Chapter 4
Tiff was, undeniably, bored.
Her impromptu vacation was both well-warranted and properly enforced. Tiff was shocked when she woke to the sun streaming through her window, shining in her eyes, and she panicked as she fumbled for her phone. She lunged toward her nightstand, missed, and instantly crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and twisted blankets.
The noise drew her mother, who squeezed into the room looking too large to be real, and laughed. She helped up her poor, confused daughter and explained.
Tiff ended up falling asleep around 7:30 last night and overslept her alarm. It went off for so long that eventually Amy groused into the room, waking everybody else up as she stomped, and turned it off. She then had a proper meltdown in the hallway, again forced to get ready for school while Tiff didn’t have to, and there was shouting and yelling and maybe a few tears.
Which Tiff slept through obliviously.
Not only that, but as she sat there listening to her mom’s tired-yet-amused retelling, she noticed it was almost noon. She slept for close to 18 hours and she still felt tired. Melissa gave her a worried look and told her that was normal…on the extremes. Tiff didn’t say it out loud, but she felt her whole experience qualified as “extreme”, so she had no choice but to agree. If she didn’t start to feel any better in a day or two, they’d take her to the doctor on the weekend.
Tiff gently shooed her mom out of her room (because the huge woman could only be pushed out when she allowed it) and got dressed. She was still feeling lethargic and out of sorts, and she nearly tripped over her feet as she slid her legs into some sweats. But if that was how she was going to feel all day, she couldn’t be bothered with anything more presentable, like actual pants or a dress. She resigned herself to a full day of rest, relaxation, and bumming around the house.
She didn’t expect her mom to join her the entire time.
In hindsight, she should have guessed something was up the moment her mom walked into her room that morning. Melissa wasn’t a stay-at-home mom; she drove a truck for a living. While that wasn’t the average “9 to 5”, it still had its own routine. She was generally gone for several days, then home for the same amount. Her first day back was usually reserved for domestic chores like groceries and laundry (if her dad didn’t take care of them already), and, like Tiff, Melissa preferred to get things done early so she could be free to do what she wanted later. That meant she either got everything she needed done incredibly early…or she was in babysitting mode.
Tiff should have seen the signs that it was the latter. She had to shoo her fussy mother away a second time when she came back to see if Tiff needed help getting dressed, and a third when she hobbled her way toward the bathroom. Tiff almost reluctantly agreed when, halfway to the toilet, she had to lean against a wall because of a sudden and drastic dizzy spell, but since she was about to be sitting down, she scurried away before her mother could join her in the already cramped space. She didn’t need that right now.
She took another nap from 2 to 3 and woke up when Amy burst into her room, her boisterous and energetic face a nearly perfect facade to mask her true intentions. They were revealed the moment she sat down and fussed over Tiff’s hair, which was in just as much a state of lethargy as the rest of her. Tiff heaved a huge sigh and let her sister glomp onto her, since her concern was genuine and came from a loving spot. She resigned herself to dealing with yet another overly gentle family member treating her like a frail porcelain doll.
Even her dad took several breaks throughout the day to check up on her. While he didn’t show the same degree of protectiveness, his concern was real and Tiff gave him warm, if exasperated, smiles.
The only one who didn’t coddle her like a glass egg was Victoria. Tiff was able to force her family members out of her room under the pretenses of “studying” and “homework”, but Victoria saw through that like the excuse it was. But she didn’t intrude to coddle. She said hello, made sure Tiff didn’t need anything, and shut the door. It wasn’t for another five minutes before Tiff realized her big sister was still in her room, sitting at her desk, reading a book. A sudden movement or an extra scratchy turn of a page caught her attention, making her look up.
“You’re still here?”
“Somebody needs to make sure you’re resting,” Victoria smirked, still focused on her reading.
“I am resting!” Tiff threw her hands in the air, exasperated.
“Yes,” Victoria replied calmly. “And why do you think that is?”
Before Tiff could answer, she saw her door crack open silently as a head peeked through. Her little sister’s gaze was locked onto Victoria sitting at Tiff’s desk and she scowled. Victoria made a little shooing motion with her hand and the door snapped shut.
“So you get to check up on me, but she doesn’t?” Tiff asked, more amused than accusing. Victoria scoffed.
“Please. She just wants to play on your computer. You’d have no peace or quiet.”
“Why’d she need to sneak into my room to do that? She’s got games of her own.”
Victoria put her book down and gave Tiff, sitting on her bed, a lopsided smile. They both knew the answer already. Amy had worked it out in her head that if she wasn’t in her own room playing her own games, technically, she wasn’t goofing off or whatever. They both rolled their eyes at Amy’s mental gymnastics.
“Loopholes,” they both said, sharing a laugh.
“Speaking of loopholes, how are you holding up?”
“Fine?” Tiff tilted her head. Where was this going? “Really bored?”
“I figured. You gonna survive another two days of this?”
Tiff’s eyes twitched. The nurse’s note excused her classes for one full day with recommendations to extend it under certain circumstances. Melissa took that seriously and declared that Tiff’s lingering lethargy and failing coordination met those circumstances, so she arranged for Tiff to stay home from school the rest of the week.
Normally, having no responsibilities and no school for three days before a weekend was a cause for celebration, but after today, Tiff felt she was closer to prison than a party. She was under constant watch and if she so much as sneezed, a “concerned family member” would appear out of nowhere to hover over her.
Victoria saw the clear distress in Tiff’s eyes and laughed.
“I thought so. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Want to go out with me tomorrow?”
“With you?” Tiff parroted back, shocked but interested in this new turn of events.
“Yeah. I was planning on going down to the Guildhall. Want to come with? I think you’ll find it interesting.”
Of course, Tiff found it interesting! She knew hardly anything about her sister’s occupation, other than it was Class-related and potentially dangerous. Just because everybody had a Class didn’t mean they spent their lives enslaved by it. Tons of people did things completely unrelated.
Victoria was not one of those people. She was a [Bodyguard] working for a small hunter’s guild under the Adventurer's Union. Adventurers were the System's alternative to Good or Evil, a sort of Chaos or Neutral. They didn’t have to do good nor did they have to do bad. Oftentimes, they acted purely for personal, financial, or transactional reasons, which is why most Neutral parties eventually found themselves moving toward the Mercenary Affinity. Those who tended to do more good than bad might eventually become something like a Vigilante, while those who didn’t might end up as a Pirate. It was the loosest and most vague branch in the Affinity wheel, having the widest variety of subsets.
Victoria was clearly working toward the “good” side, even though she didn’t want to be shackled by certain preconceptions and limitations of “pure” heroes. She was honest and told anybody who actually asked that her motivations were entirely selfish. And that wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounded. Everyone needed to put bread on the table, and a very strong majority of businessmen were Neutrally aligned, so why should she be judged? She simply wanted something more exciting than sitting behind a desk or a computer screen. She got to be active, exploring Rifts, helping parties defeat monsters, and searching for treasure. The quest for phat loot was a strong lure to many.
“No, we’re not going delving,” Victoria denied instantly, correctly guessing what caused the sudden light in her little sister’s eyes. Tiff deflated, but the smile remained. Yes, getting out of the house did sound good.
“Let’s do it. What time are we leaving?”
“We’ll leave that up to your body, miss lazybones,” Victoria smirked while Tiff rolled her eyes.
Tiff woke up at 9 am, which was an improvement over yesterday, but still left her slightly worried about sleeping 12 or more hours 2 days in a row. Everybody else was either busy or gone for the day, so Tiff and Victoria had a simple breakfast of cereal before heading out to Victoria’s guild.
Victoria was something of a freelancer or independent contractor who worked alongside a bunch of other like-minded individuals. Originally, their guild wasn’t so much a place of employment (like an office or retail job) as a connection agency that handled logistics. The founder, a Mr. Daniel Fowler, founded it several generations ago during the gold rush days as a means for people to make it rich…by hiring people who weren’t suited for prospecting to those who weren’t capable of protecting themselves in Rifts or the wilderness. “Roughnecks” might not sound like the most appropriate name for a modern security firm, but back in the 1850s, they were known as tough, competent people capable of roughing it in the wilds and sticking their necks out for their clients. They weren’t the biggest, most famous, or prestigious. They didn’t have a huge headquarters in downtown Los Angeles or at the top of a skyscraper in San Francisco. It wasn’t as modern or fancy as many other guilds or companies, but it had something most of them didn’t: history.
Tiff was not impressed when Victoria pulled her crappy 1993 Toyota Camry into an average, mundane parking lot surrounded by average, mundane-looking shops. Most of the buildings felt exactly like that car: several decades old with peeling paint and dirt and rust that wouldn’t come off, with some dings here and dents there. The three-story building Victoria was leading them to looked like it might have been a dentist’s practice or an accountant's office.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Victoria smirked as Tiff stared up at her, judging. Her eyes were flat, her mouth pressed into a thin line, and she was repeating a mantra inside her head over and over again.
If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. If you can’t say anything nice….
“This is where you work?” Tiff finally squeezed out the moment Victoria reached for the handle of the tinted glass double doors.
“Yup,” Victoria grinned mischievously. “Looks can be deceiving, you should know. If you aren’t satisfied once we step inside, I’ll buy you ice cream.”
“I want chocolate,” Tiff instantly grumbled as she stepped forward. As far as she was concerned, she already won. “Two scoops, with sprinkles…and…oh wow.”
Tiff swallowed.
It was like she had stepped through a portal back in time.
Polished hardwood floor gleamed under the light of a massive, twelve-foot chandelier that hung suspended from the vaulted ceiling at what Tiff had assumed from the outside was the third floor. A fireplace was set prominently on one wall, with an ornate, exquisitely carved mantle over a red brick hearth, surrounded by high-backed, overstuffed leather armchairs. On its right, cleverly worked into the building, grew an honest-to-goodness pine tree, while on its left towered what Tiff could only guess was a grizzly bear, frozen in a ferocious pose, claws raised and ready to swipe while its mouth was curled into a snarling roar.
Instead of cubicles or a row of plastic waiting benches, split logs had been artfully worked into natural seating around low tables resembling campfires.
Tiff glanced behind her at the windows, but instead of a horse hitched to a post like she expected to see, there was the same beat-up old minivan and Victoria’s Camry.
“Does this mean I owe you ice cream now?” she asked meekly. She was thinking of her meager allowance, which should cover ice cream for two people, but Victoria, like her other sister and their mom, could really pack it away when she wanted to….
“No, silly,” Victoria laughed and mussed Tiff’s hair. “That’s the normal reaction. It’s fun to see people’s faces the first time they come in.”
“Hey, Vicky!” a boisterous male voice called out across the room. Tiff bristled; her sister didn’t like that nickname.
“Fuck off, you asshole!” Victoria yelled right back and Tiff’s mouth dropped. Her sister wasn’t exactly family-friendly all the time, but she didn’t often hear her swear. Especially not across a crowded room! But to her amazement, everybody else laughed.
“Not so fun when somebody else calls you a name you don’t like, is it, Jimmy?” a girl with a massive bow and quiver called out to cheers.
“My name is James, thank you very much!” the loud guy yelled right back.
“Whatever you say, Jimmy!”
“Suck my dick, Barb!”
“No thanks! Dental doesn’t cover enough for that funk!”
Everyone in the room burst out laughing, telling Tiff this was a regular occurrence, but she remained stunned and silent.
“You aren’t scaring away our potential clients, are you?” growled out a bear of a man who had just come out of a side office. Seriously, his chest was like a barrel and the coarse black hair on his arms was thick enough to be a carpet. The crowd quieted down a bit, but the jovial atmosphere remained as everybody dispersed.
“What…what is this place?” Tiff finally stammered.
“Welcome to the Roughneck Lounge,” the gruff man said, holding out a hand as he stepped forward. “My name’s Frank Fowler. I’m the Guildmaster here.”
“Boss, I want you to meet my little sister, Theophania,” Victoria helpfully supplied as Tiff tentatively stretched out a hand to get swallowed. While not as big as her mom’s, the bear-like man’s paw gently engulfed Tiff’s up to her wrist. He shook it very gently and politely.
“She prefers to go by Tiff.”
“The pleasure is all mine, Tiff,” Frank smiled, or at least Tiff thought he did behind the massive, bushy beard. It was hard to tell.
“What brings the two of you here today? It’s not, I gather, to sign her up as a member.”
“You’d be correct,” Victoria chuckled. Compared to everyone else in the room, Tiff didn’t have the figure for it. Victoria started talking with Frank, and Tiff’s attention wandered around the room. Most members, at least Tiff assumed they were all members if she was the only visitor or client, were much like Victoria and Frank.
Tall, muscular, beefy, brawny, or otherwise looked like they would probably come out on top of a scrap.
And that was before Tiff digested what they were wearing.
Nearly every person in the room was wearing some kind of armor, which should have been incredibly out of place in a normal office, but fit so well with the old-timey feel of the place. Upon closer inspection, most armor sets were modern and updated, some sort of tactical vest-like material that Tiff guessed was Kevlar, but she didn’t really know. A few guys looked like they stepped out of a western, wearing chaps and spurred cowboy boots, probably itching for a showdown at noon, and there was a prevalence of thick leather vests. More armor, Tiff guessed, and she wondered if the material was magic or mundane. Barb, the girl from earlier, was on the more outrageous side of the spectrum. She had a compound bow slung across her back, taller than Tiff, with a quiver of something suspiciously resembling javelins, all the while wearing the most uncomfortable-looking chainmail skirt and sandals that wrapped up to her knees. Tiff didn’t know how the girl, who was smaller than most of the surrounding men, carried the bow…let alone used it.
Now that she was looking for it, Tiff realized that there were a lot of obscenely large weapons being dragged around. Not that Tiff really minded, she was always a bit of a fan of stupidly huge and complicated weapons in her fantasy MMOs. But those were video games and this was real life, and one guy was leaning against a stone hammer-axe chimera monstrosity with what looked like engines attached to the blade, probably weighing a couple hundred pounds. The head alone was larger than she was, and that wasn’t including the 8-foot-long iron handle.
“What is this, Monster Hunter?” Tiff mumbled, and apparently her sister heard her.
“You’re not wrong,” Victoria grinned. “Where do you think the studio got the idea for that franchise? Rift Hunters have been a thing for centuries, and I’ve heard of crazy journalists, crackpot authors, and other idiots looking for inspiration going delving all the time. The smart ones commission guilds like ours, while the dumb ones…well, the lucky ones come out alive. Giant dinosaurs and mythic creatures? They might not walk the earth anymore, but inside a Rift, anything is fair game.”
Tiff had a sudden newfound appreciation for the smiling, happy-looking people joking about while loitering in the lobby. If what Victoria said was true, and even a small amount of her favorite fiction was based on something that could actually be found in the real world, well, she didn’t think she could stomach it. She wasn’t sure, even with her new Skill, that she wouldn’t curl up into a ball and cower in fear at a multi-story tall apex predator that might view her as an afternoon snack.
All that time, Victoria had been talking to the Guildmaster, and now they were headed toward the reception desk. Yet another juxtaposition smacked Tiff across the face as they approached a lady sitting in a rolling office chair typing at a computer, while wearing a streamlined cross between a cosplay police uniform and a mail courier outfit. It was a crisp hunter green pencil skirt that stopped mid-thigh, with detailed golden lace trim and shiny gold buttons up her chest and on the short-sleeved cuffs. On top of her head was a French Legion-style, pillbox-looking, white circular cap with the guild’s logo, an arrow crossing a sword sitting atop a pile of coins.
Tiff was silently wondering what exactly she had gotten herself into when Victoria opened her mouth.
“I’d like to register a new contract.”