Hate to Apathy

The Guild

I stood in front of the guild hall. The building was in the shape of an upside down, wooden ship, with one end cut off to make an entrance, the gaps filled in with spare wood. It resembled one of the large, old Viking houses. Quite impressive, but it paled in comparison to most buildings I remembered from more advanced civilisations.

People were walking in and out, busying themselves with menial or adventurous tasks. I saw that there were groups of four or five people walking in and out of the building. They seemed to be adventuring parties, seeing as they headed to the nearest exit of the city. Typically, there was one warrior, one archer, one rogue, and one caster which was either a religious caster (healer), a dark caster (pure damage dealer), or a regular caster (a mix of both). How did I know about the finer details? I followed a few parties to observe them. I pretended to be gathering berries, and whenever I was questioned, I said I just liked nature, which was true, but not in the way I meant it. I wasn't an outdoorsy person to say the least.

I decided to slip in behind someone else, not wanting to open the door myself for fear of being stared at. I didn't like being the centre of attention. And I managed to slip in unnoticed, but only just. I looked around. I saw that there were a few different sections to the building, and that it was much larger than I originally though.

On the floor I was on (there were several floor, and I even saw stairs going down underground), there were several stands, each with a different insignia on them, followed by a name. There was a bull guild, a shark guild, a wold guild, and various others with similar names of animals.

On the first floor, there was a similar formation of stands, except they all looked a lot more prestigious than the ones on the ground floor. There was a dragon guild, a phoenix guild, a griffin guild, and other guilds with names of other mythical and fantastical creatures.

On the second floor (which was also the top floor), there were guilds that looked very elitist, and they looked very fancy indeed. I didn't like it. There was the "Guild of Water", "Guild of Fire", "Guild of Light", and various other guilds with names of different elements. The top floor had people who looked very intimidating. However, despite that, I didn't feel intimidated. I wasn't scared at all. Compared to some of the cosmic horrors that destroyed planets, solar systems, and even entire galaxies, they weren't scary at all. They did their best to look it though.

A rather large man, quite muscular, but mostly chubby, walked up to me. He shoved me backwards. I didn't fall.

'What's a kid like you doing in a place like this?' He asked, trying again to look terrifying, but he just wasn't doing it.

'Look-king around. I w-was planning on j-joining a guild, b-but I don't know which one.' I said. After a moment of hard staring, he hissed back.

'Tsk. Well, p*ss off! We don't want children getting mixed up with adults!' He turned away and started to leave.

'I'll have you know, I'm perfectly capable of killing you all if I wanted, and presently, I'm rather inclined to.' I stared at him. He looked back at me... and started to sweat. His eyes went wide as I stared into his eyes. He trembled.

'F-fine! Jeez, kid! I'll leave you alone...' he said, still shaking. He then scurried away to his booth. I noticed that it was the "Guild of Fire".

Apparently, they wanted to show their dominance, and instead, they were scared by me, and I didn't even do anything. I didn't even stut-- Wait! I didn't stutter! I didn't flinch! I did notice, however, that it was only after I was threatened that I didn't stutter. Seeing as I stuttered when around the nuns beforehand, and stuttered around Anna, but didn't when angry at the king or being threatened by that numpty from the "Guild of Fire". My conclusion that I only stopped stuttering when I was threatened, or if I was angry. Damn it! That meant I still wouldn't be able to talk to people normally.