Nearly a week in, and Springroot still had no more leads on the mysterious creature haunting his neck of the woods. No undead spawning grounds had been found, no more sightings were reported. He had nothing but the testimony of three brand new adventurers.
New adventurers were known to make sloppy mistakes, and these three in particular did not inspire much confidence.
If it wasn't for the fact that his new guild employee swore up and down he'd run into something in the woods on the way over and failed to restrain it, Springroot would have already written the entire thing off as a hoax. Instead, he sat in his office pouring through his tomes in the hopes of finding any similar creatures.
Springroot grinned, enjoying his completely justified time alone.
Of course, life for the adventurers still went on, mysterious creatures or not. Quests still went out, monster materials still came back in, and the guild still did their best to pound the essentials into their trainees' heads every weekend at guild sponsored training classes.
Fortunately, Springroot no longer had to oversee such events, as his head trainer Kevin was more than enough to take over those duties. Even better, his sister was taking the initiative to help out, trying to find more potential mages among the trainees to justify getting hired herself. Which meant all of the trainees were out in the training yard, and not in here bothering his receptionists or himself-
“Guild Masterrrrr!” came a familiar cry from outside his door. Glancing at the timepiece on his desk, Springroot realized that training had already ended..
'This had better be good' he grumbled to himself, knowing that it probably wasn't.
Springroot's office door swung open, held open by the receptionist on duty, as little William and his two paramores rushed in.
“I swear on the great world tree that if this isn't important, I'm going to throw you out of that window” Springroot growled, pointing at the window on the side of his office, three stories up. “Again!”
“No, no, it is important guild master! It's about the reward!” William quickly spit out.
Springroot stood up and began advancing on William as he growled “For the last time! The reward will be paid after the information has been verified!”
“No! Wait!” William exclaimed, recognizing his impending fate. “I mean, we found the creature!”
Springroot paused, before asking “Really? You're not just saying that so I don't throw you out of the window again, right?”
“Of course!” William assured him. “We found it inside Esmeralda's shop!”
“Esmeralda's shop? The enchanter? Where is she? Is she okay?” Springroot finally started to show some concern. Good enchanters were not easy to replace, and her guild would demand an arm and a leg in recompense if she died while under his protection.
“Oh, she's fine” William waved him off. “She's there with it.”
Young William certainly had a way with words. No matter what he said, it always seemed perfectly formulated to piss Springroot off.
“Are you telling me you left a civilian alone with an unknown monster!? Enchanters are not mages! They can't defend yourselves. Argh! This is why I hate new worlds! You think just because somebody has a bit of magic they're invincible! We need to go quickly!” Springroot shouted.
“Wait, guild master!” Ava raised her hands to catch his attention, but she was too late, as Springroot turned around and dove gracefully out ofthe window he'd been threatening William with earlier.
Seconds later they heard him call out across the training yard “Kevin! Kevin's sister! Grab your weapons and follow me! That's an order!”
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“I'm... Clarity”
'Damn, I really need to stop thinking of myself as JJ or else I'm going to blow my cover. Get into character, JJ! I mean, get into character, Clarity! You're a slime right now!'
“Yes! A gift for my friend Clarity! I'm sure you'll put it to good use!”
“I see... thank you?” Clarity cautiously responded.
Esmeralda certainly seemed like a very kind person, giving away such an amazing enchantment. Most shop owners would mark up the prices if they knew they had something you needed, not give it away for free! She even brought out several more enchantments for Clarity to look at, some fancy teapots that looked quite expensive themselves.
It was too bad that Clarity wasn't able to taste the tea, which brought on a bout of nostalgia over such normal human activities.
'I really am not a human anymore, huh?'
Fortunately, Esmeralda lead the conversation back to enchantments shortly after, giving a rather detailed explanation of what they were, and even offering to teach Clarity how to make them! All it cost the slime girl was a small bit of mana to demonstrate her skills.
'Isn't she afraid of another enchanter cutting in to her business?' Clarity wondered. 'Although she does seem to be very confident in her skills. Then again, maybe she's just that good of a person that she didn't even consider it?'
Clarity was feeling pretty great about the impromptu trip into the city, when a familiar trio burst into the shop.
Clarity frowned as they all began to shout, but directed most of her ire towards one of them in particular.
“Oh my fair maiden! We meet again!”
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'Call me your fair maiden again, and my next character is going to be a Khajiit stealth archer with a bounty on your head!' Clarity cursed inwardly.
Clarity felt quite confident in her ability to smack the three of them around if needed, but it was probably for the best that Esmeralda drove them out before anything could happen.
As they left, shouting about dinner and rewards, Esmeralda turned to clarity with a distraught look on her face and asked “The adventurer's guild does know you're here... right?”
Clarity wasn't sure why that was important, but judging by what the trio had shouted as they left... “Well... I think they do now.”
That seemed to be the wrong answer, however, as Esmeralda facepalmed dramatically and flopped down in one of her chairs.
After regaining her composure, she grabbed Clarity and pulled her behind the front desk.
“Listen to me” Esmeralda said seriously “I want you to stay behind me when the guild comes in and let me do the talking, okay?”
“Sure” Clarity nodded in agreement. 'Wow, Esmeralda truly is a great friend. I was wondering how I was going to explain myself, but now she's offering to do it for me.'
Clarity was even starting to feel bad about constantly taking advantage of her kindness. 'I'll have to find some way to repay her later' she vowed.
Only a few minutes later, Esmeralda's front door went flying off its hinges, impacting the wall and bouncing further into the building, followed immediately by three people who entered the building so fast that Clarity could barely follow their figures. 'Isn't that a bit much?'
“Enchanter, get down!” shouted the incredibly large elf at the front as the two humans in the back, who Clarity now recognized as the man and woman from the dirt road nearly a week ago, prepared their sword and staff respectively.
“Wai-!” Esmeralda tried to get out, but it was too late, as the large elf pulled out a small bow that looked more like a child's toy in his hands, drew, and launched an arrow directly towards Clarity's face in the blink of an eye, narrowly missing Esmeralda herself.
With little more than a small pop, over two thirds of Clarity's head vanished, including both glowing eyes. Her slime body toppled over, apparently lifeless, as Esmeralda's eyes widened in shock, screaming “No! What have you done?”
'Playing dead sounds like a great idea right now. Please, Esmeralda, help me talk my way out of this' Clarity prayed.
Luckily, Clarity's mana perception covered most of the shop, so even without her eyes she could keep track of what was happening above her seemingly lifeless body.
“Enchanter Esmeralda, calm down. Have you been Charmed by that ghost? Or perhaps... Where there's one ghost, there's usually more... have you been possessed?” the elf demanded.
Meanwhile, the man with the large sword stalked around the shop, looking for any additional threats, while the woman with the staff approached Clarity's body and bent down, squinting slightly in suspicion.
“That's not a ghost!” Esmeralda yelled back at the elf. “That was the first friend I've made since I was sent to this backwater dump, and you killed her!”
The sobs that came next wore on Clarity's conscience, as Esmeralda seemingly broke down over her friend dying right in front of her. Even the elf began to panic, trying to calm her down with empty platitudes, before Clarity saw Esmeralda throw a small thumbs up. 'Huh, I guess that's two people who have noticed I'm still alive.'
“She's right, guild master. This isn't a ghost” the woman with the staff added from Clarity's side, poking at the gelatinous body with the blunt end of her staff.
'Well, I guess this is as good of an entrance as I'm going to get' Clarity tried to amp herself up. 'It's a good thing that the earring Esmeralda gave me was on the ear that didn't fly away.'
“Hello! My name is Clarity” the featureless voice that came with the earring proclaimed.
All four turned to watch as Clarity rose from the floor as though nothing was wrong, the goo that made up her body expanding to replace what was missing, her old face reforming as though time had reversed. The eyes took longer to reform, nearly 30 seconds, as mana gathered together and then began to glow, before swirling down to coagulate where eyes would normally be placed.
The two men sported absolutely shocked looks on their faces, while the two women who had already realized Clarity was still alive only showed their surprise after Clarity began reforming the pair of eyes.
They almost looked like... 'I shouldn't say it'
'I really shouldn't say it...'
“You look like you've seen a ghost” Clarity deadpanned.
The silence dragged on as Clarity lamented '… I knew I shouldn't have said it!'
Until it was broken by the deep belly laugh of the man holding the large sword “Hahahahaahah!”
“That's a good one!” he exclaimed, as the others took their attention off of Clarity to throw judgmental looks his way.
The woman walked over and began poking Clarity's arm experimentally with her finger, as the elf turned to Esmeralda and began interrogating her.
“You should know the rules about bringing a dangerous monster into my city. Explain yourself” he demanded.
“Uhh, I didn't bring her in, though? She walked into my store to look at the enchantments. And then you showed up and attacked her for no reason!” Esmeralda replied, causing the elf to turn back to Clarity.
The elf frowned, then closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and calmed himself down. “I'm Guild Master Springroot, head of the local adventurer's office and effective mayor of this town. If you want to walk around my city, you'll need to answer a few questions, so that I can make sure you're not a threat to my people.”
“Ok” Clarity nodded.
Springroot's eyes flashed with curiosity as he asked “First, what are you? I've never seen anything like you, and I've seen a lot of monsters in my days.”
That question brought out a burst of laughter from the woman with the staff “Hah, guild master, you've never seen a slime before?” she asked, as she lightly pinched Clarity's arm
“Huh? How... Nevermind” he started to ask, before refocusing on the questions he was supposed to be asking. “Okay then, have you ever killed any intelligent beings before?”
“Only goblins and pigs, do those count?” Springroot stared back at her as though the answer was obvious.
“And how did you enter the city without my knowledge?”
“I climbed over the wall” Clarity answered, deciding that honesty was the best policy here. It wasn't her fault the security was so lax.
The elf glared at her like she had done something wrong, asking “Why did you climb the wall?”
“Because I wanted to get inside.”
“So you purposely avoided the wide open gate where you could have walked inside?”
“You mean the one guarded by humans with pointy sticks? Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn't want to get stabbed with their pointy sticks.”
'I can do this all day' Clarity thought, but outwardly she maintained her innocent smile. 'Answering stupid questions with stupid answers is my specialty, heh.'
“Haha, she seems fine to me, guild master” the woman cut in again. “Don't you think we should talk about something more important? Like my employment?”
“What do you mean, your employment? I've told you I would consider it when there was a need” Springroot stated exasperatedly while trying to maintain his glare towards Clarity.
“Hmm, but guild master... you ordered me to assist you. Without declaring a general emergency. Which means, as a regular guild member, I wasn't obligated to follow that order. By giving that order you've essentially acknowledged me as guild staff, and I accepted that order without hesitation. If I write back to headquarters and tell them I'm being used as guild staff without an official position or pay, won't they get upset?”
Springroot's face morphed into a grimace as he realized he was caught. Sighing in defeat, he muttered “Fine!”
Glancing back at Clarity, he added “Then, my new guild staff, you deal with this monster. I will hold you personally responsible if it causes any problems” before turning around and walking out without another word.
“See that Kevin?” she laughed mirthfully towards the man with the sword “I told you I'd get hired!”
Kevin for his part merely watched with a flabbergasted look on his face.
Wrapping an arm around Clarity, she crowed “Hey! My name's Amy! If you need any help, just come find me! You just got me a sweet gig after all, hahaha.”
“Oh, right!” she paused, fiddling with a large ring on her left hand, before catching a large black robe as it appeared in midair like magic.
Clarity gawked, and Amy thrust it towards her, saying “Put this on. You can't just go around naked in the city.”
“But... I'm not human?” 'I specifically didn't add those details, okay!?'
“Doesn't matter, humans have lots of pointless rules you have to follow if you want to interact with them, so you might as well get started now” Amy snickered.