Somewhere Someplace

The foreigner approached quickly, halting before the main counter area as the rather taller receptionist lady…a rather pronounced one at that…stared down with rather the cheerful charm.

“Again…I apologize for not…noticing you there, I am not sure for how long you had been standing there…but I apologize again…I am still somewhat new at this role and we have been…getting busy lately…surprisingly, mainly due to an influx of foreigners coming here due to hearing stories and such but…but…I am starting to tangent…ahem” the now quieter receptionist apologized and remarked before aheming as her mind began to drift astray. “Sorry…I did not mean to be so…talkative” she apologized further, blushing somewhat in embarrassment.

“Not the problem, I am with the forever patience and also…my head can drift in the silly ways as well” the foreigner replied with her own charm and smile.

The receptionist giggled at this somewhat, before aheming again…her mind now refocusing at the…priorities at hand; “ahem—anyway, how may I help you this day, fine masked-lady? Are you…looking for someone by chance or…?” she inquired enthusiastically; “and…just to be sure, you…do know where you are, right?” she inquired further…somewhat more awkward, but still enthusiastic.

The foreigner stared, cordially but certainly blankly in mind. Why was ‘joining this apparatus’ always the last presumption in the minds of these locals? Ugh…whatever, it did not matter to her.

She exhaled faintly, maintaining her feinting smile; “I am here…because…I am interested in joining this…guild” she replied with a charm, holding her handbag with both hands graciously.

The receptionist tilted her head, “Heh?” she mumbled out. She stared down at the petite and slim, somewhat weakish looking, short-but-almost-perfectly-average-for-her-standards tavern maid of a foreigner girl in front, her eyes peering up and down as she evaluated…not really…seeing it at all.

“I see…uhm…and why may I ask?” the receptionist inquired; “I mean…not to be insulting or anything…I just…normally cute-looking tavern ladies are…not the type of people who I see wanting to…join the Guild” she remarked.

The foreigner tilted her head…thinking…before staring; “…I am bored…and there is nothing better for me to be doing…that is the cause—and I know how to fight and…shoot especially, I am the shooter” the foreigner replied.

The receptionist stared…smirking somewhat as her affect-mask slipped, though she quickly donned it back on; “relatable…” she remarked in a faint whisper, before aheming, returning her attention to the foreigner.

“Yeah…hmm…” the receptionist began to mumble out, her eyes squinting analytically, peering closer; “hmm…no, no, you seem…kind of dangerous in your own way…and most Copper quests are just collection these days though…maybe not always safe but… alrightly, I think you will be fine, but the others might show an attitude for a bit, especially because of that masquerade—knob-eaters by all means but they are still good people on the inside…kind of” she remarked cordially.

This receptionist was one who…seemed to show concern for the immediate viability of a new Guild member, seemingly, despite there being no…real policies regarding such matters.

The receptionist immediately began to rummage through the many drawers and cabinets on her side of the counter, taking out with rather the speed and decisiveness…quite the many…many…dozens of formal-looking documents and papers of sorts, organizing and stacking them all neatly together at speeds that were…beyond normality and borderline anomalous.

She then plopped onto the counter with a loud bonk this…gargantuan stack of organized documents and forms, smiling menacingly. “…I hope you have the time and nothing planned since…the first time entry admission process may take up to two to three hours or more…for there are a lot of matters needing to be covered” she said with rather the alienated smile and charm.

The foreigner stared blankly at this mountainous collection of documents…ah…« síc videtùr » she murmured out; so it seemed. She sighed; “There is the time for me—ahem—I have the time…I meant to say” she replied cordially.

The receptionist smiled with enthusiasm; “Great!” she replied with a charm. Though…she began to eye around…her eyes looking for a certain peer of hers, since she needed to take the foreigner to a dedicated private one-on-one space due to the Guild’s ‘information confidentiality policy’, though could not leave the main counter area unstaffed. She was, however, unable to spot her still absent partner and supervisor—the only other one present this day qualified to station the main counter area, for such could not simply be handed to the light-blue vested others around.

The receptionist sighed; “Well…we will have to wait a moment for a certain someone to return from her…own little adventure” she remarked…her mask slipping in her voice, though it quickly slipped right back on; “ahem—but anyway, we can start with the most basic matter in the meantime: your name. You have one, surely? So, what is it?” she inquired.

The foreigner tilted her head…her mind freezing somewhat. Name? This one again? Theoretically, she knew what a ‘name’ was, obviously, for the world existed in her primary tongues…but practically…her mind drew nothing but blanks and empty space. She had no real ‘name’ in any proper local sense; she had a permanent identification ‘ping’, a temporary assignment callsign, and that was just about it…well, officially at least.

“…is the name important?” the foreigner inquired.

The receptionist stared silently and blankly; “…y-yes? A name is…required for our records, these documents need signing, after all” she responded cordially but rather bluntly.

The foreigner…nodded her head faintly. Name…ugh…why was she now, after all this time, being asked for one directly? Her eyes looked down and away, silent…and without a response…her mind cogitating.

The receptionist stared as seconds flew by, before sighing herself, leaning in closer; “Listen…” she began to whisper quietly, “…this is not official Guild policy or even remotely endorsed…but, most hardly ever really provide their real birth-given names, rather they tend to give a false name—we have no means to verify, after all, and most come here wanting to become someone new anyway. Not that I am suggesting anything, of course, I am just…remarking” she…well…remarked.

The foreigner tilted her head, still trapped in her mind. This…new information still did not help too much, since…she had not any the idea as to how to even generate this name of theirs…or at least a proper local one.

Hmm…her former associate had a pseudonym, several in fact, which she had used…but the foreigner herself was never…given one…or rather she never came up with any, always going with whatever the locals called her.

Though…wait…she did have a ‘name’ of sorts or rather a ‘nickname’ or something like that…a label which her others would refer to her as, but she did not necessarily ‘identify’ with it…and besides, it was perhaps best to keep such a detail utterly irrelevant to this place.

“…this is supposed to be the easiest question in all of the known world, you know?” the receptionist remarked cordially with pinches of sarcasm, somewhat humored.

The foreigner sighed…truly, she was at a total loss. « Nihil…mentem de me advenit » she mumbled out; nothing came to mind…wait…it suddenly popped into her head…wait…nothing… « Nihil…nîl…nîlù…nîljù » she mumbled to herself audibly. Her mind was quickly approaching something…decent enough.

The receptionist, hearing her mumblings, tilted her head faintly; “…you mumbling Trinitarian or something? Pfft…what are you trying to be? An angel?” she remarked and inquired somewhat humorously.

The foreigner immediately looked up at the receptionist; « Ita ‹ Nîljù › méhi nomin erit, síc supposo » she said with a charm; “ ‹ Nîljù › the name for me will be, I guess” she repeated.

The receptionist stared blankly; “…Kneelyou?” her voice repeated; “so, like…‘nilium’ from ‘nihilum’? But the nasal is dropped? I know a little share of Trinitarian gibberish, so I can see…where you are going with this” she remarked…having deduced the roots of this supposed ‘name’; “so, nothing is your name, huh? Clever…clever…but the one you gave is…not very proper for a girl such as you, so…how about hmm…Neeleea or just ‘Nilia’…in our accent? It is from the same root but with the proper lady suffix” she remarked and suggested.

The foreigner titled her head; « ‹ Nîlja › énquitne? Aut…Nelía? ‘Nilia’…rectë síc rectë » she mumbled out…repeating the name, perhaps running into a slight…phoneme differentiation problem but…she overcame it quickly, for…she did, in fact, know that phoneme…she just had to change accents.

Hmm…‘Nilia’, effectively the same as her prior suggestion but…the grammatical form was shifted…right…right, Far Western females tended to have…right…this made sense, then. And…this one did somewhat sound better than ‹ Nîljù ›, truth be told.

She sighed; she had no disagreements or protests in this regard, or really…any preference in this matter; it was a sufficient pseudonym name label.

“Fine…certainly, Nel—ahem—Nilia…that name is fine…I give grace for…helping me” she replied with a charm.

The receptionist smiled; “Great! That will be your first name for the purposes of our records” she replied enthusiastically. “Now, however, I will be needing your family given name or a ‘last name’, as some people may call it” she stated equally enthusiastically; “oh and a ‘middle’ or ‘center’ name also, if you have one” she added.

The foreigner tilted her head even more…once again…rather confused, her mind blanking. Wait…so the locals had more than one name label? Why? For what cause? One was sufficient, no? Why two? Why…three?

The receptionist, seeing that the prior process of…confusion was evidently about to repeat itself, simply sighed; “Well…I can tell you are Far Western like, so to give a…uhm…another remark…for you, a lot Far Westerners who have joined…tend to give their…origin of birth…as their family name, so that is to say their country or town or wherever they are from, such as say, ‘Ze Alichidya’ or something akin to that” she…remarked again; “you speak a Far Western tongue, so…hopefully you understand what I mean” she added.

The foreigner simply nodded along; she understood perfectly well what the receptionist was implying…though…much like her ‘nickname’, such details were utterly irrelevant to this domain; she wanted to maintain a strict and clear dissociation.

Though…hmm…she cogitated…her origin was irrelevant to them…so what could she…wait wait…her ‘first name’…technically meant ‘nothing’…her origin was irrelevant to this place…oh…she knew it.

« De Relevanțiâ » she abruptly suggested with a charm.

“…‘de Relevancia’?” the receptionist repeated, tilting her head somewhat.

“Hmm…eh, basically” the foreigner replied; well…it was more ‘releventsia’, but close enough.

The receptionist smiled; “Neat! ‘Nilia de Relevancia’, that will be your full name for our records going forward and the name you will be expected to sign these documents with, got it?” she said.

The foreigner simply nodded with a charming yes.

Thus, it was so: ‘Nothing of Relevancy’ was to be the foreigner’s recorded ‘name’ for this Guild. Truth be told, she was perhaps humored by this quite clever pseudonym of hers deep down on the inside; though, as always, she could not comprehend it.