his failing self-esteem up a bit.

"His test was that each person got one strike on him, and he tells them if they pass or not. When I did the test, I did that same windmill kick to him, and caught him off guard. He managed to grab my leg, like you tried to do, but when he did I got shocked. Caught me off guard instead, and Jinpuhn threw me off balance so I fell on my ass. He gave me a weird look before passing judgement."

"A shock? That's strange," Tera looked to be deep in thought. "I'm guessing Bauph and Xujen didn't feel any shocks."

Curt shrugged. "Never asked them. I thought it was some kind of magic fighting thing I don't know about down here. But, uh, seeing your reaction — it's not normal?"

Tera shook her head. "No. Unless —" She stopped herself, reconsidering her words. Eventually she finished, "I've got an idea, but it's pretty improbable. Mahku might be able to answer."

Jesse, who had been listening to their conversation intently, mentioned, "Not sure if it's related to what you guys are talking about, but when I first met Mahku he did a small 'shock' thing to me too. He said it was something special, but didn't elaborate. I didn't think much of it at the time anyways. I mean, this place is full of magic and stuff, y'know?"

Something special. Curt felt the fledging flutter of a pipe dream before he snuffed it out. No, he got his hopes up before only to get them dashed and realized how powerless he really was in this new world. Better to go in with no or low expectations. After all, beyond his pure white hair, Curt couldn't think of anything about himself that could be qualified as 'special'. He might be a good shot and a quick draw, but those traits were a dime a dozen up in the Dusts. You had to be, if you wanted to survive.

Down here, he had to compete with dragon slayers, holy miracles, and the strongest dojo disciple. He didn't stand a chance. All he had were his guns and his unusual kicks, and the novelty of those wore off fast against anyone who was worth anything. He doubted he could pull of the same trick on Tera again.

But still, it would be nice to be special for a change.