Dungeon Diving

Upon arriving in Depteria, seeing as everyone was feeling great I suggested we got the guild registration out of the way first and then secure our lodging afterwards.

A a couple hours before sunset, the adventurer's guild, despite its size, was fairly calm. The adventurers sitting at the bar and around the tables on all floors either looked exhausted from a long day at work or were drunk out of their mind.
Taking in the atmosphere and the various smells, mainly of booze and wood, we made our way to the reception desk with the wooden sign indicating "New Registrations."

"Welcome to Depteria's adventurer guild branch. Would you like to register as a party ?" The handsome male employee inquired.

Looking around at my companions to confirm, I answered on the affirmative.
Given that they didn't provide adventurers with any sort of insurance, I'd thought that registering would be free of charge. But that didn't seem to be the case.

"Before we move on to that part however, I will have all of you participate in an examination to assess your starting rank. Individually that is." The guild clerk explained. "Incidentally, the maximum rank that can be afforded to a newcomer is Snake rank." The moment he mentioned yet another rank I had yet to hear about, and catching my puzzled look, he produced a document listing the ranks in question.

Of the grid he'd placed before our eyes, Snake rank was fifth from the top. There were ten ranks total and their names all referred to an animal I was familiar with from my own world, classified by threat level I assumed. The list went like this, from top to bottom:
-Baron: Title and privileges will only be afforded to the adventurer after a thorough background check.
-Dragon: Elgible for state-commissioned missions.
-Whale: Adventurers in parties of four or more can apply to take on nobles' requests directly.
-Lion: No added benefit from the ranks below.
-Snake: Can apply to become instructor or examiner for rookies.
-Wolf: Access to the 20th level and beyond of the Great Underground Labyrinth.
-Eagle: No added benefit from the ranks below.
-Fox: Access granted to the Guild's library.
-Bunny: Access granted to the first 3 levels of the Grand Underground Labyrinth.
-Duckling: Recognized apt to work this profession.

 Looking at it, I realized once again how exceptionnal Seri was. She'd told me she was whale rank the first time I saw her, which meant she had already been only a couple steps awaw from the very top by then. I wondered if she'd gone up since I left. With the additions of Xenia and Tokesa, there's no doubt they'll go far. I marveled appreciatively.

"Hm, excuse me ?" Another receptionist meekly interrupted my train of thought. "It is your turn for the examination.

"Oh yeah, sorry." Snapping out of my reverie I made my way to the training ground where Judis and his partymates had concluded their own apparaisal, and stood in front of a man holding a sword. Let's go all-out.
                                                                        ___________

"Congratulations mister, your aptitude was confirmed for Wolf rank!" The first clerk we'd met announced upon returning to the waiting room.

"Woah as expected of sensei !" They celebrated. Actually, despite their coming from the boonies they had managed to strike a good impression upon the examiners too. Well two of them especially.

"I thought it was already plenty surprising I had been assigned to Fox rank, but I guess Sensei is in a completely different league than us." Marveled Jose, the only magic user in the group. Well, the only one who specialized in the field at least. The other three respectively were placed in Bunny, for Judis, and Duckling for Mary and Mikel.

"I'm almost ten years your elder, let's not forget that." I made it sound like that meant I'd gone through training for that much more, while in fact I'd trained for less than two years total. I wasn't comfortable telling even them the truth so I preferred to play it safe and casual for the time being.

"Then please all of you meet me back at the reception desk on the ground floor so we can finalize your registrations." The young clerk beamed.


What's all this... Sitting atop the reception desk before my eyes and mine only, was a pile of paper that apparently needed my seal.

"The first ten pages are related to the various rules and specifics of being registered with us, twenty list the various establishments and services you will gain access to from the get-go thanks to your rank, and lastly, the fifteen at the bottom are the documents explaining the various cases where the guild does not take responsibility for your actions or the potential harm brought upon you."

Looking at my side, I saw that my partners had to go through about a third of the same amount of paperwork I received. At the exception of Jose who because of his age and lineage had to tackle additionnal documents.

"My apologises mister Archy, this is the mandatory protocol for our named appliants." The clerk stated. "We've had several cases of young nobles breaking out of their houses to register here in hopes of using the promise of secrecy regarding their personnal information one could find in our terms of service. Leading to prominent families and even royalty issuing complaints to the owners of various guilds."

Jose's full name was Jose Archy. He was the son of a formerly renowned family of court mages, and despite his father, grandfather, and great-grand father having renounced their priviledges and status, as long as he did not himself refuse to wear the family name, he would be subjected to this sort of special treatment.

"What do we do ?" I whispered to him.

"That sounds like a lot of pain.." He admitted. And looking at the other three I saw they wore similarly bored expressions, so I made a decision.

"Sorry, I think we'll take a few days to think it over and come back to you once we've made our decision." I informed the clerk. "This is a commitment after all."

Bowing his head in understanding with his professional smile plastered over his face, the receptionist did not even utter a see you soon or anything and simply proceeded to store our documents away in a drawer behind his desk.

                                                                        ___________

Using the fact the guild was open around the clock every day, after putting the children to sleep, I went there again.

Let's see.. the Duckling board is over there, and the Wolf board is that way. Navigating the hall, my aim was to gather information about the requests and missions we would be able to take if we had been able to register as a party.

"Herb gathering; snake and monkey extermination; lost & found services..." As expected, most of what a Duckling adventurer could expect to do as long as they remained in this rank wasn't too thrilling. And since we'd been informed that because of my rank I wouldn't be able to register in their party, that meant the whole point of me staying around to look after them for a while until they were able to fend for themselves lost all meaning.

"Are you looking for something in particular ?"

"Wah !" 

Because I was lost in thought, it seemed the guild clerk that had been in charge of us earlier was able to sneek in behind me without my noticing. I thought I'd grown decent at sensing this kind of thing, but I guess I still lack training after all. Sure my mind had been elswhere, but between my training with Xenia and Seri, the days I spent in the mountains there, and finally the hunting sessions I'd participated in, in Leorto, I had grown confident in my ability to sense people and animals in my surroundings.

"My apologies. While I did mean not to to disturb you at first, I ultimately concluded I could perhaps ask if you had any question since the guild is basically empty at the moment."

"It's fine, it's my fault for letting my guard down after all." I conceeded. "I have a question then, would there be any way for me work for the kids you saw earlier as a carrier or something ? The truth is.." 

Running him down our situation and explaining how I was only here to look after them for a short while and meant to return to the village afterwards, I made sure to underline that I needed to be able to accompany the group of four and that I didn't intend to register long term myself.

"I see, I understand why you were so hesitant to sign up then." He said with a few nods, his tone a bit informal. "Then maybe you'll be interested in our initiation quest board." 
Leading the way, the clerk then stopped before a smaller wooden board placed right by the entrance. The headline read "Initiation Quests avaliable as of today !" and sure enough, a few pieces of paper and of parchament were pinned there in different styles and colours.

"The notices are made by the services and organisations themselves, hence why the diversity in formats and styles." He explained. "Most of the time the reason they prepare such events is because they hope to gather new recruits. Which in that case means you will no longer be dealing with us but with their own staff at the desks on the third floor."

Listening to his explanation with one ear, I used the remainder of my attention to review the different posters pinned on the panel. Guild reception, bartending, carrier service, [urgent!] waiters and waitresses, cleaning crew.. oh ! Isn't that referring to the guys we saw back in Tarta ?
Noticing the sudden spike in interest I manifested, the receptionist smiled softly and explained.

"If they are looking for adventuring experience but are not sure if they are ready to commit to it wholeheartedly, I recommend giving the cleaning crew work a go indeed."

Yeah that sounds like the perfect middle-ground play right now. And since there is no restriction on rank for the members, I will be able to take part in the trial with them too.

"That being said", the clerk continued, "the pay can vary greatly depending on the job, and they can be called at any time any day. There is no consistency or schedule in this line of work. They are free to refuse a call obviously, however, if they do not take at least ten requests a month, they will be banned and prevented from registering again for the rest of that year."

That sounds okay. Much better than being an adventurer at least, I concluded. He put the emphasis on the fact that the pay and work days were not consistent but, as far as I understood, Adventurers were much the same.

"Are there no ranks within the cleaning crew ?" If there was one advantage adventurers had over them, it would be this. 

"Yes, that's correct. Members of the cleaning crew can come and go as they please more or less, and since they always act in units of ten or more people, it was decided that numbers equals strength."

"Shouldn't they at least make an elite squad of sorts that would serve as an example and vanguard for the more dangerous missions ?"

"The administrators themselves take part in the expeditions if they are deemed dangerous enough. And they appoint three people as leaders before each individual mission." He explained. "The truth is, there aren't many truly regular members in their ranks. They are about three hundred total but only seventy or so of them respond to eighty percent or more of the call ups."

"I see..." No wonder they wouldn't bother with ranks and the like. The job was by definition quite inconsistent. Low rank adventurers very rarily managed to defeat a specimen large enough to justify hiring the crew to take care of its retrival; they didn't have the money either anyway. As for the higher ranked adventurers, in their case most of the time they had one or multiple magic users in their parties, which meant they could take care of the cleanup themselves. Magic tools like botomless bags and flying carriages existed too but they were very expensive.

"Well, it won't hurt to just take part in the initiation at least. I'll discuss it with my companions tomorrow and see what they think of it." I finally said. "Thank you for your counselling, mister."

"Not at all. I'm glad I could be of help." He smiled, his slitted eyes reminding of me those of a fox.

Satisfied with my findings, I made my way back to the inn with a spring in my step and elected to go straight to bed.

                                                                        ___________

Bowing in the distance at my waving the cleaning crew's poster, the receptionist returned his attention to the person he was taking care of.
The following day, after discussing it with the young'uns, it was decided we would give the cleaning crew's initiation quest a try. The rendez-vous was scheduled for seven in the evening, so we'd taken the day to wander around the city to enjoy a bit of sightseeing before we headed for the guild.

Arriving at the labyrinth entrance, the location where they'd indicated the applicants to gather, I took stock of the various profiles present. As expected of the capital of adventuring work, there are a lot of people from different races and age. Indeed, while most attendees were fellow humans, a lot of them were from elven races or demon races. And I quickly spotted a familiar face. Wait is that Neil !?

"Woah look at this crowd Sensei !" Judis remarked, his excitement palpable.

"Yeah.. I guess there are more people than I expected for a simple trial."

Trying to calm my nerves and keep my anger to myself, I focused my attention on Judis' observation. He's right though, there's at least fifty person already in attendance and we are still thirty minutes away from seven. 

As time passed, more and more people continued to arrive up until the last minute before the administrators joined us and set up a little podium.

"Hello and welcome to everyone who gathered here to participate in the mock expedition set up by our organisation. My name is Arthur Goyle, and I am one of the three administrators of this Cleaning Crew branch. Pleased to meet you all." 

Arthur looked to be a bit older than me, a fine adult so to say. He was accompanied by an older woman in full armor holding her helmet under her arm, she introduced herself as Girma. The two of them then took turns explaining the content of this exhibition.

First of all, considering the number of people who'd shown up, and despite a bunch having left mid explanation, it was decided we'd be divided into two groups. We would depart with an hour interval and the goal would be to reach the third floor of the labyrinth, retrieve a large monster dummy set up beforehand, and come back before midnight. Thankfully we were placed in the first group, which meant that we should be able to be done earlier and have enough time to review our experience and discuss it a bit before bed.

"Alright, first group follow my lead let's go."

Spearheading the vanguard and acting as our chaperon was Arthur. His gear was light so it was easy to imagine he specialized in scouting. Once the fourty or so people in the group including us made our way into the labyrinth, the expedition truly started.

                                                                        ___________

"The majority of the traps found on the second floor are on the ground, so we will hug the wall on one side and proceed like this for now." Arthur instructed. "On the way back I'll dispose of a few of them myself and take two volunteer scouts with me to handle some more."

Proceeding as advised, we made our way through the second floor without issue. Almost, that is.    Because a dozen meters away from the stairway leading to the third floor, the kid before me suddenly lost his footing. And right as he did so, he grabbed a rock protruding from the wall which somehow got swallowed into it, activating a trap.

"Shit-"

Before I could react, a large cavity, two of them rather, the form of doors, opened in the wall, one next to that kid and one next to me, and sucked us in, launching us into a slope leading further down.

"Ouch...where am I ?"

Looking around me, I saw that I landed into a spacious place, still inside of the dungeon by the looks of it. And I could no longer hear any of the people from my group. Considering I slid down for only a few minutes, I must be down to floor six at most.

Doing my best to remain calm and assess the situation, I checked to see if my sword and equipment were still intact and with me. Nothing's missing or heavily damaged, good.

Looking in front of me I could see a faint light seemingly coming from the ceiling about thirty meter in that direction. That kid wasn't sent to the same location as me I see, let's just proceed and see if I can climb back up or exit the labyrinth altogether. If the kid who'd activated the trap was not with me, there was no use worrying about him. I wouldn't go as far as to say I didn't care at all, or even that Arthur was to blame after he told us traps were mostly on the ground, but right now neither of these concerns mattered to me. Survival came first.

Reaching the source of the light, I squinted my eyes upwards. That's the sky up there, yeah. Looking up I could see some sort of wooden planks neatly aligned to form what I figured was a makeshift ceiling of sorts. It clearly stood a few meters away from what appeared to be the surface so I imagined the hole led to a shed or a wooden building of some kind on the outside of the dungeon.

Climbing my way up the wall thanks to the uneven surface creating literal stepping stones for me, as expected I landed in a small wooden shed. It was small enough that only a tiny bedside table and a chair could fit in before it felt crowded, and it seemed to be situated in the middle of a forest.

Oh there's a trapdoor over there. Indeed, right under the small table there was a trapdoor on the floor into which I figured I could barely fit. Led by curiosity, I removed the table and placed it outside before forcing open the secret passage. Is that.. a bunker ? Passing only my head through the opening to scout where the door lead, I found what I could only describe as a bunker. It was about twelve tatami mats in surface and even in the dimlit space I could make out a couch in one corner, a large low table in the center, and a modern kitchen by the wall opposite the couch.

If I had any more doubt people from earth had set foot in this world, now at least I'm convinced.
I thought. Checking if there were any camera or the presence of an individual, I made my way down to investigate the place.

Although I could quickly confirm there was nobody down there, I could also tell it had long since gone unused by its owner. The couch had a thick layer of dust on top of it, the kitchen was much the same, and the fridge had nothing left in it. In addition, there seemed to be no electricity running either and no signs of personnal belongins left. Last is the closet.
Being careful in case there was a trap setup to activate upon the opening of the doors, I softly pressed down on the golden-colored handles and opened it.

"Wahh !"

Startled I stumbled backwards and nearly fell on my backside like they did in comics. Wha- is it alive ?! Sitting idly inside the drawer was a doll. A life-size doll to be exact. It had the looks of a teenage girl of about middle school age, wearing a sailor uniform. The middle section of her hair (?) was missing, and the skin-like texture covering her steely bone structure and circuits was entirely gone from her knees. But that confirmed it, what I found was clearly mechanic doll born from a technology not yet acquired by the denizen of this world. Or more accurately, an automaton.