“Can you please explain to me what an adventurer’s guild is?” The elf just needed a first hand account for her notes. “I don’t understand how someone can order you to go on an adventure, can you clarify this for monetary and administrative purposes?”

It sounded like a good first step to explaining humanity’s unique ability, which would set them apart from every other species. Clearly it was exploration based.

Mark thought about it for a moment before answering, “Well, you go into a room, pick a job that you can complete and then perform that job for a reward. It’s usually for slaying monsters and stuff, but I think beginners usually do chores or run errands for people like collecting herbs.”

That was copied down word for word, then key points were underlined and her own opinions were written on the margins of the paper.

She decided to alter their plans a bit, originally they were going to just tell him to perform a number of tasks so that they could check for anomalous activity but the addition of choice could shorten the time it took to find a lead considerably.

Was he an intelligence based species? Used to finding efficient methods of solving problems?

She would need evidence of supernatural intelligence, like the ability to perform math faster than a computer.

The researcher wrote down her new hypothesis and then nodded to the human. “Of course, yes that is exactly what we will be doing. An adventurer’s guild. Could you give me a description of what they look like on your planet, both on the inside and outside?”

~

“Okay the orders have come in, the Errifin said she can’t stall the human much longer so we need to get into position. They are scheduled to get here in five minutes, are there any last minute questions?”

The man asking the questions was an orc, though his species didn’t naturally have leadership based abilities or skills that could allow him to strengthen those under his command he did have blessings he had acquired through personal achievement.

In a way he was split between multiple specialties, the innate strength and hardiness of an orc and command based skills. Perfect for a situation where you might be on the receiving end of an attack from an unknown species.

No one had any questions, they had gone over the operation two dozen times while the construction specialized crew put a bar-workplace hybrid onto the edge of a small town, hardly larger than a village.

“Hey! I hear them!” a bat-like humanoid shrieked, “positions!”

And then as if on cue the doors opened, a human and their robot servant walked into the bar section of a newly constructed adventurer’s guild.

It was his first look at a human and he reached a strange level of ‘adequacy’ in the orc’s mind.

Larger than most crafting based species, such as gnomes or some types of elves. Shorter than most physically dominating species like orcs. Thinner than something which prioritized strength but thicker than something which prioritized movement abilities.

A very average species.

The human blinked, turning to survey the strange and hostile place he had walked into.

A tiger person sat in the corner rapidly stabbing a knife between each of their fingers, someone else with an impressive set of antlers ordered a stiff drink.

In the corner two people much larger than any human got into a fist fight. Trading clearly minor blows to the chest, before shoving the fight behind a wall where the human couldn’t see them.

He did not move his eyes to track their movements through the wall, so that ruled out supernatural visual senses.

The orc himself turned to pour a drink to the man with antlers, he didn’t need to watch the human, that is why he had a robot following him around. It was discreetly outfitted with cameras and other sensory equipment, along with emergency medical equipment for the human.

Mark the human had been put into a stressful, dangerous place with none of his usual bodyguards. It was clearly a threat to him.

It was clearly a threat to him if they weren’t all higher ranks in the military who were pretending to be a rough and tumble mercenary group at a bar-mercenary gathering place.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Now it was time for phase one.

The human went to walk around the bar, towards the board in the back where you could find jobs listed.

One of the bar patreons shouldered into the human, then turned to confront him.

Mark looked up to see three people blocking his path, a shifty looking elf with a long dagger on his side, another orc and a boar-like humanoid.

The boar spouted the pre-determined line, “Hey! Watch where you’re going kid!”

It was code, he said that if he did not sense any danger or unique abilities being activated.

Next was the elf, a rogue who was specially trained to sense threats.

“This kid seems like he wants some trouble boss.” The elf spat off to his side then continued, “Seems a bit small, maybe he should learn to stick to his own workplace?”

More code, there still appeared to be no threat. If he did feel threatened he would have subtly mentioned it and not continued to refer to him as a child.

Finally the orc interjected, “Don't see a reason not to.”

They truly didn’t sense anything dangerous about him. Thus they were initiating phase two.

The orc ‘hoodlum’ put a hand on the human’s shoulder and shoved them back. Given the human’s weight and muscle mass he stumbled back about as far as you would expect.

The boar sneered, grunting like an animal and stepped forwards attempting to intimidate the human.

It worked, Mark shrank back obviously unused to threats of bodily harm.

The boar grabbed him by his shirt and pulled back a fist in an overly slow exaggerated manner, he wasn’t going to actually hit the human after all-

Then the door slammed open and a giant red panting lizard stumbled into the room.

Zirrilit leaned heavily against the wall for a moment, breathing; she had chased that car for the last sixty miles after the driver mistakenly took off without her.

She had even asked them to wait, they must have forgotten. Mark surely took up their attention, it must have been hard to think about anyone else.

He was what Zirrilit would refer to as a lady killer. He had after all killed many of those back when he summoned that angel.

She panted for a moment, turned slightly to see Mark there against the wall talking with some other guys. Everyone here was so short compared to her, they died if they got hit by cars and stuff.

Zirrilit crossed the room, her legs were shaking slightly from the exertion and she was breathing like oxygen was a rare and priceless resource.

She collapsed against the bar and grabbed a bottle of the first clear liquid she saw.

Then she spat as her body rejected it, it looked like water, it didn’t smell strong but it tasted like poison. She had been expecting water and unknowingly took in an entire bottle of vodka instead.

Zirrilit vomited onto the counter slightly between her gasping breaths, then turned looking around the room for once.

Everyone was staring at her, the bartender, the mercenaries who were fighting in the other room, the person playing with a knife between their fingers.

Mark.

She leaned against the table and licked her eyeball, sexily. “Oh… Hey… Mark…” She gasped, “Fancy- Fancy seeing you...”

Mark nodded, looking a little pale. His hands were clearly in front of him, a defensive position? So he could push someone away?

The orc and pig person were looming over him, the elf stood to the side with a really big knife in their hand.

The pig person was even grasping the front of his shirt, holding him up slightly.

Zirrilit leapt to her feet, of course! Mark was a magic person who summoned monsters, he wasn’t a fighter who could beat people up! It all made sense now!

She had just assumed that since he was so good at killing that he would also be stronger than her, but her lessons had been specifically designed to correct her thinking and ensure she knew how fragile everything around her was.

Including Mark.

He was frightened, she would step in and rip those people messing with him into tiny pieces and eat them to display dominance to the rest of the building. Thus showing she was an appropriately powerful mate.

She rose, a head and a half taller than even the tallest orc. Strong enough to tear through steel with her claws. You needed specialized weapons to hurt them the same way a human might need a specialized weapon to harm an armored personnel carrier.

The dragonoid’s muscles tensed, she leaned forwards, ready to launch forwards like a missile with the weight of a small vehicle behind it. She would hit them so hard it would look like they stepped in front of a moving train.

The boar person dropped Mark and stepped behind him and she stopped herself. She didn’t want him to look like roadkill. Zirrilit started thinking about the implications, she could ram the two on the right and hold her arm out to take the remaining one’s head off but if Mark moved at all she risked tearing him to pieces too.

She untensed, then took a step forwards and grabbed the pork person. She wrapped a claw around his head and prepared to pull until it came off and then she-

Mark grabbed her arm, hugging onto her. “Oh thank god! Good thing you showed up when you did.” He nodded, “I swear I think that guy was going to kick my ass.”

The man wasn’t going to kick him, he was going to punch him Zirrilit reflected, and either way Mark didn’t have to swear it happened since she had seen it. But she didn’t correct Mark.

She just nodded, and grunted an affirmation. “Mh, hmm.”

That was apparently the correct answer.

Mark looked up, “Hey, so while you’re here you want to go uh… Questing with me?”

Zirrilit nodded, of course she did.

And the bar patrons watched the human lead the dragonoid away from the three people she was about to murder towards the back of the establishment where they began looking at the job listings.

Find medicinal herbs

Requires:

Battismen leaves (1g)

Orvion roots (10g)

Purple pictel flowers (.08g)

Pays 80 gold on completion

“Hey Zirrilit, what is a battismen?”

She thought for a second before nodding her head and helpfully answering, “I don’t know!”

Then a pre-recorded voice spoke up behind them, “A battismen is a large tree with purple veins running through its leaves and a gray colored bark.”

The machine had followed them to this side of the room, recording every step they took.

“Oh, so you can just show me where those are?” Mark asked.

“Yes.” The machine did not elaborate, it was a construct and followed orders to the letter.

The researchers staring through the machine’s eyes checked another box on their list. Proper delegation, summoning an ally from miles away, high loyalty after exposure for a short time.

Clearly some kind of leader type right?