Chapter 196: Building the Standard
The Research Guild’s main meeting room had been taken over.
Papers covered the two central tables. Three blackboards had been wheeled in from different parts of the building and positioned at angles around the space.
Books were stacked in several locations with notes inserted between pages.
Two researchers were already arguing about something when Lily walked in, a low productive argument, the kind that meant both people had ideas and were testing them against each other.
Everyone turned when she entered.
One researcher raised his hand immediately. He had the expression of someone who had been waiting since yesterday for this meeting to start.
"How do we train city guardians?" he said.
Lily blinked. "Good question."
Everyone laughed.
She walked to the nearest blackboard. She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote one word.
Training.
Then she turned back.
"Let’s build the best curriculum in Mythal," she said.
The room immediately became animated. Several people started talking at once. Someone pulled a chair closer to the blackboard. Another opened a notebook to a fresh page.
...
The first suggestion came within thirty seconds.
"Combat," one researcher said. He said it with the confidence of someone who considered this obvious. "Lots of it. Different types. Make them stronger than any guild hunter."
Another nodded. "That covers most situations."
Lily shook her head.
Everyone looked at her.
"No?" the first researcher said.
"If they’re only good at fighting, they’re just another hunter," she said. "Mythal already has plenty of those."
Silence.
She wrote beneath the word Training:
Combat. Then underneath it: Not enough.
One researcher said, "What happens when two guilds are arguing and nobody has thrown a punch yet?"
"Fight them preemptively?" someone offered.
Laughter.
Lily smiled. "No."
"Then what?"
"You talk to them," another researcher said slowly, as though arriving at something he had not initially considered.
"Yes," Lily said. She wrote: Negotiation.
"What if the talking doesn’t work?"
She wrote: Conflict Mediation.
"What’s the difference?"
"Negotiation is before it gets heated," she said. "Mediation is when it already is and you’re trying to bring it back from that point."
The first researcher nodded. "Okay. Those are different."
...
The board started filling.
A researcher in the back raised his hand. "What if someone actually breaks city law during an incident? The Attendant needs to know what they can do about it."
Lily wrote: Law.
"What if a dungeon behaves unexpectedly while they’re working in or near one?"
Dungeon Procedures.
"What if civilians get trapped somewhere and the Attendant is the only one present?"
Emergency Response.
"What about evidence? If two guilds are blaming each other for something that happened, how does an Attendant figure out who’s telling the truth?"
Lily paused for a moment. "That’s a good one." She wrote: Investigation.
"What if the Attendant shows up after everything is over and needs to understand what happened?"
"They still investigate," Lily said.
"So they need to be able to read a scene. See what happened from what was left behind."
"Yes." Observation.
Someone shouted from the back of the room, "What if two hunters refuse to calm down and it’s escalating?"
Another researcher said, "Call Raze."
The room laughed.
Lily was smiling. "After Raze," she said. She added Conflict Mediation to the list and put a star beside it.
The board now had eight categories running down it in Lily’s handwriting.
Combat. Investigation. Observation. Law. Negotiation. Conflict Mediation. Emergency Response. Dungeon Procedures.
She stepped back and looked at it.
"Start building scenarios," she said.
...
A researcher in the middle of the room said, "Guild A accuses Guild B of stealing monster cores from a shared gate run. Attendant arrives. What do they do?"
Immediately several people responded.
"Question both parties separately."
"Look for physical evidence before anyone can move things."
"Separate everyone first so they can’t coordinate their stories."
Lily wrote: Secure the scene before anything else.
Another researcher said, "A monster appears in the middle of the investigation."
"Fight it," someone said immediately.
"While protecting the civilians," another added.
"And calling Soldiers for support," a third said.
"All three simultaneously?" someone asked.
"Prioritized," Lily said. "Civilians first. Then contain the monster. Then Soldiers if needed. The investigation resumes after."
She wrote this down in a shorter form.
Another scenario appeared from the other side of the room. "Two guild leaders want to settle a dispute with a duel and they’re about to do it in a market district."
"Stop them," someone said.
"Or redirect them," another said.
"Find an appropriate location," a third added. "Somewhere empty. A contained dungeon space, or a designated training area."
"Medical team standing by," someone else said.
"No civilians nearby."
"Official witnesses from the Abyss Watchers so the outcome is documented."
Lily kept writing. Her chalk was moving faster now.
One of the younger researchers said, "What if an Attendant suspects someone is lying but can’t prove it?"
Lily stopped writing. She looked at him.
"What do they do?" she said.
He looked uncertain. "Document what they can verify and note what they can’t?"
"Yes," she said. "An Attendant who claims certainty they don’t have is a worse problem than a case that takes longer to close. Write down what you know, what you suspect, and why you suspect it. Separately."
She wrote: Document facts and suspicions separately. Never present suspicion as fact.
One of the older researchers in the room, who had been quieter than most, said, "What if the Attendant makes a call that turns out to be wrong?"
The room was quiet for a moment.
Lily said, "Then another Attendant reviews the situation and determines how it should have been handled. And the original Attendant accounts for the decision."
"And if they can’t account for it?"
"Then that’s an investigation," she said.
The older researcher nodded. "So the system has to be able to examine itself."
"Yes," Lily said. "That’s not optional."
She wrote: The system must be able to investigate itself.
Someone said quietly, "That’s harder than everything else on the board."
"I know," Lily said.
...
After an hour the room had slowed from its initial speed to a more focused pace. People were still generating ideas but now they were testing them against each other before putting them forward. The arguing had become more specific, less about what to include and more about how things should work in relation to each other.
The older researcher raised his hand again. "When does someone graduate? When are they actually an Attendant?"
Lily thought about this. She had been thinking about it for a while.
"When everyone trusts them," she said.
The room was quiet.
"That’s difficult to measure," a researcher said.
"Exactly," she said.
Another said, "They could pass every test you put on that board and still not be ready."
"Yes," she said.
"Then who decides?"
"The city," she said.
Someone whispered, "I like that."
She kept looking at the board. "We can test knowledge. We can test skill. We can test performance in scenarios. But trust is built over time by people who watch someone work. The test is real situations with real stakes. The grade is whether people stop worrying when an Attendant shows up."
A researcher said, "So the curriculum doesn’t end."
"No," she said. "It’s ongoing. Every incident teaches something. Every review adds to the record. The best Attendants will have long records of small correct decisions, not one dramatic moment."
...
The room kept working as the morning moved toward afternoon.
The board was completely full. Someone had started a second blackboard. The papers on the tables had multiplied. Three separate arguments were running at once, each one productive, each one generating more writing.
One researcher leaned back in his chair and looked at the boards.
"So is this the curriculum?" he said.
Lily looked at the boards. At the eight categories. At the scenarios filling the second blackboard. At the notes on the tables.
"No," she said.
Everyone blinked.
"This is the first draft."
Groaning. Some genuine, some performed for the experience of it.
One researcher put his pen flat on the table. "We’re going to be here all week."
Lily smiled. "Probably."
Another researcher laughed. "Still worth it."
She looked at the room. People arguing about the investigation category. Someone drawing a flow chart for the emergency response section. Two researchers erasing and rewriting the conflict mediation standards for the third time because neither was satisfied with how the previous version had handled a specific scenario.
She could picture it.
Attendants who knew the law. Who could read a scene without being told what happened. Who could negotiate before a situation became violent and contain it cleanly when it did anyway. People that every guild in Mythal could look at and say yes, we trust that person to be in the room when something goes wrong.
Not because they were the strongest.
Because they had been built to be trustworthy.
She quietly said, "I think we’re building something special."
The room kept working.
Nobody heard her.
That was fine.