Tuesday. 7:30 AM. In Harpe's guild hall.

A seductive red-marked sheet was brandishing itself on the quest board. Inanimate, it was, and had no idea that it needed but little effort to successfully beckon Kirin.

The trap, eye twinkling as eagerly as the guild's chandelier, held his waist as he tilted towards the paper to read: "In the past nights, residents living near the Towering Willows have witnessed abductions of women evening after evening. Sightings of serial abductor have been reported to nearly consistently occur at midnight. Reported abductor is a mysterious black figure, resembling a man in a cape. Quest: Investigate black figure and locate missing women."

"Oh dear, oh dear. I apologize, Vampire Paladin." Katrina rushed over and unpinned the sheet. "This quest has been completed."

"Oh what?! That's a big bummer! Does that mean they ended up finding the culprit? Do you mind telling me what he did to his victims? You can go into deep detail."

"Why are you asking that so enthusiastically? You psychopath," Onyx commented.

"Hmph! I bet it would have been a fun quest. You guys could have used me as bait, I could have been kidnapped, brought to a dark basement, and--"

"Shut up! I don't wanna hear it!"

Katrina gave both a sympathetic smile. "I don't have all the details myself. But the lady certainly is safe."

"The lady?" Kirin rubbed his chin as he continued to peruse other red sheets.

In front of the leaderboard, Faolan and Onyx were both crossing their arms. Crumples all about their foreheads.

Incidentally, the kidnapping quest had not been the only one to have apparently already been completed but not removed from the board.

Monday, Fable Eclipse paid Wisp Lake a visit after finding a quest to investigate the sudden unnatural end of the local gorgon sirens. Of course, the idea of a culprit being a violent, demonic hunter could not have hyped Kirin more than it did.

The hype could not have crashed lower either when Master Chrisholm himself called them all back in the evening, telling that the quest had already been completed by a different party.

Fable Eclipse really wasted another day.

It's frustrating, and the team has been feeling the pressure to catch up more, especially as they've just fallen back to fourth after Blaring Sentence had overtaken again.

They need to complete more quests.

Luckily, over the weekend, there have been dozens more of odd occurrences in Bladewood City. Enough to bring forth an entire wall of red sheets to their hall.

They just needed to find one that would probably earn tons, would be enjoyable, and painfully excruciating!

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"Hey! Umm... does anyone want to party with me?" asked a shrill voice inside of Kirin's head.

"What in the...?" Kirin turned, same as everybody else in the guild, to see a thirty-something man waving his hands from beside where Mr. Chrisholm had perched.

"Oh sorry. I should probably have introduced myself first. My name is Elvin Wittstrong. I'm applying to be part of the guild!"

"Is he using Relay Magic?" whispered a lady in a wooly, brown mage coat.

"Seems like it!"

"Dude!" called a brusque man in bear's fur. "Don't just get into people's heads like that!"

Elvin's lips smiled quivering, as he scratched his head. "Oh sorry. Did I already mess up?"

"Seriously," people hissed as they resumed their own affairs.

"Oh, how beautiful!" Nolan rushed so quickly upstairs that his robe's flicked behind him. He approached Elvin, arms open and ready to embrace. "Your magic! Your magnificent magic! How perfect it would be for our party! Come, come!" Nolan held Elvin's shoulders, pushing the newbie along. "You must join us! Oh how beautiful! With your power, you could absolutely be of use to our cause! To spread the words of beauty to as many souls as there are!"

"Great. Another weirdo in Blaring Sentence," commented the brusque man, finishing with a scoff.

"You're here!" Rafa Berry from Pastel Blood hurried over, extending her delicate arms to hand over a sheet of paper. "Faolan, your party must take this one."

Faolan accepted and proceeded to read. "What is it?"

"Where's Alia? She needs to know of this as soon as possible!"

Kirin unpinned the first quest his hands could find as he chose one without even reading, his neck twisting his head away from the board.

Rafa was holding Faolan's hands as if he couldn't hold the piece of paper on his own, and, although unclear if intentional as it could have just been the lack of space between them, was brushing her breasts against his knuckles.

"Alia..." Kirin started as he made his way to a table. He lifted a foot over the bench and sat as if horsebacking the seat. "...told us she was heading back to The Hive to get a change of clothes."

"Idiot, put that back." Onyx came over to take the paper, gave Kirin a judging look, and flattened the quest on the board as he looked for a pin. His palms leaving, they revealed that Kirin had somehow managed to pick the one green quest the guild had remaining.

"It seemed... intriguing..." Kirin whistled as he poked his fingers at each other.

Onyx's forehead twitched. He turned for the quest and squinted. "Help fill 5500 jars with hot pepper?"

"If you must know, I'm just interested in crushing peppers, scratching my eye, and... you know what goes next."

"Well, I'm sure our party ought to be capable of doing this." Faolan announced and looked back up at Rafa. "I just wonder why you'd let go of it for us. This was written by Sir Arti of the Ironhoof House. It is without a doubt they'll be paying an incomprehensible sum."

Rafa pulled Faolan's hands closer to her chest. "Take it. Alia needs this. Although I want you and wish to do everything I can to win your hand, my sisters must always come first."

"Hey guys!" Alia hopped her way into the hall, gripping tissue-wrapped glasses of sherbet in each of her hands, careful not to spill. "How's your morning been?"

"I appreciate you looking after our Alia. But members of Fable Eclipse know we're all working hard towards the goal. With perseverance, whoever achieves triumph in the end will deserve it." Faolan pulled his fingers out of Rafa's and headed over to give Alia the quest.

"What's this?" Alia jogged to the table Kirin claimed, placed the sherbets down and nudged one towards Kirin. "You can have that one. They had a promotion." Alia wiped her hands' coolth and dew against her skirt before accepting the paper. "Let me see."

The sheet flapped from Faolan to her hands.

Alia narrowed her already thin eyes, and let her reading run along, beginning to murmur. "I hereby write to report... ...request for aid... ...for The Iron Stomps Dungeon... ...as said creature has been terrorizing our... ...hoping to hear soon... Atri Ironhoof."

"Alia, this is what we've been waiting for." Rafa rushed over and planted her fingers on the girl's shoulders. "I think we've finally found your sister."