Alex and his friends took a new route when they left the Silver Gate. This time they walked down a wide road that ran east and west across the village. They headed down a steep hill and towards the forests they could see towering over the village. Towards the western palisade walls and away from the tavern.

  The Silver Gate Tavern.

  Kira had seen the building featured hundreds of times on screen, but being there in person really was an experience she would never forget. From the huge double doors, to the hearth to the bar, everything had been so much bigger than she had expected.

  The ceiling rose high above the front of the common room and opened up into the pagoda styled inn at the rear. Thick support beams crossed the tavern ceiling, supporting huge, round hanging candelabras that were just being lit as they entered.

  The floorboards were broad planks of oak, already worn smooth in traffic lanes despite only being a few years old. The wood was darker near the central hearth—a huge structure open to both sides of the room and built from pale river stone—where spilled ale and sparks had marred the floor.

  The right half of the room was occupied by long communal tables. Smaller booths lined the outside walls, offering partial privacy behind thick posts and even a few decorative screens carved with eastern patterns of clouds and waves. Kira even saw one with coiled dragons worked into the wood grain.

  On the left side of the large communal room were dozens of smaller tables in different shapes and sizes scattered in what looked like a haphazard array but fit the space perfectly. All around the room, the walls were covered with weapons on plaques, paintings of alien looking landscapes and stuffed animals on wood panels.

  The bar dominated the entire left wall of the room and the extensive kitchens were visible through a door behind it. The bartop itself was a polished amber wood reinforced along the edge with a narrow strip of dark metal. Behind it rose shelves stacked with bottles, small kegs, various types of glasses, jugs and mugs and even a few flasks sealed with a bright red wax. Everything was organized and picturesque, but not in a Hollywood movie set kind of way. This was clearly a functioning workplace.

  Lanterns hung from iron brackets along the walls, supplementing the hearth and candles in the room. The light wasn’t uniform. It pooled warmly over tables and left the ceiling beams at the front of the room in shadow.

  At the back of the room a broad gallery stood behind thick wooden railings, overlooking the common room and leading to the inn’s rooms above. Staircases leading to the balcony area rose along both sides of the room.

  And the smell! It was layered and rustic and unexpected: woodsmoke, bread, roasting meat, and spilled ale and sweat and leather.

  Kira had seen the room on Dungeon Inc. so many times, but standing in the space was a completely different experience. It wasn’t even just the fact that actually standing in the common room made it more real. It was also the understanding now that it was, in fact, actually real. Like a puzzle piece that clicked in and made the whole picture look a little different. The people sitting at the tables weren’t actors. The adventurers ordering mugs of ale after a long day weren’t pretending. And the servers really were tired from running around all shift.

  It was a lot to take in, but her first experience was wonderful and she thoroughly enjoyed meeting Tomwell and drinking her first strangely-warm beer.

  As they walked away down the smoothly cobbled street, and people streamed past them towards the tavern, she couldn’t help but marvel at how the building really felt like the hub of a functioning ecosystem here, not the show set piece she had been expecting.

  The village shifted around them as they moved against the flow of traffic. The commercial blocks that had dominated their path to the tavern, quickly gave way to an area dedicated to the trades populated with craftsmen of all sorts. The people here were mostly in the process of cleaning up and shutting down for the day. The buildings were as varied as the crafts, although they followed a consistent design aesthetic of river stone and white washed walls framed by dark wood.

  Kira kept noticing the rooftops as well. Not because she loved roofs—although, now that she was paying attention, there was an interesting mix of wood and clay shingles being used here. Rather, she noticed because Alex kept looking up like he was interested.

  At first she thought he had seen birds or some other crazy Earth3 creatures. But he just brushed off her questions saying it was nothing. Kira pretended she hadn’t noticed after that, but every time he paused to stare at something she couldn’t see on a flat roof or behind a tall chimney, she would watch him.

  At one point, she glanced up at a scratching sound above, only to see a large bird. A raven-type creature with a dark mohawk of large feathers hopping along a rounded stone ridge. Feathers glossy in the sun, it scratched and clicked along the roof with its large talons. She shook her head. Whatever else he was doing, Alex was starting to make her paranoid.

  Her headache pulsed again and she rubbed her temple as she turned her attention back to their path and looked at the small lake that was now visible over the top of the village wall as they descended the hill. It looked like a giant bowl of fire as the water reflected the setting sun back up at them. Around it, the land rolled away into forest and hills. The view caught Kira by surprise. It was just so big. So much wilderness. Just forest as far as she could see to the north. And to the south… Beyond the trees she could see only rolling hills that disappeared into the far distance.

  Ten minutes later they reached the west gate and climbed up a solid set of wooden stairs to the top of the palisade style wall. A broad wall-walk ran along the inside of the wall so that the top of the palisade posts stopped at about chest height. They leaned against the wall and looked out at the lake and forest for a time, Ryan and Jake asking questions about the obstacle course that stood in the field between the wall and the beach.

  Jun leaned on the wall’s wooden railing and sighed loudly. “Okay. Okay. I get it now. This is… yeah.”

  Jake craned his neck to take in the village behind them. “So the village is… what, like five hundred people?”

  “Around a thousand now,” Alex answered. “And growing steadily by the sounds of it. I heard they’re constantly on the lookout for people with skills that could be used in the village. My first weekend here they were building a farm on the east side of the village for a family that’s going to be raising pigs and cattle apparently. And there's a new cobbler opening soon. It’s growing constantly.”

  “Where do they all come from?” Kira asked. “I mean, Earth obviously, but how do they find them?”

  Alex’s gaze drifted across the nearby rooftops but returned quickly. “Some of the shops have been opened by the families that are already here, husbands and wives of different staff members. I think that’s encouraged and the company takes on the setup costs. But they’re bringing a lot of new people in from Earth all the time too. I talked to the blacksmith, Frank, last weekend and he said that Dungeon Inc. found him at a Renaissance fair in upstate New York. The fletcher is French, from Quebec I think. Frank, told me he used to work at some pioneer village tourist place near Montreal. So, I guess they’re hunting for people with the skills they want and recruiting from all over.”

  They headed south again after that, enjoying the sights on both sides of the wall from their vantage point above it all. Alex narrated the whole way, pointing out who lived where and the names of some of the strange plants they saw along the way. After a time, Kira could see the wall bend sharply to the left, towards their destination. The south wall.

  As they approached they could see the frames of nine buildings rising in a row along the inside of the wall. Most of them were in various early stages of being framed, with timbers and posts rising out of stone footings on some, and just a hole dug in the ground for the last one in the row. But two of the buildings were much closer to completion.

  One of those was adorned with a massive wooden sign that hung over the walkway on a heavy wrought iron hanger. The wood had been carved and burned darkly with the Side Quest Heroes logo.

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  Kira’s heart skipped when she realized what she was looking at.

  The guild hall was huge. It was three stories tall with a steep roof and two huge dormer windows that poked out of the slate tiles and looked over the street like curious eyes. From their elevated position on the wall they could see the building was shaped like an L, flat to the street out front, but extending back towards the palisade wall behind. A wall enclosed the large courtyard in the back, so the whole thing would look like a big square complex from the street.

  The building was well built in a squared timber construction that stood on a worked stone base, similar in style to the Silver Gate Inn. The facade was decorated with geometric trim. And at the front corner of the L, a tower rose another two stories, high above the buildings around it and tall enough that you would be able to look out over the walls of the village from the top.

  “It’s…” Ryan started, but couldn’t finish as they reached the south wall and descended the stairs onto the road below.

  Jake was already walking toward it, hands out as if he could absorb its presence through his palms. “This is ours?”

  “I think so,” Alex said with a smile.

  The second mostly framed building, and closest to the west wall, was a different style entirely. Where the Side Quest Heroes guild hall leaned into warm timber and carved detail, this one had sharper lines, less stone in the base and higher peaked roofs that ran into each other and suggested bigger open interior spaces.

  “Who’s that one for?” Kira asked.

  Alex shrugged. “No idea. I’m not even sure what the different guilds will be.” He looked down the row at all the construction sites. “I think I only suggested 7, but there are 9 buildings being built. So I really don’t know.”

  The front entrance of the hall was covered by a short, pillared overhang that ended in two large and imposing doors made from a heavy looking wood banded in dark iron.

  Jake immediately grabbed the handle. “Moment of truth.” He pulled but nothing happened. The handle didn’t move and the door didn’t open.

  Alex smiled as he walked up and reached for the handle. There was a soft click and the door swung outward silently on large iron hinges.

  Jake stared. “Magic!”

  Alex laughed “ANIP. The lock is keyed just like the ones in the Undercity.”

  “Access is a Privilege,” Kira said.

  Jun looked at her funny. “Huh?”

  “Oh just a Helix corp thing—where my parents work,” she said as she stepped past the boys and into the hall. “All the posters and ads say things like ‘Trust, Verified.’ but when my parents talk about what they do, they say ‘Access is a Privilege.’”

  Inside, the foyer opened up and up, extending the full height of the building. It was a vertical space that made Kira’s breath catch as she stared up at the rafters three stories above them. Light poured in from high windows, the low sun lighting up the walls on one side of the room in crosshatched silhouettes.

  A grand staircase curved along both walls halfway across the room, wide enough for three people to walk abreast, with banisters carved in the same geometric trim as the exterior. Above there was an open balcony and another set of stairs set back from the first that led to another balcony on the third floor.

  To their right, a wide arch opened up onto a lounge area big enough to swallow Kira’s entire apartment back home. There was a large hearth tall enough to stand in and a bar area and stools along the back of the long room.

  “Not a lot of furniture,” Kira noted, looking around the room.

  “This place is going to feel mostly empty for a while,” Alex said. “But honestly, I’m surprised how fast they can even build these.”

  Kira wandered across the foyer and peeked through the door in the opposite wall. It opened into what could only be called a conference room back home. Although maybe it had a different name here. Warroom, or council room maybe? A large oak table occupied the centre of the space. There were no chairs yet, but there was a map of the region on one wall and built-in shelves and tables around the edges of the room.

  The whole building smelled of fresh-cut timber and dust and lacquer or varnish.

  Alex stood in the foyer looking up at the balconies above. “Bedrooms are up there,” he said as they returned to the front room. He was pointing to the top balcony.

  Jake eyed the staircase. “No elevator I suppose?”

  “I don’t think so. Too anachronistic.”

  The group passed between the twin staircases at the rear of the foyer and stepped through another broad archway into the corridor that led toward the courtyard. Although, ‘corridor’ was understating the room.

  The space was nearly twenty feet wide. The central span had been defined as a passage with a band of darker hardwood running straight from the entrance arch to the rear doors leading into the enclosed courtyard. Its boards laid perpendicular to the rest of the room and bordered in lighter trim. On either side, the flooring shifted to stone set in broad rectangular slabs, marking the display areas.

  Above the central strip, the ceiling opened to the level above. The upper gallery had been cut back to create a long vertical channel down the center of the room. Light dropped into the space from the open balconies above, leaving the alcoves along the walls in softer shadows.

  The walls had been built with empty recesses, arched alcoves framed in timber and stone. Shelves had already been set into the deeper niches. But otherwise, the whole room was empty. Like a museum area, in waiting.

  Plaques had been mounted beneath several alcoves, blank except for engraved borders. A few hooks had been driven into heavy beams, strong enough to suspend armor or larger trophies. Along one wall, a section of stone had been left smooth and unbroken, wide enough to hold a mural or a carved relief.

  “I guess this is where we put all the cool shit we find on our adventures,” Ryan said as he wandered around the space.

  They opened doors and explored the mostly empty rooms as they went. Behind the lounge were the kitchens, and behind the conference room were more office type spaces. There was still a lot of work to be done with many of the rooms missing trim, doors, and even finished flooring.

  They stepped out into the courtyard through another set of massive exterior doors containing tall windows that let in the early evening light. The portion of the building running down the right side of the courtyard featured a long covered porch with a number of doors.

  “I think those are equipment rooms, mostly,” Alex said. “Like, armoury and stuff. Valentina sent me some rough plans last weekend.”

  There was a grassy area in one corner, just to the left of the doors, with a small pond and water bubbling down over piles of rocks. Several benches had been set up around the water and a couple of saplings had been planted.

  “I was told the bedrooms would be finished first. We’ll have to eat in the cafeteria, or at the Silver Gate,” Alex said as Kira and the others explored the area. “The second floor will have a library, meeting rooms and some other, quieter lounges I think. And the basement will have a vault and trophy room.”

  Jake whistled at that, eyes gleaming. “A trophy room!”

  Kira just walked around the courtyard slowly, taking it all in. She smiled too, but a trophy room still felt like something for the future. This though… the guild hall and the little garden and the training yard. The lounges and everything. It was for now. A new home. And it felt more real and more right than anything she had at university.

  She stood there staring at the space, trying to imagine what it would look like finished and full of people. With the courtyard enclosed, maybe with a small garden, maybe with training dummies. The sound of people moving through it. The smell of sweat and leather and food wafting out the windows. The energy that would come when it was lived in and alive.

  It was a dream come true in some ways, and more than she had ever dreamed of in others.

  “Might as well go upstairs and check out your rooms,” Alex said as they headed back inside and made for the staircases.

  It was a long way up and Kira was annoyed that Alex wasn’t even breathing hard by the time they reached the third floor.

  “The bedrooms run across the entire third floor,” Alex said. “Mine is over on the left side along the wall. And we’ll keep the ones at the front of the building as guest rooms. Pretty much everything else is up for grabs though, so pick your favourite for now.”

  For the next 15 minutes they wandered around the top floor, looking into all the rooms. Most of them were still empty and unfinished, with only enough for the group containing beds. They all had big closets, desks and smaller sitting rooms with shelves for books and collectibles.

  They didn’t really have anything to ‘move in’ with, so, after testing out the bed and peeking in the empty closet, Kira walked back out to the central area. She heard Ryan and Jun talking in the foyer below and headed back down the stairs to join them, Jake caught up to her half way down.

  “This place is amazing. But it feels weird moving into a room and not having anything to leave behind,” he said and laughed. Kira agreed. They had left everything from Earth in the Undercity.

  The stairs were much easier going down than up and they quickly regrouped with their friends in the foyer. The space felt even larger now that Kira had seen it from above.

  “Alex still upstairs?” she asked.

  “No, he went outside. Said he’d be right back.” Ryan said, pointing to the front door.

  ***

  A guild is not built of timber and stone. It is built by its members and their recorded deeds. The walls of each chapter house are merely where we house them all.

  Stennic Pauldaran

  Guild Master of the Iron Gauntlets; Western Kingdoms

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