Chapter 16: The Guild Hall

The Hall of Forging was a massive underground structure. If James didn’t know better he’d think it belonged to some dwarfish race. It spread out over nearly a kilometre underground and hundreds of ventilation stacks channelled through the underground back to the chimneys in the circle courtyard up on the surface.

The stone halls and walls were all lit by odd spirit stones, spread out evenly and letting off a humble glow not dissimilar to incandescent bulbs.

Little green stones sat on the ventilation shafts running across the roof presumably as some sort of wind stone pushing air flow out through the chimneys or pulling fresh air down to the underground.

Skay and James were both quite impressed as Anvil led them through the halls to a large room with a huge glowing furnace in the corner. On the wall was an assortment of tools and odd equipment along with a massive anvil and sledge hammer next to the furnace. Along with the multitude of work benches and other generalised smithy stuff and apart from being fully enclosed underground it truly looked like a mystical fantasy smith where someone would forge a sword of the gods or some such thing.

Anvil led our morally twisted duo towards an elderly man in grey robes tapping away on a little bone white rectangle with a tiny hammer and a little metal pin. Whenever he lifted the pin to blow away dust his hand shook like he had Parkinson’s disease but the moment he focused back in on the seal his hand was as solid as the stone floor.

As the group approached the old man lofted the pin one last time and dusted of his workmanship.

In his hand he held the splitting image of James design. In fact it was such a perfect replica he somewhat felt dissatisfied with the man’s artistry. This was because James was an absolutely horrible drawer. The 7 looked like it had been made with putty and squeezed out through someone hands, the Ouroboros looked like it couldn’t quite decide if it was going in a circle or oval and was even more lumpy and squiggly than the 7. The lightning it was made of looked like oddly shaped noodles and only looked like lightning from a long, long distance.

On the back however it was carved in intricately carved and masterfully cut patterns that overlapped and intersected everywhere, covering almost every bit of space. When they arrived in front of the man appraising his work he gave it to anvil patted his apron off and gave a bow before taking his leave.

James peered over anvils shoulder at his new seal. “I take it that’s our seal?”

Anvil gave a nod as he ran his hand over it checking the patterns in the back. “Yes this is your seal. It looks ahhh ... Unique.”

“Oi. I thought he’d spruce it up a bit when he inscribed it. Will it affect the seal if we re-cut the face of it?”

Anvil gave a shake of the head. “It should be fine as long as you don’t effect the array patterns.”

Anvil walked over to a cupboard and pulled out a jar with a red viscous liquid. He then pulled James over to a strange circle painted on the stone floor and handed him a knife. “Now then, just make a cut on your hand, hold your seal with it and as I poor the one heart beast blood onto the seal and hand the array circle your standing in will tie your guild seal and your soul together.”

James was dubious about this whole thing, but he doubted they’d go to so much trouble just to entrap him. With that thought he reached out and cut his hand, placed the seal in it and watched as Anvil pored the blood onto his hand. At first nothing interesting happened and the blood just began pooling on the floor. James was just about to ask, when the array circle he stood in lit up like a flare bathing the room in light.

Following this sudden change, James felt his hand burning like he was holding a blazing hot iron rod. The pain grew more intense until he could hardly move his body and dropped to his knees panting and screaming into the air.

Once the light began to dim he saw the last of the blood that had dribbled over his hand pouring into his cut like the blood flow had reversed and was being sucked in. The once bone white seal was now the colour of red blood and after all the blood finished it’s reverse flow, the seal gave an intense flash and the room had returned to normal.

James looked at his hand and the rapidly closing cut. Then at the blood red seal. After closing his eyes his seal disappeared from his hand and appeared in his spirit realm, just floating around weightlessly. After opening his eyes again a smile split his face. He could sense his seal like a part of himself and more than that he could sense it already had an oath sworn to it. When he investigated this sensation he felt the oath Harvy had made earlier.

James brow furrowed slightly. ‘I thought they said that oaths to a group like the one we plan to make needs a seal. I wonder why Harvy’s previous oath to the dark brotherhood is here as well. Even more odd ... It feels like, I just know that Harvy is currently alive. I don’t even know how I know. Is that because he swore his life to the brotherhood?”

After thinking about it for a short time he decided not to pursue it too much. If he’d been duped he wouldn’t know about it until later on anyway.

Once James managed to climb to his feet and wipe the sweat from his face, Anvil showed them around the hall for a few more hours. When they visited the materials storage, Skay and James nearly couldn’t contain themselves, as they both pulled out a black pad and started noting things down that they particularly found interesting, which amusingly was almost everything.

Anvil had to force them out because they started trying to start assembling something from old parts and odd materials even he wasn’t certain about. “Just a little fusion reactor...” Skay complained as they were escorted out.

Once leaving they returned to the mansion where James consumed a few fruits and a colourful tonic Skay had prepared called 616. Although he wasn’t quite at the half barrier realm he obviously had enough spirit energy to swear an oath after testing a simple oath like “I swear an oath to pass this cup of water to Harvy.”

-Gau Clan’s Main Hall-

In the main hall sat the leaders of both parties, Hao and James, facing each other. Behind them sat their subordinates, the 4 Elders behind Hao and Jessy, Skay and Harvy behind James.

Both parties swore an oath of mutual defence and trade along with some other odds and ends they worked out beforehand. In the end, their two oaths encompassed a number of things.

The oath of mutual defence consisted of:

The Gau Clan swears to protect the Dark Brotherhood until such time as they can defend themselves and to a mutual defence pact thereafter.

The Brotherhood swears to assist the Gau Clan in times of need if they have the power to do so.

The Clan and Brotherhood will serve to assist each other in growing stronger through joint training exercises and instruction for anyone under the spirit realm.

After the Brotherhood reaches the spirit realm they will assist in disciple missions, like resource gathering and beast clearing.

Any beast materials or extra materials gathered by Brotherhood members will be kept by the brotherhood.

This pact is inclusive of all members of both parties now and in the future.

The trade pact contained a little more being the thing both parties were most interested in.

The Brotherhood swears to sell no weapons plans or completed weaponry to anyone other than the Gau Clan or the Empire itself within the Kantsu Region of which Gau city is a part of.

The Gau Clan swears to not step in and attempt any oversight of the Brotherhood in Gau City provided they don’t endanger public security. (This came about after the Elders visit to the laboratory.)

The Brotherhood’s trading of resources in Gau City are exempt from Tax including designs and artefacts the Gau Clan hasn’t paid to reserve the rights to.

The Gau Clan has the right of first bid on any artefact or design developed by the Brotherhood in Gau City for the purposes of sale to other parties.

The Gau Clan has the right to purchase the ‘Reserved from Sale’ status of certain designs and artefacts provided they fall within a set area that would directly affect the Gau Clans production and sales.

All deals are to be conducted fairly and transparently between the Clan and the Brotherhood. Any offenders breaking this rule will be tried and executed by a joint counsel of both parties.

The Guild is free to produce and sell any item they wish to anyone on any scale provided they follow all prior rules of this trade agreement.

The Clan and Guild are free to share and corroborate information and techniques in regards to the matters of trade and crafting but not required.

Apart from the main body of their alliance there was also a number of small oddities such as limitations towards whom the Brotherhood could recruit. For example the close descendant of a rival faction in the city would only be allowed to join provided they swear an oath of absolute allegiance. The only other condition of note was that after 10 years the alliance would be tabled for fresh discussion and renegotiation from both parties.

This was to prevent other powers trying to gain a foothold within the Brotherhood and using its alliance with the Gau Clan to strike the clan a blow. Although some people in the Gau Clan party, Elder Jeng most notably, tried to weasel in some more unfavorable terms for the Brotherhood, Jessy was quick to dismiss them.

Jessy was the main mouth piece during the drafting of the alliance and James would simply lean back to discuss some thoughts with her now and then. Both James and Skay had vastly underestimated her ability to do business and it was one of the first things they discussed with her the next day after the celebrations for the treaty were signed and sworn to.

As they sat in the lab nursing hang overs James finally shot a question to Jessy. “Jess, you’re unexpectedly rather skilled in business. Did you do some sort of business studies before you became a fitter?”

Jessy, who’d been lying sprawled out over a desk rolled to a sitting position. “Quite right James. I actually owned my own contractor company before the end of the world you know. It was only because this was such a high end job that I personally took on the contract to come out to the sea lab. Actually, both my parents ran a corporation when I was little and dragged me around half the world to their discussions and meetings.”

Jessy let out a long sigh at the thought of her parents. Although they were always busy and rarely had time for their little girl, Jessy still missed them. The fact the dragged her to all their meetings after she turned 15 was undoubtedly an attempt on their part to prepare her for the world they expected her to eventually join. To say they were disappointed when she took some filthy commoners job would be an understatement.

After that moment of reflection Jessy came back to the present. “I may not be as knowledgeable as the two of you in your science stuff but I’m prepared to boast that I’m leagues ahead in the world of business.”

James grew a crooked smile and after a chuckle gave a strong nod. “Good, that means you will now be our Business Manager or err ... What would that be in a guild? Well it doesn’t matter. We will be creating our guild from the ground up so we can create the structure as we go. Actually, now I think about it. Perhaps we should create a framework and a guild charter or something...”

“Lady of Lust.” Jessy threw out.

James eyebrow lifted as he looked at Jessy confused. “Huh?”

Jessy gave an exacerbated sigh as if talking to a child then said. “You said earlier that you wanted your 7 core members to represent the seven sins. So what does it matter what our jobs are for now, eventually we will be known as our sin. If I beat the crowds now I can coin my own moniker, instead of becoming known by people as The Tart, or Jessy the Slut. As long as we know what our duties are, what does it matter what we title ourselves as? Like you said we’re creating a whole new faction in this world and can call ourselves whatever we want.”

James cupped his chin and thought for a while. “Fine, sounds good actually. I like it. Regardless of your title, you will be in charge of our business in Gau City for the time being. I’ve no doubt that we will eventually run into someone we can call Greed that has the capacity to take that burden from you. Until then for the next few days you will need to take Harvy and scout out the city. We need a building with plenty of room and in a busy area to attract members. From what I understand the Builders Guild is full of cultivators and building things is rather quick for them, so even if you get a plot of land or some old building and have something built that would be fine too. When you need to trade for money try to go to the Clan first. We just chartered our trade alliance and it would be a good chance to show that we plan to keep them as our top priority in trade.”

After another hour of discussion and after Skay and James had decided on what they needed for an acceptable workshop Jessy left to make some enquires and hunt down some land in the city.

-Ten Days-

For the next ten or so days, things were slow and steady with no massive upheavals in the city. Jessy arranged a plot of land not too distant from the Hall of Forging and the Builders Guild accepted the job request in exchange for a number of interesting things thrown together in the lab, from building designs to construction methods and even something Skay had termed Ultimate Cement, which he accidentally created in one of his bizarre lab accidents. Strangely his accidents seemed to be growing disturbingly frequent the more he played with things from this world.

Surprisingly, the Builders Guild only took a few days to construct a building that was designed by James and Skay. They even helped to dig out the underground area which reached nearly 80 meters below surface level. If not for the assistance of some True Spirit Realm cultivators with earth affinity, which could compress soil and stone to an unimaginable degree, then the surface would long since have collapsed in.

After the building was established the trio spent a day watching Harvy slowly packing everything from their borrowed lab and moving it to their new lab.

On the surface the new lab was actually a very normal two story Guild Hall with the cleaned up crest of the Dark Brotherhood carved into the door. It was situated in the corner of a large circular plaza spanning nearly 600 meters in diameter with a fountain in the middle. It was the second busiest and most traveled market in the city. The hall was in a rather sought after location and they only managed to snag it because the previous owner was a member of the Gau Clan.

The first level underground looked like a battle arena around 200 meters in diameter, which would be used for training and sparring. In the foyer of the Guild Hall was a strange metal room with magic doors that opened and closed when you pressed a button on the wall. If you stepped into it, the metal room had two other buttons shaped like arrows to go up or down. Apart from this there was a pad with a number of strange symbols that no one could recognize apart from the one that resembled the ruin carved on the guilds crest.

Apart from Harvy and the trio, no one knew what this panel was supposed to do. Inside the monolith’s range even the stepper trio couldn’t fully recognise the numbers from 0 to 9 but they understood how the keypad was normally arranged. In fact, when they drew these numbers they had to enter the Endless forest and leave the monoliths range just to remember their own language, much the same as James had to do when he drew the 7 for his seal.

The ground floor was arranged with the foyer in front that had the elevator off to one side looking rather ominous. Along the same wall was a reception/service desk, leaving the rest of the foyer with just some nice plants and wallpaper along with short wide corridor that lead into a big main hall. Behind the reception desk was a door leading into a small storage area about 5 square meters that would eventually contain things they planned to sell to guild members.

The main hall was smattered with chairs and tables with an ordering counter attached to the kitchen on the furthest wall from the entry. On the two adjacent walls were massive blank boards that spanned the entirety of the walls length. Both had ‘JOBS’ written on the top of them, but momentarily remained empty. In the corner of the room was a small stage should they ever have someone with any skill or for making speeches and what not.

The upper floor of the guild hall was arranged to house the staff and had nearly 10 bedrooms, some stacked with bunks and a few rather nice ones. At the end of a long hallway, that looked far creepier than it should for a brand new building, was a huge set of double doors that led into the office of the Guildmaster.

Adjoined to this office was the Guildmaster’s quarters which at the moment were much to James style. Wide, roomy and adorned with rather rich tapestry, rugs and furniture, as well as a massive bed. This furniture and style was all arranged by Hao as a gift, much to James’ consternation.

If you were in the know, the elevators strange pad could be used to take you to lower levels. Underground level 2 for example, was the main lab and contained almost everything the old lab had plus some new things Skay had Jessy buy from the Hall of Forging. Every wall and corner was stacked with poorly repaired machinery, stacked boxes of half-finished projects and workbenches with computer screens or diagrams.