It took a moment until she was let in by a confused looking young receptionist wearing a prim and proper, tight and high-quality attire. “Door’s open,” he said, and returned to his spot behind the counter after Theora had entered.

She looked around the entrance hall for a moment — all made of dark wood, staircases on the left and the right leading up into the second floor, a door behind the counter perched in the centre between them leading back into reserved areas of the guild, as well as two more doors on the sides of the first floor.

“I would like to ask about Fragments of Time,” Theora said, after returning her gaze to the receptionist.

He looked back at her with a politely concealed frown, hesitated for a moment, then picked up a pen. “May I know your name?”

“Theora.”

His pen fell from his hands and landed on the paper with two soft clacks. He cleared his throat, and nodded, not bothering to write it down. “I understand you are here for research purposes? To draw on our archive?”

“That would be helpful,” she confirmed.

“Please excuse me for a moment,” he said, and vanished in the door behind him.

Theora found a bench placed against the wall behind her, next to the entrance. She briefly contemplated sitting down, but then realised that if she did that, she’d need to get up again later, and that would be exhausting. Instead, she thought about how, instead of attempting negotiations with magitech geeks, she could be obliterating Afterthoughts right now, and was terrified when she realised she couldn’t tell which one she’d rather choose.

Maybe she should have asked Dema to come after all. Dema would have breezed through this, in her unparalleled talent of navigating social interaction like a universal key in a maze full of locked doors. Except Dema had had long-standing plans to go out with Magda today; both of them were off helping hold back the Afterthoughts while Theora was standing here, wishing to be back in bed.

Theora could have asked Dema to go fetch intelligence on the topic of Fragments of Time. In theory. In reality, that wasn’t an option. She would never again use Dema as a tool in pursuance of her side quests, not after what had happened in the Realm of Truth. Plus, Dema was a scatterbrain and might forget half the intel on her way home.

At least, dissolving into these thoughts had made time go by quicker, and before she knew it, the receptionist returned, although he emerged from the door to her right this time. “Please come in,” he said, and held the door for her.

Theora was led through two laboratories, a storage room, another hall, up the stairs, and eventually to an office. The entire way had been littered with shelves full of magical items of all kinds, with instruments and complex tools, magitech machinery, alchemical supplies and compounds, bottles filled with glowing potions and books. She’d never seen a place dedicated to this extent to the research and creation of magical items. It really felt like she’d walked right into the future.

The office was equally filled with magical items, though it contained mostly what seemed to be weapons. They were exhibited in vitrines and stuffed into a shelf on the right. The other half of the room was filled with documents, mostly loose, some journals and handwritten books. A gigantic desk stood in the centre, featuring some writing supplies, more paperwork, and a few small tools that Theora assumed to be useful for identifying items; like a magnifying glass with magical runes written on it.

At that desk sat an old man. His eyes were milky, his hair was thin and grey. Many scars and wrinkles featured his brown skin, and he was wearing light and tidy layered clothing made up in parts of red and yellow colour.

The door fell shut behind Theora, and she was left alone in here with him.

“Who’s this now? Inquiry, I understand?” he gruffed, seemingly in a bad mood.

“Theora,” she said. “Yes, I want to know about Fragments of Time.”

The old man hesitated, squeezing the muscles in his face into a thoughtful grimace. Then, Theora felt him activate a Skill.

His milky eyes turned into gleaming mirrors, throwing Theora’s side of the room back at her. “Huh,” he grumbled. “Sight to behold.” He activated another Skill, and then frowned. “The hell did’ya do to your stat sheet? Some kind of data scrambling? Just deactivate it. No enemies here.”

Theora couldn’t ‘deactivate it,’ so she just kept staring at him until his examination was over.

“Fragments of Time, huh?” he said, scratching through his short white beard. “Never heard of them. Have you asked in the library? At the observatory? University?”

“Not yet,” Theora said. “This place seemed the most promising, and my time is somewhat limited.”

He sighed dismissively. “Of course. Well, go there first. I’m too busy to research.” With that, he made a hand gesture to usher her out of the door.

Theora hesitated. She was at the edge of town; getting back later if the other places didn’t yield any results would take about two hours.

“I have other tasks I need to complete as well,” Theora ventured.

“Of course you do,” he gruffed. “Heroes, always thinking whatever they have on their mind right now is the most important. Unbelievable. Waltzing in here, one after the next, expecting me to do whatever they want. Well, I’m busy! You’re the strongest in the world, ain't ya? What do you do all day? Huh, let me guess. Laze around?”

Theora swallowed. While she didn’t spend her time ‘lazing around’ that much recently, she really couldn’t deny that that was what she was usually doing. She tried to form an answer in her mind, and opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a sharp and annoyed exhale from the old man.

“Whatever, this is taking too much time already.” Then, he shouted, at the top of his lungs, “ULFINE?”

Theora heard surprised scrambling erupt within the adjacent room, hasty footsteps, and then the click of the door. Out came a teenager; long black hair, clearly overworked and tired, mousy eyes looking into the room with a scared expression.

“You got a project running?” the old man growled.

She shook her head. A moment passed of nothing happening, then she realised her mistake, and yelped out, “No project! I’m sorting documents.”

“Hrmph,” he went. “Whatever, stop doing that, you’re researching Fragments of Time now, for our most valuable strongest Heroine. No clue what they are. Go to the library or whatnot.”

“I…” she stammered, but then said, “Understood.”

He activated yet another Skill, causing his finger to start glowing, and then grazed over some lines in one of the documents in front of him. “Says here your contract’s been prolonged? This is your main project now, give it priority. If it turns out it has nothing to do with magical items, drop it immediately, and turn over any acquired knowledge to Theora. Otherwise, gather all you can find on the topic and integrate it to our archive. Dismissed.”

The girl swallowed, clamping down on the door she was still holding in her hands. “I’ll… go to the library right away, then?” she asked in a whimper.

“Of course!” the man thundered, and she jerked back and immediately let go off the door, scuttling behind Theora and leaving through the entrance to the office. “Tch,” he puffed when he heard the door fall shut again.

“Thank you,” Theora said, turned around, and left as well, trying to catch up to that girl. “Hey, wait!” she softly shouted out, and a moment later, she’d caught up.

Ulfine was looking up at her with scared and puffy eyes, close to crying. “Y-yes?” she asked.

“You don’t have to do this at all, if you don’t want to. I didn’t expect the task to be delegated to someone who might not want to do it,” Theora explained. “I can go back and rescind.”

The girl softly shook her head, eyes wide. “N-no, I… It’s okay. I can do it. I’m good at research.”

Theora couldn’t tell if this was a lie or not. “Tell me if at any point you change your mind,” she said. “You are heading to the library now, right? At the very least, would you mind if I accompany you for today? I would have trouble finding places to research on my own.” And, she would have trouble talking to these people, but she kept that to herself.

Just now, Theora had told that old man she was busy, so she felt somewhat bad for deciding to join Ulfine anyway. On the other hand, just having that girl run off all alone to do her bidding felt almost equally bad. It was a good idea to get to know these places anyway, since Theora didn’t know how much longer she’d need to stay in Hallmark. And having someone who could guide her would probably cut the time needed in half.

“S-sure,” Ulfine said, and nodded. Then, her eyes went wide again. “Ah! Forgot my notebook. I will be right back, then we can go.”

The girl ran back towards the office, reconsidered half-way, and then took another route that didn’t require her to meet her boss.

Theora stared after her as her back vanished around a corner. She sighed a breath of relief. That felt almost like a lottery win. Theora had no clue about ‘Fragments of Time’, and typically, she’d just hit the libraries and spend months in them, reading everything herself if nobody else could outright tell her. But with things as they were, she could barely sleep five hours a night, much less sift through thousands of documents or ask scholars about their opinions.

If this girl really was willing to help, Theora thought she could try to rely on her. That way, she’d be able to pursue both of her tasks at once. This was good. Having Ulfine on her side meant that it was only a matter of time until she’d find out about those Fragments.

A moment later, the girl returned, having fetched her notebook, and smiled at Theora, in a much better mood now.

“Let’s go!” she said. “Time to solve a mystery!”