The Adventurers Guild Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  About the Author

  End of Book Character Sheets

  End of Book Shit

  Recommendation

  The Realm Between

  Book 3: The Adventurers Guild

  PHOENIX GREY

  Text copyright 2019 by Phoenix Grey

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

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  PROLOGUE

  EARTH - October 7th, 2057

  "There's been an anomaly."

  These were words that Michael Coleman never liked to hear. It could only mean one of two things. Either the AI of The Realm had gotten so advanced that it was creating its own monsters and scenarios that were not within its programming parameters, or Shinichi Sometani was fucking with the game again. Mr. Coleman wasn't sure which one would be more of a nightmare to have to deal with.

  "I'll be right there." There was hesitation in his voice as he spoke over his wrist comp. This was not something he wanted to have to handle right now. Two of his patients had already died today after taking on a foe that had clearly been marked as impossible to beat at their current level and skillset. Oh well. He supposed that Darwinism even worked inside The Realm.

  Mr. Coleman took long strides to his office inside of Grand Willow Hospital. It was one of the four largest hospitals that Radical Interactive owned internationally. They had other locations in Japan, Australia, and England. Many aspiring doctors would come for their residency after being trained with Radical Interactive's software. The hospitals owned by Radical Interactive were hailed as some of the most technologically advanced in all the world. They were also where many of the patients who were in The Realm beta were sent. The rest were scattered among the other fifty-two smaller medical facilities that Radical Interactive owned and operated. Facilities that were solely dedicated to The Realm patients.

  Thankfully, Mr. Coleman only had to oversee the four major hospitals, boomeranging between them every month to check on the status of his patients. What time he didn't spend on the medical floor, he used to hole away in his office at whatever hospital he was in to check on updates to The Realm that might affect his patients.

  Anomalies were code red—something that demanded his immediate attention because they could affect the entire game or the outcome of a patient's recovery. Thus far, there had only been a handful not related to Shinichi Sometani, and they hadn't been anything too vital. A deformed bugbear. A troll that had gone berserk. An invincible dragon that scorched a small village to ash. Luckily, there had only been one live adventurer in the village, and he had known well enough to run. Mr. Coleman considered these more glitches than anomalies—things that could quickly be fixed once he got a programmer on them.

  Shinichi Sometani, on the other hand, could not be fixed. He currently owned half the shares of Radical Interactive and thought that entitled him to do whatever he pleased with The Realm. And sometimes, he did just that. There was rarely a time when he wasn't busy testing the limits of the programming. Periods of silence on his activity were a blessing, that of which Mr. Coleman had just enjoyed two solid weeks. Scowling at the calendar on his computer, he figured that it was about time for Shinichi to rear his head and create chaos again.

  Mr. Coleman booted all applicable programs. He connected to the reporting agent with video software and did a screen share, holding his breath in the hopes that whatever the problem was, it wouldn't be too much of a clusterfuck to fix.

  "Is it him?" he asked before the image of The Realm had even fully loaded.

  Shinichi Sometani could rarely be reasoned with. Threats only worked to a certain degree. He was too smart for his own good—for the good of The Realm. Shinichi was, perhaps, The Realm's greatest threat...which was ironic because he was also its creator. That alone gave him more power than anyone could have fathomed. He was a genius and as stubborn as men came. All that the programmers at Radical Interactive could do was try to mend the backdoors that he'd found to make exponential changes. Their hands were proverbially tied.

  "I don't know," the reporting agent replied hesitantly, "I don't think so."

  That came with some relief. Hopefully, 'I don't think so' meant 'probably not.'

  The screen illuminated with the image of a character walking alone in the woods. Naked. Stumbling. A newborn to The Realm with no bearings.

  "This isn't supposed to exist in the game," the reporting agent pointed out, though it sounded more like a question.

  Michael Coleman sighed, his stress abating. "It's fine." He waved the image away, feeling slightly uncomfortable for watching. "It's an exception."

  "This is an incredibly high-risk character." The agent pursed his lips and shook his head, clearly not concurring.

  "It got approved by upper management," Mr. Coleman quickly shut him down. He didn't have time to explain. This character was the equivalent of a Make-A-Wish kid asking for his 'experience' to be to stick his finger in a light socket. It might kill him instantly; it might not, but whatever the case... "It's an experiment," Mr. Coleman told him. "Inform the others not to flag this in the future."

  "All right. Would you like for me to assign it to someone on the visual team or would you prefer if I handled this one personally?"

  Mr. Coleman smirked. "Whoever gets this one will probably be very excited. Go ahead and assign it to someone on the team, but wait until I send over further instructions."

  "Okay," the agent replied dryly. Mr. Coleman couldn't tell if it was because he had wanted to be assigned the character or because he still thought it was a horrible idea that the character had gotten approved.

  "I'll have a special NDA written up for that person to read and sign. Should this experiment fail, we definitely would not want it getting out to the press."

  "Understood." The agent nodded.

  Mr. Coleman ended the video call. He grabbed a stress ball from his desk and squeezed it as he leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. Perhaps it would have been smarter to have assigned this character to the agent. Visual team members were on the lower rung of Radical Interactive's staff. It was a job that didn't require a degree, only attention to detail. Most of the employees on the visual team were fresh out of high school. He didn't doubt that some of them had big mouths. A
ssigning this character to the wrong person could spell disaster for the company. It could also mean bad press and lawsuits. After thinking on it for a few moments longer, he called the reporting agent back and reassigned the character to him. This man, he could trust. He hoped.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE REALM – Day 48

  "Can I take both of these?" Azure asked, looking at two out of four of the quests he'd been offered. They paired together perfectly, so he thought it would make sense.

  Adventurers Guild Quest: Thin Out the Giant Wasps

  Giant Wasps have been attacking travelers on Red Road. Kill five of them, then report back to The Adventurers Guild.

  Designation: E

  Type: Monster

  Difficulty: Easy

  Deadline: 5 days

  Success: Kill 5 Giant Wasps

  Failure: Cancel quest

  Reward: 1 silver, 5 copper, 2 Quest Points, a Starter Bow and 15 Bronze Arrows

  Will you accept this quest: Yes or No?

  Adventurers Guild Quest: I Need Giant Wasp Wings

  Jasmyne Swailes, our resident alchemist, needs ten Giant Wasp Wings to complete some of her potions. Please collect them and turn them into The Adventurers Guild.

  Designation: E

  Type: Gathering

  Difficulty: Easy

  Deadline: 5 days

  Success: Collect 10 Giant Wasp Wings

  Failure: Cancel quest

  Reward: 6 silver, 1 Quest Point, 5 Empty Vials, and 1 Potion of Minor Healing

  Will you accept this quest: Yes or No?

  The man standing at the E counter hummed at him, scanning over the four quests. He moved the two that Azure was referring to next to each other. His expression suggested that it might be against the rules to give out more than one quest at a time. After all, there was a long line of people waiting to receive quests from The Adventurers Guild and only so many to dole out.

  "These two together pay less than the bounty," Azure pointed out. They also took less time to complete and offered more loot collectively. He hoped it would balance out.

  The clerk sighed. "We don't usually do this."

  Azure propped his elbow up on the counter and leaned in to whisper. "Listen, Melchior."

  "It's Mel." The clerk sliced him with his gaze.

  Sorry, Mel," Azure quickly corrected himself. He had learned the man's name when Mel had sent him a party request earlier to check his credentials. "My rent is due in three days. You would really be helping me out if you let me do this." Azure thought about making the argument that splitting the quests would cause unnecessary work for someone else, but he knew that didn't matter to The Adventurers Guild.

  "You know I've heard this argument at least a dozen times before," Mel told him dryly, looking at Azure over round spectacles as if he were trying to swindle the clerk. After a moment of just staring at each other, Mel slid both quests toward him. "I'm only doing this because you're a noobie. Consider it a favor, and don't ask this of me again."

  Azure was just about to thank him when the clerk looked past him and shouted, "Next."

  He didn't even have time to ask what the Quest Points were.

  Glancing over at Ferne, the receptionist at the registration window who probably should have taken the time to explain this to him, Azure sighed. There were currently eight people in line to register, and he knew she'd be pissed off if he cut in to ask a question. If there was one thing he'd learned early on, it was not to piss her off.

  Realizing that someone in the room had to know the answer, Azure wandered over to the Open Quests board. Surprisingly, the Bowers Boys quest was gone. That offered him some relief. Bandits had been a concern while traveling the road to and from Squall's End. If someone had taken the quest, that meant the Bower Boys would have their hands full with something other than robbing people.

  "Hey, man." Azure tapped a guy on the shoulder that was looking over the Open Quests, his nail clinking against the man's armor. The guy turned to him with an annoyed grunt. "I'm new to this and was wondering what Quest Points are. Ferne never explained them to me when I registered."

  The man huffed. "Piss off, noob. You don't have enough for it to matter yet anyway." He turned back to the board, shutting Azure out.

  Asshole, he thought but didn't dare say it. The guy Analyzed as red to him, and the fancy polished suit of armor he wore probably meant that he was some rich knight.

  Azure quickly decided that it wasn't a good day. He had the tiniest glint of a headache from the beer he'd drunk last night, the E line at The Adventurers Guild had been long, Melchior seemed only the tiniest bit more pleasant to deal with than Ferne, and Azure had encountered nothing but rudeness since he left the inn this morning. Perhaps working at The Adventurers Guild was a miserable job, and that's why everyone seemed so damned unhappy. Whatever the case, all of the negativity was starting to wear on him.

  I think I'll just leave for now. The sooner I get done with these quests, the better. I can always ask about Quest Points when I turn in the Giant Wasp Wings later.

  Azure had one more issue to resolve before venturing out on his quests. He was running out of inventory slots. In fact, only one remained. If Azure picked up anything other than the Giant Wasp Wings, he'd have to drop something else. Also, he would need to make room for the other loot he'd be receiving once he completed the quests. The Minor Healing Potion would stack with the other twenty-five he already had in his inventory. The Bronze Arrows could go in his quiver, and he could carry the Starter Bow until he was able to sell it. That meant he'd only need one additional slot for the Empty Vials, which he would definitely want to keep.

  While Azure still hadn't had a chance to fully explore Squall's End...mainly because he had made drinking and relaxing a priority, today was not the day. Wanting to start his quests as quickly as possible, Azure made a beeline for the nearest merchant he spotted outside of The Adventurers Guild. If mechanics in The Realm worked like every other game he'd played, he should be able to sell his wares to any merchant as long as they had enough coin available to pay him.

  Parked a few yards away from the entrance to The Adventurers Guild was a young woman selling flowers. She wore a simple pink dress and had a long thick braid cascading down her back. The pink bow keeping her hair held up was almost the size of her head. A sweet smile lit up her face as Azure approached.

  "Flowers for a lady friend?" she asked, pulling a pink bloom from the basket draped over her arm.

  "I'm actually here to sell stuff."

  "Oh." She seemed disappointed, her smile faltering for half a second. "Well, what do you have?"

  Azure thought to bring up his inventory and scanned through the list of items. It was probably a good idea to make more space than he needed, just in case. Now that he had an actual visual of his inventory, there was a lot that he didn't need. Part of him still wanted to buy a bigger bag, but he wasn't confident that he could complete both quests and grab another before the end of the week, so it was probably best to be frugal with his money.

  "I would like to sell three Fireweed, seven Wild Onions, five Blue Mushrooms, one Jade Catfish, and this List of Courses from Hawking's." He could always pick up another list next time he went to Hawking's. All that he really needed to remember was that it was going to cost him three gold, eight silver, and seven copper to take his first class. That seemed like an almost impossible amount of money when he thought of how much he was earning from these quests.

  "Hm." The merchant crossed her arms and tapped a slender finger against the corner of her lips in thought. "I can give you one silver and five copper for the alchemy components and one silver and two copper for the fish. The List of Courses has no value. Anyone can go to the magic school and pick one up," she told him.

  One silver and two copper for the fish?! That was only a little less than Azure was getting paid for his Monster quest. Maybe there was some value in fishing after all.

  The woman took the items from Azure and then ha
nded him two silver and seven copper. Once the exchange was done, she offered him that sweet smile again, "Are you sure you wouldn't like to buy a flower for a special lady?"

  "No, thank you," he replied politely before taking his leave.

  The day was nearly halfway gone by the time Azure left Squall's End. Feeling adventurous and wanting to save time, he decided not to follow the main road. As soon as Azure was about a half mile outside of town, he pulled up his World Map and made a beeline for the yellow marker that indicated his quest destination.

  As Azure wandered through the fields and forest, he foraged for alchemy components, though he never ventured out of his way to do so. At the end of the day, completing his quest was his main objective. Collecting alchemy components to sell later was just a bonus.

  You have harvested: Fireweed Uses: Alchemy component

  You have harvested: Wild Onion Uses: Alchemy component, Restores +5 HP if eaten

  You have harvested: Blue Mushroom Uses: Alchemy component, Restores +10 MP if eaten

  It took Azure a little over four hours to reach his destination. In that time, he harvested seven Fireweed, eight Wild Onions, and five Blue Mushrooms. Azure decided that once he had a bit of a financial nest egg, he wanted to take a full day to forage and see what kind of money he could earn from that alone.

  It was amusing to him how he was racking up a list of money-making experiments. Perhaps earning a living in The Realm wasn't as difficult as Azure had initially thought. From what he had discovered in Squall's End so far, there were a variety of opportunities if you just knew where to look.

  As Azure got closer to the yellow marker on his map, he could hear the sound of buzzing in the distance. Breaking through the trees, he saw a dip in the field about fifty feet away"more than likely where the actual road was"and Giant Wasps flying around on the other side.