The Guildhall
Morning arrived along with new sounds: the sounds of talking, dining, and moving. Looking out the window, I could tell that the sun had barely risen yet even a side street such as the one I was staying at was bustling with travelers. Spotting people with tails lazily swinging behind them, I finally began to piece together that beastmen looked human for the most part but had some animal-like feature or features. Alternatively, I feared what the tails implied if the people weren't beastmen. Aside from that, traveling across various countries on jobs taught me to blend in as best I could so I didn't stare and faded into the background.
'Never put a target on your back.' [Dmitriy]
Words from my master. Simple, yet useful in every way.
"I guess these words are my personal motto. Never put a target on your back, huh?" [Dmitriy]
This time, I said the phrase aloud before turning around and beginning morning preparations.
Preparations for my typical morning occur as follows. Primarily, I check the room for breaches or tampering. To do this I compared my mental image of the room before and after I went to bed only to discover that they were the same room down to the rotation of the doorknob and window latch position. This meant that no one had broken in. After conducting my rudimentary check-up, I always dressed, washed my face, and brushed my teeth. Although my appearance isn't something to get worked up over, it has its benefits in how average it is. Mainly, it is easy to manipulate with make-up and paints allowing me to seamlessly blend into any environment with little effort. It also helps that my face isn't very memorable making it hard to track. Next on my morning routine is to exercise. I mainly focus on stretching but I also work through a schedule of push-ups, sit-ups, planks, and other body strengthening poses. Finally, I wrap up my morning routine with breakfast. This final step is what indicates that my day has started and I usually am very angry at any counter assassins that interrupt or prevent me from eating. In the end, I kindly helped every one of these people find peace within their variable lives. Today though, my routine stayed consistent and I stepped outside of The Olden Boar with a jovial step.
When I left, I estimated that the time was around 9:00 by Earth's time, but I didn't know what that translated to within the world of Devrinthal. Aside from that, I decided to locate the adventurer's guild today and to find out what exactly the barkeeper meant by it being a jack of all trades line of work. With this in mind, my journey around the city began.
The journey ended quickly as I simply asked a traveling person to point me towards the adventure's guild and he happened to be heading to the guildhall as well, however, sometimes the length of the adventure doesn't matter so much as learning something new or meeting new people. Although I didn't ask this man his name, we talked about a few trifling matters such as the weather and the gradual increase in monster activity within the forest. The latter issue piqued my interest although I knew nothing about it. I didn't end up learning much else though, but I did find out what the shortest path from my inn to the guild was.
The adventurer and I parted ways at the guild's door. When the man entered through the front door, a cacophony of noise permeated across the street, reaching to my ears. A sound of joyous people mixed with small squabbles and idle teasing. A somewhat pleasant sound. Now with a soft smile, I followed the man into the guild.
A vast room reminiscent of my inn's first floor opened up before me. In fact the two were almost identical apart from a few differences. First off, the guild building had an area that appeared to be a reception area and secondly, the guild had a wall filled with paper posters. These two differences apparently made the adventurer's guild the adventurer's guild but the bar remained along with the lively atmosphere. Next, I scanned the people within the room. There were just as many drunk, loud, and animal people; however, the animal-like people had strangely real looking tails, ear, and whiskers now that I'm looking closely at them so they must in fact be beastmen. I releseased a sigh of relief at this. Then, my gaze froze along with my jovial grin. To be precise, I was looking towards the bulletin board with the flyers and more specifically, at two people with their backs turned to me.
'What are they doing here?' [Dmitriy]
My exaggerated reaction was fairly unreasonable considering that they barely knew me, however a terrible feeling was welling up within my gut. Something bad was about to happen and my instincts made sure that I knew that an ill omen was lingering overhead. Unfortunately, I realized too late and someone called out.
"Hey you! I haven't seen your face around here! What's your name kid?" [???]
"Someone new is around? Hey kid, you look young. Need some help getting started?" [???]
I cast my gaze around the room as people turned their heads towards me, thinking about how I could make the mistake to hesitate at the door like some newcomer and only garner attention from the people around me. Then suddenly, a girl's dreaded high pitched voice pierced through the room.
"I remember you! You were the naked kid in the woods!" [Sylphie]
Sure enough, my instinct was correct on two accounts. This infuriating voice belonged to none other than Sylphie, the girl I had saved from the bandits, and I had been granted a new nickname that could be summarized in four words.
'My reputation is ruined.' [Dmitriy]
And so it was. The entire guild turned into a bubble filled of suffocating laughter. The only thing I could do to salvage my image was stay quiet and march towards the guild desk. My light smile, by this point, had exchanged itself for a deadly grimace and my day was officially ruined.