"Hold on." Cliver said, stopping by the gate house for a few minutes and having a talk with the guard. He emerged with a pack filled with personal belonging he'd left there before going on the hunt, with instruction that it was to be sent as mail to St.Paul's Camp in the event that he didn't return.

"I haven't seen Elras. Maybe he decided to hang around? He wouldn't want for a job with that power of his."

*elras while wandering around the camp finally makes his way back to the group with a slight sigh of relief now that he is no longer lost in this area. "Ah there you guys are! I went for a small detour around the fort and the area and it took a bit longer than I thought" he obviously doesn't want to admit that he got lost in the area*

"Speak of the devil." Cliver says as he comes up. "Nothing wrong with a long walk after breakfast, it's healthy."

"Well, it's fine now that you're here. Cliver and Emmerling here are going to help us rebuild the guild so it isn't falling apart anymore, isn't that great?" Lilith enthused, ready to get the show on the road, partly so they could start fixing the place up as soon as possible, and partly because she wanted to get Caelus in a bed to rest properly.

"Fixing up the guild? So that's what we killed that wolf for, well I guess that's what I get for sleeping in, I don't learn these things until later.... But that's all fine! Well shall we get to it? It seems like there's a lot of work to be done."

"Yeah, lead the way Lilith. I want to see this guild of yours."

"Yes, Elras, we killed the wolf on commission to get materials to fix the place up." Lilith confirmed, leading the pack out of the camp and back into the woods. She then heard Cliver's comment and scratched her head. "Well...prepare to be disappointed." she sighed, "There's not a lot to look at anymore."

"It's not much but it is our home, and so its good enough for me, but it will be nice to see it fixed up."

Sky was actually quite curious to see the place. She sticks close to Sarrai'a, curious as to what this guild entailed and what these newcomers were.

Emmerling rocked on his heels and cracked his knuckles as Cliver spoke with the gate guard. The guild was a curious grouping of individuals. Cliver had seemed strange to him when they had first met, but the others were a weird collection. The tall elf woman struck the older man as a strange character. She had an aura of defensiveness around her and seemed ever alert. The guild master herself was an enigma as well. She was short to the point she seemed almost a child, and she did not carry herself in the way that he would figure a guild master would.

He blinked and stared off across the muddy Fort Mundy.

Forty people dying fighting a dragon. That must have been an endeavor. For a moment Emmerling wondered if she had witnessed it. There was a glimmer of thought before his eyes focused again. It was none of his business. None of it was. The reason there was a girl with wings, or a Halfling, or a drunk man, or even the unconscious man carried by Sarrai’a. Adventurers were always strange.

Emmerling pulled his hat off of his head and turned a wipe of his brow into a salute of acknowledgement to the approaching Elras. His hair was a thick brown that was pulled so tautly into a pony tail that it seemed like his forehead would tear.

“Mhm, yes. We’ll be handlin’ fixing this guild house.” Emmerling said. “It doesn’t matter what shape this building is in, I’ll fix it up right an’ tighty.”

With a hiccup, Emmerling follows Lilith into the forest with the rest of them. Every step of his heavy and laborious, and as they wandered his thirst came with a sticky dryness that he quenched with a skin of water.

“Now, how long’ve ya’ll been together?” Emmerling asked over the din of casual conversation, “You all seem quite friendly with each other, like fast friends.”

"We all met yesterday, all brought together by different circumstances." *Sarrai'a said as she continued to follow the group walking in a way that kept Caelus off of the ground and positioned with his weight spread evenly*

"Actually, yesterday." Lilith admitted, thinking over to herself just how lucky of a day yesterday was. "It was quite fortunate that so many great people came across the guild."

Lilith lead the rag-tag group of adventurers back through the woods and over the log bridge and down the path to the ruddy old guild building that was huge, but in worse shape for wear. The holes in the walls didn't seem any bigger, which was good, but the spider's nests had gotten bigger, a board had fallen off the wall right next to where the door had fallen off. A raccoon suddenly ran out the door with the muffin that Lilith had been saving and she promptly gasped in shock.

"No! Wait! I just baked that!"

She followed after it a little bit before giving up.

Drek throws an arm over Lilith's shoulder.

"Thull be back, they ulways come back."

Cliver was struck dumb by the sheer extent of the damage. He hadn't expected a palace, and was by no account a very picky man about where he laid his head, but this was beyond the pale. She'd been living here? By herself? In the middle of the wood!?

"How long has it been like this?" He asked.

*Sarrai'a watched the Raccoon run off with the muffin and tried her best to stifle a chuckle* "Well its good to be back home, I'm going to put Caelus into a bed." *Sarrai'a then walked into the building and carefully tucked Caelus into one of the beds, showing a gentle and maternal side that one would not normally expect from one with Lycanthropy*

"Oh, um...for about six months, I guess?" Lilith blushed deeply in embarrassment and lowered her head, the others hadn't made such a big deal of the state of things, so she hadn't realized how ashamed she'd be to show someone that the guild she had loved and boasted about had fallen to such disarray. "This is kind of what happens when a 450 year old building suddenly loses all of it's protection magic..."

“Yesterday hrm?” Emmerling said with a grunt. They had come together quickly and already completed a task together. It sounded suicidal to go into combat so shortly after they had met each other, “You’ve all been bit busy eh? Ya’ll know me almost as well as ya’ll know each other.”

As they journeyed, Emmerling lagged to the middle. He would not be first into danger, nor would he allow himself to be picked off at the tail end of any group. The tools on his back were too expensive to lose, but the most precious thing he has was his life, and it was best to let others negotiate around danger before he had to. It was a long route they took. The sun was reaching its zenith just after they passed the log bridge, and his water skin was almost empty by the time they came in sight of the guild house.

A sharp exhale burst from Emmerling and almost caused a coughing fit in him, “This is a travesty!” He had half a mind to yell at Sarrai’a from entering the building in its current state. “I’ll have to survey the property. I can’t be seein’ this as safe.” His head shook vigorously and he stared through the holes in the walls, and to any of the visible support beams.

He stepped with a weight of responsibility cast over him. The dull tired look in his eyes were now wide and fierce. Emmerling immediately stepped through the doorway and began rapping on any of the exposed wood and all the beams he could find. “Rot.” He whispered under his breath as he listened for the soft thud of rotting wood.

“Six months?” Emmerling said, “This all happened in six months?” His face reddened at the mention of magic, and he pursed his lips such that it looked like they would disappear into his mouth, “Magic ain’t no way to keep a building standin’. Age is catchin’ up to the structure. It’ll be needin’ swift repair.”

He turned about to Lilith, “Send an order for wood quickly. We will be needin’ to cut some of our own lumber as well.”

"What type and how much? I'll go cut what I can right now." Cliver said urgently, whipping out his ax. Magic. 450 years and being held up by magic. He wanted to find whoever thought "eh, good enough" about that whole situation and deck them.

*Sarrai'a after tucking Caelus in and hearing Emmerling say that an order for wood would need to be put in quickly she came out of the bedroom* "I'm the fastest one here so I should probably bring the order in."

With a thud, the box of tools Emmerling carried was dropped on the ground and he rummaged through it in search of a charcoal pencil. He moved surprisingly quickly for such a large man, tapping on support beams and listening for rot and then marking if the beam was good or not. When he came upon a beam that he could not be decisive with, Emmerling would extract a small metal crank and would bore deep into the wood with a hollow drill. After looking at a core sample he would strike a beam with charcoal and move on.

“Mmm,” He grumbled as he worked, “There is some bad rot in some of these beams. Goin’ta be tricky.” He said looking over to Cliver and Sarrai’a.

“Pine, spruce, chestnut, hickory.” Emmerling listed, “Which ever ya can find quickly. Pine will do though, got plenty growin’ ‘round here.” He clicked his tongue sharply and dashed charcoal against a beam so hard that the pencil shattered.

“If we get some wood, I can make a sled, that’d get the wood here quicker, but I don’t know how ya will be gettin’ it across that river.” He said. “I ain’t makin’ the order for ya though, tha’s on ya guild master.” Emmerling gestures at Lilith, “But the way I’m seein’ it, ya’ll gonna need at least ten to fifteen adult trees to fix up these supports. The scraps . . .” He thought a moment and looked up at the ceiling above him. The weight of the building was dark in his mind and a shiver went down his spine before dissipating. “. . . well the scraps can be used to fix some of this other damage. I ain’t worried ‘bout wood trim though. I ain’t lookin’ to have this place collapse with me anywhere near here.”