The Frost-Born Guildhall.
Claude and Frosty stepped inside and found themselves entering a world of shaped steel, rune-written leathers and prying eyes.
They were too tall. Too large and light footed not to draw at least some attention.
Claude tried to ignore how their eyes made his skin itch. How their sweat made him remember how hungry he was.
The design was like most city-funded guildhalls. A massive open floor of dirtied polished wood covered with tables and exhausted heroes, a front desk occupied by guild-clerks and a far wall covered with quest-prompts and postings.
Beyond the hallways leading to spiral stairs and different rooms, he could hear the mechanical twist and turn of conveyor belts hauling and processing monster parts from successful quests. He could smell the breeds and variants…. and worse.
His stomach rumbled and his human mind wanted to gag at the thought of the death smells making him hungry.
"[Youll get used to it, mate.]" Arne said.
"Don't tell me that."
"[You wont get used to it, mate.]"
Claude rolled his eyes and headed deeper into the guildhall with Frosty.
"[So, what's the more detailed plan here?]" Arne asked as Claude approached the quest board.
Papers, artistic depictions and maps were nailed and daggered to the old felt wall in seemingly endless layers. It was almost demoralizing from a heroics standpoint. How could one save the world when a whole building of heroes could clear a city?
"You're the guide." Claude answered Arne's question.
"[Of course. Id say we need to limit test while maintaining an air of safety. Keep your eyes on the bronze ranked quests.]"
"Sure." Claude was already doing so. He knew not to step into anything higher when he didn't understand himself.
"[From there, we need an enemy that fits our focus.]"
"Fits our focus…?" Claude tried to ignore the murmurs and eyes.
"[Yes. You and the new Lupine are an inseparable duo that I'm assuming is centered around frenzy style fights and swarming with the odd switch to brawler and assassin match-ups. You can't fight any mob that could successfully split you up or make the fight a game of strategy. You're not in enough control to participate.]" Arne explained.
"Good thing most bronze creatures aren't very smart... I think." Claude trailed off as he remembered the fishmen and their shark gods. And the weakened elves and their will to remain moral.
He could almost hear Arne raise an eyebrow—
"Well if it isn't the Pale Hound….."
Claude and Frosty turned around to face the words clearly aimed at them.
At the end of the guildhall— back by the door, a small group of warriors had stepped inside. If he were to guess, they were a full fledged team. Not very high ranked based on the shabby gear and unpolished movements.
"Frosty.... Who the hell did you steal this gear from?" Claude thought.
Frosty growled.
Suddenly their eyes shone the same color and he found himself remembering a memory that wasn't there.
He was running as a man. A large animalistic man on all fours, spinning and zipping down snowed in alleys. Frantic. Panicking. Thinking of a boy in the dark. Wounded. Claude.
Claude was viewing a memory owned by Frosty. When he'd first taken his human form in a panicked urge to get Claude help.
As he ran the dark alleys of the Antarctic city, he found himself coming up on a man in flight. Visibly running from someone with the way he kept looking behind him.
He crashed into Frosty, spilling a pile of gear and frosted gold. Men yelled and cursed behind him.
He smelled like blood and fear and pain and panick. Barely any of it was his own.
Thief.
Traitor.
They yelled the words.
But all Frosty could hear was the cries of children in the distance.
"DAAAD!!!!!?"
Frosty mauled the man. The traitor. The cunning wolfish thief.
He was gone and the man was in the dumpster before the others arrived.
Claude was back in his own mind, turning to look at Frosty. "You robbed a raider….?"
Frosty huffed and leaned down to lick Claude's face anxiously. Still in human form.
"Better than anyone else I guess." Claude braced himself as the other raider-heroes approached.
"You look….. taller. You must be standing on our cut of that frost-gold." The leading one said. He was big. Square jawed and wielding both a hammer and broadsword that had a curve on one side like an ice pick. His wolf fur cloak failed to hide his bulk.
"[Claude, you really can't take a guild brawl right now.]"
"I don't have the social skills to talk my way out of this either."
"[Tell them they've got the wrong guy!]" Arne said as they neared.
"Oh for sure, I'll also add that my brother— who was originally a PitWolf, beat the snot out of their traitor and stole his armor to give to me because I was naked after shapeshifting into a monster!"
"[Well when it's said in such a way..]"
"Do you have any ideas."
"[Yea, run.]"
Claude felt his blood blaze. Frosty's own protective rage flooded his brain like a rising tide of fire. His skin itched. His bones ached. His vision warbled and suddenly he was staring at the Lupines with their grinning maws.
"I don't want to run."
"[What? Oh hell…..Claude—]"
Before Arne could say anything more, a runewritten throwing knife sunk into the ground between them with a popping thud. The runes along its length glimmered and suddenly a pulse wave of deafening screeches shook the earth.
Claude, Frosty and the raider-heroes hit the deck clutching their skulls.
In the midst of the commotion, out of Claude's peripherals, he could see a hooded hero seated in a chair, "If you hot-heads ruin my morning coffee, I will melt your brains from the inside."
He mumbled over the noise in an emotionless voice.
The pulse waves faded with a spark of used of magical essence and the knife dulled.
Claude and Frosty took longer to recover. The raider-heroes didn't as they surged to their feet and faced the seated man.
"You want to lose your fingers, hoodie?"
The hooded man pulled another knife from his coat, "I guess I should stop speaking over the pulse-bang. You must not have heard me, I said if you ruin my morning coffee, I'll melt your brain. You look like you want to ruin my morning coffee…."
"Fuck your coffee." One of them yelled.
"I don't swing that way." The hooded man replied immediately.
Claude got to his feet just as a brawl broke out.
Fireballs flew. Ice sheets covered the floors and shattered as lightning and pulse-bang knives connected. The commotion was heightened by angered onlookers and counter clerks making calls to nearby Enforcer precincts.
The reaction told Claude such a thing must've happened a lot.
Or at least it should've. He was too busy trying to maintain some form of control as he tried to blink away visions of fighting and frothing Lupines amidst the crowd.
"[Claude, you have to focus on something else. Don't get drawn into the fight. Hide in a room if you have to.]"
"No."
Claude turned away from the fight and approached the quest board. He reached out and snatched off three layers of quests, maps and artistic depictions from the bottom corner before turning to head out.
Frosty snarled and copied his brother, snatching his own bundle from the bottom right corner before running up to join him.
Casually, he shoved and pushed a walkway through the crowd until Claude was stumbling outside to catch his breath. And cool. Thank the gods it was beyond cool in his new home.
Before he could fully catch his breath, his senses were alerted to the buckle and thud of at least….
"Seven horses…. Metal… leathers. Angry. Discussing entrance strategies and swapping warrants. Enforcers." Claude noted before looking up at Frosty.
Frosty pointed with his nose to the alley beside the building.
In a blur they took off down the alleys. Back where they started. And long gone by the time a team of frost-crusted Enforcers approached the building with rune-written assault rifles and ballistics equipment fit to take down a bronze ranked tangent boss.
Claude flinched as the explosions and shattering wood echoed through the somber city.
They'd cleared a mile in four minutes. Claude now sat on top of a dumpster while Frosty crouched on all fours beneath him, sniffing and licking at his long black hair.
"[Not bad for a show of control.]" Arne commented, "[I remember my first call to violence. I was seventeen. Bar brawl. I was fine until the blood started spilling and the screams got too loud. Then I ripped a man's arm off and barely escaped a two month long manhunt.]" Arne said.
"You must not have had a guide…" Claude said.
"[I had the best guide. But even a guide can't instill your level of control.]"
Claude wished he warmed at the compliment.
"[So, what have we got?]" Arne asked in the silence.
Claude ruffled through the crushed papers and pictures, flattening them out into a book as he did. He turned back to the front page as he was finished and found himself facing a folder. Inside was an artistic depiction of a little girl. No older than ten.
"Crysta Bergeron. Eleven years old. Considered missing as of august eigth, twenty-two thirty-nine….. what the hell? She's been missing for a year? And nobody…."
"[Keep reading, mate.]" Arne said.
"Evidence of abduction by kobolds shown in Bergeron residence twenty clicks north of Frost-Born Guildhall brick and mortar two houses down on Pickens Street. Update as of last assumed report of death, family requests vengeance and will pay handsomely in exchange for the head of Kobold matriarch and evidence further affirming…."
Also within the folder was a shredded piece of shirt. He could smell it through the paper. That and the torn scale stuck to its fabrics.
Claude folded up the papers and put them in his pocket, leaving out the baggy of cloth and scale.
"[I guess we're training smell first.]" Arne said as Claude got moving.
"Guess we are."
"[And I'm sure I can't take you off of this one despite our previous discussion that we should avoid tacticians in combat until you have better control and understandings of yourself as a Lupine?]"
"Correct."
"[Great. This is great.]"