When I got back to the mages guild, I found Simon talking to a couple other people in the lobby. One was a guy, maybe around late college age, with long, wavy, dark blond hair and glasses. His glasses stand out because very few people in this world have glasses. Although my spell teacher here did and I have seen a couple others wearing glasses while passing through the mages guild lobby. So it’s a bit less surprising right here. He wore a somewhat worn mage robe with what looked to be several large gashes that had been inexpertly stitched so they were obvious repair jobs. The other was a woman who looked to be in her early 30s, with straight black hair in a fairly nice looking bob cut. Are there stylists in this world? She wore leather armor with riveted plates, much like mine, except hers was dyed black and her spaulders had visible plates on the outside rather than just having the rivets showing. On her back, which was turned to me until I caught Simons eye and she looked my way, she carried a greatsword with an intricately etched pommel inlaid with something red. As she turned towards me, I felt like she looked familiar somehow.

Simon: “Ah, guys, this is Maeve. Maeve, meet Darcy and Kuro.”

Darcy: “Maeve r’Enatus the guild leader? Of Purple Shield?”

Maeve: “Yeah, I … wait, Darcy?”

That’s where I recognized her from. Like me, she looked like one of her Three Moons characters. One who hadn’t shown up online since … was it 8 or 9 months before I came here. I had asked Simon, and he said that he didn’t particularly look like either of his characters. But apparently I’m not the only one who does.

Darcy and Kuro bowed in that Japanese style I’ve seen in movies and stuff.

Darcy: “I’m pleased to get the chance to meet you in real life.”

Maeve: “Likewise. It’s way cool to actually see a guildmate again. It’s been, what … 10 or 11 months?”

Darcy looked pleased. But then she suddenly smacked Kuro on the shoulder and he winced. She said something in I guess Japanese to him that … it wasn’t loud, but there was a yelling tone to it. I think one of the words was “gaijin”, but I didn’t recognize any of the rest. Then the two argued back and forth for a bit while Simon looked about as confused as I felt.

Darcy: “Sorry, he should not have bowed. He likes to pretend that he’s Japanese. But he’s not. …”

Kuro: “Ugh. Do you have to tell people?”

Darcy: “... It’s embarrassing. He only knows my culture from manga and anime before meeting me. So naturally he gets a lot of it wrong. …”

Kuro: “Oh, come on.”

Darcy: “... Although I do appreciate that there is someone else here who knows my native language. He is at least fluent. And his American accent is reasonably little.”

Kuro: “Thanks.”

Dude blushed a little at the vaguely complimentary assessment of his Japanese language skills.

Darcy: “Thank you, Maeve, for remembering me. I can only hope my son and granddaughter do as well.”

Maeve: “You have a grandchild? But you’re so young.”

Darcy: “Hehehe. Not originally. Although I may be young here, I suppose. Probably about the age I was when I had my son, maybe.”

By that point, the guild was preparing to close up the lobby to regular visitors, so we relocated to a tavern for dinner.

Darcy: “Do you plan to try to reform the guild over here?”

Maeve: “I don’t know. It sounds like adventurers guilds aren’t a thing here, right?”

Kuro: “Quite the opposite of being a thing. We tried to register to start one. It was a big hassle. There’s no dedicated office for starting guilds, so we had to ask around at existing guilds how they started. And most of them were like, ‘That was way long ago. No idea. But we’ve got this charter if you can read.’ We had to jump through all sorts of hoops just to prepare documents with a petition and a plan of what the guild would do and how it would run … the charter. Several officials along the way turned us down until we … uh … persuaded them. And even then the most they’d do is pass the buck to someone higher up. Eventually, we wrangled an audience with the king. He skimmed our documents, looked us over, had priests do the diagnostic thingy, whispered with them a bit, and then turned us down and ordered us not to ask again. Harder and less rewarding than finals week. Wanna’ see the charter?”

Maeve: “Sure.”

Kuro pulled out a rolled up document and handed it over before saying, “You can have one. I’ve got 4 more copies and nothing to do with them.”

Darcy: “Except maybe give them as souvenirs to our children.”

Kuro, who’d been taking a drink of ale, did a full-fledged spit take all over Simon. Then apologized and used a spell to dry Simon off.

Darcy: “Hehehe. Sorry. He’s so much fun to tease. Don’t worry, Paul, I haven’t changed my mind about waiting till after we’ve saved the world for the first time.”

Kuro: “Kuro. Kuro!”

Darcy: “Ah. Right, right. Kuro.”

His indicator said, “Paul Drummond” rather than “Kuro”. But whatever someone wants to be called is fine by me. Darcy’s actually says, “Darcy r’Dunmar”, just like her main from the game.

Maeve: “So what have you guys been up to?”

Darcy: “Aside from failing to start a guild? Heh. Before that, we spent our savings learning spells.

Kuro: “And I got a pair of sai made.”

He showed off his sai set.

Darcy: ”Yeah, that. Since then, we’ve been doing odd jobs around the city. Nothing that pays much though. So that’s another reason we’ll probably head out on monster patrol soon.”

Maeve: “Want to go out together, the four of us?”

Kuro: “An option dialog? How’d you do that?”

Darcy: “Accepting?”

Kuro: “Let’s.”

Darcy: “OK.”

But then as we were finishing up dinner and sketching out our plans for heading out in the morning, a teenage girl courier somehow found us. Or I guess I should say ‘found me’. 

Courier: “Maeve r’Enatus?”

Maeve: “That’s me.”

Courier: “This is for you.”

And she handed me a letter. Then she hastened off as soon as it was in my hand. The letter had a wax seal on it.

Maeve: “Looks like an official city seal, maybe.”

Darcy: “Yeah, I think I saw one sort of like it in the game.”

The letter read, 

“Maeve r’Enatus, 

Your presence is requested before his majesty King Selkir the 42nd. Please attend on [...] at midday. 

Finnean d’Selkir, Steward

- Common attire allowed.

- One guest permitted.”

Maeve: “Huh. Apparently we’re going to have to put off heading out till a bit later.”