Rise of the Guild Master

So it turns out I got my ass filled up for nothin’. The next day Boss, Zuzu and I all went out to do our daily quests and test to see if the butt pounding had any magical effects and wouldn’t ya know it, not a thing. I guess Boss was too tired after shooting his thick load off in my ass to check if my butt did the magic glowy thing, but it is what it is.

At least I started to like it towards the end... but ugh, me and my stupid mouth. I just wanted to take charge! I’ve been a lot more submissive than usual lately thanks to Zuzu hanging around. She knows how to get in my head and make me into a good little girl... I’m more in control when it’s just me and Boss.

I’ve been a lot happier since Zuzu got here, though. I mean sure, sometimes she wakes me and Boss up in the middle of the night when she’s crying and tossing around, but it’s hard to stay mad at her like that... She’s been staying with us for about a week now and we’ve been working our asses off ever since.

Hell, we’ve been working so hard that Boss made us take a day off even though I was all like ‘fuck that’. I put up a good fight and in the end he settled on me doing some of the less shady quests submitted by the townspeople. Finding lost kitties, serving as additional security for a local tavern for a few hours- shit like that. Nothing too big of a deal and I guess it did kinda help me to not have to run around the meadow killing slimes for a day.

Still...

Even though we’re working and screwing nonstop I feel like Boss is getting more and more frustrated by the day... He doesn’t act out on it or nothing, but I can see it in his eyes.

Am I not doing enough? Am I... failing him somehow? I couldn’t live with myself if that were the case... It’s hard for me to admit it to anyone else, but I’m terrified of letting down the few people that are important to me.

Not after everything I’ve been through.

So I decided I need to do something about Boss’s mood. This morning after our lovely fill-up session and follow up bath, I resolved myself to ask him directly instead of beating around the bush.

“Boss, you’ve been looking a little stressed the last couple days. I mean yeah you usually got that broody thing going for ya but uh, it’s less charming and more sad than usual.”

He wipes the last remnants of breakfast from his lips with a small handkerchief and glances my way with a dumbfounded look. “I’m... not sure what you mean, Sam.”

Zuzu sits to my side on the dining table and as she sips a warm cup of tea, she nods her head. ‘Yes, I was going to ask about this as well. I have some guesses as to the reason for your mood, Sir, but don’t play coy with us.’

I watch him as he sighs and then removes his glasses to face us sincerely. “Look, I didn’t want to talk about this because it’d probably be upsetting for you to hear.”

Shit. I already got a feeling that I know where this is going...

“Well... you can tell us anyway. We’re a team, aren’t we?” I smile and pump my fist up into the air, trying to get some positive vibes out.

“Yes, well...”

‘Go on. Out with it.’ Zuzu finishes sipping the last of her cup and daintily rests it on the wooden table. Gods she’s so cute, even when she’s being completely serious.

Boss leans into the table before he says, “I just keep worrying about how... this isn’t sustainable. What we’ve got going on so far.”

He waits for us to say something, but we just nod our heads. I do it a hell of a lot less calmly than Zuzu.

“We’re pulling in a steady flow of work but it’s just enough to float three people by, even when you take into account that you two eat about half as a normal person. I’m not upset about that, though, and I’m not sure I’d even say I’m upset in general. I’m unsatisfied. But not in the way you’re probably thinking.”

“You mean...?” I gulp out of stress, my breath getting a bit shaky. I can’t let Boss down. I can’t. I’ve already let Father down... and he’s let the Kingdom down, even if they don’t know it. I can’t be like him... I...

Zuzu takes my trembling hand under the table, clenching it tightly and I snap out of it. ‘Let him finish, Sammy.’

I nod my head and take a drink of the delicious, sweet coffee Boss made for me. He’s always taking such good care of me and I... no, no. Zuzu is right. He’s not done talking.

“You’re both doing amazing- it’s not about that. Please don’t think I’m upset at your performance or anything. It’s more along the lines of... we’ve got such a long way to go, hundreds upon hundreds of improvements we need to make until the Guild is back to a bare minimum state of efficiency. I’m just stressed because I’m focusing too much on the future instead of focusing on what we can accomplish right now.”

The feeling of dread flies out of my gut as if it were never there at all and I sigh. “You’re using your big head too much.”

I watch a sexy smirk lift up the corner of his mouth. “I’m aware.”

‘So the only ways to fix this would be more adventurers who can take higher paying quests, or for Sammy and I to become strong enough to take them on ourselves.’ Zuzu looks down at the table, sadly.

“This is why I didn’t want to talk about it.” Boss shrugs and reaches out across the table for our hands. We look at each other and each of us grabs onto the one offered to us. “Sam, you don’t know how to fight. I can’t teach you that, my books only taught me the very basics. And Zutiria, it’s not like I can just ask you to stop being handicapped. You’re already doing well past what I would normally expect either of you capable of.”

“Do you think one of us should head to some neighboring villages and scout for other female adventurers, Boss?” I lean in, eager to help.

“That might not be a terrible idea. It would be less weird than if I were to approach them myself, certainly...” His gaze becomes thoughtful and distant from us, like he’s drafting a hundred plans we couldn’t even dream of. “But I don’t expect it would help very much. We don’t have that many adventurers who live locally to begin with. When this region has a problem we’ll get a quest notification, sure, but it’ll end up sending one to Perlshaw and the other closest guilds as well.”

Boss sighs, deeply and heavily before continuing. “And even if we did get more adventurers we couldn’t accommodate them. My bed is getting fuller by the week, and we have no housekeeping staff to clean out the additional rooms.”

‘So is that our next goal then? Getting enough funds to hire some housekeepers?’

I start thinking really hard. An idea comes to me and I smile, Daddy’ll like this one for sure. “What about buying some Catgirl maids? Aren’t those all the rage these days? Back home, my Father was practically collecting them.”

Zuzu tilts her head. ‘True. If you bought housekeepers instead of hiring them, then you wouldn’t have to pay them. Not in coin at least...’

Boss looks less convinced. “You aren’t seriously suggesting I just buy some Beastfolk, are you? Isn’t that... kind of immoral? Just buying another sentient being to do work for me?”

I wave my hand dismissively. “Nah, it’s what they were bred for after all. Nothing’s stopping them from taking off if they get treated badly, y’know.”

‘From what I know, when their realm was discovered ages ago a chunk of the Beastfolk population chose to be domesticated. They saw our warm, comfy homes and looked at their wild, untamed jungles and the choice was obvious. Nowadays they breed themselves and sell the offspring to ensure they all get into good homes. And just in case, the Breeder tribes are very, very vengeful if they ever pick up a hint of abuse...’

His expression changes, he’s thinking about it! “Alright, sure. Thanks for the history lesson. My question is why cat maids, though? Cats are generally lazy pieces of shit who lay around doing nothing all day. Breeding them to be maids seems... counterintuitive, at least to me.”

‘Sir, that’s... I’d advise you to be more culturally sensitive around any Catgirls we end up buying. Honestly.’ Zuzu adjusts her glasses and blushes.

"I’m kinda with Boss on this one... I’ve never seen any of Father’s maids cleaning, come to think of it... Unless you count cleaning his- er. Y’know what? Moving on.” Ugh. I just reminded myself of some things I’d rather forget.

Thankfully, Boss is able to let that one slide. “Well, I’ll consider it... I won’t deny it sounds like a decent proposal on paper. But that still leaves a number of problems for us to solve, like-”

“Hello?” A mysterious voice steals the attention of everyone in the entrance hall, and we all look towards the main door... or more specifically, at the gaping hole where I kicked the door down. I wanted to look cool and make an entrance, ok?

A scruffy looking man in his early 20s with long, unwashed hair and a poorly groomed beard walks into the Guild. He’s skinny as all hell with dirty, baggy peasant clothes that hardly fit his frame. His eyes are all red and seem to be darting everywhere at once, plus even from across the room I can smell his earthy stank. I hope Zuzu knows some air freshener spells or something, cause man I am NOT having this in my house.

Boss rises with all the grace of a royal butler from back home. He’s not doing the normal ‘scare the villagers shitless’ routine, and is instead going for an all business approach. Faster than I can blink he’s already met with our shifty intruder. I don’t know when he managed to slip his shades back on, but they’re back in place now.

“Welcome to the Dewhurst Adventurer’s Guild, I am the active Guild Master. May I help you, sir?”

He looks around awkwardly scratching his neck. “Yeah man, can I like buy some drugs here? Or... Wait, shit nah that’s not what I came here for man. Yeah I remember now.” 

There’s a lengthy silence, until Boss finally grows tired of it.

“Sir, would you like to tell me whatever it is you remembered?”

The dumbass lights up as if this suggestion were the smartest fuckin’ idea he’s ever heard in his life. “Right on man that would be like, the dopest shit if I were to do that thing you just said, dope.”

Zuzu looks worriedly at me. ‘What in the realms is this man saying...? Is this how the young folk talk these days? Sammy, what does dope mean?’

Before I can answer her, Boss keeps the conversation going. “If you’re not here to register a quest, Sir, then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He’s putting his foot down, can’t blame him. This shit’s practically giving me a migraine just listening to it so I can’t help imagining what it’s like to actually deal with this shifty asshole face to face.

Sadly the guy remembers his reason for being here and says, “Nah dude that’s why I’m here. I got a farm up like, half a mile up north outta town. Big scary dog thing went and holed himself up in my field. Tried to kill me or somethin, shit was like whack so I didn’t stay for long after that.”

“Well I can see why you couldn’t submit this through Abner, you can’t wait for him to slowly submit a request to our Guild for you after all.”

The man squints his puffy red eyes. “Ab... ner?” 

Poor Boss. He’s face palming harder than when he met me... I almost feel better about myself watching this train wreck.

‘What does it mean when shit is ‘whack’?’ Zuzu tilts her head, looking totally stumped and I can’t help but laugh a bit at her expense.

Boss sighs a defiant sigh and straightens himself out again. “Before I agree to anything, do you have any Gold on you?”

“Yeah sure man I know how this works I think, I submitted a quest to the chief a few days ago but I dunno if you got it. It wasn’t for this I just kinda wanted you guys to beat up some business rivals of mine and steal their shit- open offer while we’re on the topic ya dig?” The man pulls out a surprisingly hefty sack of gold from behind his back, way more than any of us guessed he would have. I can almost see the shock on Boss’s face when he whips it out.

“Very well sir. Follow me to the front de... actually why don’t you have a seat over there, it just occurred to me that the front desk is currently out of order.” Boss points to a table far, far away from me and Zuzu, thank the gods.

Boss disappears into the backroom and the disgusting man tries to call us over to his table with promises of ‘dankness’. Zuzu looks at me once more but I don’t even know what he’s on about with that last one. We just pretend to ignore him as best we can.

Eventually, Boss returns and sits across from him at the table carrying a clipboard with some sheets of paper attached, a pen and a large book. For the first time ever, I sit back and watch curiously as he registers a quest.

“Name, Sir?”

He looks around nervously. “You ain’t with the Dewhurst Guard, right?”

“NAME, Sir?” Boss is getting really tired of this... I kinda wanna go over there and hug him but I also don’t wanna go anywhere near that dude.

“Spliffert, I guess?”

Boss runs this ‘Spliffert’ jackass through a ring of questions that are just boring as fuck to listen to, but then it gets interesting again when he asks him about the details for the quest itself and he pulls out the book. “Describe the monster as best you can.”

“Like a bigass dog or something. There’s a word for that. Uh... angry. Dog-adjacent...”

“Wolf?”

“YA! DUUUDE is this guy smart or WHAT?” Spliffert attempts to get a high five from Boss, only to be shot down by a sinister glare that I’d swear made him piss his pants.

After that Boss asks a number of other questions while flipping through the thick book, each time narrowing the choices down further and further. I’m astounded at how he’s actually able to get something from this guy.

“Is this what you’re referring to?” He shows the book to the client and reveals a large picture of a wolfman, complete with a long ass data entry about it including all sorts of shit like weaknesses, tips and tricks to fighting it, where they live... all kinds of useful info if you’re the book reading type. Which I ain’t.

Spliffert shakes his head and pulls out a weird pipe looking thing before Boss swats it out of his hand. I think he forgot he ever pulled it out cause he doesn’t react when Boss slaps it. “Nah man, that’s like... kinda dog-adjacent, or wolfish but too human or somethin. Did I say it like, had red eyes with yellow pupils or something, too?”

“You did not.” I watch a smile crop up on Boss’s face and I get the feeling he’s more or less got it locked in now. Me and Zuzu gift each other a high five while he flips through the book one last time.

He reveals a new illustration of a slightly bigger than normal wolf thing that looked like it crawled out of one of the lowest realms of darkness. True enough, it matched the description of ‘dog-adjacent’ with red eyes and yellow pupils. “You’re talking about a Brood Wolf, yes?”

Spliffert starts clapping his hands in a trance like a child. “Right on Guild Pimp, right ON! That’s the one!”

Boss ignores that entire sentence and just presses forward. “I’ll put this bluntly. This is a tough monster, and the only adventurers I have on hand are novices. Depending on how many Brood Wolves you’re talking, I may have to outright decline.”

“Oh dude, there’s like, one.”

Boss’s tolerance drops to zero and he stands up, leans over the table and grabs Spliffert by the collar of his shirt. “I don’t care how fucking high you are, you piece of shit. Don’t you dare try and lie to my face. I’ll know. You get one more chance and I’m only gonna ask you ONE more time. How many Brood Wolves are we talking?”

Zuzu turns to me in a panic and stands up. Shit, she hasn’t seen him like this yet... I put my finger to my lips and shush her, and this seems to be enough to calm her.

“DUDE LIKE, I DUNNO! MORE THAN ONE OK, I’M BAKED OUT OF MY MIND I CAN’T FUCKING COUNT!” He doesn’t even bother excusing himself at this point, and Boss drops him back into his seat.

I don’t think I noticed it back when we were at the village chief’s place, probably on account of all the shit that was going on with me at the time, but... uh... holy SHIT Boss is hot when he plays up the villain act. I shoot a look at Zuzu and uh, I think she feels the same way... 

I bite my lip and she looks back... something tells me we’re both thinking the same thing right now. What if we got him to play with us roughly like that...?

Before I can dream about it any further, Boss sighs and sits back down. “How much gold do you have?”

“Uh, like 3,000 pieces in that sack, and...” 

“15,000 minimum.”

“DUDE-”

“If you expect me to risk the life of MY women over some low quality steezweed field then you had better damn well be willing to pay out of your ass for it. Especially after trying to trick us once already.”

“Fine... Fuck, you asshole. Whatever. I got the rest of that at home. After you kill those wolves it’s yours.”

Boss scribbles out some random shit on his clipboard and presents it to Spliffert. “Sign. Before I change my mind and let them move in.”

“Man, you’re a huge fucking cunt you know that?”

“16,000?” He makes a correction with his pen.

“WHAT?!”

“17,000.” Boss corrects the correction.

“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! Give me that thing already!” Spliffert snatches the clipboard away and signs his name in terror before the price could climb even higher.

And with that, the deal was done. Spliffert left the guild in tears, his eyes now having a much better excuse to be red than when he came in. As soon as the man is gone, Boss lets out a sigh of relief and turns towards me and Zuzu with a tired grin.

We basically turn into adoring puppies as we race towards him in an attempt to be the first one to hug him first. I’m faster, so I win.

“HOLY SHIT, BOSS!”

‘Is this really the same man who pets me till I sleep safely every night, Sammy? Did someone take my precious Sir away from me and replace him with a terrifying crime lord?’

“Nah, Zuzu, that was ALL him! 17,000 gold... Wow! We’d make a huge dent on picking up some decent cleaning kitties with that much!”

Boss blushes brightly and places his glasses on the table, letting us see the tired look in his eyes. I don’t think he’s used to this but DAMN if he isn’t already a force to be reckoned with when he tries. “Come on girls, I just did what any good businessman would do.”

‘That wasn’t business. That was extortion. Not that it’s any less impressive, mind you. It was a very impressive shakedown.’ Zuzu giggles while praising Boss’s thuggery.

My adrenaline and or horniness dies down and something comes to mind. “You said that these wolves are strong, right? Are you sure it was a good idea to accept...? I mean, we might not be able to...”

He smiles. “Sam.”

“B-Boss?”

“Do you really think I would have accepted this quest if I thought you weren’t ready for it?”

I feel the heat rise in my cheeks and my heart beats faster at his words. Does he really believe in me this much? I was worried I only ever let him down, but... “You really mean it?”

“Of course I do. I have a plan.”