It was the earliest of morning hours. The sun had only barely risen, morning’s twilight having only recently ended.

  The Guild receptionist—the same one as always—so yawned as she stumbled her way through the Guild hall’s doors, having actually gone home for once. The door was already unlocked, yet the one who had unlocked was, as always, nowhere to be found. The chief receptionist of this whole Guild branch… She was most likely attending to other boring matters in her office.

  Nevertheless, the receptionist promptly made way to the main counter to begin her day and her many morning doings, as she had done the day before, the day before the day before, and…so many other days before those days before. Going straight into and behind, she skipped past her usual station and went through a staff-exclusive door, wandering through rather the bureaucratic hallway of many doors, before opening yet another door.

  A kitchen-like facility of sorts, one rudimentary and primitive. Indeed. She needed to do the most important thing to start this day or any…other day, truly.

  Picking up a pot of sorts, she left this kitchen and departed all the way back out to the main hub area, exiting the Guild hall. Using the water from a local fountain nearby, she filled this pot before returning to the Guild hall. Making her way all the way back to that kitchen, she promptly lit a fire pit and placed that filled pot over it.

  Whilst the water boiled, she proceeded to grind a bunch of dark brownish beans of sorts with a mortar and pestle until they were fine, after which she retrieved a teacup, a funnel, and a paperish ‘filter’ of sorts that went into the funnel. Placing the funnel and filter atop the cup, she carefully put the fine ground beans into the filter using a utensil of sorts. The water having finally reached boiling, she carefully took a scoop of the boiled water with a wooden scooper, before slowly and gently pouring it through the funnel, the liquid dripping down into the cup.

  Indeed… All of that effort just to brew a small cup of imported coffee, which she proceeded to dilute with a plenty of crystallized honey; she took no pleasure in the bitterness of this beverage. Its taste aside, the warm aroma was enough to wake her mind.

  With her cup of coffee in hand, the receptionist returned to the main counter area and went to her usual spot, whereafter she began to do her necessary preparatory doings for this day ahead. Organizing what had been left unorganized by a certain someone else, double…triple checking to ensure files, documents, profiles, logs, and the like were all were they…needed to be, since they tended to be…where they should not be.

  Not longer later, however, another dark-blue vest-wearing receptionist so finally stumbled on in, yawning quite the yawn…before pausing as if her nose had abruptly begun to make out a scent… “C…coffee?” Her nose sniffed.

  The receptionist took a sip. “Yep.” she simply replied.

  The receptionist’s main counter peer continued to sniff this aroma in the air around, her mind…contemplating; “…great, now I want some…” She had a slight annoyed pucker to her cheeks.

  “Then go make some.” yet the receptionist bluntly replied.

  Her peer approached the main counter, chewing on a minty leaf of sorts; “Neugh… I hate making it myself, though…” she so lamented aloud, to the receptionist’s indifference.

  Yet suddenly, the door once again so came flinging open as yet another receptionist came stumbling on; her yawn was even greater, causing a chain reaction of cascading yawns amongst them all. Eyes perpetually baggy, she wore a red vest; it was the social hub receptionist.

  Before the red vest-wearing receptionist could even tumble down way to her station, the main counter receptionist’s peer lanced quite the glancing stare; “Hey, heyy! Look whose here early!” She smiled a type of smile, approaching casually; “So… Uhm… Are you going to be making some…coffee by chance?” There was a conniving charm to her inquiry.

  The social hub receptionist blankly stared, her back hunched down as if she were barely alive—let alone awake. “…dugh…” She sighed with a groan, “Fine, fine… Leave it to me…” Those who donned the red vest were generally presumed to be far…better at the art of beverage production, may it be liquor, tea, or coffee.

  The peer smiled with mischievous tease. “Hehe! Thank you!” she replied, delighted indeed; “You’re the best!”

  With a yawning sigh, the social hub receptionist began to make way, heading through and past the main counter. Yet before entering that same specific door, she turned herself around and glared into the peer; “One of these days, I am going to be collecting all the debts you owe me… Heh…” she remarked with a sleep-deprived malevolent smile.

  “Oh, yeah, I bet… Big time…” yet the peer merely replied, her hand brushing it off.

  “Peh…” The social hub receptionist then shifted her eyes to that other main counter receptionist who was silently ignoring them, doing her doings. “Do you want another cup, while I am at it?” she kindly inquired; “Unlike a certain someone, you actually do your work. So, I bet you could use one…”

  “I can still hear you, you know?” The peer’s voice bounced about.

  Yet the receptionist merely glanced her eyes at the social hub receptionist who stood at that door near and behind; “Sure. Thanks. Appreciated.” Her mind seemed preoccupied, indeed.

  “Alrightly. On it.” With a nod, the social hub receptionist thus opened that door and departed off to that same kitchen.

  As that door gently closed, the receptionist’s fellow peer finally arrived at her own usual spot behind that main counter, directly next to the receptionist herself. Yet as the two did their necessary doings, it was rather silent… Atypically so…

  “How are you…coming along, Lav?” her peer thus inquired, eyes glancing.

  “Fine.” The receptionist thus replied, yet her voice seemed rather distant.

  “Hmmm…” Yet it was very obvious that something was up; the receptionist was not normally this cold. “You sure about that?” she thus began to speak, “I know it barely seems like it, but…I am your supervising other, so… You can talk to me if needed…”

  The receptionist took a moment… “I am just tired. Bad night sleep.”

  “Hmm…” Her peer mumbled… “You overdo yourself too much… Remember, it’s only your first year at the main counter; you don’t need to prove anything…” she thus remarked; “First thing I was told by my own supervising receptilady was to learn to relax…”

  “No, it is not…that. The work, if anything, has been helping…” The receptionist deliberated, before sighing a little as she took one last conclusive sip of her coffee… “Sometimes my heart and soul just… They cannot stop thinking…”

  “Hm…” Her peer raised an eyebrow as her eyes began to squintingly peer at the receptionist’s busy hands, having noticed…an absence. “You…took off your ring again…” she so observed; “…let me guess, another fight?” She was blunt.

  The receptionist immediately became evasive somewhat, looking down and away, silent initially… “Yes…” she sighed again; “I keep returning home too late, always too tired to talk or…do anything… He has not really appreciated that…”

  “And you keep staying overnight here too, there’s that…” her peer so added.

  “Yeah, I wonder why…” The receptionist was rather blunt. “I know it makes things worse when I do that, but… Sometimes I do not want to deal with him; I have too much else to worry about…”

  “Mhm…” Her peer thus sighed with a slight groan; “Yep, yep… The usual usual… I’ve said this before, girly, but… See, this is why receptionists don’t get married, pfft…”

  “I mean, things were fine when I just started out, and he never minded my job before, but…” The receptionist sighed again… “Now the last month-and-half has been always, ‘Oh, you need to be home on time’, ‘Oh, why are you always so tired to even talk to me anymore?’, ‘Oh, I am twenty-eight; you’re getting old, we need to have kids already’, ‘Stop working so much, you need to act like the mother you will be’, ‘blah blah blah’… So on and so on…” Her voice had dampened.

  “Yep. Being a main counter receptionist means you’re the proper face of this branch, and you’ve got much more responsibilities and obligations… It’s not as straightforward as being junior receptilady…” her peer thus remarked.

  To which the receptionist yet again so sighed… “Hugh… Last night, he actually called me a ‘tailless man’ who ‘thieved his manhood’…since I’m doing all the ‘man-work’ while he is the one who sits at home…”

  “Hmm?” Yet her peer so muttered. “Sounds like someone’s jealous… Seems like he doesn’t like the fact you’re carry all the coin home. Yep, yep… That’s how it always goes with receptiladies and their hubbies. City-men just don’t like when they aren’t the ones doing all of the coin-making labor…” she thus remarked; “They treat it like it’s the only reason why they even exist and don’t like it when ladies take that role from them…” Her eyes then peered at her; “This goes double so with Trinitarians—you’re supposed to be the one who follows him with your head down, not the other way around…”

  “Beh…” yet the receptionist so behed, not necessarily finding these words helpful… “Maybe, probably… But I think he might just be lonely, stressed in his own way… I mean, I’ve known him since we were—”

  Suddenly, that specific door behind finally came springing open as the social hub receptionist at long last returned, two cups of freshly made coffee in hand. “Alrightly… Sorry for the delay…” She yawned… “I shan’t lie, I kind of dozed off…”

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  Nevertheless, “Finally! Yay! Heha!” the peer so gleefully blurted.

  The social hub receptionist proceeded to place each cup onto the main counter… “Here you are, then, madams…” she thus spoke, making her way around the main counter; “Now,”—she yawned again—“please, do enjoy the fruits of my labor… But as my payment, I am going to nap upon my desk and…nobody besides the chief herself will complain… Got it?”

  “Got it!” The peer nodded her head away, promptly taking her first sip. “Ahh… Yes…” She seemed almost sedated from the dopamine surge… “You are the only women in all the thousand realms…who can make this alien teeth-staining piss-water actually taste delightful.”

  The receptionist stared at what was to be her second cup of coffee… It looked pleasant and creamy—she did not even know they had milk here… The aroma was significantly better than the one she had made, frankly. “…alrightly, yeah…” She took in the smell… “I think I feel a lot better now, thank you…” She glanced at her red vest-wearing peer with a smile, not her fellow peer standing near.

  The social hub receptionist smiled in kind, before waving as she simply strolled off to her own station, whereupon she so promptly began to slumber upon it in effect; napping away before the first inevitable adventurer could arrive to demand beer and or hit on her.

  The receptionist took her own sip of this newly given coffee, realizing immediately that it had not nearly as much sweetness to it, yet the creaminess made up for it… The taste was…very balanced and pleasant, indeed. She could see why red vests were paid almost as much as higher receptionists; there was hardened artisanry to this skill.

  “I see you’re smiling a bit again…” Her peer so peering thus remarked, smiling a little.

  “I suppose I am…” the receptionist merely replied, feeling…soothed somewhat.

  “Yep, yep! There we go! Just think about the coffee and how good it is… Nothing else, alrightly? Only the nice coffee” her peer spoke with her own unique charm.

  The early hours of the morning progressed as the sun rose somewhat higher. Light-blue vested receptionists stumbled in every now and so, as well as those wearing brown vests; most headed beyond the main hub area, for they were hardly the faces to be presented as much the pieces of the greater administrative machine inhabiting this building.

  “Whelp. None of the eggs have showed up yet, huh?” The peer, her hands tidying up a drawer of sort, thus spoke.

  “Do they ever actually come here? I thought they got paid to sit at home…” the receptionist so replied.

  Her peer chuckled; “Yeah, you’d be surprised, Lav. They actually do have a job here”.

  “Oh, I know…” She was just teasing; “Though, eggs do not need to be here until late-morning, no?”

  “Yeah, but today’s some big meeting or something, so I was expecting them to show up before opening” her peer replied. “Though…” Yet her voice then began to shift, as she gave quite the steering stare… “Speaking of early morning and coming way earlier than necessary… It’s about that time just about, right?”

  “Huh?” The receptionist lightly tilted her head, confused… “What do you mean?”

  Her peer, however, did not reply initially, for she was trying to remember… “What was the name again…?” She lightly shook her head; “Your little rookie girl. The Masquerade Gunslinger-esque Copper… Doesn’t she usually pop herself through by this hour?”

  The receptionist’s eyes jolted in realization; “Oh, rightly! Yeah, of course… Her, yeah…” Right, it was obvious. “Nilia, yeah, that is… Uhm… Yeah. It has been a little near a month, and she still usually…only ever arrives when we are technically…open but…not actually…expecting any adventurers. Or even earlier than that…”

  “You know you can just tell her to scram, right? It’s your prerogative. Just because the door’s unlocked doesn’t mean we’re actually open…” her peer so replied.

  “Yeah, but I am not doing that!” Indeed, she was not. “She is our…first rookie in too long who did not skip straight to Steel, and I want her to be as…pleasantly fit within here as she can be.”

  “Smooth…” her peer merely mumbled; “Though, it’s not like any of our adventurers even know we’ve got a newbie; none of them have met her yet because she keeps coming in way too early…”

  “Yes, that is…probably true…” the receptionist mellowly acknowledged, yet her eyes then drifted to her peer proper, glaring… “Though, I guess the better question is… You are right… It is that hour, isn’t it? That hour during which you get hungry and venture off to make a mess in the kitchen…”

  “That or take a nice cozy nap while I have you do all my work, my bustly subordinate!” The snickering smile had no guilt whatsoever. “No, but seriously, I haven’t seen her in a while, it’s felt.” Her peer stayed on topic.

  “That is because you are always somewhere else…” yet the receptionist reiterated, “like rummaging through the surplus food storage for dried and salted meat, stored for emergencies, or those tasteless crackers, also stored for emergencies.”

  “Hey, hey! A lady’s gotta feed her boredom somehow! And I’d say it’s always an emergency when my stomach’s bored…” her peer snickered away, “though, as I have said: you shouldn’t blame me for problems caused by rats!”

  The receptionist so rolled her eyes with a gentle breath; “Certainly, you are correct about that,” she began to remark, “we do have a problem rat, and she happens to be my supervisor.”

  Her peer…and supervisor…so blankly and coldly stared. “Yes.” she promptly declared; “I am a proud strapping and pretty lady-rat, and you will be too once you are in my position.”

  The receptionist raised an eyebrow, doubting. “You want to bet on that?” she cordially replied.

  “Sure. Wanna bet that you won’t make it the full year at this job without either dropping dead or mutating into a fellow rat-lady?” Her peer reciprocated; “We aren’t born, you know. We’re forged.”

  The two proceeded to mutually giggle, certainly taking none of this seriously.

  The receptionist proceeded to sigh gently, calming from said giggles… “Ahem. No, but… Rightly, right… Nilia,” she refocused her thoughts back onto what had started this exchange, “uhm, no, but yeah—ahem—she is… It has only been two-and-half days since she picked her last quest, so I do not expect her back until at least tomorrow or so…”

  “And let me guess, that girl’s still doing that same exact United Company contract quest?” Her peer thus pondered despite already knowing the answer; “The one with the glow-stones and sea-shrubs”.

  The receptionist glanced somewhat blankly… “Oh, yes… Yes… And two of them this time, her fifth and sixth quest with us… Both the exact same duplicates—so a two-as-one, essentially…”

  The peer sighed, crossing her arms; “I’ve been telling you Lav, that Far Westerner is a freak alright… A real weirdo—they keep sending us their weirdos” she frankly remarked; “I mean, not like the ‘New’ ‘World’ exists or anything, you know? ‘Most gargantuan continent in the entire world’, so they say… So they ought to shove their weirdos there! That’s what the Far East’s been doing, from what I heard. Pfft…” She was largely being sarcastic.

  The receptionist giggled. “Yes, I admit, she is certainly a weird one… But she is also surprisingly sweet—I mean, a bit distant and closed, but still… I think she is very sweet” she thus remarked; “She is clever too, a smart one… Sometimes while she is waiting on me, I find her just…staring off at something like she’s contemplating its…essential existence or something, haha…” Her voice was quite warmful indeed.

  “I see, I see…” her peer nodded away with a teasing smirk, “Well, I suppose that means you two have something in common!”

  The receptionist rolled her eyes with a dismissive breath, though she was evidently humored.

  “Though, anyway, you are very fond of her, it seems…” Her peer’s voice transitioned, however.

  “I mean… I guess, yeah… I am one who admitted her” the receptionist replied, her voice reflecting with sincerity; “She is my…first new member who I had to…oversee the…process for and… Yeah, I cannot help but feel invested, you know?”

  I want to see her succeed and grow, especially since…”

  “A lot don’t end up making it far, and new members are exceedingly rare these days…” her peer promptly completed; “Yep, yep… That’s how it tends to be… A lot of freshly new proper receptionists can’t help but feel responsibility over their first few admitted rookies; get attached and feel all…lovey…” She paused momentarily, as if…reflecting. “But… Just remember, they’re not your friends or lovers or anything like that… They are familiar faces who come and go, and most will eventually disappear. Either because they moved on to somewhere else or…just never made it.”

  “Yes, I am aware…” the receptionist thus replied; “But I cannot help but feel invested with this one. She has not died on me yet despite…what she has done so far, and honestly I do not think she actually will. There is just…something about her…”

  The receptionist’s peer, however, merely stared quite the bossy glare; “Lav. That is, literally, what every. single. first-year main counter receptilady says.” She was blunt but also…sincere. “I am not trying to be mean or anything… But getting too attached is an all-too-common rookie mistake. Have that severed enough times, you’ll eventually stop caring… And I don’t want to see you hurting more than you already are; that’s all…”

  The receptionist’s reply was delayed, for she was caught in her thoughts. “I admit…” she finally began to say, “I perhaps have become too…invested. But… I really do believe Nilia is different…”

  “Alright, I’ll humor it…” Her peer sighed, shrugging her shoulders; “Why do you feel that?”

  “Well…” The receptionist began to cogitate… “For one, she has repeatedly ventured into that sunny-cave, and we both know…sunny-caves were never marked as Copper-appropriate zones; they are very dangerous for rookies, even if they avoid the glow-spiders and select for the discarded glow-stones. But she showed up with seven wild glow-stones!”

  “Wait, wait,” her peer interrupted, “there are…wild gradient glow-stones listed on that quest?”

  “Yep. Single item requested.” the receptionist stated.

  “Oh, well if that isn’t a botched misranked quest, then… Gods’ sacred toilet…” her peer so noted.

  “Yeah. That quest should be Iron-rank at least, Steel preferably considering the glow-spiders, and maybe even Bronze considering the wild glow-stone which are never found individually. At least if we’re considering solo-questing.” the receptionist frankly remarked; “But it was listed as Copper without party recommendations, and we both know why.”

  “Quest department’s getting way too lazy, isn’t vetting as it used to, and just doesn’t like collection quests going above Copper or Iron.” her peer remarked aloud…

  “That, and our great friends at United Trade probably did not want to pay the fees associated with higher rank contracts.” the receptionist added.

  “But their quests are carrying our branch; we’re reliant on them…” the peer added in kind.

  Indeed, desperation and willful malpractice, two increasingly common trends in this day and age.

  The receptionist just nodded, before aheming. “But, yeah… So, back to what I was saying…” she thus reshifted focus. “In spite of all that, Nilia came in with seven wild glow-stones, turning in one with the intention of keeping the other six for future quests. And when I asked how she had even…you know…managed that, she told me that… She essentially stumbled onto one of their mating grounds and spent…an hour or more just watching them cannibalize and mate; she managed to pick apart the different glow-spider types and their sexual differentiations, and basically figured out many of the extended details that the quest sheet did not mention…”

  “Uhuh. Alrightly, that’s… But, so, the wild glow-stones? How did she…” the peer inquired.

  “Oh, rightly… She said that she waited until they finished eat-fucking each other, saw that the survivors were wild-glowing, and killed them during their recovery.” the receptionist recalled. “She has some kind of…revolving repeater-pistol—heavy caliber, dwarven most likely. I guess it punches through their hardened skin easily.”

  “Hm.” The peer nodded somewhat; “Yeah, alrightly, fine. I admit… That’s all pretty clever…for a Copper, at least. But also dangerously stupid…” she frankly spoke; “Wild glow-spiders are freaky dangerous and highly aggressive, and taking on… What? Seven of them at once? Special or secretly powerful or whatever else or not, she is still new at this, and that screams either cockiness or someone actively trying to get herself kill—”

  All so suddenly, these words were abruptly silenced as the Guild hall’s entry doors so swung wide open in quite the shaking tumult; the both of them froze in a startled spook as their necks twisted to gaze, nerves tingling and hearts racing.

  And… Indeed, as if the Goddess of Fortune herself had so schemed to orchestrate such coincidental events, so stumbling her way through those doors in quite the hurry…was that very foreigner about whom they had just been so gossiping. And she brought with her hardly a sneeze, but rather a fully stuffed sack dripping with aged slime. Two of them, in fact; one was carried by her, and another was carried by…a companion, it seemed.