Pion slid the Giant Worm Extermination Request paper onto the counter of the Adventurer’s Guild. Cep looked up from the stack of paperwork she was still trying to file.

“Oh! You’re back! It took you guys longer than I thought. Everything go well?”

Perience walked up and leaned against the desk, sporting various shallow cuts to the face, arms, legs, etc. A few of the deeper cuts were bandaged, creating the illusion he had ended up worse off than he truly was.

“Yup. Not even a problem.”

“You look kind of like you did have a problem. You’re literally covered in bite marks! How can you say you’re fine?”

“These are just shallow. I’m a warrior, remember? This is pretty run of the mill in my line of work. Cleaned and bandaged, I’ll be just fine in a couple days. If I really need to I can buy some potions from the Alchemists’ Guild.”

“I’ll mark down the request as complete. Just give me a bit to request the reward money for it.”

Now that she had time to look around, Pion noticed the notable lack of boisterous travellers, warriors, mages, rangers, rogues, and other esoteric adventurers that usually populated the guild. Aside from a table or two occupied by complete newbies who could barely swing a sword, and a few servers wiping down tables, there was no one there at all.

“The reward money is in the pouch. Thank you for your patronage!”

“Accepted. Further line of questioning: Where are the adventurers that usually populate the guild in the morning and the afternoon?”

“Oh. War has been declared on the Hammer Tribes in the name of national security, and the adventurers were drafted into the city defense to help.”

So the Adventurer’s Guild was a government institution. Likely they existed to help cultivate those stronger more individualistic fighters for wartime, under the guise of neutrality, or something like that.

“I am an adventurer, as I have registered with the guild. Will I be subject to the draft installed by the government?”

“I think since you’re really new, it won’t apply to you. It will probably apply to Perience, though. He's Silver, so I think the army would recruit him as soon as possible.”

“I wouldn’t mind that. Maybe then I’d get free healing potions for my wounds, a good salary, and the only things I’d hafta fight are people. They’re less scary than monsters, no matter how you look at it.”

Pion searched her databases, comparing the [Spider Queen] to records of humanity’s weapon tests. After poring through terabytes of videos and weapons data compiled after tests, she concluded in no uncertain terms that on a scale of useless to obscenely powerful, the humans she knew won by a considerably large margin, if fear was tied to average casualty ratings.

“People possess more qualities that may inflict fear in certain circumstances comparatively to monsters. The capacity for death that people wield can be in many cases greater than that of a single monster or of multiple, as they are more organized, actively strategize, and have a high intelligence that enables planning and improvisation beyond any lesser creature.”

Suddenly, Perience and Cep both were looking at her, faces slightly contorted in worry. Had she done something wrong? Said something untoward? Her conclusion was backed by evidence she had highlighted. Surely she had not missed something: she had not only double checked, triple checked, and quadruple checked, but had run many simulations of arguments in her head and won all of them.

“Are you ever gonna tell us about that… ‘village’ you came from?”

She considered it.

“Not right now.”

“Okay, well, we should probably go stock up on potions. I used a fair bit in the worm battle and a prepared adventurer always has at least a couple on his belt. Starting to think you should have a sword too.”

“I do not require a sword. My combat ability is sufficient without extra gear.”

“The sword will at least make you look normal, and bandits will think twice before trying to rob you. Also, your cloak kind of got shredded.”

“I have normal clothing, and as such extra layers are not necessary at this time.”

“Okay, well, you two have a good time shopping. I’m going to go take a nap. Slow day today.”

So Cep went to the back to have a nice nap. Though it was strange that there was a cot back there for her to sleep in, and that none of the other employees said anything about her abandoning the front desk. Perience swiveled around and strolled through the doors, towards the blacksmith.

“Have you considered buyin’ armor or something? I don’t know how you fight but you didn’t look very careful when fighting the worms.”

“Armor would be a burden to my agility. Durability and resilience is currently a non-issue for my current caliber of opponent that I have fought so far.”

“You’ve only fought worms so far, besides anything you found in the dungeon. And the spider corpse you brought back looked very dangerous. Were you recovering from your wounds in the battle? Is that why you took so long?”

“No. I was mapping out the surrounding area for available resources, which I could harvest for future use.”

“So looting the dungeon?”

“That is a succinct way to say it.”

This was neglecting to mention the mining of exotic minerals underground, but according to one of her protocols she was not to divulge technological advancements freely to any aspiring sentient race, for fear they would consume all the resources before her makers could scoop it all up.

“We’re probably going to have to take more quests to make enough gold to pay for supplies, though. Maybe gear upgrades too: I’ve been usin mine too long.”

“The dungeon contains large amounts of gold in what seems to be a treasure room. There are also other items of considerable wealth, such as precious gems and weaponry.”

Perience stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to stare at Pion.

“You didn’t think to lead with that? That would have been REALLY nice to know a day ago! Why didn’t you bring it all out with you so you could sell it?”

She imagined the difficulty of transporting such a weight of treasure, since it was definitely larger than her acquaintance was making it out to be. On top of that it would raise a lot of eyebrows, since anyone who could recover that much material wealth was surely very important.

“I can... think of a few reasons.”

Perience made a detour from the blacksmith to enter Emis’s shop in his quest for potions.

“Very vague. Perhaps you should specify.”

“Maybe. In time.”

The man might have retorted, if he hadn’t noticed the lack of someone at the storefront. He looked around at the unattended shelves, whereupon sat expensive brews and other such alchemists’ tools. Unguarded.

“Where’s Emis?”

Emis marvelled at the extensive supplies stocked in a lab within the central tower. He had never gone inside himself before, as it was a strict no-entry zone most of the time. Only higher ups in the Mage Association and the Army generals were allowed to enter. However, these were extenuating circumstances, one that saw it fit to place a skilled combat alchemist in a room practically designed to get him drooling over a truckload of catalysts, refining equipment, and hi-grade bottles meant to hold only the most dangerous of concoctions.

“And you’re telling me I’ll get to use all this when I sign up?”

The butler watched Emis carefully inspecting the provided lab equipment like a kid in a candy store.

“Besides a few caveats, such as utilizing everything you see before you to the benefit of the city and limiting how much of the city’s budget you spend when composing new potion recipes, you are correct. All you have to do is sign here…”

The butler smiled as he handed the clipboard off to the seasoned alchemist, watching him grab the nearest pen and scribbling his signature in all the right boxes. Money really was the greatest motivator, after all.

Foile awoke to find himself lying in the field, staring up at the sky. The raw memory of what had happened last night threatened to bring tears back into his eyes, so he rubbed them and sat up. He could at least see the crater in the distance; not knowing where to go, he had accidentally come back here. He trudged slowly over to it, unsure of what to do. Now that there was no longer any imminent danger, he had to make a decision about what to do.

Where would he go? He had no home anymore. Without shelter, he could not hope to stand against the elements. Without a ready supply of food, he would grow hungry and weak. Without water, he would not last longer than a few days. All these fears and more manifested in his comparatively small brain as a gnawing feeling of worry and uncertainty, the feeling of being lost and freezing up.

The AI in charge of maintaining the portal recognized this, quickly plotting a way to help its new administrator survive the coming days and weeks, and hopefully find a way to locate the other pieces of the portal that likely came through the rift at the time of the “incident”.

“Administrator Foile. My high power sensors indicate signs of smoke west of here. You must head towards there immediately.”

“But why? I don’t want to go to the smoke. What if it’s like the smoke from last night?”

“Unlikely. The level of smoke present is only on the level of the amount a city would produce, and not a fully fledged fire on the scale of what happened approximately 13 hours ago. With my assistance, I may be able to pinpoint a suitable location of residence, as well as sources of food and water. I shall allocate to you a larger number of nanos for this express purpose. Their default configuration shall be congregating around your chest as an improvised self defense mechanism but can be changed according to the user’s wishes.”

Lulled by the promise of somewhere to live, he followed the lead of the nanobots he was now in possession of. Maybe his parents had simply escaped to the city in the west, and lived there now.

Only one way to find out.