It took almost two hours of discussing the contract, mostly due to Chantalle wanting to make sure I understood every part of it, but eventually, it was time to put my signature on the contract. I hesitated because I did not actually have a signature. Sure, I could use the same one I’d used back on earth, but that felt wrong on so many levels. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to come up with a signature on the spot, since things worked differently here. The Traveler ID had a verification function that was used to “sign” contracts by linking the ID to a system-approved document.
As soon as I linked my ID to the contract, it changed to proudly display my affiliation with the Tier 0 guild.
“And with that, I would like to officially welcome you to Tier 0,” Polly was all smiles after the lengthy discussions were finally over. “I look forward to working with you and seeing how far you can go.”
“Thank you,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. Finally, the stuffy legal stuff was out of the way, and I had a layer of protection between me and any bad actors out there. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t get approached by poachers, but any actions they could take before had been severely limited now that I was an official member of a guild.
“Are we finally done?” Jorm asked blearily from the spot he’d curled up on. He was only here as a witness, so his input wasn’t really needed, which ended up with him occasionally complaining about things taking too long. He seemed to have a bit of a strained relationship with Chantalle, who kept chiding him for his “improper conduct”.
“Yes, we are,” Chantalle replied curtly. “Your services are no longer needed.”
“Thank fuck,” Jorm shook his head in annoyance. “Nice knowing you Gary. Welcome to the guild, see you around.”
With these words, he all but fled the office to do… whatever. I didn’t really know him well enough to take a guess, nor did I know what travelers did for fun in general.
“Honestly, I keep telling you to appoint a new vice-guildmaster, Polly,” Chantalle turned her irritation on the bird. “He is lazy, rude, and constantly has to be forced to actually do his work.”
“Maybe so, but we built this guild together, and as long as he wants it, the position is his,” Polly recited like he’d repeated the same sentence hundreds of times before. “Even if he only wants it because of the additional salary…”
“If you say so,” Chantalle said in that curt tone only stickling secretaries used. “Will you be alright showing Gary around? Contrary to Jorm, I have some actual work to do.”
“I’ll be fine, thank you, Chantalle,” Polly gestured toward the door, which Chantalle took as an invitation to leave. “You’ll have to forgive her, she is terribly busy. Jorm leaves quite a lot of work on the table, and poor Chantalle is left to pick up the slack. And she's not exactly a saint either. Point is, she’s the one actually keeping the guild afloat, so cut her some slack and show some appreciation every now and again.”
“Can do,” I said, remembering how even during our meeting, she had constantly been tapping away at some system screen, sorting through the many notes floating around her, and manipulating several pens to write things down. She was, quite literally, busy as an ant. “So… what now?”
“Now, I show you around the guild, introduce you to any members we come across, and then I’ll show you your room,” Polly hopped off his seat and started waddling out the door like a penguin. “I’m sure you’re tired after such an eventful day, so let's leave the plethora of questions you no doubt have for when you’re well rested.”
“I do have tons of questions, yes,” I agreed readily as I followed Polly back into the jungle that was the hallway. “But I could also do with some rest. I fought an epic battle before coming here, and the excitement hasn’t really stopped ever since.”
“Right, I’d love to hear about your time before coming to the hub in more detail at some point. I have a few questions about that as well, if you don’t mind,” Polly said, and I agreed to talk to him about it. “For now, let’s start the tour. Up here is where all the administrative stuff happens. Offices, meeting rooms, storage, and things of that nature. It’s all quite boring, and most members only come up here rarely, so I won’t focus too much on it. If you do need to come up here, you’ll be told where to go, so don’t worry about it.”
“Alright, fair enough,” I said, while looking at the closed doors we passed. Most of them had a little plaque next to them labeling the rooms as necessary. I wasn’t too big on administrative tasks, so if I didn’t have to be up here too often, I didn’t see why I should know the place inside and out.
“Of far more interest to you are the first two floors,” Polly said as he stepped on the elevator platform with me hot on his tail. “Let’s go to the second floor, where the communal accommodations are, as well as the housing for our members.”
He quickly showed me how to operate the elevator, which was once again tied to my Traveler ID. Apparently, the damn thing had a lot more functions other than identification, which made quite a lot of sense. Since they were distributed by the system itself, I’d imagine that there was no way to fake them, which made them incredibly secure for all kinds of things. Signing contracts and operating machinery with limited access were likely just the start.
The ride down took less than a second, and the elevator opened up into a large room. I let my eyes wander around, spotting several spots for hanging out. There was what I assumed to be a futuristic kitchen and a dining area, once again, with a table devoid of chairs. In what was starting to become a pattern, different kinds of chairs were haphazardly stacked nearby, to be used as needed by the differently sized members of the guild. To my left was a large window with a few small tables and chairs, probably used to get some sun while people-watching.
While it was nowhere near as bad as the third floor, a decent number of plants and flowers decorated the entire space. Most of them were potted, either standing on the ground, nailed to a wall, or hanging from the ceiling. A collection of couches and armchairs was arrayed close to the back wall, with small coffee tables interspersed occasionally, while a set of them was facing a large projected screen dominating most of the wall. It was currently showing what I assumed to be an action-packed movie with copious fighting… or, considering where I was, it might just be the news. One of the corners was also unusually dark, which seemed odd, but not odd enough for me to investigate immediately.
It was there that I saw some other monsters in varying states of relaxation, watching the screen. Fellow guild members, no doubt.
There was a woman splayed out on a couch that I’d never seen before, but considering that only monsters were allowed in the guild, I had a strong feeling that I was looking at Liam, the doppelganger. On the backrest of said couch was another bird, this one decidedly smaller than Polly. Its feathers were mostly brown, with some white fluff focused on its belly. What differentiated it from a regular bird, though, were the tiny embers constantly floating off the tips of its wings.
I was briefly distracted by a beautiful, color-shifting butterfly flitting from a flower pot on the ceiling to another, but quickly refocused on a lizard stretched out on another couch. It was around the size of a large dog and had mostly yellow scales with some dark grey accents all over. It was the first one to notice our arrival, and before I could do anything, a bright flash took over my vision. When my eyes cleared a second later, the lizard stood right in front of me, sizing me up.
“Who are you? Are you new? Why do you walk like that? Why do I feel uncomfortable when I look at you? What’s that crown made of?” The lizard started firing off questions in a deep voice, not giving me time to answer any of them. “And… how fast are you?”
“Uhhh… Hi? My name is Gary, and I just joined the guild, yes,” I stammered out, slightly taken aback by the high-strung lizard.
“Why don’t you give him some space, Speed,” Polly put a wing between us, gently moving the lizard back a bit. The lizard, apparently named Speed, let it happen without a fuss, but wasn’t taking his eyes off me.
“Damnit, Speed!” A female voice shouted. When I looked over, I saw who I presumed to be Liam furiously rubbing at his eyes… no, wait, her eyes… or was it their eyes? I’d have to ask at some point. “I told you to stop doing that!”
“And he never listens,” the bird above Liam said slowly, his voice sounding young and brooding. “You’re the only one that hasn’t mutated some kind of flash protection at this point, just get one already.”
“Mutation points are a precious commodity, I’m not gonna waste any of them to counter this dumb lizard!” Liam retorted. “Speed! Seriously, stop doing that!”
“Now, now, don’t you fight in the presence of our guild master and our newest member,” a motherly voice chided from somewhere near the ceiling. I looked up and spotted the butterfly that distracted me earlier flying over to us, eventually alighting on Speed's head. “My, aren’t you a fascinating creature. You may have an unsettling aura about you, but your galaxy-like skin looks fantastic. A perfect match for Polly's eyes.”
“Thank you?” I said, giving myself a once-over and then looking into Polly’s eyes briefly. There was an uncanny resemblance, yet the guild master's eyes had this odd, magical draw to them that dared you to get lost in the stars.
“I think some introductions are in order,” Polly chuckled upon noticing me trying not to stare at his eyes. “You already know Liam, he’s a tier twelve doppelganger who started out as a tier zero slime.”
“Hey, Liam,” I waved at the woman still trying to blink the result of a flashbang out of her eyes.
“Gary?” Liam squinted their eyes at me, making a funny face. “Damn, you joined? That’s great! Welcome to the guild.”
“He’ll be getting a sizable commission for recruiting you,” Polly leaned in to whisper to me. “He’s not usually this excited about new members.”
“Didn’t you say it was rude to peek at someone's stats without permission?” I whispered back, confused. “So why are you just telling me his tier?”
“It is considered rude to use scanning skills without permission, yes,” Polly nodded his head. “But asking somebody about their tier is perfectly fine. It’s up to them to share or not. Besides, as fellow guild members, it’s natural that you know at least this much about each other.
“As you might have already gathered, this is Speed,” Polly continued after I nodded in understanding. “He’s a tier six lightning lizard and started as a tier zero gecko.”
“Care for a race?” Speed immediately asked, accidentally dislodging the butterfly on his head. “I am fast.”
“I’m afraid I’m no good at racing, sorry,” I apologized in advance, assuming that he’d be sad about not getting to race me. “I’m not that fast, and if I need to get somewhere fast, I teleport.”
“Teleport skills!” The butterfly exclaimed, landing back on Speed’s head after he calmed down a bit. “That must be terribly convenient. Are you able to take others with you?”
“You know what? I never actually tried…” I should be able to let others pass through the portal created by void jump, but I never even attempted to see if it was possible for the teleport spell. It might need some adjusting to the spell matrix to pull it off, but that spell was way too complicated for me to muck around with the matrix quite yet.
“Do let us know once you figure it out,” the butterfly said in a calming voice. “My name is River, pleased to meet you. I’m currently at the ninth tier, a monster known as an alluring butterfly, although I started as a regular tier zero butterfly.”
“The pleasure’s all mine,” I replied, watching the color of her wings shift slowly.
“Steve, tier five jet hawk,” the bird next to Liam said curtly. “Started as a tier zero sparrow.”
“And over there is El Mosco,” Polly pointed in the shadowy corner, cutting off my reply to Steve. I tilted my head, not sure what it was he wanted me to see. A small ball of light appeared next to Polly after the briefest flash of a spell matrix and floated toward the corner, slowly revealing a massive monster crammed into the corner. Its entire body was black, no color of any kind to be seen anywhere, so it was hard to tell what it was. “He’s currently tier sixteen and refuses to share his actual species name. We do know he started as a mosquito, though.”
“Doesn’t talk much in general,” Liam glanced over his shoulder to look at the huge monster. “Only moves when he needs to as well, so don’t expect any deep conversations with him. Dependable in a fight, though.”
“He’s a sweetheart,” River replied. “Just a bit different, is all.”
“That’s fine,” I said, deciding to give the guy all the space he needed. “I don’t mind.”
“And that’s everyone currently at the guild,” Polly ruffled his wings and turned to me. “You already know Jorm and Chantalle; they’re tier eighteen and tier fourteen, respectively. What they started as should be relatively obvious. Which leaves us with one remaining introduction, yours.”
Every set of eyes zeroed in on me as they waited for me to introduce myself. Before I did, though, I took a moment to give my new guild members a second look. It was surprising to learn that Jorm was just a single tier away from becoming a Nineteen, but overall, the members of Tier 0 seemed to be of a decently high tier.
“As already mentioned, my name is Gary,” I eventually started. “I’m currently a tier eight emperor voidling, and I started out as a tier zero poisonous slug.”
“Emperor?” Liam chuckled and I noticed Polly giving me an odd look. “That’d explain the crown. Just don’t expect me to prostrate before you.”
“I don’t expect anybody to do that,” I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s just the name of my evolution, I don’t actually have any land to rule over, or any subjects for that matter.”
“He’s just joking, dear,” River piped up, and I couldn’t help but notice that Speed had fallen asleep at some point. “We all know that your species doesn’t necessarily reflect the whole truth about you.”
“We have a few members who are currently on quests, you should meet them eventually,” Polly explained. “We also have six other guild branches on other hubs, but we rarely interact with them, unless a big quest requires every monster we can get to participate.”
“Alright, that’s cool,” I replied lamely, not sure how to react to that information.
“Well, thank you guys for gathering up to welcome our newest member,” Polly addressed the group. “I’m going to show Gary around, so you may return to whatever you were doing before.”
“Good thing I don’t need to move at all for this,” Liam simply turned his head to keep watching the screen and turned up the volume. “See you around, Gary!”
Speed was still snoozing on the floor, and the shadowy El Mosco didn’t move a muscle, but both River and Steve wished me well before going about their business. They were a colorful collection of characters, but seemed like good people. I should be able to get along with them, no problem, maybe even make a few friends among them. For now, though, Polly got my attention, and we continued with the tour of the guild.