Somewhere Someplace

It was the earliest morning hours, the sun having barely risen…though it was no longer morning’s twilight.

The receptionist yawned as she stumbled into the Guild hall, the doors having already been unlocked for she was not the first one to arrive. As always, that first one to arrive…the chief of them all… was nowhere to be found in the main hub area, always…busy with something mundane…on the second floor of this large and wide administrative hall.

The receptionist immediately made way to the main counter, as she once again began her morning doings…as she had done the day before…and the day before the day before.

Yet, she did not pause or halt once at the counter, instead…she went straight behind and then through a staff-exclusive door, wandering through a rather…structured and bureaucratic hallway…before opening another door. She was after the most important…thing she needed to retrieve for this day…or any day for that matter.

She was in a primitive kitchen of sorts, seemingly. She lit a fire-pit, boiled a pot of fountain water, and…made a teacup of concentrated…bitter…but necessary imported coffee—a product sold for relatively cheap in Coastfield; the beans had already been ground in advance. She diluted it with…a plenty of sugar, for she took no real pleasure in drinking this…bitter substance.

With it in hand, she then returned to the main counter area…where she began to do her many doings, preparing everything to be ready for the day ahead. Organizing, double-triple checking to ensure files, records, registrars, logs, and all such kinds of papers and things…were properly where they needed to be.

Eventually, another dark-blue vested receptionist stumbled on in…yawning in kind; her fellow main counter peer, seemingly. Her peer paused…sniffing the aroma in the air…“C-coffee?” she mumbled out, sniffing ever-more.

The receptionist took a sip; “Yep” she replied frankly.

Her peer continued to sniff the air around, her mind…contemplating; “…great, now I want some…” she mumbled out with a slight annoyed pucker.

“Then go get some…” the receptionist replied bluntly.

Yet, before her peer could respond…another receptionist stumbled on in, yawning with even greater fervor as a chain reaction of reactive yawns befell all the rest in the hall. Red vest, the social hub receptionist, ever-tired with eyes ever-bagged.

Her peer…immediately looked with a glancing stare at the social hub receptionist, smiling a type of smile; “Hey heyy! Look who’s here early! Sooo…uhm…are you going to make some…coffee by chance?” she greeted before…inquiring…with a delightful, yet conniving, charm.

The social hub receptionist, who was far better at such…beverage production tasks than either of them, stared blankly and with bagged tired eyes. She sighed in a groan; “…fine…fine, leave it to me…” she replied begrudgingly.

The receptionist’s peer immediately smiled in a mischievous tease, rather delighted indeed; “Hehe, thank you! You’re the best!” she replied with glee.

The social hub receptionist yawningly sighed as she began to make way, yet before entering through that very same door…she turned and stared back at the peer; “One of these days, I am going to collect all the debts you owe me” she remarked with a sleep-deprived malevolent smile before shifting her glaring eyes to the receptionist near; “Do you want another cup? I bet you could use one since…you actually do your work, unlike a certain someone” she inquired and quietly remarked as the farther away peer…sneezed by coincidence…for it was rather dusty.

The receptionist’s eyes glanced in kind; “Sure. Thanks. Appreciated” she replied rather straightly, her mind fixated on whatever task she had at hand…though, there were other things preoccupying her mind more.

The social hub receptionist simply nodded in response before departing through that door, making way for the kitchen area, as her peer finally arrived at the main counter, joining the receptionist in her many doings…somewhat.

Time passed, the two being rather…silent…atypically so.

“How are you…coming along, Lav?” her peer finally inquired.

“Fine.” the receptionist replied bluntly, her affect rather distant.

“Hmmm…” her peer began to murmur out as her peering eyes stared, closely and analytically; “You sure…about that?” she inquired; “I know it really might not seem like it, but I am your supervisor…so…you can talk to me if needed…what’s happening inside there?” she added…sincerely.

The receptionist sighed, taking one large conclusive sip of her teacup of coffee; “I am just tired…bad night sleep” she replied; “sometimes my heart and soul just…do not want to stop thinking…” she added…before faintly sighing again.

Her peer, however, raised an eyebrow…her squinting eyes peering closer as she noticed…a certain something that was usually present on a certain finger…was, in fact, absent. “You took off your ring again, so let me guess…another fight?” her peer remarked and bluntly asked.

The receptionist looked down and away…somewhat, silent…before simply replying, “Yes. I keep coming home late and too tired to talk…he still does not really appreciate that”.

Her peer sighed; “Oh Gods’ sacred everlasting toilet, of course…see, this is why receptionists don’t get married…pfft” she remarked.

The receptionist sighed; “…I mean things were fine…when I was just starting out but…now it is always, ‘oh, you need to be home early’, ‘oh, you are too tired to even talk to me anymore’, ‘oh you work way too much, you’ll be a mother to my kids one day and need to act like it’, blah blah blah…and so on” she replied, eyes evading down…voice clearly dampened; “…last night he called me a ‘tailless man’, since that is all I’ve been doing…‘man-work’…while he is the one who sits at home…” she added.

“Hmm?” her peer murmured out, having been listening; “sounds like somebody is jealous…seems like he doesn’t like the fact you’re the one carrying all the coin…yep, yep, that’s always the main issue with receptiladies and their hubbies…city-men don’t like it when they aren’t ones doing all of the work and coin-making labor…they treat it like that’s the only reason they even exist at all and don’t like it when the lady takes that role” she remarked.

“…beh…” the receptionist began to reply, “maybe…probably, but I think he might also just be…lonely…I mean, I’ve known him since–”

Suddenly, the same door from before sprung open as the social hub receptionist finally returned…two cups of coffee in hand, its aroma…significantly better than the one the receptionist had made.

“Finally, yes heha!” so gleefully blurted the peer.

The social hub receptionist placed each cup onto the main counter; “Here here…now” she began to say, “please, do enjoy the fruits of my labor…and now, as my payment…I am going to nap and nobody but the chief will complain, got it?”

“Got it” the peer replied before instantly sipping a sip; “Ahhh…yes, you are the only woman in all the known world who can make this alien teeth-staining piss-water actually taste delightful” she remarked in dopamine bliss.

The receptionist stared at her new cup, taking in the smell…“…alrightly, yeah…I think I am starting to feel a lot better now, thank you” she remarked, her eyes glancing with a smile at the social hub receptionist, not her peer.

The social hub receptionist simply smiled in kind before departing off to her own station…whereupon she promptly proceeded to do exactly as she had so stated she would do: nap away…for that was all that she needed to do…until…adventurers finally arrived.

The receptionist, having only recently finished her prior cup, took a sip…immediately noticing that there was not nearly as much teeth-rotting sugar in this, yet…surprisingly…still tasted…rather pleasant…very. Truly, that one wore a red vest for a reason; she knew what she was doing.

Her peer…well…peered…at the receptionist, smiling; “I see you’re smiling a bit again, there we go! Just think about the coffee and not…well, I won’t mention it…just focus on the nice coffee” she remarked and said with her own unique charm.

The sun continued its rise as the early hours of the morning progressed, a few light-blue vest receptionists stumbling every now and so, most heading to the second floor as the Guild hall more properly began its daily administrative operations.

“Well…” the peer began to finally say, “it’s just about that time now, right?” she remarked.

The receptionist glanced; “…huh? What do you mean?” she asked…somewhat confused.

“You know…that masquerade Copper rookie gal of yours, doesn’t she always come around this hour?” her peer clarified.

The receptionist’s eyes jolted slightly in…obvious realization; “Oh right…of course, Nilia…her, uhm…yeah she still…usually only ever arrives…at this hour…or even earlier…always when the hall is empty” she replied; “it is already a few passed the middle of second month and…she has yet to stop by whenever the Hall actually has others…I don’t even think any of the other adventurers in this branch are even aware that she is…one of them” she remarked further.

“Hmmm” the peer mumbled out, “…and let me guess…she’s still doing those same exact United Company collection quests? The ones with the sea shrubs and glow-stones?” she asked, though clearly already knew the answer.

The receptionist simply stared blankly; “Yep…” she replied frankly; “she is on her fifth and sixth quest, both being the same identical…copies…so basically a two-as-one”.

The peer sighed somewhat; “Ahh…leave it to those Far Westerners to keeping tossing all their weirdos onto our lands” she remarked; “I mean, the ‘New’ ‘World’ exists for you reason, you know? ‘Most gargantuan continent in all the world’, so they say, so they ought to shove their weirdos there! That’s what the Far East’s been doing! Pfft” she added loudly in sarcastic humor.

The receptionist giggled to this; “Yes…she is certainly a weird one but…she is also sweet…I mean a bit distant and closed…but still…I think she is very sweet” she remarked; “she seems to be one who gets…trapped in her own head I think; I mean sometimes while she is waiting on me…she just starts staring at something…as if she were contemplating the very nature of its existence or whatever haha” she added in warmful remark, humored.

“Hmm? I see I see…” her peer began to reply with a teasing grin, “I guess that is one thing you two have in common”.

The receptionist glared at her peer, blankly yet clearly humored, before rolling her eyes with a pfft.

Her peer exhaled a faint satisfied humored breath; “Anyway…you seem very fond of her” she remarked.

“I mean…I guess so…after all, I am the one who admitted her…so I can’t help but feel some responsibility over her and her progress…and we don’t get many new members anymore…especially Coppers…let alone any I had to…do the admitting for” the receptionist replied.

The peer sighed somewhat; “That is true…most receptionists can’t help but get all invested in the rookies they admit themselves, especially their first few” she remarked; “But…eventually those familiar faces turn into to strangers or…they don’t make it far at all…and have that happen enough times, eventually you stop caring” she added…certainly from experience, seemingly.

Indeed, compared to her peer…the receptionist was still relatively new, at least specifically as a dark-blue vest main counter receptionist.

The receptionist sighed; “Yeah, I guess that is why…I am more…invested with this one; she has not died on me yet…and now I do not think she actually will…” she remarked.

Her peer stared blankly; “…you said that about the last rookie you admitted though! And I don’t mean to be mean or anything, just…I don’t want to see you hurting more than you already are. You get too attached…an all too common rookie counter receptilady mistake” she remarked…rather bluntly yet also sincerely.

The receptionist stared; “I admit…I do, but…this one…Nilia…she’s different; I mean, she has been going back and forth between sunny-caves without any issue, so she clearly can handle herself far more than most Coppers are expected to” she remarked; “and…even though she has only been doing…that same duplicate quest on repeat, she has only become faster and better at completing it…menacingly so…” she remarked further; “I mean…her accent and…unique way of phrasing things…may hide this, but…she is a smart one”.

“Wow you really…do like this one alright…rightly then, I get it” her peer, staring blankly, bluntly replied somewhat sarcastically.

The receptionist simply chuckled faintly; “Yeah…I guess I do. She surprised me, I guess to say; I honestly did not expect her to be…nearly as proficient…as she turned out to be so far” she replied. “I mean, to better…mark what I mean, after her second attempt with that quest…she out from nowhere started to collect all of the glow-stones very quickly…like stupidly fast, and so when I asked her regarding how she…had managed to do that, she told me that she had spent like an hour or more essentially…studying the glow-spiders and had basically figured them out” she explained.

Her peer titled her head somewhat; “Hmm…so, that’s to say, she figured out stuff that wasn’t already explicitly stated on the quest-sheet?” she interjected, somewhat skeptical, for indeed…the receptionist had very clear biases.

“Yes.” the receptionist replied frankly; “I mean…I should have said that…she had studied their mating zones; so, she realized their sex-divisions and the details of their mating quirks, and which glow-stones came from which glow-spider, and so on and so on…so now she has essentially been scavenging and raiding their mating zones…you know, waiting for them to finish eating themselves, hunting the stragglers, and collecting any valid glow-stones from the remains” she explained.

“Hmm…” the peer mumbled out, “…alrightly, I admit, for a Copper that’s pretty observant and tactically smart, but…also very stupidly dangerous” she remarked; “I mean, there’s a reason why we mark those quests as Copper, the object’s to collect the glow-stones that the glow-spiders shit out…not fight them directly for them, otherwise it’d be Iron or Steel with a kill-bounty; the only thing you’re supposed to maybe fight is a wild-carrying glow-spider, but that’s it…anything more is needless danger”.

The receptionist simply glared, rather blankly; “A wild-carrier being not a Copper-rank monster. Let’s be honest here: the quest department would have listed it as Copper regardless of any of that. I would say those quests were already not Copper-appropriate as is, after all…sunny-caves were never recognized as Copper-rank areas. Those duplicate quests were only marked as such because they are collection quests and our ‘great friends’ at United Trade did not want to pay the higher fees associated with submitting Iron or Steel quests in mass duplicate quantity…” she counter-remarked.

The peer…evaded her eyes somewhat; “…yeah, aren’t you wordy…but that’s true…Copper-scrubbing’s been a lot more tolerated these days…‘cheap and expendable’ so they say…” she replied in remark, voice becoming somewhat more mellowly somber and disgruntled to a degree. Desperation and willful negligent malpractice, two common trends in this day and age.

Silence. The two turned silent, the mood suddenly turning somewhat sour.

The peer sighed; “Anyway, so, you think your special Copper rookie’s gonna show up today?” she asked, shifting the subject back to a degree.

“Probably not” the receptionist began to reply, “like I said, she has doing two-as-one, same quest but double the target quantity, and I had only recently stamped the quests…like, two days ago. And, so far, she has always started with the Clamfield sea shrubs, which usually takes her…and everyone…the longest, so…I do not expect her back for another week or so”.

“Aww” the peer mumbled out, “and here I was hoping that I would actually get to talk to her for once…since—” she began to reply, but “Since you are always off and away doing something else…like rummaging through the surplus food storage for dried and salted meat, stored for emergencies, and those tasteless crackers, also stored…for emergencies” the receptionist interjected…accusatively in a tease.

The peer…looked way with eyes of guilt; “Hey, a lady’s gotta feed her boredom somehow” she replied…unapologetically, the receptionist simply staring blankly in response; “besides, like I always say…don’t blame me for problems caused by rats” she added.

The receptionist sighed as she rolled her eyes; “Sure, you are correct about that” she began to reply with a grin and teasing affect, “we certainly have a problem rat rummaging around alright, and she just so happens to be my supervisor”.

Her peer…and supervising other…stared blankly and coldly, silence taking hold; “Yes.” she began to reply bluntly and proudly, “I am a proud cute little lady-rat and you will be too when you reach my—”

Suddenly, the Guild hall’s doors sprung wide open in a sharp lancing tumult, causing both to abruptly snap and jerk in a freeze of sudden surprise, nerves somewhat tingling with racing hearts.