by Jon Auerbach
I flipped to the last page, which sported an entry dated December 31, 1777 and read the first few lines.
“Finally arrived at Valley Forge with some of the other officers’ wives. British army retreated back to Philadelphia. According to Henry, we will be camped here for the better part of the winter. The area has good natural defenses and my survey yesterday indicated the presence of several promising sources. Hid Compendium in the usual place before I left, which is unfortunate, but troops will provide plentiful supply of testing subjects. Any resulting deaths can be blamed on starvation.”
I closed the book. The account was cold, methodical, and it made my head spin. This woman, whoever she was, sounded like a sociopath, like someone who would throw away lives as if they were lab rats. In short, she sounded like a certain person with a penchant for apple pie. I shuddered and turned the last page over to see if there was another entry on the opposite side, only to be greeted with an envelope taped to the inside back cover. An envelope with one word written on it.
“Jen.”
I felt my insides turn to jelly as I traced my finger across my name. What the heck was going on? Maybe Polly had had the book this whole time and was waiting to see if I was worthy enough to receive it. That made sense. If I were her, I wouldn’t have trusted this book to me either.
I ripped the envelope from the book and carefully opened it to find a piece of paper folded in three. Unfurling it revealed a short handwritten note with something taped to the bottom.
“Jen,
Yes, I know your name isn’t Jade. That’s what happens when you join minds with someone, things are bound to leak through that you didn’t expect. It’s how you probably know my name too. It’s also how I knew you were looking for this book. Consider it a gesture of goodwill on my part.
Because I have great plans for you, Jen. You see, I’ve reached an inflection point in my Questing progression. I’ve come a long way since I fetched that 90/10 beef, tillandsia, apple popsicle, and the handful of blueberries all those years ago. But I need help to keep climbing the mountain, to take on the Guild. And after searching for a long time, I think I’ve found the person who’s going to help get me there.
See you soon,
Beatrice”
My eyes drifted to the bottom of the letter, where the writing continued in a darker black ink.
“PS: Put this ring on.”
A simple silver ring was taped to the letter just below the words, which suddenly began echoing in my head, in Beatrice’s voice. They got louder and louder and louder, until my own thoughts were suffocating under their weight, and the only thing I could do was comply, and I watched as my left hand ripped the ring from the paper and place it on my right index finger.
Beatrice’s voice immediately faded into the back of my mind until my own thoughts resurfaced, and I stared at the ring now adorning my finger. The initials RvA were inscribed along the band. Horrified, I grabbed the ring with my left hand and began to pull, only to hear Beatrice’s voice rise again in my mind, commanding me to put on the ring. I stopped pulling and the voice subsided. Three additional attempts yielded the same result.
Just then, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a new text message from a number I didn’t recognize.
“You can’t take it off, Jen. So don’t try. See u soon. Love, B.”
What had I done?
Author’s Note
Beatrice here. I’m hijacking Jon’s author note to say a few words to you. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the bad guy here. You haven’t even met the Guild yet. Sure, a few people formerly in my employ met with mysterious ends, but did I have anything to do with that? Wait, maybe I shouldn’t answer that. Anyway, I’ll be back in Guild of Tokens: Novice in a few months, as Jen and I have some work to do. But until then, you can check out Guild of Tokens: Trainee here. It’s a short little tale about me and has some cool easter eggs that you might appreciate. Thanks and I’ll pass this back to Jon.
Well, that was weird. Last time I leave this story open and unattended on my computer. I hope you enjoyed Guild of Tokens: Initiate. As Beatrice said, the story is just getting warmed up. Jen and Beatrice will return in September in Guild of Tokens: Novice. The seed for the story that eventually became Guild of Tokens was planted in early 2015, when I wrote a 1000-word flash fiction piece based on the following premise: what if there was a secret section of Craigslist where instead of people listing random items for sale, people posted real-world Quests? Over the next year, I slowly built the story out through monthly installments in my newsletter, but it wasn’t until last November during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) that I made a big push to get Initiate out into the world.
What can you expect going forward? A new installment every three months, with hopefully some additional shorts starring Beatrice and other characters you’ll meet along the way. And Guild of Tokens is only one piece of the larger story that is in the works. But more on that later.
Thanks again for reading!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my family and friends for all of their support along this writing journey.
Special thanks are in order to my mom and my sister, my editors and beta readers extraordinaire, my dad, for first inspiring my love of science fiction and fantasy, my friend Emmanuel, for his amazing covers, my wife Danielle, for her encouragement, love, and support, and my kids Allison, Robby, and Claire, the ARC of my world.
About the Author
Jon Auerbach's love of fantasy began at the tender age of six, when his parents bought him the classic 1977 animated version of The Hobbit (the less said about the recent trilogy, the better). His passion for sci-fi developed from nights watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and from his dad's old paperback copies of Foundation and I, Robot.
Jon writes in both genres and hopes to pass on his stories to the next generation, including his kids, who have their own copy of The Hobbit that they lovingly call "the Bilbo book."