The first thing Marie did when she woke… was to find and down a glass of cold water.

  The second thing she did was to search out the [Guildmaster].

  Guildmaster Thror was in the courtyard to the east of the main hall, performing a workout routine so exacting that it would have made her feel nauseous if she’d not been single-mindedly focussed on the outrage in her gut.

  The tabaxi balanced on one foot, the other stretching out behind him, counterbalanced by a flick of a morning star to the front as he crouched low. If she’d been standing in front of him it would have taken out her knees, but as he was facing away from her all it did was make her slow her approach and swing round so as to not surprise him, Napoleon following dutifully behind.

  “[Guildmaster] Thror.”

  Without breaking his routine, the [Guildmaster] responded, pivoting around as he switched facing in one sinuous motion.

  “Yes, [Scout] Marie?”

  She could feel her nostrils flaring as she replied.

  “It is not just [Scout] and [Ruins Delver] now, [Guildmaster]. When I slept last night I gained the [Secretary] Class, and a few Skills - including [Conditional Skill – Guild Seal: Wayfarrow Adventurer’s Guild]!”

  There was the briefest pause and grunt of effort as the guildmaster performed a one-legged backflip and landed, perfectly balanced, on the opposite leg.

  “Congratulations. You may take a gold piece per level as a bonus, and another for the Guild Skill.”

  Marie took a step forwards before pausing as Thror began a complicated series of jabs and swipes against an imaginary opponent.

  “It is not an occasion for congratulations, Sir. I am not a - not some c… I will not be labelled as a [Secretary].”

  Napoleon sat down on his haunches, as if to emphasise her point.

  The tabaxi finished his flurry of activity, focussed on something she couldn’t see. She was wondering if he’d even listened to her, or if he’d already started treating her like some underling devoid of his notice, when he replied.

  “What’s wrong with being a [Secretary]?”

  Marie opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she opened it again.

  “I am more than just a [Secretary]. I am an archaeologist - even if I’m not an [Archaeologist]. I didn’t go to university for five years to stand behind a desk and take notes and run errands.”

  Having reached the end of his workout, Thror began a series of stretches to warm down.

  “So don’t. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “But - then why did I get the Class? And the Skill?”

  The guildmaster rolled his shoulders and shrugged. There was barely a hint of exertion about him, despite the rising sun and heat.

  “Why does anyone? Because you earned it. If you don’t want it, then next time refuse it, or try to consolidate or evolve it into something else; I’m sure there are Classes that start as a [Secretary].” He finished his stretches and walked over to a bench and picked up a towel to wipe himself down. “However, if you are planning on working here - and taking a room as an office and sleeping here despite my guild not being a flophouse seems to suggest you are - then you may find the Class beneficial.”

  Marie took a step back, her voice losing some of its combative edge.

  “But, I’m more than just a [Secretary].”

  Guildmaster Thror blinked in surprise.

  “Of course you are. You’re a [Scout] and [Ruins Delver] and probably a host of other things besides. You seem to be taking this personally, [Scout] Marie. You’re no more your Class than you choose to be. Nothing is forcing you to be anything - whether [Scout] or [Secretary] or anything else… are they? If you want to be something else - just do it.”

  A pair of adventurers came out of the main guild and began to spar off to one side of the courtyard - well away from the skeletal figure of Napoleon who’d wandered over to inspect them - as Marie thought for a moment.

  “That… makes sense.”

  The [Guildmaster] inclined his head.

  “I’m glad you are reassured, Miss Marie. If you are intending to continue working in the guild you may draw a stipend commensurate with your position as a [Secretary] at your current [Secretary] level, provided you perform the same duties as Greeleena and Wilhelmina and Rudi. I believe we will have enough work to go round. If you find it disagrees with your sensibilities or you wish to pursue a different career, simply let one of us know and pursue that instead.”

  Marie nodded her agreement, and the tabaxi guildmaster began to walk off, before she called after him.

  “Hold on - should there not be a contract to sign?”

  The guildmaster heaved a great sigh, and walked back into the guild.

  —

  Marie filed her new employment contract in a room behind the main counter that held the few records the guild already kept. They joined her own new Adventurer Profile, and that of the others she’d made notes of the previous night - now written up neatly. She’d add in dividers and categories when there were enough entries to justify their inclusion.

  She’d already helped herself to the eight gold coins as the prescribed reward for her levels and Skill, and now she was meant to go on duty with Wilhelmina to learn the ropes.

  But at the moment, the guild was fairly empty, both of adventurers and the [Secretary] she was meant to be observing.

  A handful of individuals and groups had come into the guild over the course of the past couple of hours - few enough that Rudi had dealt with them all himself. It seemed business was slow. She wondered if that was because Sirrochon’s Spellswords and Evermore’s Flame and the others had set off on their mission to take down the [Bandits] at dawn. A new note on the quest board told her that at least one of them had stopped by on their way out to post an open offer to any others who wanted to join them over the next few days, with a vague offer of loot and levels. She frowned at that. They really should have been more specific on the details and payment.

  Taking out a quill and paper she began to draw up some templates for new quest postings with prompts for the information people would need to make an informed decision until the other [Secretary] came back from whatever task she was engaged with.

  She looked up as heavy footsteps echoed across the carpeted wooden floor and gave a start of surprise.

  “Brunalda. Chiritta. I thought you’d all left.”

  The goliath woman and squirrel-lady approached the counter, and the [Mage] deposited a familiar chest on top of it. One-handed. Napoleon came out from where he’d been gnawing a bone by Marie’s feet and paused for pets, which Chiritta gave him with gusto. Had the squirrel-monk made an impression the previous night? It was all so hazy now…

  Brunalda’s rumbling contralto filled the room.

  “Last minute shopping and spreading the word. The two of us are more than capable of catching the others up.” She looked around and projected to the few individuals lounging round tables and in chairs. “If anyone fancies a chance at some loot. Should be a good fight.”

  “About that.” Marie leaned forward over the counter. “I have added what I can to the new quest log - and I can start filling out the other listing for the quest board - but it’s rather light on information. Would you be able to gauge any of these?”

  She spun the quest log round for Brunalda and Chiritta to see, and the two ran their eyes over the different fields to be filled in.

  “Tough to say.” Brinalda said as she considered one of the categories. “Most [Bandits] I’d guess would be Bronze-rank threats individually, but with the amount there are said to be out there…Silver? Gold?”

  “...then again,” Chiritta took over, “if we get more of us the danger goes down. I’d put it down as high-Bronze to low-Silver if you’ve got to put something. That could change though when we get more people or information.”

  Marie nodded and filled in the box.

  “That’s fine - it’s just the best we can do for now - so we don’t get people too low getting into trouble or too high adventurers taking jobs better suited to lower-ranked teams.”

  “We can put the 26th of Attreman as the deadline.” Brunalda said. “We’ll have to regroup and restock and we’ll be back in town for the full moon regardless. If we need to, we can update it then.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Can’t help with the minimum rate.” Chititta said, tail twitching as she continued to scratch Napoleon. “It’s a mission from the council so it depends what they paid in, or what they promised. You’d have to ask them for that.”

  The two scanned the rest of the criteria.

  “We’ll give you some more information when we’re next back - if we have it.” Brunalda said, straightening up. “Sorry about your treasure chest - nothing we tried worked so far. If any of us level against the [Bandits] and get a Skill that might help, we’ll have another go. We should really be heading off now though.”

  Marie nodded her understanding and closed the quest log.

  Chiritta left off playing with Napoleon and glanced upwards to where Brunalda towered over her.

  “What do you say [Mage]. Race?”

  The goliath woman just grinned, and as Rudi let out an exclamation of dismay and threw himself over a stack of paper ten feet away, the two adventurers each spoke.

  “{Giant’s Stride}!”

  “[Training Regimen: Burst of Speed], [Enhance Efficiency: Running], [I Travelled Across Countries].”

  Marie barely managed to catch Brunalda’s curse as the squirrel-monk turned into a blur of colour that was out of the door before she’d finished speaking, but, if anything, the eddies of wind thrown up as the goliath woman began sprinting out of the guild were even more impressive. Napoleon was sent spinning head over tail in their wake.

  Half a dozen books and papers and a handful of quests on the board went flying, and Rudi and Marie spent a frantic few moments snatching them up before they flew out the door, and Marie cursed silently: she’d not thought to ask them about signing on for the injury payout option she wanted to trial.

  Just as Marie was pinning the last quest back onto the board, a woman with a mop of green, frazzled hair tottered through the entrance, legs shaking as she threw out a hand to steady herself on the doorframe.

  As the newly-minted [Secretary, Marie] didn’t recognise the woman until she stumbled round to take a position behind the counter; her hair had been pink the day before. She walked over and stopped politely a few feet away.

  Perhaps because the woman had just been blown over by two Silver-rank adventurers, or perhaps… no. Marie would give her the benefit of the doubt. She was sure Wilhelmina would have questioned a new person standing next to her behind the counter on any other day.

  So, as the green-haired [Secretary] dithered and stared at the tomes and the papers that Rudi was gathering up to put back at the reception, Marie cleared her throat.

  “Wilhelmina? I’m Marie.”

  The other young woman spun round and blinked furiously, as if she’d only just realised someone was standing there.

  “Hello? Um - [Recall Information]. Right. Marie. Newest member of the guild. [Scout]. [Ruins Delver]. Interesting class combination. Potential for… sorry. Hello.”

  Marie could almost see the pieces beginning to fall into place.

  “You were tasked with… have you come to report on your progress? Normally you’d wait on the other side of the counter, but I don’t blame you for getting out of the way of those two… those two.” Her gaze drifted towards the door and her eyebrows drew together. “I’ll need to speak to them about their behaviour on guild premises.” She shook herself and focussed back on Marie. “Sorry. Again. How can I help?”

  Marie put on the most gentle smile and adopted the softest tone she could.

  “I actually completed my task last night. I’m now employed by the guild as a [Secretary] - for the time being. Guildmaster Thror was hoping you’d show me the ropes.”

  The instant the tabaxi’s name was mentioned, Wilhelmina perked up.

  “Oh - of course. Not to correct you or anything but personally I prefer to use his full name. [Guildmaster] Thunderous Roar seems much more appropriate in a work-based setting, don’t you think?”

  That one sentence - with the woman leaning forward and whispering as if confiding a great secret… it told Marie the two of them were not likely to get on without a good deal of effort on her own part. It was a challenge to maintain the smile on her face, but Marie was sure she just about kept it from turning into a grimace.

  “Oh, really?”

  She tried to make it sound like a genuine query, rather than sarcasm. She really did. And it seemed like Wilhelmina took her seriously enough as she continued to divulge her wisdom.

  “Oh yes. And I’d also not take a position behind the counter until I’d done some training. It might come across as presumptive.”

  Merde alors! Okay. This is not going to go this way.

  “Actually Wilhelmina, this isn’t doing anything for me. How about this: I am going to ask you some questions and, if you know the answer, you just tell me. Without any extra advice.”

  The other [Secretary’s] mouth opened in shock, and Marie kept going before the woman could cut her off.

  “C’est parfait. Okay. First off - what exactly are we expected to do for the adventurers and the guild here; what are our core duties?”

  —

  It was a long and painful day working under Wilhelmina and learning the layout of the guild, and more than once Marie began to regret burning her relationship bridge with Wilhelmina so early on - but then the woman would mutter some comment and Marie knew she’d made the right decision.

  “Honestly, Greeleena, how do you stand her?”

  The fungal woman shrugged.

  “She’s good at her job. It’s fine if she’s a bit annoying - I just ignore her when she gets like that and get on with my own work.”

  Marie sighed as she petted Napoleon who was resting on her lap. It was more difficult than that as a new hire, though she’d got most of the information she thought she’d need out of the woman before Wilhelmina had gone on her dinner break. Unfortunately, neither Greeleena nor Rudi were on the night shift tonight, and Wilhelmina would be back to take over when Wayfarrow’s bells next tolled the hour, and Marie still had work to do.

  In order to minimise her interaction with the green-haired [Secretary], Marie headed back into the storerooms before then, leaving her undead hound dozing in front of the fire Rudi had lit. It was shocking how much basic work hadn’t been done. Wilhelmina and Greeleena and Rudi might have kept the guild running and maintained the quest board and taken payments that were due - along with general cleaning and cooking and the like - but there was little else to their roles.

  Besides the secure vault - where most of the coinage and magical artefacts were kept - there were three full rooms (along with a handful of partially-full ones) around the central chamber where stacks of useful items had been stored, with no record of what was actually there. The other would just… wander round them looking for whatever they needed until they stumbled across it.

  So, whilst there were others manning the desk, and the guild was quiet, Marie drew up an inventory.

  At the start, she’d considered adding it all to the loot log, but there was too much of it and she didn’t have the information to fill in most of the categories. Anyway, it was all guild property now.

  She was on the third page of her [Mental Ledger] and she felt it getting close to full, but there was still so much to go; she spent a minute searching and came up with a stack of paper and a pencil: everything she’d need to employ her [Rapid Transcription] Skill.

  Let’s see how fast it actually is.

  Once she’d catalogued it all she’d arranged it by type, Marie could already tell there were enough weapons to make a dedicated if basic armoury, and that there were mostly-serviceable shields and pieces of armour and everyday clothing and boots that could join them. Another room would be dedicated to what she’d mentally labelled as ‘general adventuring supplies’: dented pots, tarnished pans, rope, tents, patchwork blankets, stakes, old backpacks and pouches, flint…

  Note: come up with pre-made packs with essential components for new adventurers.

  The rest fit into two broad categories; furs and hides and bones and ore were ‘materials’ to sell or make use of, whereas books and pennants and statues and the like were potential ‘items of interest’ that she’d arrange to have taken to the market or library for evaluation if the guild didn’t want them itself.

  She paused and added another item to a separate list as her [Treasuresense] began tingling around a dusty, sealed bottle of wine. There were a few pieces that her Skill was telling her were worth more than they seemed.

  Was that because the people put them here valued them less? Or they didn’t realise what they had? Or have they become more valuable with time!

  The possibilities were intriguing. How did Skills like that work? Who assigned the value of an item? Was there an intrinsic quality in this world that linked to an object’s worth? Did the Skill somehow know what someone might pay for it? Would it pick up something that would appreciate over the years? Whatever the mechanism, she hoped the Skill could be used to help fund some more of her plans.

  It took the best part of an hour to finish cataloguing the room - and that was only because she’d started it well before her dinner break. It was only as she exited to move onto the next room that she caught an issue at the reception desk.

  “-ain, gentlemen, I am sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

  Marie caught a flash of green behind the cluster of bodies huddled round the centre of the counter and picked out of a handful of familiar-looking allagi.

  Patting her leg, she called Napoleon over and strode across the room.

  She stopped beside the allagi [Hunters], who noticed her arrival and broke off their discussion with Wilhelmina.

  “Good evening Algar. Ulfran, how are you feeling?”

  Some of the tension in the air dispelled, and the one allagi she’d saved from the snapjaw bowed his head to her.

  “Fully recovered, miss Marie, thank you.”

  Algar stepped in, without bowing, but with no less respect in his voice.

  “Greetings, Marie. We were told we were needed at the guild so those of us who are free have shown up, but this [Secretary],” he flicked his hand towards Wilhelmina, “says she knows nothing about it. Perhaps you could help?”

  Marie nodded and smiled as she walked round to the other side of the reception desk, where Wilhelmina stood with pursed lips and folded arms.

  “Of course.”

  She reached down to a shelf below the counter top that she’d prepared as soon as she’d started work, and pulled out a number of small pouches - one for each of the [Hunters] waiting. She hesitated.

  “Are the others going to come in themselves?”

  The allagi looked at each other before Algar responded.

  “If it’s urgent, I can ask them to come, but some are off hunting.”

  “I can go through you if that’s easier. I’d need someone to take the share to the families of the deceased anyway.”

  “Share of what?” One of the other hunters chimed in, suddenly interested.

  “Of the loot of course.”

  Marie handed Algar his pouch, and then began to distribute the others’, and the frown on Wilhelmina’s face was suddenly overshone by the gasps of wonder and wide eyes of the [Hunters] as they opened the drawstrings and looked inside.

  Ulfran tipped ten shining golden coins out into the palm of his hand, which was shaking slightly.

  Algar managed to tear his eyes off the money and looked up at Marie.

  “What’s this for?”

  She smiled.

  “I told you I’d arrange payment.”

  The [Hunters] broke into excited chatter, with one of the younger ones letting out a whoop, and Wilhelmina stalked off in a huff, informing Marie that she was going to check that the guild’s share was up to code given how much she was handing out to the allagi.

  The next few minutes were spent calming the [Hunters] down and informing them that this was a particularly generous offer courtesy of Braer, but that she’d be ensuring a minimum wage on all future work. She also made sure that Algar was amenable to doling out the rest, and showed him where he’d need to sign in the log books.

  “Oh, and if you stop by at the end of the week, I’ll have some packs assembled for anyone that needs them - basic equipment and a choice of weapon. They’ll be yours for as long as you’re guild members and taking on guild work.”

  Ulfran laughed in delight at the news, and a couple of the others slapped each other on the back, wide grins plastered across their faces, and Marie felt a warm glow settle in her stomach.

  Algar turned back from embracing one of his fellow hunters.

  “Drinks! We must celebrate this, and you, Marie. Come join us and we’ll buy all night!”

  Marie hesitated. It would be the third night in a row, and she had a lot to do in the guild…

  …but they looked so happy. And she’d helped. It would be churlish not to…

  “Let me just tell Wilhelmina that I’m going - and draw up a quick noticeboard for the [Secretaries] to use - and I’ll be right with you. The Grinning Broccsus?”

  Ulfran snorted.

  “Not bloody likely. We’ll take you to a proper watering hole!”

  And despite Wilhelmina’s nebulous protests, Marie found herself being dragged off towards the south-west of the town, where the houses grew steadily shabbier and the people steadily rowdier. At least, the ones that joined in the celebration.

  Hi all! Welcome to my book, Miscast Heroes.

  I'm uploading a few chapters to start with and then will upload one a day after.

  The full first book is available on Patreon - and I greatly appreciate anyone who chooses to support me there.

  Hope you enjoy it - please leave comments below!