Somewhere Someplace

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The foreigner’s mask-obscured eyes stared at this large board, one that was so very long and stretched across the wall…it was, in effect, the wall of this side of the Guild hall. Pinned to this board was…rather the many…papers and documents, those so-called ‘quests’ of theirs.

So many indeed, yet also…so little.

Relative to the apparent total capacity of this large wall of a quest-board…for as filled as it seemed to be…it was also rather…scarce and empty. Yet, it still had more than a plenty a enough to overwhelm the foreigner; so many choices…so many options, she deliberated on which one to even attend to and evaluate…let alone actually process.

Though, this ‘quest-board’ of theirs was by no means…difficult for her to navigate.

Indeed, being ultimately a product of this Guild, the quest-board was properly organized, segregated, and segmented based off the ‘category’ and ‘type’ of quest and—more importantly—the ‘estimated difficulty’ and ‘rank’ of the quest.

Right…the receptionist had explained all these…basic details the day prior regarding how…much of this worked…at least on paper.

The quests of the Guild came in a variety of different forms and categories; the three principal ones being: ‘direct Guild quests’, which were any quests made and offered directly by the Guild at its expense; ‘contracted quests’, which were quests issued by the Guild but had been ‘contracted’ by another ‘stakeholder’ party who bore most of the expenses—both in terms of issuing the ‘reward’ and also from associated fees charged by the Guild; and lastly ‘requested assistance quests’, which were quests issued by the Guild by…paid…request of a community, village, town, realm, such and such, and tended to be a simple general request for adventurer assistance in exchange for a general promised payment negotiated by the Guild—thus these were highly variable, circumstantial, and not always…reliable.

Besides these three, however, there were still dozens of other categories, never mind a myriad of different ‘types’ within those categories, such as ‘clearance’, ‘bounty collection’, ‘item collection’, ‘escorting’, such and such.

Though, the receptionist had mentioned that adventurers hardly ever paid any attention to these technicalities and details, and for the most part these…classifications and details only mattered on an administrative and organizational level—albeit an adventurer having a functional understanding of these different technicalities could still be advantageous for settling…disputes, since each classification may or may not have…different policies appertaining to them.

Regardless, what adventurers universally fixated on the most regarding these quests was always…the ‘recommended’ or ‘designated’ rank of the quest, which was tied to the Guild’s estimation of the quest’s apparent ‘difficulty’.

The Adventurers’ Guild had…much like the Collegium…ten ‘ranks’ in total: Copper, Iron, Steel, Bronze—which came…after Steel for whatever reason—, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Sapphire, Diamond, and Onyx. Each rank had its own associated, fancy, and unique badge as well as a predetermined ‘base reward’ for quests marked for that specific rank.

Likewise, the Guild’s rank-system and the differences between the ranks were not proportionate or equal in scale; it was rather…exponential so to speak, where the differences in apparent skills, capabilities, and general prowess between each subsequent rank…only became higher and higher relative to the preceding rank, for each next rank became ever-more difficult, tedious, and demanding to attain.

In other words, while the actual differences in the capabilities and skills between a Copper-rank and an Iron-rank may not necessarily be that pronounced or apparent…the differences between a Diamond-rank and an Onyx-rank transcended into a different dimension…metaphorically of course, despite both being a difference of a single rank.

Because of this…while adventurers of all ranks could do any quest of their choosing, it was highly recommended that they stuck with quests of their rank designation. Though, since high-ranked quests had higher ‘base rewards’ dependent on the rank in question, many low-ranked adventurers tended to take that gamble and higher risk for higher pay.

This was especially so with…‘parties’…which was another thing encouraged by the Guild…right, adventuring was…not just a ‘solo’ endeavor…the Guild allowed adventurers to form registered parties of no more than five people total and even encouraged it. Ugh…truly…so many details to keep account of, so many…things to be aware of.

Oh right…and coin was not the only thing Guild quests provided…right, there was more to it.

Every Guild quest of all kinds and categories and such whatevers…also allocated a more abstract construct…called ‘experience points’ which…was a largely hidden numerical metric calculated by the Guild and were issued depending on the rank of the quest completed relative to a whole bunch of other…factors and metrics that the receptionist did not bother to detail.

Experience points were not listed on quests and were largely calculated ‘behind-the-counters’, their importance only being for the advancement of ‘levels’.

Right…‘levels’ were another…designator of sorts used by the Guild, which had 100 levels in total—each rank being capped at 10 levels. An adventurer’s level was a rather…archaic metric apparently, one which adventurers themselves never kept track of; receptionists themselves hardly ever brought it up either, unless it was relevant, and that was only in two ways.

One of the qualifying conditions for advancing a rank was reaching that level-cap…though such was not the only qualifying condition and nowadays adventurers did even not have to reach their rank’s level-cap in order to qualify for rank advancement. Thus, the only real relevancy Guild levels had was with the allocation of these so-called ‘skill-points’.

Starting at Steel-rank, an adventurer would begin to earn these ‘skill-points’ every couple of levels or so, which an adventurer could use to acquire a ‘skill’. These Guild-exclusive ‘skills’ were a defining feature of both adventurers and the Guild as a whole and were rather the…interesting things.

Skills were essentially the Guild’s own unique ‘quasi-arcane’ system that primarily emphasized the augmentation and enhancement of a person’s combat capabilities and physical prowess…seemingly. Once an adventurer earned a skill-point, they could, but did not have to, go to their Guild hall’s skill acquisition center to acquire a ‘skill-card’.

These ‘skill-cards’ of theirs were similar to the spellcards used by the Collegium but…when processed…granted a permanently encoded ‘skill’ along with its relevant activation procedures instead of ‘casting a spell’—encoding the procedural information to enact rather than directly commanding an enaction, to put another way.

Oddly enough, it was apparent that neither the locals nor the Guild considered these adventurer ‘skills’ to be anything remotely related to ‘magic’ despite both being…definitionally arcane practices, which even utilized the same card-based methodology of transmission and both requiring ‘mana’ to use; yet, in the eyes of the locals of these lands, they were still two distinct and alien systems…with the former often being barely viewed as ‘arcane’ at all.

At any rate, these ‘skills’ and their associated ‘skill-cards’ did not have to be acquired with just skill-points. In this contemporary age and era, adventurers of Steel-rank or higher could now simply…purchase…them with coin—which a plenty of adventurers tended to do nowadays.

Although the foreigner was still…somewhat wrapping her head around these ‘skills’, she had already surmised that…such would be rather…useless to her; she already had quite an excessive plenty of encoded automated protocols and commands in her essence, ones far more advanced in scope and complexity than these primitive ‘skills’…never mind being adaptive and automated.

Though, likewise, she had yet to actually…see any of these in action…thus, she was simply being presumptive.

The foreigner sighed, staring at this quest-board as her mind fell into an abyss of detailed recall. There were so many things going on in all of this; so much information and details to keep in mind and be aware of. Indeed…truly, the Guild was quite a complicated affair, with so many ‘systems’ and ‘mechanics’ at play.

Indeed, for as much as the foreigner could…probably…handle the higher ranked quests no problem…she was still, very much, rusty. She was still…figuring out how any of this…really worked in practice. She was thus, regardless of talent and skill, still…just a ‘newbie’ Copper-rank: ignorant and confused.

Thus…she, as the receptionist had suggested, relegated herself to the section with all the Copper quests, pinned upon which were a plenty. However, despite narrowing it down to Copper quests, there were still too many…choices and options that she struggled in choosing…not which one to pick…rather which one to actually inspect and read.

After spending so many minutes deliberating at this board, she finally decided to take swift and decisive action in face of such apparent indecisiveness. Without delay, she simply snatched and nabbed, at random, some Copper quest of sorts from the board and backed away from it, her eyes peering down at the soft yet firm…piece of paper now in hand, evaluating it.

“…Contracted Quest of Collection…contracted by the…uhm…the…U…Un…United…Cen…Central…Trade…Company…?” « —Correctëne díabaso? » she spoke to herself as she began to read the quest aloud…quietly.

Hmm…interesting, so one of these so-called ‘collection quests’, then? Hmm…so far this ‘quest-sheet’ of sorts seemed to be rather straightforward and easy to follow.

“Uh…stakeholders have…requested the…finding and collecting of…the following…local naturally distributed…items of interest…” she continued to read out loud to herself; “…seventy…aged Clamfield sea shrubs having no less than…five months on them…ehuh…thirty sunny-cave turquoise glow-stones…twenty-nine sunny-cave magenta glow-stones…one sunny-cave wild glow-stone…some combat expected, be cautious of glow-spiders and other…Copper to Steel…appropriate monsters…in sunny-caves…combat avoidance…highly recommended…uhuh”.

Uhuh…well besides the…awfully peculiar nature of the objects being requested, overall, this seemed to be rather straightforward. It was a simple location and acquisition directive.

She continued reading through the quest document, quickly realizing that it was…not in fact a single document but two…no almost three…documents…double-faced of course…connected into a single whole, requiring her to flip the first page over in order to continue. For such a rather…straightforward document, it was incredibly information dense—though, it was also well-organized and sectioned…thankfully.

It contained…essentially…everything regarding the basics of what she needed to know in order to properly carry-out and…complete this quest, including basic details of the Guild’s standard collection practices and policies that must be adhered to, details of both the recommended and mandatory ‘target’ item handling procedures, descriptions of the items of interest including primitive…but still useful…drawn depictions, and on the very back of this quest-sheet…there was a primitive…but still convenient…drawn map of the surrounding locality, with a key marking relevant areas of interest…with even the Guild Hall marked and centered in order to set a reference-point, seemingly.

Indeed, with just this quest-sheet, she knew exactly what to do. Everything…was written out explicitly and clearly—albeit using very…technical language with which she still struggled but was quickly becoming accustomed to.

“…stakeholders have permitted an allowance for…five items in excess of goal total for each quest-target category…and have provided a bonus of half value…mhuh…no additional reward will be allocated for…items exceeding…uhuh… ” she continued mumbling as she read onwards. Ah, so…do not overcollect…great that they had made such an affair explicit instead of implied, since…she was certainly one who tended to become rather the overcollecting hoarder.

Indeed, she liked it when goals, expectations, and such were clearly and explicitly laid out and defined for her. She liked it when things were objective and concrete…and not abstract and blurry.

She skimmed through the quest-sheet until finally…finding the section detailing the reward of this Copper-rank collection quest. Hmm…even the reward was segmented, the reward section detailing not just a blunt total, but also the parts that…went into the total reward.

In particular, these so-called ‘stakeholders’ were willing to provide a payment of 3 silvers per ‘Clamfield sea shrub’…whatever that was supposed to be, 15 silvers per turquoise sunny-cave glow-stone, 20 silvers per magenta sunny-cave glow stone, and…200 silvers for the wild sunny-cave…glow stone. Thus, the total payment offered by the…stakeholders was 1,230 silvers.

Uhuh…interesting, she nodded her head along…processing such a small yet…pronounced number.

However, the Guild had its own…‘trade and commerce service tariffs’ which it had deducted from the stakeholders’ payment—the Guild’s own ‘cut’, in other words. These collection quests were…essentially a form of contracted commerce and exchange, after all.

Thus, the reward to be distributed to the ‘quest-taker’…was in fact 738 silvers. When added with the Copper-rank ‘base-reward’—the direct base payment added to quests at the Guild’s expense—which was…20 silvers, the reward total amounted to…758 silvers.

Uhuh…well 758 silvers were still…quite the pay…and all from just…fetching a bunch of things scattered around the local ecosystem or whatever.

Albeit, she would have to venture out into the periphery of this settlement, which would place herself in considerable…risk…after all, such were the same reasons for why she did not want to relocate. Yet…nevertheless…from just this one single…quest…months of rent would be potentially covered.

Advancement was never without risks…indeed…there was no real debate on this matter. She did not even bother comparing this quest with any of the others, she did not care; this was the quest in her hand, thus this was the quest with which she returned to the main counter.

“Oh hello, finally selected something, huh? Ahh…everyone’s very first quest always takes them the longest to select…” the receptionist remarked warmly as the foreigner approached, plopping the quest-sheet onto the counter.

“…this is…what I am supposed…to do, no?” the foreigner said…with some degree of uncertainty.

The receptionist nodded “Yes!” she began to reply with a charm, “now let me inspect”.

The receptionist slid the quest-sheet over to her own end of the counter, peaking at it…eyes instantly turning blank. “Ah…not surprisingly, a collection quest…but of course it is this one—you know how many identical copies of this one quest are circulating around? And not just in our branch too…” the receptionist remarked, taking out a special quest registrar book of sorts…a rather thick one at that…alongside her own personal stamp.

She quickly flipped through page after page, her eyes…reading and processing at speeds…that could only be hyperbolically described as superhuman, until quickly finding this quest’s unique identifier code…her eyes double checking the identifier code on both the quest-sheet and the registrar, before writing the foreigner’s registered name besides it and providing her personal stamp onto the quest-sheet proper.

“I do not…envy you at all—or anyone who actually dedicates themselves to only doing collection quests…I mean, it makes you wonder why those sorts never joined the Merchants’ Guild” she remarked in cordial small-talk as she flipped closed the registrar book, returning the quest-sheet to the patiently waiting foreigner who promptly accepted it and placed it into her handbag.

“My advice…for these sorts of quests is…and I am sure it says it on the sheet as well but…collect each quest-target item-class one at a time and session-by-session…so start with say…the aged sea shrubs…collect up until total…and then turn those in first, and then start collecting the others; albeit, no reward will be distributed until it is fully completed, but trust me…it makes the process easier by doing it this way…for the both of us” the receptionist explained and suggested.

“Noted…” the foreigner replied.

“Oh…also uhm…actually…you know what…uhm…wait here one moment, I will be right back” the receptionist said before…abruptly departing away through one of the doors behind.

The foreigner…did just that…she waited patiently and with calm silence. Eventually, that same door popped wide-open as the receptionist returned.

“Thanks for waiting!” she announced with a cheer, being carried in her hands were three large empty sacks of sorts, along with one smaller one; “Take these, you will need them” she said before she gently tossed the sacks over to the foreigner, who immediately and…rather automatedly…caught them.

“Normally, these come at a price…but…you know what…we do not get many new Coppers these days…most tend to skip straight to Iron or Steel…or not join at all…so…consider this on me” she stated with a rather solemnly earnest smile and charm; “something about you…is just…interesting…I guess to say…and I want you to succeed” she added.

The foreigner donned her own charming smile as she toss the sacks onto her shoulder; “I give…grace to you” she said with grace.

The receptionist smiled; “Not a problem!” she replied in a pleased cheer. “Just be sure to mark each of those sacks for each target category…and again…go one-by-one and use one sack for one category of items, you will turn in each sack alongside the collected items” she instructed and reiterated.

The foreigner simply nodded in acknowledgement; “Thus…is that it?” she inquired with a charm.

“Hmm…yeah…basically, but I guess…also…” the receptionist began to reply as her peering eyes began to peer at the foreigner’s…attire, her heel-boots especially; “yeah…I suggest…you should abandon those…heels of yours and wear normal boots for the outdoors…trust me…you will need them for this profession. Oh and of course, you may want to…invest in…actual adventurer-appropriate gear…but that is for another time…since you are still new…but just try to stay out of anything dangerous, then” she commented.

The foreigner nodded; “Oh, believe me…I was already…thinking of changing these heels…for walking in them is not pleasing to me…in truth” she replied cordially.

“Well…uhm…if that is that…I will take the leave then” the foreigner promptly said with a gracious bow, before departing away from the counter…making way to the door.

“Oh wait one more thing!” the receptionist began to say loudly from behind, “do not forget to record your item collection count in the recording boxes during each collection session for each item! That is mandatory!”

“Noted!” the foreigner simply replied in kind with a waving hand, halting before the Guild hall’s doors before promptly stumbling out into the streets and world beyond, making way for home. She had quite the many preparations she needed to make before she ventured outside of the confounds of this large settlement…a necessary precaution needing to be retrieved.

The receptionist waved a faint and silent goodbye, her donned smiling affect dampening and withering as soon as the Guild hall’s doors shut closed.

She sighed; “…hopefully this one actually makes it to Steel…let alone to Bronze and beyond…I probably should have warned her…sunny-caves are not…exactly safe…hugh” she remarked to herself in lamenting whisper…as the sun rose ever-higher…the day only nascently beginning. More receptionists would trickle-in, dozens of adventurers following soon after yet…less so than the day before…and far less so…than the day before the day before.