The halfling receptionist nods as she finishes reorganizing the list on her magical clay tablet. It had taken an hour to go through her questions, of which an inordinate, though maybe to be expected, number of them were related to what kind of spiritual sites the group would be fine having around their place.
Which, while less important to the group than it would be for others who stay in the city. That doesn’t mean it’s not important. After all, it doesn’t matter if you don’t mind the people who worship a mold spirit are the nicest people when their open-air shrine is covered in mold.
Though more than that, they don’t really have the option to ignore the questions. After all, they’re still pretending that at least Rosha has some deeply held beliefs. Thankfully, “nature” and “the wilderness” as concepts are easy enough to keep straight and Courtney had done some research beforehand. It wouldn’t do to tip their hand simply because they didn’t realize nature spirit A happened to be the type that didn’t actually like rangers.
Now that it was over they all felt a bit relieved.
Then the receptionist speaks up, “Okay, I’ve picked out three locations that should fit your requirements. Two are directly Guild owned and the third is being leased to us for the next five hundred or so years, so any of them should work. Well, as long as you aren’t staying for over five hundred years. It is just that I don’t think I’ve ever had a traveller plan that far out.
“Not that it doesn’t happen. You three simply seem a little young to be settling down. Especially with the whole ‘wilderness ranger’ thing you’ve got going on. Now I’ll hand you off to one of the assistants and they’ll show you around the three locations. Though do note, we are Not holding them for you.
“While they will be ‘off the books’ for a short time because I just scheduled them for a viewing. The second you walk out the door, it is possible for someone else to lease them. So don’t dilly-dally too much or you might have to go through all this again. Do you understand?”
Courtney nods, “The locations won’t be held after our viewing of them.”
The halfling nods in return, “Good.” And she dials something into an unmarked button pad.
After which, the group only has to wait a moment before a man rushes over from the employee area of the Guild. His uniform clashing with the natural coloration of his fur. An oddity, as the uniform, while striking, had clearly been designed to work with just about anything.
This man wasn’t even some odd folk. He was simply a dogkin with some unfortunate spots. Which might be the problem. The uniform can be altered for all kinds of body shapes, but since he has a humanoid body, there’s not much they can probably do to tailor the uniform differently and still be within the rules.
The dogkin salutes the halfling, “Delfus here! What do you need?”
She closes her eyes and breathes out her nose before looking back up at him, “We don’t salute here.
“But whatever, Delfus was your name? Well, this party is to go view three of our longer-term rentals. They’re all standard rate with a minimum month so you should know what’s up.”
The halfling presses a blank tile onto her clay tablet, and despite the tile already having been baked, the words on the tablet are transferred over. Well, except without whatever protection the tablet has as Jason notices he can make you a few words on the tile.
She checks the tile and nods, “Here is the info on those three places. Make sure you manage all of this within the next three hours.”
Delfus’ ears droop a little, “Uh, my uh, my shift ends in an hour.”
The receptionist raises an eyebrow, “You signed up for this task. Now, I’m a stickler for following things like shift times to the letter, but the letter here is that viewings can push you past the end of your shift. Though not past the end of the Guild’s hours. And the Guild doesn’t close for five more hours, so this is well within regulations. Now get to work.”
Delfus sighs, but the halfling isn’t having it. “You were informed what this job entailed. This is not a surprise for you! Because most days the position means you don’t have to do more than a few hours of work, the trade-off and why the pay is good? All because sometimes we’re busy and other times, like right now, you have to work past the end of your shift. Now take the tile and introduce these people to the properties!”
Delfus snatches up the tile and sighs.
Though before the group leaves the sound bubble, the receptionist talks to the group and says one more thing. “If he caused you any trouble, tell us. We’ll know anyway, but firsthand reports will at least speed up the process.” And then they are out of the bubble, following Delfus who had already left and so didn’t hear that last bit.
As Delfus leaves the Guild Hall, he steps to the side and takes his time reading the tile. “Okay, all three seem to be in the same area, so at least there’s that. I’m not too familiar with the area, but I don’t see why this would even take two hours?
“Well, we’ll want to go right and head towards the edge of the city. All three are in an area referred to as the ‘tree zone’ for, well, obvious reasons. Not the biggest place, but easy to spot since it has a bunch of building-sized trees. Oddest thing seeing a tree only as tall as a building, but as wide as a quarter block. I’ve seen it from a distance.
“Well, let’s get a move on! No need to burn any more daylight. We should be able to reach the zone with only a ten-minute walk. Err, the distance is ten minutes away, expect us to take maybe half an hour to get there. Things get a bit crowded.”