Azure: Gunner

“Y’all, we're back for real this time. I just needed a little hair of the dog! This is the Voice of the People, coming to you live from K-RAD LA!

“If y’all are listening right now, I bet y’all missed the show last night! IT WAS WASTED MAGNIFICENT! WOOHOO!

“I learned a little something last night, so lemme drop some knowledge on y’all – you can get thrown out of your own fucking party! WORTH IT!”

- DJ Demophon Kerner on K-RAD LA, April 20th, System Year 453

I guessed it was another fifteen minutes before Tara emerged from the office, her eyes red but her face mostly composed.

“I still don’t want you to send a message to my father!” she asserted to Thompson, who was right behind her.

“I have already agreed to take on as much risk for you as I ever have for a student, Miss Gleason. I will not needlessly risk further antagonizing your family by withholding the news from them.”

The stern Head Instructor looked at Arlo and me. “Trainee Hammersmith, Recruit Az – you will accompany Recruit Gleason to her previous room and assist her in collecting her belongings and finding a bed for her in the recruit’s dormitories. Dismissed.”

She disappeared back into her room before I could react. I jumped to my feet and looked at Tara in shock.

“Recruit Tara?! What did you do?!”

“I did what I had to,” she responded angrily. “She told me there was only so much she could do to protect one trainee from harassment by another, especially without my family’s support. So, I joined the Guild!” her voice ended on a triumphant note.

“Now I’m committed for five years, just like the rest of you. If Yuri’s thugs want to drag me off to marry him they’ll be going up against the Wasted Guildmaster! I’d love to see them try to get away with THAT!”

My mouth clicked shut as I followed her out the door. I was not expecting this… I hope she’s going to take this seriously and not just doing it because she didn’t get any sleep last night!

We ran into Zaire as we walked back to the dorms. I quickly explained the situation to him, then asked if he knew if any of the rooms in our dorm were still empty. The grey-skinned manaborn frowned.

“I do not believe so, Gunner Az, but if I recall correctly, Jayce does not currently have a roommate.”

“Great, thanks Zaire! Can you go wake them up, or find them if they’re awake, and let her know that Tara is moving in with them?”

“Hey, don’t I get a choice?” Tara asked. “What if I want to share a room with you instead?”

“What’s this?” a voice hissed, and my mind sputtered. I knew it would be a terrible idea to say yes to her, as much as I was tempted to do so. She’s still a Gleason, I reminded myself, and your teammate.

“It’s none of your business, Yuri!” Tara growled, and I realized suddenly that Yuri had stepped out of the door of the trainees’ building just in time to hear Tara’s suggestive question to me.

“I think it’s very much my business if my fiancee is talking about sharing a room with someone!” his voice rose to a shout.

“I’M NOT YOUR FUCKING FIANCEE, SHITBIRD, NOT NOW AND NOT EVER! AND I JUST JOINED THE GUILD, SO IF YOU WANT ME, YOU’ll HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE MOTHERFUCKING GUILDMASTER TO GET ME!”

I grabbed Tara’s arm just to make sure she didn’t take a swing at Yuri. She angrily shook me off, then stomped past a stunned Yuri into the building. I took a moment to relish the look of utter confusion on the shitbird’s face before hurrying after Tara, with Arlo at my heels.

The inside of the trainee’s building was much, much nicer than mine. The floor was carpeted, the mana lights hung in decorative iron cages, the ceiling was higher, the furniture much newer and more luxurious. It wasn’t even battered to near death like the table in my room. I barely had time to gape at any of it before I had to hurry after Tara. Her room was on the second floor, and it was easily as nice as the inn’s finest rooms back in Sunland.

She had a small sitting area, her own bathroom, and a bedroom the size of mine – except it was all for just one person. There were a few clothes strewn about, a small pile of training weapons leaning precariously against one wall, and books spread out over a desk twice the size of mine and probably ten times more expensive. Tara went to work picking up the clothes and vanishing them into her Inventory, while Arlo gathered the weapons.

I stood around awkwardly and pretended I was supervising the process. It took less than ten minutes for her to collect everything and double-check under the bed. She handed me a full, heavy pack – at least the size of mine and made of much nicer leather, practically overflowing with more clothes.

“Can you store that for me, Az? My Inventory is full!” she asked politely. I felt the rush of stamina flow out of me as I stored it and realized it had to weigh more than mine had with camping gear and a bedroll in it.

“How much stuff did you bring?” I asked numbly, wondering what possible use anyone could have for so many outfits. Especially if they were going to end up wearing their armor around all day almost every day like the rest of us.

“This? This is practically nothing compared to what I have back home,” she said with a laugh. “Come on, I can’t wait to get out of here. Are you sure I can’t room with you?”

The Defender was obviously in a much better mood now, as she practically danced back into the hallway. She almost collided with Marta who was standing outside with her arms crossed.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Can’t room with who, honey?” the Archer asked in a snide tone. “What’s the matter, are you leaving us?”

“You bet I am, honey,” Tara replied, and stalked off, leaving a surprised Marta staring after her, her face reddening. I winked at the obnoxious Archer and followed Tara. When we got to Jayce’s room, the cyborg’s door was open and they were sitting on their bed talking with Zaire. The cyborg rose to their feet and looked at Tara and me coolly.

“Zaire informed me of your request to share our room, Tara.”

“I hope you don’t mind, Jayce, but it seems there’s no empty rooms in the building. And honestly, I’ll feel much safer sharing the room with a teammate!”

“We do not know if we appreciate being asked to serve as your bodyguard, Tara,” Jayce replied, their face unreadable.

Tara’s shoulders suddenly slumped and she turned to me with a pleading expression on her face. It definitely didn’t affect me in the slightest as I ignored her to look at the purple-haired cyborg.

“Jayce, it’s going to be fine. Yuri would have to be crazy to try anything here in the dorms, there’s always people around. It’s when we’re outside that we need to be careful and keep an eye out for each other.”

I met their unblinking gaze for a long moment, then they pointed to the bed on the other side of the room. Tara smiled and thanked them, while I summoned her overloaded pack back out of my Inventory and handed it to her. It barely fit into the chest by her bed, and there was clearly no room for the rest of her clothes.

“You can have the extra chest from my room, we’ll drag it over here after we get some breakfast. Come on, I’m starving!”

The dining hall was more crowded than I’d seen it before, even though I didn’t see all of our class there. It was the second semester students that had taken over a number of tables, forcing everyone else to squeeze in. Almost everyone, that is, because H’ruk, G’hala, and Raylan were cheerfully eating at a table with no one else. We joined them as soon as we had our food, and I used the Comms to fill everyone in on the situation. Then something occurred to me, and I looked at Tara.

<What was the last thing Thompson was saying, about telling your father?>

<She’s going to send a message with the next Courier to let him know that I’ve joined the Guild,> Tara said, visibly frustrated.

<So, what does that mean? I mean, he can’t do anything about it, can he? Isn’t it too late now?>

<He can’t stop me from joining the Guild, but he can cut me off! I bet he’s going to revoke my account access!>

I looked around, and saw Arlo nodding but the rest, like me, seemed confused.

<What does that mean, revoke your account access?> I finally asked.

She looked at me in surprise, then sighed. <Sorry,> she apologized, <I forget that not everyone – nevermind. You know how you can pay the System to unlock more features for you, right?>

I nodded. <Yeah, that fucker wants two eagles to upgrade my alarm!>

She laughed. <Yes, like that, only there are a lot more expensive options too. One of them is a shared family account. So like, I have basically no money in my personal account, but I have access to one of my family’s accounts. He can cut me off from those funds, so I’ll be broke!>

<Can you not transfer funds to your own account, Defender Tara?> Zaire asked.

She shook her head. <No, I’m not permitted to do that.>

“Hahaha!” Raylan suddenly laughed, and we all turned to him in confusion.

<Tell me, Tara, is there any limit on how much you can spend from the family account?> he asked with a grin.

<Well, yeah, but I’m not sure what it is actually…>

<And, would your father be able to reclaim anything you’ve already purchased, once he revokes your account?>

She frowned, thinking for a moment.

<He might, but only if it were a really large amount of money. I doubt he’d try to fight over anything smaller, if only because it wouldn’t be worth sending someone all the way out here to argue about it, and it would be embarrassing to the family reputation. Why?>

Raylan rubbed his hands together with an eager, vicious smile.

<Because, my dear, we’re already going to town today. You can simply look for the most valuable items on sale there and buy them, then hold them in Inventory until you’re cut off! Then, you re-sell them, and boom! You have your own funds!> The Knife Fighter laughed, clearly pleased with his scheme.

Clever! I don’t think I would have thought of that, at least not until it was too late.

The blonde smiled, then paused thoughtfully and shook her head.

<That might not work,> she admitted. <The problem is, he’ll be able to see what purchases I’ve made – not the details, but the amount and to whom I sent it. So, if there’s even someplace selling valuable items in Backhorn spending a bunch of money there would tip him off that something fishy was going on.>

She paused for a few moments, then grinned.

<Ah, I have a much better idea! Well, it might not really accomplish what you were suggesting, but it’ll be much more practical!>

<I like practical,> G’hala chimed in with a toothy smile.

<My parents may be mad at me, but it would be hard for them to object to me spending some small – by their standards – amount of money making sure my teammates have the best gear! Especially since we’ll be going into the dungeon together!>

I sat back in my chair, feeling conflicted. It’s fucking blood money, Az… How did they get so rich in the first place? It was by milking the people of places like Sunland, imposing their crazy contracts on them, and reaping the benefits while everyone else took the risks! FUCK! I don’t want any part of it!

I sat there, watching the rest of the team smile and agree how clever Tara was. I quickly realized that I couldn’t stop them from taking advantage of her, well, it wasn’t exactly generosity, but I still couldn’t blame them. Another part of my mind started coming up with justifications.

Wouldn’t it be sweet, to take some of that money from them for nothing? Besides, you’re basically earning it, putting up with this bullshit and getting involved in this mess… But it’s better for you to have it than them. It could get you some useful gear, give you another boost in power… Shit, this is complicated!

It was H’ruk’s eager expression that finally broke my resolve. I held up my hands to halt the confusing conversation – one disadvantage of the Comms was that everyone heard everything equally loudly, no matter who you were directing it at.

<All right, calm down everyone. I think this changes our plans for today. We were originally going to leave after lunch, but if we’re really going to do this, then I think we should head out now. We won’t get another shot at this, if Tara’s family finds out before next Sunday anyway.>

<They definitely will,> she told us. <The Guild keeps in regular communication between here and the headquarters, and if I’m not mistaken the weekly Courier leaves on Sundays. They probably only need a day to reach LA, so my parents will likely find out by tomorrow, unless we were lucky enough that the Courier had already left when we talked to Thompson.>

I remembered the runner we’d passed on our way into the Academy the week before and shook my head.

<I doubt it, I remember we passed a Courier leaving here the day we arrived and that was later in the morning. Well, let’s get going then!>