Maya stood in front of a building. There were few people around, which was rather strange. This was supposedly the most important part of the station. The spaceport felt rather empty. Still, she went into the office building in front of her.

“Hello.” She said to the person behind the desk looking bored.

“I’m sorry miss, no flights outbound.” The boy told her.

“Oh, that’s not why I’m here.” She told him, and he looked up for the first time.

“Hmm?” He seemed to take note of her only now.

“I’d like to check if someone came through here recently.” She said.

“Do you have the authorization for that?” He asked, clearly bored.

“I need an authorization?” She hadn’t known that. Well, it wasn’t that strange in retrospect, but a bit annoying.

“Yeah, sorry. Can’t help you.” The boy had clearly already dismissed her in his mind and was back to doing whatever it was that he had been doing beforehand.

“How can I get one?” She asked him.

“Huh?” He seemed surprised that she was still there.

“How can I get one?” She asked him again, careful to stay neutral in her tone.

“Uh, either from city hall, or if you are an adventurer hunting an outlaw.” He said after thinking for a bit.

“Thank you.” Was all she said as she left. From her understanding, it would be a lot harder to get an authorisation from city hall as she would have to have a good reason, and not only that, it would probably take time. Seemed like she was about to become an adventurer.

She quickly made her way through the busy streets of the station. It was obviously a lot less busy than on Dust. It seemed the world was filled with a whole lot more people than she would have thought. When she had accompanied her father, there never had been many people around, or at all.

Going from the spaceport to the adventurer’s guild wasn’t that far off and she soon stood in front of the impressive building depicting all manners of heroes protecting others. She saw a group of what must be adventurers. Only they could have such a strange array of people together. There was a huge Karkaris with a small Skraa on his shoulder and three humans. One girl, a teen and a guy with the strangest getup. Shaved head with tacky yellow glasses.

She shook her head and walked in, only to be greeted by more strange gatherings. The first group she had seen didn’t seem that strange anymore. Ignoring it for now, she made her way to one of the clerks. She didn’t even have to queue as one of them was free.

“Hello. I’d like to register as an adventurer.” She said. The clerk looked her up and down, clearly not impressed but still took out a form for her to fill out.

“Fill this out for me, then you’ll have to pay a fee. Do you have a team or are you going solo? We advise all rookies to start with a team and see from there.” The clerk said in a deadpan manner.

“I’ll be going solo.” She said as she took the form and started filling it out.

“Can I ask you to fill it over there please? You’re blocking the line.” The clerk said as she was writing down her name. Excusing herself she moved over to a table and started writing down everything. It wasn’t long before someone cast a shadow on her form.

“Hey, starting out huh? Are you looking for a team?” A huge lizardman asked her. He was so buff it looked almost ridiculous.

“I’m sorry, I’m not looking for a team at the moment.” She said and tried to get back to filling out the form.

“Oh you think you’re hot shit huh?” The man said in a tone she wasn’t sure was nice or not. Was he being what was called passive aggressive?

“I know I’m not hot shit sir. I simply do not see the need for a team.” Why would she need a team when she only wanted to look through the registry of arrivals to see if her father had come by here or not? A team was irrelevant to her needs, and also a risk to her being discovered as a sentient golem.

“Sir! Hah! Hear that boys? She’s too good for us. You cocky little bitch.” He tried to take hold of her head with his hand to push her down, but instead her head didn’t move. He was so weak it was a bit strange to her. She took hold of his wrist and turned it violently, forcing the man to follow the twisting before letting him go. She had been told it was the appropriate response.

“You’re done for.” He said as he massaged his bruised wrist, clenching his knuckles. His buddies beside him were also clearly getting ready to get rough. But before they could do anything, the big lizardman was on the ground, with a naga’s foot on his head.

The group of hostile adventurers all froze while some others were snickering at them. Clearly this wasn’t the first time it had happened. The naga was a lot smaller in body size to the huge lizardman, but he seemed unable to move an inch. Slowly, the naga bent down to say something in his ears, but loud enough for the whole room to hear.

“If I catch you trying to haze new recruits one more time, I’ll strip you of your rank and ban you from being an adventurer for the rest of your life. Am I making myself clear?” The naga’s tone didn’t brook no argument and the lizardman quickly nodded his head.

“Yes ma’am.” He said, still terrified at having been brought low in the blink of an eye. Maya hadn’t even seen what had happened.

“This is for all of you. I don’t want any of this bullshit with new or old members. I do not tolerate any bullying in my guild. And don’t tell me it was a joke. Are we clear?” She asked the whole room, and they all responded.

“Yes ma’am.” They all said in unison. Some with a smile while others were grumbling a bit about it. She was just happy she could finally get back to filling out her form.

“Sorry about that. Some people think size is everything.” The naga said.

“Thank you for the assistance, ma’am.” She said, using the same term as everyone else.

“Marianne. Pleasure to meet you. Welcome to the life of an adventurer.” She said politely and was off. She didn’t have the time to properly respond before the naga was gone, so she simply brought her attention back to the form in front of her.

Having filled it out without further interruptions, she went back to the clerk she had gotten the form from. He took it from her and made her pay a small fee before taking out a strange stone. It was almost see through with mana clearly swirling in the center. It was supposed to get her mana signature. She put her hand on it but it didn’t seem to work and waited.

The clerk hit the stone on the side, muttering about bad material. Wait, she didn’t leak mana like normal people did. Maybe she would have to push some mana into it? The clerk hit the thing again and she pushed some mana into it. The stone reacted and she could see deep blue mana swirl to the center and join the others already there.

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“Wow, first time I see a mana signature that is so calm. Cool.” Was all that he said as he put it away.

“Now you’ll just have to wait for a bit for your badge to be done. It lets us identify you and proves that you are an adventurer in truth. Have you read all the rules regarding the different policies the guild have and what you can and can’t do?” He asked as he continued to work with some stuff under the desk.

“No.” She said.

“Well, you can read them later, just know that you are supposed to know them, if you go against them, you cannot claim that you didn’t know and the punishment will be applied regardless of knowledge. Any questions?” The clerk asked.

“No, thank you.” She went and sat down on a couch that was empty. She sat there in silence as she waited. No one else seemed to come over to bother her which was nice. She was slightly annoyed that getting to that registry was taking so long. She couldn’t wait to get back there and see for herself if she was really on the right track.

The minutes ticked by as she sat stock still with no one that dared approach her on the couch. She was deep in thought when she spotted the clerk waving her over. Getting up she went over, took the badge, thanked him and was on her way. Finally.

As she came back to the spaceport, she went back into the building yet again. The same boy was still there.

“No flights outbound.” He said without looking up. When he heard the steps getting closer he looked up.

“Oh, it’s you.” He said. She held her adventuring badge up.

“You registered as an adventurer just to look at the registry? You know you could have simply paid me a bit instead, it would have been cheaper.” He said shrugging.

“Then why didn’t you say so?” She asked him. Strange of him not to list that as an option and tell her only after the fact.

“It’s common sense? Anyway, come with me I guess.” He motioned for her to follow him.

“Does it also track incoming teleportations?” She asked as they went through a backroom filled with random things. It just seemed like there was an insane amount of useless things just lying around everywhere. Boxes with toys or papers and other things.

“Yeah yeah, it’s even noted if someone came by ship or teleportation.” He said, as he shoved aside some paper on a desk. Underneath she could see a flat terminal. It was as big as a paper but several centimeters thick, an older model. He touched it and an illusion hovered just above the surface. He punched in a password and then gave it to her.

“Have fun, I’ll be out front, tell me when you are done.” He said as he walked back to the front desk.

It was a very basic terminal, displaying a list of names with dates and times. She scrolled down the list, only to see that it might take a while and tried to look for a way to search for a name. After fiddling with the old interface she finally found what she needed. She typed her fathers name and instantly an entry popped up.

Three weeks ago. She felt relieved she had come to the right place. But as she looked some more, she got a strange feeling. Maybe it was just a bug, but she couldn’t see a leave date. She tried a different name that she had seen there and then searched for the name. Two entries. One in and one out. Another, only one in, but it was recent, it made sense he might not have left. She continued to look for more names, but they were either recent, or had both an in and out. It didn’t make sense, she didn’t want it to make sense. She tried yet another name that had come in about a year ago, only to see only one entry when she searched the name.

Ha! Maybe there was simply a bug? But then she saw a small note attached. The man had died on the station and been vented into space as ashes. No. That didn’t mean anything. Her father was apparently still on the station, but that didn’t mean he was dead. Maybe he was just held captive somewhere. She caught herself doing it again. Acting all human and stupid. No, she already knew the truth, he was most probably dead, and there was no sense in hoping for something else.

It didn’t matter. She would look into it herself. Hoping for something didn’t change facts. All she could do now was find the facts. She took the terminal with her and went back to the front office. She had taken about thirty minutes in the back but nothing seemed to have happened as she hadn’t heard any sound from the front desk.

“All done?” The boy asked her.

“Yes. I have reason to suspect the person I am looking for might be dead, do you know where I could find the information or registry of dead people?” The question clearly shocked the boy a bit, but he soon recovered and thought about it.

“You’d want to visit the morgue then. I mean, not that anyone wants to visit the morgue… you get the idea.” He sighed. She didn’t, but didn’t say anything.

“Thank you.” She said, half bowed and walked out. The boy seemed not to know how to respond to such a polite farewell and awkwardly waved.

“Sure.” Was all he managed to say before she was out the door.

*******************

Prillo had worked at the morgue for four years now. Today had not been a good day. Some adventurers had killed some thugs in the streets or something, and he had to try and identify who it was. Some of them were badly bruised, so it was nothing unusual, but one of them was paste. Literally. How was he supposed to get an ID?

He had the six corpses in a room, and had only identified one, a known assassin. Had been caught once and been jailed for the last year for attempted murder. Bailed out a week ago. That had been the easy one as he had been in the system. The others? Probably impossible.

A ring at the door made him turn around. No one ever came here for any good reasons, who could it be? He went to open the door and in front of it stood a girl with long hair, shaved on the sides with beautiful features. The kind of nose that was just the right size, green beautiful eyes and the kind of lines anyone would find attractive. She looked rather young but he was bad at guessing women’s age, especially humans.

“Yes?” He asked. She held up her adventurer’s bronze badge at him like it was supposed to explain why she was here.

“I’d like to take a look at the death registry.” She told him.

“Alright, come on in.” No need to upset an adventurer, even if she was only bronze.

The girl following him gave off a strange vibe, and he worked with dead people. She was a bit too quiet, too in her head it gave him the creeps. When he looked at her, she looked perfectly harmless and even rather sweet. It was jarring. He led her to his desk and rummaged through his drawers for the summary he was keeping up to date, when possible of course. He handed it over to her and she frowned at the fat document.

“It’s a paper document?” She looked surprised.

“Sorry sweetheart, we don’t get many funds over here.” He shrugged. What did she think? That they were going to give funds to dead people? She didn’t even sit down but started to rifle through it, rather fast too.

He stood there nervously, unsure of what to do. He really disliked real people sometimes. They made him awkward. What was he supposed to do while he waited? To his surprise she was done before he could decide what he was going to do while waiting.

“Are these all the names of the dead ones?” She asked, almost hopeful.

“All the ones I could identify.” He said.

“Can I see the ones you haven’t identified?” She asked without pause.

“Uh.” He wasn’t sure he could, but it also didn’t feel like it would do any harm. She was an adventurer on the job, doing some investigation or something. Plus if she helped him identify a corpse, all the better.

“Sure, come with me. I just hope you have a good stomach, it gets rather gruesome.” He said as he looked at her. She did look rather frail to him.

“I have the best stomach, no need to worry for me.” She said as she patted her stomach. Weird. He put it out of mind as he showed her the cold chamber with the bodies that were pending identification.

“Just to warn you, once I run out of space, the oldest bodies get cremated, can’t just keep bodies lying around forever.” He told her.

“How old is the oldest right now?” She asked. He had to think about that one, was it two month or less? He wasn’t sure as he rarely tried to identify someone twice. He thought it was two months, but it could be a bit less too, so he settled for a safe answer.

“A bit over a month old.” He said with more confidence than he felt. She didn’t say anything and they were soon in the room. He pulled out the first body and gestured at the different body drawers.

“Want me to stay or are you going to hold up?” He asked, unsure if he should leave a young girl all alone with forty dead bodies. She wasn’t a [Necromancer], right? No, the adventurers guild wouldn’t let that pass, he reassured himself.

“No need, thank you.” She said and started to draw out another drawer. A lizardman was on that one, badly mangled, his face inexistent. Even he got a bit queasy at the sight.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He said and went out of the room. He couldn’t help to look a bit through the opening as she went from one drawer to the next. She had a strange way to her that made him curious. She kept efficiently going through one drawer after another, until she drew one out and completely stopped.

It was almost like she was dead with how little she moved. Might as well have been a statue. It was also the reason why he spotted the only movement coming from her face. He could only see the back of her head, but spotted a single tear falling to the floor, before being followed by another, and another. And still the girl didn’t move.

Poor thing, he thought as he left, unable to look any longer. What kind of life had she gone through to become like that?