Rise of the Guild Master Chapter 1 Full Preview (Patreon)

Hey everyone, I wasn't sure if Amazon would let me post public previews of the books but I decided to make chapters one and two of The 'Secret' Tomboy Princess available to read publicly as a teaser! I'll probably include one random chapter from each book as a preview, but for the lead in I wanted to do the first two.

Enjoy! Pick up the full book here!

1. My Inherited Legacy of Shittiness

My oldest memory is the clinking of glasses being raised by rowdy adventurers, freshly returned from a battle well fought. Fat with gold and drunk with mead they’d tell me their stories. Where they camped… what the dungeons were like… what sort of dangers they’d faced… The amazing treasures they found at the end of the journey. Didn’t matter that I was just a kid, they told me everything. You’d think that would have had a bigger impact on me than it ended up having, but… to me, there was someone else in that old Adventurer’s Guild who was cooler than all the adventurers put together. My grandpa, the previous Guild Master, may the gods and goddesses look after his crotchety old soul.

He was the one who ran the place, and damn if he wasn’t the fucking best at it. Whenever there was a tavern brawl, he was on it seemingly before it even got started. Whenever an adventurer tried to haggle for a better pay, grandpa would beat them within an inch of their life, and they’d thank him afterwards for whatever measly deal they got if they knew what was good for them. Whenever a scantily clad female adventure showed up in armor that left little to the imagination, he would be… well. Ok, so maybe he’d publicly shame them or get super drunk and cop a feel. He may have been more of an asshole than my nostalgia-addled mind would like to admit, but I loved that bastard, alright?

He raised me after my parents died in a ‘tragic peasant farming accident’. Yeah- even as a kid I didn’t buy that. Really, grandpa? Were they farming peasants? Or was it an accident that happened to peasant farmers? Yes that sounds about right, whatever you say old man. Point is he took me in as a baby and I never knew my parents. One thing I did know, however, was that as I got older weird shit started to happen to my eyes… Abnormal shit.

It started off small, I think it was around the time I turned 7. I could read things from far away. VERY far away. Grandpa thought I was talking shit to impress him, so he stood on the other end of the village and held up a sign that said “Fuck you ya lying cunt.”. Of course, he soon found out I wasn’t lying when I asked him what a cunt was.

As I aged further my vision somehow kept improving even beyond that. By 8 I could count every single blade of grass in the meadows. By 9 I learned to read people’s body language so accurately that people were scared of me because I could read them like an open book. By 10, I couldn’t take it anymore- my eyes strained near the point of bleeding any time they were opened and grandpa had to reach out to some contacts in the Guild to see what could be done with me.

I don’t know how he arranged it, but he had got a dwarven craftsman to make something very special (and expensive) for me- a single pair of dark lensed glasses that were ‘enchanted by the spell-songs of forty drunken dwarves and infused with the essence of the most wellest endowed of forge gods’. His words, not mine. Suffice to say they made it so I could have a fairly normal life from that point on. When I wear my shades, my vision becomes simply ‘far, far above average’ compared to whatever ungodly supernatural bullshit I was channeling without them.

I loved my grandpa so much for this, he saved me. I… I was only 10, sure, but the pain took me to some dark places. I don’t know how much longer I could have lived like that. But grandpa reached out into the darkness and pulled me back into the light.

It was then that he decided I was fit to learn the truth about who I was, apparently. Personally I think he should have told me around the time when I could see every individual pore on a fucking person’s skin, but hey, better late than never?

“Now sonny boyo boy, ya blasted lil’ cunt, you,” I remember him sitting me down and telling me. He had a very limited way with words and ever since the incident with the sign he saw no point in ever censoring himself again. “Yer eye’s ain’t the only special thing about ye. Yer parents… they… weren’t-”

“They weren’t really farmers, were they?”

“NO YE DUMB FUCKIN’ CUNT YA THINK IT’S NORMAL FOR STUPID FUCKIN’ FARMERS TO SIRE A WEE LADDIE WITH GAWDDAMN OMEGA PEEPERS? FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHITE, FUCK RIGHT OFF!”

I nodded my head at him- completely used to this manner of speech. Looking back it’s amazing I didn’t inherit ol’ grandad’s colorful vernacular, but miraculously I ended up with just a tad more class than that.

“Wot I’m tryna’ say is I dunno fuck all about yer mum, but yer dad… that philanderin’ jizz rag o’ mine came home one day an’ plopped ye righ’ on mah lap and said ‘HEY DAD I’M A SACK’A SHIT AND I CAN’T RAISE A BABY CAUSE I NEVER MENTALLY ADVANCED PAST THE AGE’A 14, BUT HEY MY SON IS ‘PARENTLY MAGIC OR SOME SHIT AND IS DESTINED TO DEFEAT THE DEMON LORD SO RAISE HIM UP RIGHT, I’M GONNA GO AND EAT A LOT OF DICKS FOR THE REST OF MAH LIFE AND NEVER SEND YE A LETTER OR CHILD SUPPORT, BYE!’ or somethin’ along them there lines, ah might be paraphrasing a wee bit. Ach, boy I done fucked up with that bastard. Laddie-”

“Yes, grandpa?”

“Never have sex with more’n one woman in your life or you’ll end up like yer piece’a shit dad.”

“…But I’ve never met him.”

“HE WAS A CUNT AND YOU’RE A CUNT FOR NOT LISTENING TO ME UNQUESTIONINGLY!”

“Yes, grandpa.”

I remember him taking a long, deep sigh here. He was clearly trying to put the thought of my dad far away as he could to focus on getting to the point.

“Can ye tell where ah’m goin with this, lad?”

“Well I can tell you really hate your son.”

Grandpa laughed that way that only rowdy, lecherous old bastards are capable of and tousled my hair at that. “AH BOYO YE AIN’T FUCKIN WRONG! But nah, ah’m tryna’ say that ye have to give up all your hopes and dreams now and start training to become an adventuring hero. Ye got some sort of great destiny ahead of ye and them eyes are the proof plain as can be.”

I was devastated when he told me that. I stood up and tears escaped out from behind my shades as I dramatically told him, “… No. No, I don’t want to be an adventurer!”

“YOU FUCKIN’ WOT YOU RUNTY WEE LIL’ PISS BAG?! THE FUCK IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU DEFEAT’N THE BLOODY DEMON LORD?!”

“I’m 10, I don’t even know what a Demon Lord is!! And… I… I wanna be like you, Grandpa! I wanna learn how to manage an Adventurer’s Guild and balance spreadsheets! I’m really good at planning things out, and if you teach me everything you know then when you start to get up there in age I can take over the family business and then… and… then… Grandpa?”

He was frozen in his spot. I was young, and though I was more analytic than anyone could expect a child to be, I still had hope. Hope that was crushed when I brought the town healer to our house. I remember the way she shook her head as she examined him and broke my heart, telling me, “I’ve seen this before. There’s no doubt about it… he died… from disappointment. What was he doing when you last saw him? Was he talking to someone about anything important? Did you overhear anyone rejecting him?”

At age 10 I killed my grandpa by refusing my magical destiny and telling him I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. Apparently he decided right then and there he’d rather die than have to raise another disobedient little shit. Also, it was the last day I remember ever being happy. I’m 32 now so… yeahhhhhh.

The years since then and now are a blur. I had this looming destiny hanging over my head and even though I killed my grandpa by refusing it I wasn’t about to let that stop me. If anything it made me double down on wanting to run the Adventurer’s Guild because now no one else was around to do it. Grandpa left me a surprising fortune of gold, so I bought a bunch of business books and set about learning the ins and outs of running a place like this on my own. But the problem was never me, it was always them.

As a kid the rest of the village avoided me. Creepy eyes. Weird glasses. They’d say all sorts of things about me behind my back knowing full well I could hear what they were saying about me… I could deal with that. What I couldn’t deal with was how the Guild treated me after we lost Grandpa. Some of the regular adventurers blamed me for his death and stopped coming altogether, others were more polite and at least tried to pretend it wasn’t my fault, and more than a few slipped away without a word.

The customer base dwindled to a mere percentage of the comfy hearth of my childhood, becoming duller and duller every year. Personally, I blame Perlshaw- a large, bustling city a few towns east from here. You see, our humble little village of Dewhurst used to be THE place that young adventurers would flock to. We’d have quests for all skill levels and everyone had something nice to say about us, but the fucking King in his royal wisdom decided he wanted the newbie town to be closer to his castle, so he fucked us over. And by us, I don’t just mean me. He really screwed up this town’s economy.

We thrived on the traveling adventurers who made their home at our Guild. Adventurers brought merchants, trade and treasure, and treasure bought whatever the hell you wanted it to. So with no real reason to stick around once Perlshaw opened up its royally backed Adventurer’s Guild, the heroes and travellers stopped visiting in droves, taking the prosperity of all our local businesses with them. It took away any real chance I ever had of actually running a successful business. That was five years ago.

Ever since then I’d be lucky if a single adventurer shows up a week. I still get quests to display, sure, but it’s just protocol to hang them up on the board even if no one comes around to claim them. My life is a depressing mess that consists of barely taking care of the Adventurer’s Guild, many of its rooms and facilities have become lifeless, dusty and even downright decrepit. No one ever comes so why should I even bother?

I tried putting an effort in. For 17 years I tried really, really hard to run this place as good as ol’ gran-pappy did. I’m tired of trying. Tired of failing.

The last 5 years of my life since the Perlshaw Adventurer’s Guild opened I’ve been coasting by, barely caring about anything… all while I struggle with the uncomfortable, niggling feeling that I chose the wrong path in life. I was just a 10 year old little shit when I said I wanted to run the Guild, but these eyes of mine are apparently supposed to be the signal for my true destiny?

About 10 years ago a Demon Lord apparently DID emerge far, far to the north of the kingdom but despite some territory disputes he initially wasn’t aggressively trying to take over the world or anything. So I never felt any pressure to do anything about it… but he’s really ramped it up in recent years. That was one of the reasons they even built the new Adventurer’s Guild in Perlshaw, since… well, mine didn’t have the best reputation at the time and they needed to ‘foster the next generation of heroes’ better than Dewhurst was able to.

I fucking hate this, mostly because if I were better at my job then it wouldn’t be happening. I can’t blame other people, or even Perlshaw and the King my whole life. All of our regulars leaving over the years was painful, but maybe if I had just… or maybe I could’ve…!! I… I don’t know where I’m going with all of this. It’s stupid. I’m stupid.

A long life of failure, mistakes and regret has led me to where I am now. I am currently sitting at the reception desk of my worn and faded Adventurer’s Guild, the air thick with dust and the halls lined with cobwebs, spiders being the only loyal customers I have. All of the gold grandpa left me is gone, except for a scant few thousand pieces locked away in our vault. The jovial and warm atmosphere I remember from my childhood is so long ago I can barely remember it. Once filled with music and the drunken jeers and cheers of ambitious adventurers, today there is only silence- and it is not my friend.

In front of me on the old, storied reception desk is a knife that I am staring at intently. I’ve waited too long and now, at the end of my rope I have no other options. I take the knife in hand, scared beyond belief of what I’m about to do.