Sarah leads me up the stairs and to her room. Upon entering I am immediately greeted by a small room with a single bed and window and a large wardrobe unit. There are also lots of boxes scattered about the room, but other than that there is no sign or indication that a woman is currently living here. No attempt seems to have been made to make the place more ‘homely’.

“Have a seat so long,” Sarah beckons to the bed and immediately starts rummaging around in her closet. I sit down without a second thought. I am exhausted. I almost died today, probably more than once. The beds in this stupid game no longer seem to be as hard as I remember, maybe I’m just too damn tired.

“Hey Sarah, how long have you been staying here?”

Sarah momentarily ceases her search, and turns around to answer the question, “Oh about a month I think.”

“How long have you been an adventurer then?”

“The same amount of time.”

“Oh, I see,” that is interesting, “Do you mind if I ask what you were doing before that?”

“Sure, no problem. I was a seamstress. I didn’t have my own shop or anything like that though, I just belonged to a guild.”

Sarah has by this point abandoned the closet and started searching through the boxes scattered about her room. They appear to be filled with various clothes and bundles of fabric, that I assume are used to make clothes.

“It looks like you’re still at it though,” I say while smiling, “I can’t imagine this is all just storage.”

Sarah chuckles, “No, I’m still at it. Even if I’m not doing it for a living, I just can’t help myself, I love making clothes.”

“Why did you become an adventurer, you clearly enjoy making clothes.”

“Sure, it was always my dream to work my way up within the ranks of the guild and become a renowned seamstress. But then the war started and a lot of things changed. Life become a lot tougher and the majority of people could no longer spare money for such frivolous things like fancy clothing. Only the nobles and such upper echelons of society can still afford such things. This meant that the guild started radically shrinking in size, keeping only its upper rank and senior members, as there was no longer enough work to go around. Well I stayed for quite a while, earning minimum wage, by accepting all the menial work. But in the end I decided it was pointless if I couldn’t make the kind of clothes that I used to, the kind of clothes that I want to make. So I decided to take the path that my parents had originally wanted for me, the path of a S’vantic. Well it’s not like I’m aiming for Unaira or anything. Ah- sorry that’s when a S’vantic has reached his peak and is able to control the mana from the demon realm perfectly. I just want to make enough money to finance my passion.”

With that revelation, Sarah pulls out a short brown pants, with a large folded over leg hem, clearly designed that way for style. It is also adorned with embroidered flowers of different colors on its left-front side and even a butterfly.

“Oh wow,” I can’t help the broad grin on my face, “that’s so pretty!”

“You like, hey. I thought it would look good on you.”

“I’m sure it would look good on just about anyone!”

“So what say we find you a matching shirt,” Sarah smiles mischievously at me.

“Oh yes, lets,” I return her smile and we both giggle excitedly.

“So what will you be having?” I ask Aluarc.

“Huh?”

He seems to be lost in thought. “To drink. What do you want to drink?”

“Ah- no nothing, I’m good.”

I call a waitress over. “We’ll have two mead’s.”

Aluarc looks at me questioningly. “Well I’m not gonna drink alone now am I?” Truth be told I just don’t want to be the only one ordering drinks on Sarah’s account, it would look bad. But I’m not giving up free drinks either, screw that. I’ll just have this stick in the mud drink with me whether he likes it or not.

I sigh, reflecting back on the day. We failed the quest, I’m gonna have to go report it to the adventurers guild.

The adventurers guild is now apparently the largest of all the guilds in this world, it wasn’t always this way of course, but from what I hear they are one of the oldest guilds. They have basically made a business for themselves managing quests and adventurers. They have cleverly positioned themselves as such.

Why I say, is because it would otherwise be next to impossible to collect taxes from adventurers, a profession as wild and unruly as it gets. By forcing citizens and businesses alike, to only log quests with them and not with adventurers directly, they can instead control the flow of money generated by adventurers.

The Adventurers guild themselves pay taxes and not the individual adventurers, this encourages the number of adventurers generated as they think they are not paying tax, but in reality the guild has already deducted it from the actual quest rewards. Also since the crown get their taxes at the end of day, the guild is officially recognised by them and has their full backing, meaning they can exert the necessary influence to carry on their business as they see fit.

The waitress brings over our mead. I watch as Aluarc seems to examine his mug in an apprehensive fashion. Whatever, I take a sip of my mead and note that it is very different from the mead I drank at the previous tavern. This one is more bitter but at the same time I could swear it has the taste or maybe smell of cinnamon to it. Either way, It is pleasant.

As I drink my mead, I continue my pondering. The Adventurers guild is also used to maintain law and order, well somewhat. When the war started the crown quickly realised that it did not have the manpower to fight a war outside its borders and maintain law and order within them at the same time. As crime was running rampant the ever growing Adventurers guild stepped in to solve the problem. Once again they made a brilliant business move and convinced the crown to let them maintain order, mostly be way of meting out justice in their stead.

When a crime is committed, someone can create a case with the guild and the guild will organise a reward, paid for by the city council of course and create a ‘justice’ quest to find and punish the guilty in exchange for the reward. This way the crown only has to pay rewards here and there for ‘justice served’ and not maintain a very costly standing, law enforcing presence.

It goes without saying that there is plenty of crime still, since this is a stop gap measure, compared to having an actual ‘policing force’. But it is obviously still much better than the alternative of having nothing at all.

I mentioned that this was a great business move, on the part of the guild, even though when you think about it, they are not making any money from this. Well the thing that most people obviously fail to realise from this state of affairs, is that the guild is now the sole ‘justice’ system. If there is a certain criminal act that they don’t want ‘punished’, they just make it disappear. If you are a corrupt member of the guild, you can get away with pretty much anything. Or they can just accept money from people who can afford to make their ‘misdeeds’ vanish. All in all I imagine that subverting ‘justice’ must be one of their most lucrative ventures to date.

All in all though, the impression everyone seems to have of the Adventurers guild seems to be rather favourable. I suppose this is due primarily to the lack of a printing press being invented yet, or twitter for that matter.

I notice the girls returning from upstairs, they walk over to our table arm in arm giggling with each other mischievously. It’s only been about twenty minutes and they’re already besties?

Misty is wearing different clothes. Her pants is short and brown with some girly patterns embroidered onto it and her shirt is white with a v-cut neck with lacy edging and the bottom of the shirt stops just above her pants, leaving its round cut to hang just a little over it. I would say that the whole effect, on an already good looking elf with a model-like figure is very stylish even by my worlds standards.

She obviously was not happy to run around with a torn up pants. That reminds me of when she took that hit from the slime and I had to heal her. Although at the time, I was trying not to vomit from the sight and smell of burnt and dissolving flesh. Now that I remember it, the visual treat I got Immediately after I healed her, of her torn up pants and her blonde hair downstairs, along with one of her ‘lips’ sticking out, the memory of which is currently giving me hard on. Better pull my chair in a little closer, under the table.

The girls sit down.

“You look good,” Aluarc comments on Misty’s new attire.

“I know right? Sarah leant me some clothes. Did you know, Sarah is a designer?”

“Designer?” Sarah asks, while cocking her to the side.

“Oh sorry, I mean a seamstress.”

I ignore the three of them while they prattle on, I have bigger concerns. Things like should I stick with these losers or find another party and would that even be possible?

In the end we order food and eat, before going to bed and I deem it impractical given the state of affairs to switch parties for the time being.