Eventually, you may consider associating with a formal organization. Guilds (Adventurers', Merchants', Thieves', Mages', Extremely Specific Basket Weavers') offer potential benefits like training, quests, protection (sometimes), and access to resources. However, they also come with rules, fees, obligations, and often, internal politics more dangerous than any dungeon crawl.
Common Guild Types & What to Expect:
- Adventurers' Guild: The classic. Kill monsters, clear dungeons, escort caravans. Expect high risks, variable pay, frequent injuries, and teammates who might steal your loot or use you as bait. Entry often requires a basic competency test (i.e., surviving the first quest). (See Module 45: Adventurer Party Dynamics - How Not to Get Killed by Your Friends).
- Merchants' Guild: Controls trade, sets prices, resolves disputes (usually in favor of wealthier members). Joining often requires significant capital, connections, or a specific craft. Benefits include trade route access and market information. Risks involve guild taxes, rivalries, and economic warfare. Less stabby than Adventurers' Guild, more backstabby.
- Crafting Guilds (Smiths, Alchemists, etc.): Governs standards, training, and resource access for specific trades. Requires apprenticeship and demonstrable skill. Good for skill development and steady (if sometimes tedious) work. Internal politics can be fierce over apprenticeships or masterwork commissions.
- Thieves' Guild: Underground network dealing in theft, information, smuggling, and occasional assassination. High risk, potentially high reward. Requires stealth, contacts, and a flexible moral compass. Getting caught by the Guild is often worse than getting caught by the guards. Betrayal is common. Entry usually involves proving your 'skills' or knowing the right person. (See Section 101: Fences, Fixers, and Avoiding Unplanned Organ Donation).
- Mages' Guild/Academies: For the magically inclined. Access to knowledge, training, spell components. Often involves strict hierarchies, arcane rivalries, exorbitant tuition fees, and the occasional magical catastrophe. Entry requires proven magical aptitude (or significant bribes).
Before Joining:
- Research: Understand the Guild's reputation, leadership, rules, and common activities. Talk to current/former members (discreetly).
- Assess Costs vs. Benefits: Are the fees and obligations worth the potential rewards for you at your current level?
- Read the Fine Print: Contracts and oaths often have hidden clauses. If you can't read, find someone trustworthy (difficult) to explain it.
- Consider Alternatives: Sometimes freelance work or informal associations offer more freedom, though less security.
Joining a Guild can provide structure and opportunity, but choose wisely. Aligning yourself with the wrong faction can lead to powerful enemies or a life spent fulfilling tedious fetch quests for demanding superiors.
(Inkstained Prophet's Cynical Observation: Most Guilds primarily exist to make the Guild Masters rich and give adventurers someone to blame when quests go wrong.)
[Kevin's Story: Part 13 - Whispers and Wages]
The silver piece felt like a lead weight in Kevin's pouch. It represented more money than he'd earned in total since arriving, a potential shortcut to better gear or maybe even proper lodging. But it also felt like dangerous money, tied to Finn's shady past and the mysterious, omniscient Veteran. He decided to keep it hidden for now, sticking to coppers for his daily expenses.
His routine continued: work at the Sailor, odd jobs, the occasional (and still hated) rat hunt. His EXP slowly climbed (172/200). He was getting fitter, faster, slightly more competent. His [Basic Toolkit] saw regular use, and he even managed to successfully haggle Boltar the hardware vendor down by a single copper on a handful of nails Kevin needed for a repair job, earning a grudging nod of respect. Small victories.
He spent more time listening in the market and around the docks, putting the Guide's advice on information gathering (Sections 74 & 119) into practice. He learned to linger near gossiping merchants, pretending to inspect cheap trinkets, or sit nursing a watered-down ale (bought with his own coppers!) in the corner of the Drunken Sailor, absorbing the chatter.
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Themes emerged. Tension was high between the established Merchants' Guild and newer, independent traders trying to undercut prices. The City Guard seemed stretched thin, with increasing reports of petty crime and smuggling – likely the Wharf Rats gang, led by Grok, becoming bolder. There were also whispers of ships going missing further out at sea, near the Serpent's Tooth isles, blamed on pirates or sea monsters, depending on who you asked. And occasionally, hushed talk of strange lights seen over the Old Temple ruins on the cliffs overlooking the city, dismissed by most as swamp gas or drunken fantasies.
He heard Finn's name mentioned once or twice, usually in dismissive tones as a "gambling fool" or "small-time runner" who got what was coming to him. No one seemed to know or care who actually killed him, confirming the old fisherman's initial assessment. It was just another death in the rough-and-tumble port city.
One afternoon, while helping Martha unload a delivery of ale barrels (his STR 9 making the task manageable now, not agonizing), Bors, the taciturn cook, surprised him by speaking more than two words.
"Heard 'bout job," Bors grunted, wiping sweat from his brow. "Adventurers' Guild. Needin' bodies. Goblin trouble up in foothills."
Kevin blinked. The Adventurers' Guild? Like in the games? And the Guide's Appendix F? It sounded dangerous, far more so than rats or loose hinges. Goblins. Actual goblins.
"Adventurers' Guild?" Kevin asked cautiously. "Isn't that... risky?"
Bors shrugged, a surprisingly expressive gesture for him. "Pay better 'n rats. Kill ten goblins, get silver. Need proof, though. Ears, usually." He grimaced. "Messy."
Ten goblins for silver. It was tempting, especially with the hidden silver piece burning a hole in Kevin's pouch, reminding him of bigger possibilities. But the Guide warned about incompetent teammates, high risks, and needing a competency test. He pictured himself, Level 2 Odd Jobber with a rusty shank, trying to join. Laughter seemed the most likely outcome.
"Maybe... maybe not yet," Kevin said.
Bors just grunted again, seemingly having expended his conversational quota for the week, and went back to inspecting a side of beef.
But the seed was planted. The grind was stable, but slow. Real progress, the kind that might lead to finding out more about the Veteran or surviving whatever trouble Finn had stirred up, might require taking bigger risks. Joining a Guild? Tackling actual monsters?
That evening, back in the relative safety of his storeroom, Kevin pulled out the Guide interface. He skipped past the familiar Modules and Appendices he'd already consulted and started browsing, scrolling through chapter titles and section headers, trying to get a sense of the sheer scope of the thing.
Module 58: Interdimensional Etiquette.
Section 142: Basic Enchanting (and How to Avoid Accidental Curses).
Appendix J: A Brief History of Known Truck-kun Variants.
Module 99: Dealing with Prophecies (Especially Vague Ones).
Section 211: Identifying Mimics (Hint: Lick Everything With Caution... Actually, Don't).
The vastness was overwhelming. Inkstained Prophet really had covered everything. Tucked away between a treatise on celestial navigation and a guide to negotiating with sentient fungi, he found a short entry:
[Excerpt from Transmigration 101: A Guide for Your Second Life, Section 88: Leveraging Low-Level Skills in Unexpected Ways]
...Often overlooked, mundane skills acquired through early-game grinding can have surprising utility. [Basic Repair] might seem less glamorous than [Fireball Barrage], but fixing the broken quest-critical McGuffin earns favor faster than incinerating the quest-giver's hut. [Urban Navigation] can uncover hidden paths leading to informants or escape routes. Even [Rat Catching], beyond its meager monetary reward, hones tracking, stealth (in darkness), and desensitization to gore – all valuable traits for aspiring adventurers (or paranoid survivors)... Consider how your current, seemingly pathetic skill set might be applied creatively before rushing to acquire flashier, potentially useless abilities...
Kevin looked at his own skills. [Basic Street Brawling], [Petty Theft], [Urban Navigation], [Weapon Maintenance], plus the toolkit use implied by his Odd Jobber path. Maybe... maybe he didn't need the Adventurers' Guild just yet. Maybe he could leverage what he already had. He just needed the right opportunity.
And maybe, just maybe, figure out how to raise that damned LUK stat without resorting to questionable demonic pacts (presumably covered in Module 666).