Qevin lolled back in his chair, focusing hard.

The guildhall was as loud as ever, adventurers and beastmen duking it out over the smallest of squabbles. Actually, he was pretty sure there was an ogre in the mix today, but at this point it was basically background noise to him.

Concentrating hard, he carefully tossed the peanut into the air, tipped his head back, and opened his mouth. The peanut soared upwards, hit its apex, and then fell back down, squarely hitting the clerk in the eye. With a shout of surprise, he tried to jump out of the chair. Instead, his leaning back caused it to destabilize, and he crashed to the ground with a painful thud.

Groaning, he pushed the chair off of him and stood up. Clark was laughing at him, doubled over from his mirth. Sending a glare in his direction, Qevin righted the chair and started to try again.

Qevin and Clark were seventeen and eighteen respectively and considered themselves to be phenomenal stock in the ladies department. Sadly, they were the only ones to think so, and their delusions had caused them to receive more than a few well-placed and well-deserved slaps. They'd been trying for a while, with less than no success.

Ignoring the small pile of paperwork just under the desk he was seated at, Clark asked, "Why ya still going for that? Ya gotta try less and just go with it."

Qevin glared at him again, and the peanut he'd just tossed landed in his hair. It took him a moment of frantic searching to get it out, then shook his head just in case. "The heck is that supposed to mean? How am I supposed to not try? If I don't try for it, then I'll never get it, and that'll just be sad. It's tricks like this that really bring in the women."

Clark shook his head sympathetically. "I dunno about that... nobody's come over to check ya out. I mean, yeah, it's cool as all get out, but the results talk for itself."

The grammar error went unnoticed by Qevin, who stubbornly continued to toss peanuts into his mouth. "I bet Aliss would think it was cool."

Clark snorted. "Aliss? The daughter of the Champion? That Aliss?"

Missing once again, Qevin nodded. "That Aliss. You gotta admit, she's pretty darn hot."

Raising an eyebrow, Clark asked skeptically, "Yeah, but isn't her dad, like, really rough on her last boyfriend? I heard the guy died. And he was supposed to be, like, level sixty or something."

Qevin shrugged, and another peanut landed on the wooden floor. "I bet he'd like me. I'm cool, ya know? Besides, it's Aliss we're talking about. Remember a few weeks ago? She showed up all nervous-like, with all that expensive stuff. 'Member how anxious she was ta get that one demon-summoner quest? Looked like she was about to offer her freakin' shield if she got that quest."

Clark stared off into nothingness, recalling the event. "Huh. I guess you gotta point. She's a bit shy, right? I mean, she was jumpy. That one goblin dropped 'is goblet and she near bounced through the roof."

Frowning, Qevin looked at him. "How th' heck d'you remember that?"

Clark shrugged. "I dunno. I 'member stuff sometimes. Anyway, are ya gonna ask for her shield or somethin'?"

Qevin smirked. "You an' me both know I ain't after her shield."

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

They sniggered for a moment over the joke, and then Clark regretfully got back to filling out paperwork. Tired of his attempts, Qevin started restlessly drumming his knuckles on the desk.

One of his Perks notified him, and he glanced down at his board. It displayed all the names of both the people inside the guildhall and the people waiting outside it, and there were four new names on the list. A slow grin spread over his face, and he nudged his coworker. "Hey, Clark. Yer never gonna believe this."

Scooting his chair over, Clark squinted at the board, and his eyes widened. "No way."

Qevin leaned back on his chair, putting his feet on the desk. "What're the odds? I tell ya, this is destiny."

Clark was still staring at the board, a slight frown on his face. "Wait, who's this Doom Guy?"

An earth-shattering impact shook the guildhall as the steel-reinforced oak doors were blown off of their hinges. A massive gust of air followed the hit, and everyone near the doorway went flying. Qevin keeled over backward, arms pinwheeling, and Clark hurled himself under the desk. The sound of chunks of wood clattering all over the hall continued for a good five seconds, and then the guildhall was silent.

Poking his head over the desk, Clark saw an armored figure standing in the doorway, hands outstretched from the blow it had just dealt. The terrifying entity measured at least seven feet tall, unfamiliar plates of some foreign metal coating every inch of its body. Where its face should have been, there was a reflective piece, but even through that, everyone in the hall could see a pair of blazing marks where its eyes should be, wavering and flickering with nearly inaudible hisses of rage.

The figure walked straight for the main desk, ignoring tables, chairs, and adventurers in his way to do so. Its footsteps sounded like death knells, impending doom approaching the two young men. It stopped at the table and stared down at them, its hands digging into the adamantite-alloy desk with ease.

Doing his level best to ignore the wet stain rapidly spreading across his pants, Clark whispered, "Uh, hello there, sir. I mean, milord. How can I - uh - how can be I service of you to?"

Ignoring the garbled sentence, the titan leaned over the desk and spoke. Its voice was a grating, hoarse sound, and it held all the menace of the Grim Reaper himself. "I need to kill something."

Qevin raised his head over from where he'd fallen, and kept raising it to try and take in the full height of the apparition. "Holy..."

Clark swallowed. His throat was suddenly and completely dry. "Y-y-you need to, ah, kill something? Are you asking about a monster hunt quest, or a bounty, or-"

The figure still spoke in that quiet, gravelly voice of death, but his words somehow held the volume of a shout. "Demons."

This thing hunted demons!? Clark wiped away the thin veneer of sweat covering his forehead, and choked out, "We don't have any demon hunting quests."

With a hate-filled snort of disgust, the figure turned on its heel and walked back out through the annihilated doorway, hands clenching into fists so tight the air wavered around them. A familiar woman walked past him, making a low whistle as she took in the damage. "Wow. Doom, you probably could have been a bit gentler with the doors."

Walking over the carnage, Aliss went right up to the desk, casually resting her arm on the desk. Now that the two hapless clerks got a better look at her, they realized that she wore both her blood-spattered armor and the paint-nicked shield with significant ease. It was obvious that she was familiar with the equipment, far more so than she had been several weeks ago. With a ready grin, she asked, "You guys know any summoners who could get three people and a dog to Hell? I need to find one on short notice. That guy-" she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at where the omen had departed. "-really and I mean really likes killing demons. Not gonna lie, it's starting to grow on me too. So yeah, we're gonna need one of those as soon as possible."

Rapping the desk with a gauntleted fist, Aliss nodded at them and left, hiking up her shield. Pausing as she left, she gestured at a groaning orc lying on the ground and asked doubtfully, "Did Doom step on you?" Receiving a pained nod, she sighed sympathetically. "Sorry about that. I'm sure he didn't mean to."

It was a full minute after she'd left before anyone moved, and the guildhall slowly went back to normal, worried glances still flicking in the direction of the door.

With a haggard groan, Clark collapsed into his chair. Wearily, he asked Qevin, "Still wanna hook up with her?"

Qevin was quite adamant from that point onward that he never wanted to see anyone or anything that had interacted with the monstrous creature that had destroyed the doors.