Carla stumbled through the side door to the guild and made herself not slam it shut. Instead, she gently eased it closed and slowly engaged the interior locks. She wasn't sure if anyone other than her and Megan knew about this one's existence.
There were secret doors everywhere in the guild. Stone, their guildmaster, liked to joke that they were there to keep everyone on their toes, but few people who weren't guildies could actually bypass the security. Still, you had to find the door and open it at least once in order to actually access it from the outside.
Either that or find the hidden exit on the outside and press your guild card to it. That was a harder thing since the exits could be anything from a hole in the ground to a hidden niche in the depths of a cavern. Carla had heard of one guild who had one at the bottom of a lake.
She still wasn't sure of the semantics of that. It seemed to her that the lake would pour in once the door was open, but that hadn't been the case.
Megan had always joked that they should visit the guild and see. That guild had been charging curious people to look after all. It was one of the many ways people made money in the game, Megan had intoned. Then she'd had engraver put a version of that on her game belt: 'There are many ways to make money, young padawan.'
Carla had questioned that, but Megan had said that she knew a couple of people in another guild, and there was a group discount involved.
Carla drew in a hard breath at the memory of Megan. She hadn't answered any of the increasingly frantic texts Carla had sent her through the game interface. Finally, Carla had calmed herself down with the thought that perhaps Megan had been auto-logged out and thus prevented from logging back in for a few hours.
It was that thought that had let her keep her cool in the game hours since Megan had logged out. Getting out of the town had been a nightmare. Whatever was going on, it didn't have the flavor of a game event.
Most of the townspeople had been running from the cloaked figures who lashed out at anyone who came close. Carla had seen three of her guildies overrun by knots of the people. She couldn't even begin to know what to call them.
In her head, she just referred to them as the 'Scary People.' Carla laughed to herself. If she was to post about this on the forums, no one would know what she was talking about, and surely the troll armies would descend to haze the post, limiting any useful information getting out.
She leaned against the closed door, listening hard. She couldn't hear any pursuers which was a good thing. Carla hadn't been sure she'd been able to sneak out of town unnoticed. The Scary People seemed able to break everyone's Stealth.
At least, they'd broken the Stealth of the top thief in the Guild, but Brea had given as good as she'd gotten before being toppled by eight of them.
She'd logged out, too, but not before giving the most horrible scream. The memory still made Carla tremble.
Carla pushed away from the door and headed towards the main hall. The main entry into the guild had been barred when she'd approached, leading her to use the secret door. She hadn't worried about any of her other guildies since pretty much everybody had a door they could use. If you'd raised the affection of the NPCs that manned the kitchen area, you could just knock on the back wall and be admitted that way.
The main hall had a smattering of people, some of them the actual NPCs that helped out in the guild. Nathan and Janelle stood to one side, Janelle standing protectively in front of a boy Carla identified as Tobias, the mayor's son.
Carla shivered. The mayor had been one of the people she'd seen overwhelmed. He'd been fighting back-to-back with Rock, Stone's brother and right-hand man. The amount of Scary People besieging them had been difficult to comprehend. It was as if they'd multiplied to fight.
Some of the people were maneuvering small siege engines into place in front of the wide double doors. Greyish blue rocks were loaded, Magdalene staring grimly at them.
Magdalene was their resident mage. She specialized in the fire spells and spent a vast majority of her time in the tower the guild had built for her, researching them. She was a player but still had a couple of NPC assistants to help her.
Carla could say that this was the first time she wasn't interested in trying to start a fight. Getting a rise out of Magdalene was one of her favorite pastimes.
Carla recognized the rocks. Magdalene made smaller versions of them for sale to curious customers. You would light them, either with a spell or some sort of fire starter and let loose. It worked similar to naphtha, only it didn't spread and stick while it burned. The fragments were razor sharp, though and would burn themselves to ash on impact.
Carla had always thought it was a scary thing. Now, Magdalene had giant versions of them or perhaps she always had and had just chiseled off bits to sell now and then.
Still, scary things to fight Scary People. It sounded like things were on the right track.
"People! When the doors open, just orient and fire," Stone said from beside the righthand door. There was an actual smear of blood on his cheek, making his usually cheerful demeanor that much harder.
"Are we sure they're coming," Nathan asked.
"Oh, we're sure, alright," a woman said bitterly. She was sitting against the wall, her face a mask of angry sadness.
Carla recognized her. She was one of the members of a fighting guild on the other side of town. She'd helped deliver a shipment of rare ores that Nathan had ordered; the mine had been infested with some weird shadowy bat things from what Carla could remember.
"They hit all the guilds in town as well, like it was in order or something," the woman continued. "Broke the insignia once they got inside, and the guild disbanded just like that," she added with a sob.
Carla felt a chill. She hadn't thought anyone other than a player could break the insignia. Maybe one of the royals if they cared to bother which they seemed to never do.
Carla faded back against the wall, brushing Magdalene's robes as she did. Magdalene gave her a short nod before turning her attention back to the rocks. She was painting some sort of symbol on them, stretching a bit to reach.
Then Stone was pulling the doors open, and Carla's eyes widened to see what was outside.