Alan Stanford had one of the most boring duties of any Guild employee. In his opinion at least.
Some people worked the Exchange desk, where they used their expertise to give out proper valuations for Dungeon items. Some worked as advisors, tirelessly focused on making sure the people in their care came back alive. Other were in the engineering or medical wings, keeping the lights on and the adventurers breathing. All these jobs had their share of ups and downs, with problems and complications that challenged the mind and fortitude of every Guild employee. And then there was his job.
Alan manned the Quest Administrator desk every single day. It was his job to keep track of and certify the completion of every quest Level 3 or below. It was mostly simple and boring work. An adventurer would come in, demonstrate that they had completed the quest within the allotted time, and Alan would give them their money. He needed to be on the lookout for fraud, but beyond a few obvious hoaxes, just about everyone knew better than to try to pull one over on the Guild. The reward usually wasn’t worth the risk of being blacklisted, and the people who knew what they were doing typically didn’t have to pull those sorts of tricks anyways. Furthermore, there weren’t that many total quest completions in the first place. He would get a rush in the afternoon, as parties came back from completing their daily quests, but the rest of his day was usually uneventful. On top of that, it was Guild policy to hold the Quest Administrator desk open until 8 PM, longer than almost anyone else. This was supposedly to give the adventurers a greater chance to turn in these time sensitive items, but in his 6 months on the job he had seen a grand total of three adventurers turn in quests after 6:30.
At 7:00, he was sipping his tea and seriously contemplating shutting down early for the day. He was going on, in his opinion, a well-deserved holiday tomorrow. He itched to hit the town, meet up early with what few friends he had, and go drinking. His supervisor wasn’t even around, and the only person left was a pretty green-eyed half-elf who was fiddling with some paperwork in the office beside his. Apparently, his normal supervisor had asked her to fill in for him, which she had done as a favor, but she looked like she was about to pass out. Watching the beautiful woman out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that her eyes had been scanning the same page for the past 20 minutes. The bags under her eyes signaled an employee who had been terribly overworked. He longed to go over and plead with her to let them both close shop. The only thing that held him back was that Eina Tulle was well known in the Guild as a stickler for the rules, and he didn’t want her to think less of him.
As this internal struggle raged, he was startled to hear heavy footfalls outside his door, followed by the firm twist of the knob of his office door. In walked a sturdy looking young man wearing a long green combat robe and a horribly shabby black cloak, with a massive brown leather pack on his back. This pack was bursting at the seams, and it made a loud THUNK when the adventurer set it down and looked him in the eyes:
“This is where I’m supposed to turn in my quests, correct?”
The adventurer barked out the question like it was a statement, carrying himself with a maturity that was unusual to see in someone his age, even for an adventurer. Alan gaped for a little while, before finally collecting himself and responding:
“Yes, that’s correct.”
The young man casually reached into his pack and slapped six pieces of paper on Alan’s desk at regular intervals. He then placed items next to each paper, two glittering crystal wings, a pile of white fur, a pile of dark fur, a sparking red gemstone, and two brown horns grouped separately. Alan watched the process in a stupor, trying to process what on earth was going on, before he was finally shaken awake by the man’s voice booming out once again:
“You going to give me your stamp, or are we going to spend all night here?”
Startled out of a stupor by that commanding tone for the second time, Alan sized up this ruffian critically. Disregarding his cloak, his equipment looked nice, especially his ivory sword. But besides the weapon, none of gear screamed “high level Adventurer”. Alan spoke calmly, finally fully awake:
“What Level are you? 4? Perhaps 5?”
“I’m Level 2.”
Now Alan knew this was a fraud. Most high-Level Adventurers took high-Level quests, but there were the occasional few who wanted to minimize their risk and make a “modest” living. Having attained their high status, they rested on their laurels and spent their time in the Middle or Lower floors. They would often take out and fulfill multiple quests at once, as their superior abilities allowed them to solo these floors with relative ease and juggle the different objectives. If this kid had told him he was at that level, Alan would have at least examined the materials carefully to try to see if they were genuine. He didn’t look like any higher-level adventurer Alan had ever seen or heard of, but Alan was new to this. Maybe he was a recently promoted Level 4 from Ganesha Familia who wanted some extra cash?
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But this young fellow hadn’t even tried that kind of lie. There was no Level 2 in the whole of Gekai who could legitimately gather all of this in one day. Either this guy had been hording quests illegally, or he had obtained counterfeit items. Either way, Alan was opening his mouth to chew this fraudster out when he noticed movement in the corner of his perception. Eina had apparently been startled by the noise and was peering through the glass divider that separated their offices. The mist of grogginess had begun to disperse from her eyes and what remained in their place was a gleam of recognition as she stared at the adventurer. The recognition morphed into surprise as they moved to the “items” on the table, and Alan was surprised to see her shoot up from her seat and hustle to her door.
Tim had followed the Guild official’s gaze towards the other office, and he was nearly as surprised Eina was to see him. Since when did she work in this part of the Guild? She half-jogged her way out of her workspace and into the Quest certification room, diligently closing the door behind her as she entered before turning to Adama:
“It’s a little late, Tim. I’m glad you’re working hard, but Hestia and the others are bound to be worried.”
Her eyes moved from his pack on the floor to the quests and items on the desk, before moving back to Adama again. Slowly, as if broaching a sensitive topic, she spoke:
“What’s all this? Did you gather all these today?”
Before Tim got the chance to speak, however, Alan interjected, the air of scandal in his voice as he did:
“Ms. Eina, you know this man? Is he one of the adventurers under your care? Have you informed him that quest fraud is a serious crime?”
To his surprise, Eina did not wilt under the shame that an adventurer under her charge had committed this crime. She didn’t even seem terribly angry. She just slowly turned and fixed Alan with a stern yet motherly gaze. As though she were talking to a child, she calmy enunciated:
“Alan, how about you take a close look at the materials that Mr. Adama has so kindly placed on your desk? While you do that, he can tell us the story of how he obtained them.”
It was a tone that brooked no argument, and Alan quickly pulled out his assessment tools and began aggressively scanning the items for flaws. In the meantime, Adama regaled them with his story, starting the previous evening and all the way up to the present:
“I took a bit of a detour to make sure the silver haired girl and her boyfriend made it back to the medical wing safely, which is why I’m so late. Even so, I grabbed the quests after 8:00 yesterday, so I should be on time.”
He hadn’t told them the details of his Crystal Mantis farm, for obvious reasons, instead hinting that he had figured out some new way to attract their attention, leaving the specifics ambiguous. He had also entirely elided the story about the Almiraj. He didn’t know for sure why, but he suspected that information about non-bloodthirsty, intelligent monsters would be sensitive or valuable. He wanted to do his own research on that topic before thoughtlessly spilling the beans. But his “fishing” strategy for hunting was public record, and it would help explain how he got so many items at once, so he talked all about fighting waves of Hellhounds and Almiraj. When he was done, both Guild employees were staring at him. Alan was glaring at him with stark incredulity, clearly not believing a word he said, while Eina just looked at him with a kind of exasperated resignation. She was the first to fill the vacuum the end of his story created:
“Alan, have you found anything that would condemn the items as counterfeit?”
“…No, but that doesn’t mean that-“
“Have you confirmed that the quests were missing this morning?”
“…Yes. According to my records, these six quests were registered as being accepted when they were discovered missing this morning. I assumed that we had just gotten some early risers, but-“
“Then we should have no problem registering these quests as complete and giving Mr. Adama his money, should we?”
Any trace of tiredness gone; Eina examined the young man with a calm imperiousness. As he spluttered, she continued to calmly insist in a tone that permitted no rebuttal:
“Anyone with a lick of sense can see that this man is slated to be a top-level adventurer one day, possibly Level 5 or beyond, assuming he doesn’t get himself killed first. Do you really want the Guild to offend such an important character? Do you really want to cheat the man out of what he is owed or waste his time? If you like, I’ll certify the quests myself instead.”
That got Alan moving. In short order, all the quests were signed and stamped. The items were taken away and put in separated storage, replaced with bags of money. Adama swept the cash off the table and into his pack, nodding sardonically at the man as he did:
“Pleasure doing business with you.”
He briskly tossed the pack over his shoulder and started toward the door. As he reached the threshold, he suddenly stopped and turned around, like had had forgotten something or just gotten a new idea. Turning to look at Eina, he said something that caused both other occupants of the room to nearly have a heart attack:
“Want to grab some dinner? My treat. As thanks for helping me out here.”
Alan, still behind the desk, let out a strangled choking noise, stunned into speechlessness once again. Eina for her part, transformed from a motherly and commanding presence to a blushing teenager within the space of a few moments. Suddenly unable to meet Tim’s eyes, she stared at the space above his head, a bashful half-smile slowly shining through in her expression:
“Y-yes, that sounds nice. Alan, be a dear and lock up here. Don’t worry about leaving a little early.”
And with that, the pair set off into the night, leaving poor Alan alone in the Guild offices.