You can check out most abilities on wiki.contrarium.net to see what each of the guilds do. Mercenaries get tasks to either kill X number of enemies in a set area, kill a particularly powerful enemy of a given type in a set area, or chase off a highwayman in a given area which involves wandering the roads in that region until you find the highwayman and either killing them or forcing them to flee. Mercenaries also interestingly get guild points for the act of fighting itself, which helps the rate of advancement, though unlike tasks this doesn't give you extra money. The first ability a mercenary will want is basic melee training which gives you an automatic bonus of 50 to each of melee, dodge and armour use, the next you'll want is basic weapon training which gives you an automatic 50 to various weapon skills but this doesn't include all of them, you only get a bonus to chained, hafted, polearms and swords. You can also get armour mastery apprentice which gives you an automatic 100 to your armour use skill plus a ten percent reduction to encumberance, putting you at 150 armour use with basic melee training. Tactics mastery lets you change tactics type without a round time but it's most useful as a requirement for other abilities further on, you can then take multi opponent combat which counteracts some of the penalty for fighting multiple enemies at once, the ability to do a spin attack to hit multiple enemies, the ability to do a shoulder charge to knock the enemy down, the ability to do a coup de mort to finish off an enemy and so on. The downside is they only have combat abilities and nothing else.
The guild of thieves is one of those guilds you have to join through roleplay, unfortunately you can't just go up to an NPC and join like some of the guilds, you have to track down a member and convince them to tell you how to join or something. Just be aware that neither thieves nor Utasa are as heavily focussed on combat and both rely on little or no armour, so like your Udemi they'll need to use the dodge skill to avoid being hit rather than using armour to minimise damage. Both thieves and Utasa I believe have tasks to break into homes, not player homes these ones seem specially generated for the tasks, the difference is the Utasa must copy down something on a piece of paper using a quill and parchment then put back the original and not disturb anything or else they'll be punished whereas thieves are told to steal a particular item and bring it back, they are then free to pilfer everything else in the place including any money lieing around. It's the difference between an espionage task for the Utasa where the victim can't know anything untoward has happened for fear that they might change their plans if they suspect that the information has become known, while the thieves get a straight up burglary task.
In case you do decide to go Udemi Dark, their tasks will at least consist of finding a given amount of herbs to bring back to the taskmaster which may sometimes include grinding them first so check whether they're asking for fresh or for a quality such as inferior average or potent, killing X number of infested in a given area which will be chosen based on your combat skills, or killing a single particularly problematic infested creature in a given area which again is dependent on your skills. For the latter you can just stand around in the same room so long as you're in the right area and the creature will eventually show up on its own, I normally hide as well so I can get a surprise attack in though you will have to be patient and wait a minute or two for it to show up. I don't know if Udemi get any other kinds of task, I would presume so given those three types are all shared with Utasa, in fact I don't think foraging makes sense for the Utasa branch given they're meant to be focussed on urban areas but that's just my opinion.
In case you haven't discovered it the following herbs are valuable because of their use in poultices
Comfrey, extremely rare
Fraer root, extremely rare
Yora root, rare but less so than the previous two
Bloodwort, not to be confused with bloodstem, less rare but still in limited supply
Arnica, only grows in alpine areas which usually means mountain passes, it isn't the most rare but the areas it grows in are few and many of them are dangerous because of bandits.
Bitterleaf is also used in poultices but it's common enough it probably isn't all that valuable, though you could always try or else grind it up and sell off the potent stuff. Poultice list tells you what poultices are available to be made but you need 50 herbalism to see the list, the easiest poultice I find is the 105 which is two arnica, two bloodwort and 1 bitterleaf, the quality depends on the potency of the ingredients and you don't seem to make a test to make them so you won't fail. That poultice will eventually heal any severity of wound, or for as long as the bandage holds out which is affected by your first aid skill. You will need the ground herbs in a worn container as well as a piece of cloth, commonly available from infirmaries though some sell them as a parcel or package containing multiple pieces, and you then need to hold the poultice in one hand and a bandage in the other then type apply before it becomes useable, use the bandage command as normal to apply it.
Oh in case you haven't noticed you can type certain commands to see what of a given type you're carrying. After the bandage command typed alone finishes rattling off all the different locations it lists the number of bandages of each type you're carrying and where, food lists the food you're carrying along with quantity and container, herbs and weapons do similarly for their respective types of item.
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To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.
