[F11 | PP] Two Truths and a Lie | <<I Know a Guy>>

[Acanthus 0]

For the first time in a long time, Acanthus felt like she was home. Not in a good way, though.

The desk in front of her loomed, built of spite and comically tall stacks of paper. Acanthus had surely thought most of them to be blank, but was beside herself to learn that was not the case. Guild token invoices, evaluation reports, guild member feedback forms and construction requests… She had spent two nights fully awake just trying to put things in order.

It probably wasn’t even necessary. Baldur ran Jacob’s Ladder, and he seemed far too calm to be going through this much bureaucracy. There was probably some simple, menu-based management function that she had missed, or was gated behind some know-nothing quest on Floor 3. Was there even a Floor 3? Details came to her in a haze. Surely there had to be a Floor 3. Floor 2 existed, and so did Floor 4. She mentally marked Floor 3 as a solid “maybe.”

Even if there were another way to handle guild affairs, Acanthus probably would have refused the improvement. As much as she hated to admit it, the stress was what drove her forward. The worry that things couldn’t be done gave her the energy to try. It drove her during her time at the hospital, and it drove her now. It would probably drive her crazy, too.

“We have a whole network of contacts that we're leaving untapped." Her words rose from behind a mound of paperwork. "For a guild that is supposed to be chasing rumors, we don't have a lot to show for it. So we're changing that.” That wasn’t entirely true—everyone was doing their part. Bistro was a solid font of leads, and the rest of the guildmates were active enough that information wasn’t scarce. But they were a scouting guild, dammit—it wasn’t enough for information to be “not scarce.” They needed to be holding all the cards.

Acanthus parted the white sea to look out at the faces before her. Astra, Morningstar, Wulfrin, Ciela… Was there another? Something fuzzy tickled the edges of her vision. Maybe I should get some sleep. Instead, she flicked a piece of paper with her finger.

“I've compiled a list of reliable brokers. Well, ‘reliable’ may be a strong word. At the very least, their info isn't maliciously bad. But…” The room twisted for a brief moment before setting itself straight. I’ll definitely sleep after this. “I don't know how else to say it. Info brokers are weird. No offense to Bistro. Some of them want money, some of them want info, some of them want favors, and some just hand out info based on ‘vibes.’ You should definitely avoid those brokers. I can never get info out of them.”

Acanthus mulled over the list before handing copies to each of the present Trackers. “I would prefer to avoid Argent and Satoru. I was able to chat with them recently, and they didn’t seem to have new information. But if we want to stop by, that’s alright. Sometimes they pick up new stuff at the weirdest times. And if you know someone that you don’t see here, by all means, let’s pay them a visit. The more people we connect with, the more we learn.”

Standing from the desk a little too fast caused the NerveGear to send a quick swirl of nausea straight to her brain. Acanthus steadied herself with a casual hand on a stack of papers. “I’m good to go. I’m not sure where we want to start, but I’m happy to leave that up to the group. As long as we can knock out three different contacts today, I’ll call it a win.” Three was such an arbitrary number. And really, Acanthus worried it was too low. But she was more worried about organizing some of the most powerful people in Aincrad into a block-walking gaggle. Surely they had better things to do than stroll from contact to contact and gossip like an old mahjong group. Relax, that’s the stress talking. No one here is mad at you. You haven’t even tried to kill Morningstar today.

“The goal is to make this a guild routine: building our network while staying informed about the state of Aincrad. From that information, Bistro and Morningstar verify leads. Then, Wulfrin coordinates field teams to investigate based on his assessment of urgency. This first mission is a bit of a test run, so I’m glad you’re all here to give honest feedback. Are there any questions?”

Acanthus | True Tier 11 | Lvl 108 (34/73) | HP: 1000/1000 | EN: 132/132 (No stats; RP thread)

Edited 4 hours ago by Acanthus