Somewhere Someplace

The receptionist evaluated the last of all documents, taking it in hand. “…alrightly last one…hmm…oh this…well let us just get this over with” she remarked with some noticeable disdain, sliding the document before the foreigner’s mask-obscured eyes.

“This…is the…Vow of Allegiance and Pledge of Non-Association whereby signing you vow to adhere to the Guild’s standards, policies, expectations, laws, and customs unconditionally and that you swear under true pledge to the God of Honor that you are not presently associated with the Empire of Pegasus and her allies and that you will never be associated with the Empire of Pegasus and her allies” she explained, her enthusiasm seemingly dampening.

The foreigner tilted her head…that was…a rather…odd issue to suddenly care about. She had heard of this ‘Empire’ a plenty from the locals…she just did not necessarily know what it truly was…besides being somewhere in the south…or rather actually being the south…of this continent—or rather most of it, at least.

“I am not…from this Empire or…any of that…I am from somewhere someplace else…” she finally answered.

“Well…you better hope that you are telling the truth then, since…signing this really means that you are not from ‘any of that’…” the receptionist remarked rather seriously.

The foreigner simply signed away at the two signature lines, one for this so-called ‘vow’ and the other for this so-called ‘pledge’.

The receptionist immediately slid the paper away, stacking it onto the grand mountainous pile of completion.

“…why was…any of that relevant? That was the very…weird thing to sign…” the foreigner inquired and remarked, perhaps her…sudden curiosity getting the best of herself; normally, she preferred to stay out of local denizen shenanigans and affairs…never mind that her engagement protocols strictly mandated such, likewise.

The receptionist sighed; “…well it shouldn’t be relevant…but it’s just…Security Office nonsense that those eggs managed to shove through the during the last Grand Meeting and Briefing of the Branches and Citadels…due to…oh…you probably do not know what any of this means…haha…it is all just Guild politics, nothing really…important to you as a new prospecting member…so do not let it affect you” she explained.

Ah…politics, that one category of local shenanigans and nonsense affairs which the foreigner absolutely wanted to avoid as if it were an essence-corruptive contamination. Though…oddly enough, she was still curious…against her better consciousness. “…but I asked why? What is…the problem with this… ‘Empire’? I am ignorant” the foreigner reiterated and inquired.

The receptionist sighed again; “…oh well, I will just say that…although the Guild and the Empire cooperate on the outside…on the…inside…we do not get along all too well…very much the opposite, in truth” she remarked rather vaguely, her affect rather dampened over this subject.

Though, the receptionist quickly bounced back as she abruptly smiled with a charm; “Now then!” she began to say with seeming cheer, “Congratulations! With all of that done…you are very close to being admitted as a new and fresh member of the one and only Adventurers’ Guild…now all that is left is for the…uhm…fee…there is a fee for all this…unfortunately”.

The foreigner tilted her head, her tired mind blanking out somewhat. Fee…oh right…there was fee…she had nearly completely forgotten about that entirely. Wh-why was the fee…now being brought up though? Why…have her or…anyone go through this nightmare of endless bureaucratic signing…and then ask for this ‘fee’ payment…what if she did not have the fee-payment? Would all of this had been for not, then?

“…ehm…so this ‘fee’…” the foreigner began to reply, “…why is it now being… paid? Is it not supposed to be paid…first before…doing all of these…things?”

The receptionist simply smiled; “Well…yes, kind of weird, I know, but…it is because most tend to be unable to truly…pay the fee initially, and so usually prefer to either join the Guild and pay it off gradually overtime or…and more usually…they prefer to simply come back at another time when they can pay it in full. In either case, we save all of these documents for at least five years…so that we do not have to repeat this procedure again” she answered.

“I see…” the foreigner replied with a slight nod. Hmm…interesting…that actually made perfect sense; it was…rather practical too, quite so.

The receptionist leaned in a bit closer from her end of this desk; “So then…‘Nilia de Relevancia’, which scheme are you…or actually…which specific fee entry payment-type are you even interested in?” she inquired.

The foreigner…tilted her head, realizing the implications; “…there are…different types of these ‘fees’? I thought…there was only one? Elaborate…I give grace” she inquired, somewhat confused.

The receptionist, whose throat was rather battered but still functional, ahemed as she cleared her voice and throat; “Oh…of course, right…uhm…well, there used to be only one…the standard entry fee for new rookie members who join at Copper-rank…that being presently…one gold…and…right, now also…twenty-five silvers…so one gold and twenty-five silvers in full” she answered.

The foreigner’s mind immediately faded and withered into decaying ash…hearing that she will have to expend 25 of her own already scarce silvers. Pfft…that weaving patron did not give her enough to cover the full fee; no doubt, he had done such intentionally…for it would give her more of an insensitive to actually participate.

“But…” the receptionist continued on, “uhm…now…we allow for…new prospecting members to join at…uhm…a higher rank for…an extra premium fee… being…now…two golds and fifty silvers to join at Iron-rank…and five golds to join at Steel-rank…and for now it goes…no higher than that” she explained…her voice becoming far more…filled with disgruntled disdain; “yeah, it is…as desperate as it sounds but at least…since these are not…standard entry fees…they can only be paid in full upfront…so…no joining the Guild to pay later in time…that is a right reserved for new Coppers only…” she remarked.

The foreigner detached her rather skinny coin-pouch from her waist-belt, opening it in hand; “I will…do the normal one, then” she said as her hand made way to take out the necessary coins…before quickly pausing. No…wait…she wanted to know more…about these accursed ‘fees’ in advance this time…before committing to anything. “Uhm…so are there any more of these ‘fees’ that I must have to worry for?” she inquired respectfully.

The receptionist leaned back…eyes looking up as a single finger gently pressed her chin, her mind cogitating; “Hmm…well…long-long ago there used to be annual membership and service fees…but since…we are the ones who pay our members…now we simply calculate all of that in advance and deduct it straight from the reward payments themselves…so hardly anyone notices those fees are still there” she answered.

“Though…besides that…” she continued on, “uhm…if you stumble into a different Guild hall associated with a different branch…while you can still use their services as a member of the Guild overall…you may have to register with that branch in order to do their quests, which may come with an added cost and additional fee…that will vary from branch to branch”; “but in general, the Guild throws most of its fees and charges at…those who contract us and request our services, not our members directly” she added.

The foreigner simply nodded faintly; “I see…alrightly then…goodly heard” she replied. Hmm…so no long-term ‘tuition’-like fees then? This was certainly looking a lot cheaper than the Collegium, that was for sure. She retrieved that one gold coin she had been provided…and…twenty-five of her own hard-earned silvers, placing the coins onto the desk in an organized fashion. She was now…very much…broke.

The receptionist smiled and immediately accepted the coins; “Paying in full now? Excellent!” she remarked with a cheer as she quickly placed the collected coins into a special Guild-specific designated coin-container of sorts, which was conveniently already located on that very desk.

The receptionist exhaled a breath of slight relief, with all of this having been done and done with. “Congratulations…with that done, you are now…a new registered Copper-rank adventurer of the Adventurers’ Guild located right here in Coastfield! Though…before you can do anything, you have to wait two or so days for your Copper-rank badge—though this should probably be done by tomorrow since…we just have to engrave your registered name onto it…and we do not really…have any other new members to sort through…just you…” she congratulated and explained.

The foreigner was relieved to hear these words deep down within. Finally…it was all over…finally at last she could stand up. “Greatly heard…” the foreigner remarked with a charming a smile before she promptly began to stand up.

Yet the receptionist’s stare and smile…suddenly turned somewhat more…sadistic. “Hold on, we are not finished just yet…now comes the last step: the new member briefing, a mandatory procedure during which I must explain all that is necessary for you to know about being a member of the Guild and all the basic services and functionalities hereto appertaining!” she stated with rather…the maddened…charm and smile.

« …q-quid? » the foreigner stared blankly, her breaths mumbling as if her very essence had just detached and left her being completely. Of course, Fortune was never so kind in these lands…just as she had thought it was all over, it just had to turn out that it was, in fact, not at all over.

Though, it was clear that the receptionist too was just about as tortured as the foreigner herself; hence…the sadism, for relishing in the foreigner’s own shared suffering was the only way the receptionist could tolerate…this sort of work in the long-term.

The foreigner sighed; “Well…my attention is to you” she said, retaking her seat.

The receptionist smiled, clearing her throat, taking in a deep breath, before promptly…beginning.

-||-

The foreigner yawningly sighed as she made way through the streets of Coastfield, finally heading for home. The sun was still bright, still shining somewhat high in the sky up high. It was the edges of noon…there was still so much time left in the day.

Not much time had passed…yet, that entire ordeal had felt as though several centuries had passed…and she knew what it felt like to experience…several centuries passing her by continuously without pause. So odd…how time worked, how it was something so objective and real…yet also so subjective and relative; not just in space-time but also…in the mind’s very own experiences and processing of it.

At any the rate, for all intents and purposes, she was now a newly registered member of this ‘Adventurers’ Guild’…having been designated with the rank of ‘Copper’, the lowest of the low. However, she needed to wait until she received her formal ‘badge’ before she could start accepting these ‘quests’ of theirs, a process which could take until…well…tomorrow.

Hmm…while overall that all had been a rather taxing experience and process…it had also been a rather simple one compared to the Collegium…and she had actually got into the Guild by the end of it…as opposed to going through such hurdles only to receive a mere application to request entry.

That receptionist’s ‘briefing’ turned out to be rather…information dense…very much so; in fact, the receptionist’s voice had become so…utterly despoiled by the end of it all. But, as a result, she now knew…everything she needed to know…largely and…to a point—her attention had perhaps not been the greatest.

Though…regardless, from what she had heard and had been explained regarding this Guild and how they along with these ‘quests’ of theirs operated… she could not help but feel…rather even more intrigued…deep down on the inside within her mind’s shadow.

Indeed, all she needed was a means to gather coin to pay her rent for next month; that was her most immediate and most circumstantial mundane goal and priority. In comparison to the Collegium, this Guild was by far the most convenient and pragmatic option in that regard, never mind the most immediate.

She could start making coin…by this week…there was no need for years’ worth of expensive ‘education’ and training, provided that she would even be accepted by the Collegium, which itself was not at all a definitive guarantee…despite verbal assurances.

However, nevertheless, she still did not necessarily trust this Guild. They were clearly no ordinary local institution, not at all. Its standardized administration and organization were complex and…advanced…far more so than anything she had seen in this entire continent so far.

It was so very…incongruent in these regards compared to the rest of these lands; indeed, she could not help but be guarded and suspicious. There was far more to this Guild than impressions implied seemingly, and she still did not know how that strange spy of a weaving patron played into any of this or what his…goals were for her in doing any of this; surely, it could not have possibly been just simple ‘recruitment’?

Yet, in spite of all that, nevertheless…this Guild…there was still an odd sense of…familiarity in it and its standardized complexity. One that made her feel…warm? Or…feel something deep down within in her mind’s shadow. She could not truly say or comprehend…all she knew…was that…she had found all of this to be…so very…interesting, even if it all remained…clouded and in fog.

She sighed faintly. Perhaps against her better judgements, intuitions, and instincts…her decision was made: she will…continue to follow this newfound path that had been so suddenly thrusted her way…and become this ‘adventurer’ or whatever. She as may as well…see where it may lead her…to see what she may find, if anything whatsoever.

She began to feel rather strange…as she continued to make way for home…so very strange…this weird tingly feeling entering her veins…what even was it? Anticipation? Excitement? She did not know nor comprehend, but those strange sensations and burning feelings were still there, nevertheless, deep down within.

Missions…mandates…ordinances…simple and clearly defined objectives and explicit tasks…things to do in order to waste time as she figured things out; it really did…seem to be so very…enticing, even if she did not care to ever admit it. Truly, there was, and had been, quite a long-neglected itch deep down within her, which had been with such desperate need of a detailed and thorough scratching.

Yet, likewise, she continued to cogitate and contemplate in mind as she strolled down these streets and roads, realizing…once again…the absurdity of all of this…to be so concerned with something so mundanely stupid as ‘rent’ and ‘coin’. Truly, she was becoming so very alien even to herself.

Indeed…her mind was one to be so very adaptive; in such as short amount of time…she had managed to create quite the deception of a persona, perhaps blurring the lines even…for herself, in many ways…though, perhaps, not really…for indeed…

For as much as you have changed and adapted to this web

You are still, deep down within your deepest shadows, fundamentally, the same rotting soul

Forever condemned to be trapped inside that same eternal coffin