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Isekai Terry AHS: Chapter 21 – Guild Master
🕑 Added 2025-02-05 06:48:38 +0000 UTCTarell Collonin, master of the guild hall, watched the two adventurers vanish down a street as they bickered like a married couple. Oh, to be young and foolish again, he thought a little wistfully. Not that Tarell had wasted his opportunities in those regards. If anything, he had overindulged in them. He couldn’t even count the number of times he’d found himself trying to fight his way out of life-or-death situations against impossible odds, or climbing out of some pretty woman’s window when she revealed she might be slightly married. Of course, those women tended to not divulge that information until after the fun was over.
Then, he’d have to flee the town or city, often with someone’s angry husband in close pursuit. He always did his best not to kill those men. No one with their sanity intact could blame them for being furious, and it wasn’t like he had any moral high ground to stand on. Not that being in the wrong meant that he’d let them take their revenge unopposed. He generally sent them back to their unfaithful lovers battered and bruised but mostly intact. It was amusing, looking back, even if it had all felt so very serious and important at the time. It wasn’t funny, though. Tarell didn’t take other people’s vows lightly. Still, you couldn’t respect what you didn’t know about.
Time had eventually cured him of most of that foolishness. He’d learned to ask the right questions to avoid needlessly repeating the same errors. Something that had proven far more important as he’d ascended the ranks in the Adventurer’s Guild. After all, you couldn’t just run away when you were sent to speak with dukes and kings about problems affecting entire nations. Nor could you sleep with just anyone at court. Mistakes of that nature usually ended with entire armies chasing you, rather than one justifiably angry man. That was a lesson that wise men learned after the first time, assuming they survived. He had survived and taken the lesson to heart.
He reflected on that for a moment. No, he decided. Wise men avoided getting tangled up with nobility and politics altogether. Something that it seemed like that intriguing Terry person was trying to do and failing rather miserably at, despite his best efforts. That girl had the stink of nobility on her for one thing. It wasn’t anything too obvious. She was at least making the attempt to pass herself off as just one more adventurer but some things were just instilled too deep. There was a particularly obnoxious way of carrying oneself and addressing others that nobles were taught from birth. It bled through sometimes when she wasn’t paying attention.
Tarell also had far more experience with these kinds of things, which was why he knew it was just a question of when, not if Count Bannic Damery was going to appear. The guild hall master had rather mixed feelings about the current Count Damery. He’d known and liked the previous Count before the man succumbed to the inevitable ravages of time. That count had made his accommodations with failed ambition and settled in to quietly rule his territory.
They had been alike in that way. Tarell had taken a position at this guild hall as a kind of semi-retirement. It let him go out and complete absurdly dangerous contracts from time to time. It was mostly just to keep his skills sharp but also allowed him to prevent overeager young adventurers from swift, unnecessary deaths. The role came with the side benefit of keeping him away from the true centers of power where far too many people would know him on sight. He could live undisturbed as the somewhat anonymous, rank two Tarell Collonin. An identity that he had spent decades creating and reinforcing with the assistance of the guild.
Tarell was accomplished, as befitted a rank two, but he was not extraordinary. He was respected but not revered. Tarell could decide to sit down and have a meal or a few drinks with the younger, lower-ranked adventurers. They’d be nervous, at first, but would soon calm as he told them stories or imparted a bit of wisdom. It was a situation he far preferred to his other life as the infamous rank one, Leonis Getharin, the Bedlam Blade. He had reveled in that identity in years long past. As his wisdom slowly exceeded his impetuousness, though, the weight of being that man grew and grew until it threatened to crush him. Now, he was only Leonis during times of the greatest need. Times when no one else would do.
Of course, he still remembered everything he’d learned as Leonis, which was why the new count gave him pause. Bannic was still young. His ambitions for advancement still burned hot and bright. Tarell could have explained what a fruitless endeavor that would be. He’d actually met the margraves, margravines, dukes, and duchesses that Bannic would have to contend with. He’d even met the king. Watching them operate was chilling. Those people and their families were ruthless in a way that could only be achieved through generational training and effort. No mere count was ever going to ascend to replace them, barring some highly unlikely set of circumstances or a truly extraordinary, house-ending mistake.
Then again, if the young man thought he could somehow force the compliance of a powerful rank two adventurer, he might believe that would be enough to change the political landscape in his favor. He would be wrong. He would be wrong in several ways. But many people believed things that weren’t true. Unlike his father, Bannic had never seen a rank two or rank one adventurer lose their temper. The boy simply did not comprehend the level of destruction that would follow from tempting fate that way. The king and other high nobles did comprehend it, which was why they didn’t interfere with the guild or adventurers as a matter of course. The price was simply too high.
Tarell wasn’t sure that Terry understood the true scope of the problem either. The man struck him as someone deeply uncomfortable with his own power. The sort of person who wouldn’t push the limits of that power until he had to do it. The guild master much preferred that such a moment happened far away from anything that might be described as civilization. There were too many innocent people in a town or city for him to allow that situation to develop when he could act to stop it. So, he remained on the steps of the guild hall, hands clasped behind his back, and waited for the young count to show his face.
Tarell reminded himself several times that he couldn’t simply slap the boy unconscious for attempting something so stupid. Leonis would do it. He wouldn’t have hesitated for a second, seeing it as both right and good to remind the noble that adventurers were not his playthings. Unfortunately, Tarell was a more circumspect man out of pure necessity. Draw too much attention and it was all too probable that someone who knew him as Leonis would come to find out what happened. While his Tarell identity was firm, it was by no means unassailable.
Sadly, he’d have to at least attempt to convince the noble that letting Terry leave unmolested was the path of sanity. If Bannic wouldn’t see reason, though, he could become more forceful under the all-concealing argument that it was for the good of the guild. It would even be true. A little subtle pressure on the rank and file from nobles was to be expected. There was even an argument to be made that it was good for them to have to deal with such demands. It would either expose them as too weak to remain in the guild or help them develop the iron wills that higher rank required. Attempting to coerce adventurers with naked force was something else entirely.
He didn’t have to wait long before Count Damery came thundering up to the guild on a pristine white horse, his long blonde hair trailing out behind him like a golden mane. The noble swung down from the horse. His blue eyes looked like chips of ice as he glared at Tarell.
“Where is he?” demanded Damery.
Tarell said nothing and stared through the boy like he didn’t exist. That didn’t sit well with the overbearing young man. Nor was it meant to. If the boy wanted to bark at what he believed was a rank two adventurer, to say nothing of the master of the guild hall, as if Tarell was some mere servant, well, he just invited disdain.
“Did you not hear me? Where is he?” snapped the young count.
Tarell didn’t answer. He simply went from staring into the distance to staring directly at Bannic. The late arriving guards took one look at the standoff, leapt from their horses, and all but threw themselves between their liege and the stone-faced guild master. None of them looked like they expected any kind of victory. At best, they hoped to buy the count the precious seconds he might need to flee for his life.
“I heard a petulant dog howling into the wind,” said Tarell, drawing a furious expression from the noble. “If I ever thought that Count Damery dared to speak to a master of an adventurer’s guild hall in that way, I’m unsure what I or the guild at large might be forced to do to correct that rudeness. I’m also not certain the city could endure it.”
It turned out that a death wish was not included in Bannic Damery’s list of flaws. The young man visibly took hold of himself and smoothed his expression. His voice still trembled a little either in anger or fear.
“Guild Master Collonin,” said the count, “I apologize for my ill-considered words. Nonetheless, I do need to find Terry Williams. He has committed crimes in my city. That must be addressed.”
“Crimes, you say? What crimes?”
“He attacked a Church knight and his retinue. He disturbed the peace of the city.”
“Attacked,” said Tarell slowly, as if tasting the word. “Attacked is such a provocative word. It’s also very easy to throw around when one wishes to skirt pesky legal formalities. So, you mean to say that an adventurer attacked a Church knight and his hangers-on without any provocation whatsoever within the city walls?”
The count’s eye twitch was all that Tarell needed to see to know that it most certainly had not occurred that way. He continued before the count could speak.
“Bear in mind that since you’ve brought this to my attention, I will be forced to investigate. The guild can’t have its members attacking people without cause. Should I assume that I won’t turn up any accounts that, let us say, contradict the very carefully worded version of events you’ve presented to me?”
The silence stretched out from a moment to most of a minute before the count finally responded.
“Perhaps I misspoke in my haste to see justice done,” hedged Bannic.
“Of course,” said Tarell in an understanding tone. “A simple error, I’m sure.”
“Just so,” said the count.
“Well, I’m sure that my exceedingly thorough investigation will reveal whether this adventurer has acted in some illegal way. If so, I’ll be sure that he is brought before the appropriate authorities.”
“Thank you,” said Bannic through clenched teeth.
“You’re welcome. However, until that time, it would prove quite unfortunate if some eager city guards tried to impede him in a misguided bid to win your favor. That would not end well for them.”
The or for you went unspoken but hung in the air like a storm about to break.
“I’ll see to it that no such thing occurs,” growled the obviously frustrated count before issuing commands to his guards.
Tarell watched in satisfaction as the men rode off in different directions at a full gallop. I’ve done what I can for you, Terry, thought Tarell. At least until the count does something stupid, added the part of him that was still very much Leonis.
Comments
Pamela Gillespie
Thanks for the chapter, enjoyed the elder perspective
Angela Roberts
Choosing the Path of Wisdom. What a novel idea!
BelligerentGnu
Three cheers for sane people!
Neal Callahan
I like this guy. I very much enjoy the type of perspective he represents, the voice of wisdom, lamenting the stupidity in front of them and the consequences therein.
