Lisa, or as her status likes to remind her every time she checks it, Milissa entered Nigal’s adventurer guild main office smelling of long travel on foot and outdoor living. It was not a smell she liked and neither did several others as several moved away from her. A new set of low ranking predators took a step forward however until they noticed the iron tag hanging loosely from her neck. Even D rank losers knew not to mess with a B even if they were in a weakened state.

  It took her a minute to get in line for completed jobs and sighed as she shifted her pack on her shoulder. She was not super late into the evening when all the low ranks would return to get their meager earnings they needed to live till the next day, but she was not early enough either to skip all but the random higher rank completing a job either. The four in front of her were all Cs who probably came back from the same hunt. The one in front of her was probably the one to net the least kills. In truth she did not mind the wait. It was the fact that they smelled of half a day old blood and gore that annoyed her.

  It took over an hour for the four to go over their kill list and loot distributions before it was finally her turn. First thing Lisa does is set her bag on the counter before going into it and pulling out a dozen and more receipts. The guild receptionist in turn takes out a crystal pad and starts putting in the ID tags of the receipts one by one. Considering each one had dozens of codes on them, it was plain this was going to take a while. Unluckily, after the first few codes the clerk's face balled up in annoyance. Which means she was soon to follow.

  “ I am not getting any conformations on any of these codes.”

  Lisa squinted her eyes at that before putting her hand into her chest armor and pulling out a receipt with a single code on it. Unlike the others that were mere resource turn ins, this one was for a quest.

  “ Try this one. If it does not work, you better call a manager.”

  -----

  It took fifteen minutes before Lisa found herself in one of the guilds meeting rooms. Not one of the bland and boring ones where groups of low ranks are interviewed, but one of the nicer ones with cushioned seats and a few finger snacks with water. Which was all gone by the time a well built elf entered the room.

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  “ I talked to the guild head in Emberswamp before coming in here. Turns out some smartass was scraping tickets. An inside job. They managed to accredit about thirty silver worth of goods...”

  The elf pauses expecting something, but Lisa has done this before. An outburst of rage would only hurt her position. That had been a bad first month as a C rank.

  “ ... As I was saying. Only thirty silver and fifty coppers. The rest they have either no record of getting the goods or it been skimmed already. As for the quest, they say someone else turned it in.”

  Lisa sighs hearing this.

  “ Of course they did. Those inbred hics probably thought they pulling a fast one on me when they refused to pay me up front the gold crown for the job. Two intact salamander eggs. Fucks probably thought I was lucky just to find those.”

  The elf’s face soured at that.

  “ I would be careful how you talk about others of good repute.”

  Lisa looked him in the eye with a cold stare.

  “ Am I, a B rank, not also one of good repute? It does not matter anyway. The rest of my haul will net me much more than that.”

  The elf looked more annoyed at that.

  “ Explain.”

  Lisa chuckled as she stood grabbing her bag.

  “ Sure, first, I want to confirm what is acknowledged already is accredited to my account?”

  The elf merely nods to this and Lisa checks her guild badge to confirm it anyways.

  “ Right, I raided the salamander nest on the twelfth floor of the Emberswamp dungeon. There were twelve eggs there, naturally, I could not take them all. But I did grab half of them. I gave the two oldest ones, ones that failed to hatch from a previous batch for the job. As it did not give any details beyond that it must be two salamander eggs. The other four I am going to put up for auction for two and a half gold crown each.”

  The elf flicks his finger and the door Lisa was about to leave out of locks.

  “ So what your saying is you did a job and delivered inadequate goods.”

  Lisa sighs and rubs her forehead with the tips of her fingers of her free hand.

  “ Come on Jameson, don’t be a dick and overstep. One, it was an open ended contract, which by their own admission I did not do. And two, it is their fault not stipulating more details. Since I am going to be selling my loot through the auction house at a set price, you can’t swindle me out of my fair share even if the house is. Now, unlock the door and let me go before you make a scene. You know this is being watched by the higher-ups the moment you locked the door and they will not take kindly you pulling shit because I won't sleep with you again.”

  The elf frowned a little further before the elf flicked his finger again. Before he could change his mind again Lisa was out the door.