Hannah was waiting for me at the guild entrance, reading one of the old books she had taken up to her room yesterday. Our plan was to join the Treasure Hunters' Guild at the same time. It was a precaution, as neither Hannah nor I felt comfortable entering the Adventurers' Guild headquarters alone.
"Do you know the way?" I asked her and Hannah just shrugged, "Don't worry about that. I've asked Sara to get us a carriage. The sooner we get this show at the Adventurers' Guild over with, the sooner I can get back to the library here or continue reading the other books in my room. And I think you have more important things to do."
"You mean things like fixing the broken bathhouse of the mansion?" I asked sarcastically.
"Indeed. That would be a blessing in disguise," Hannah said apathetically. I had spoken to Hannah a few times since we left the dungeon and her lethargy never ceased to amaze me. I was probably just driving myself nuts, but after yesterday's discussions, I was a little afraid to set foot in the halls of the Adventurers' Guild. Hannah seemed to notice as well and said, "What's going to happen? They might try to threaten our families with harm if we refuse to join their guild. Good luck finding them. And anyway, Sara will send someone to look for us if we take too long."
"I can think of a lot of things they could do to us," I muttered, but Hannah didn't seem too impressed as she just said, "Stop worrying your sweet head about problems that aren't problems right now. I've already taken care of the only thing that would have caused us real problems, because I can't explain it properly - so if anyone asks, I'm officially your age and a hopeless researcher with no useful results".
She literally implied that she had managed to manipulate her status screen, which actually impressed me a little. I was about to ask her how she did it when a traditional horse-drawn carriage arrived. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't one of the steam-powered carriages I'd seen briefly yesterday, but a more traditional example. "One way to the Adventurers' Guild," the coachman said, "please get in."
As the driver made no effort to get out of his seat and help us into the carriage, I was about to reach for the door handle when suddenly I heard a short hiss and the door slowly opened to the left. 
Once inside, Hannah resumed reading her book, while I was surprised to notice how quiet the journey along the cobbled road had been. It was as if the carriages had been fitted with shock absorbers. When the carriage came to a halt again, we found ourselves in front of a huge multi-storey building with Adventurers' Guild written in huge letters on the front entrance. After we got out and paid the driver, Hannah suddenly groaned, "Those lettering raises some very interesting questions. I really want to know if any of their members are having trouble finding the biggest building in the main square.” As there were already quite a few people around us, I decided not to respond to what she said.

The building in front of us, however, was impressive. Even in my old world it would have been considered an absolute masterpiece of architecture. There were several bronze statues in front of us, watching us closely as we made our way to the entrance. The building's huge marble arches and stained glass windows were particularly striking. There was also a huge ancient clock enthroned at the entrance, surrounded by decorative giant cogs.
As Hannah and I entered the Guild, we immediately noticed that everything was made of marble, too.
"Impressive," I muttered, but Hannah just said coldly, "Imagine if they had to pay 5000 Yorkies for every member. Do you think it would look the same?"
"Probably not," I chuckled, "But it wouldn't change the fact that the current architecture is impressive."

As it was still early in the morning, there was naturally a lot going on in a guild of this size, and it wasn't long before we were subjected to the first silly comments from the mostly male members. As I was used to this from my previous life, it was easy for me to ignore them. And as for Hannah, I'd have been surprised if she'd done more than shrug her shoulders at all the idiots in the room. The comments got particularly bad when we walked up to the counter that said 'new registrations'.

There were two other candidates ahead of us, and as we had to wait, I took the opportunity to look at all the idiots in the room. Some of them glanced at us, others stared at us as if we were fresh meat. A few, mostly women, looked down in shame. But they all had one thing in common - they were wearing inferior clothing under their cheap leather armour. Even I could see that at first glance. Of course, some of them were dressed more elegantly, but those were probably the higher-ranking adventurers. "Looking at them, I know who will die first in a real emergency," I murmured calmly, "Most of the people around here are nothing but cannon fodder."

"Please show me your status screen," an older woman behind the counter said suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts, "I'll check your data and if everything is in order, I'll give you the registration form for the Adventurers' Guild."
"We're here to sign up for the Treasure Hunters," Hannah said friendly, "Our slots are paid for and already officially registered with the city council."
"Oh, sorry," the woman said tiredly, "I didn't notice your clothes. We rarely see applicants wearing such expensive clothes, except for young nobles looking for an adventure from time to time. I'm afraid I still need to see your status screen, please. If all is in order, I will need to retrieve the proper forms from the back room. Applications from other guilds have been few and far between of late.
The elder looked us over from top to bottom, as if searching for weaknesses. With the words "Share Status Screen" we showed her our data as requested before she muttered something like "Interesting" and disappeared into the back room with the words "I'll be right back."

"Now the real fun begins," Hannah said quietly to me, "She's going to tell one of the high officials about us and I'm sure they'll try to convince us that it's better for us to join the Adventurers' Guild."
"That's to be expected," I muttered annoyed, "But let's hope you're wrong."
"I'm not. Just trust me," Hannah said remarkably firmly, "While you were observing the surroundings, I watched her fill out the form for the last guy in line before us, because he couldn't read or write very well. One of the questions she read to him was which guild he wanted to join. Of course, in his case, she would have just written down "Adventurer's Guild", no matter what he said."

Unfortunately, Hannah was right. The lady at the counter had been instructed to inform her superiors if anyone was interested in other guilds. When she returned, she was accompanied by a man in an elegant grey suit and an expensive-looking bowler hat. He also had a neatly trimmed beard.
"Why do I get the feeling this guy is trouble? Although he doesn't really look like someone who likes to get his hands dirty," I muttered just before they reached the counter. "My name is Shane Doyle. As today's Deputy Guild Leader, I'm afraid I have some rather bad news for you. We're currently unable to process any applications that aren't directly related to our guild. We don't have the manpower to handle the paperwork right now," the man explained, "But if you change your mind, I'm sure we can find you an excellent position within our honourable Adventurers' Guild.”
"I can see dozens of people with nothing to do who try to undress us with their eyes for a while," Hannah replied with a cool smile, "If you're short of manpower, I'm sure you can find competent helpers in these rows."
"They're waiting for the next batch of low level missions," Shane replied, "Someone has to do all the dirty work here in Dubstep and the surrounding area."
"Just give us the form, we can fill it in. We can both read and write," I said, very annoyed.
"If that's the case, I could offer you both a well-paid position in our administration. I'm sure that with your help we could speed up the process and make registration easier for everyone in the future," Shane replied calmly, "Believe it or not, I'm really embarrassed by this situation right now. But as I said, we simply don't have the resources to deal with your request at this time."

"And I'm afraid none of us are interested in joining the Adventurers' Guild. We have an agreement with another guild, as I told your receptionist earlier. Unfortunately, this guild is the only place where we can go through the registration process here in Dubstep. And right now I have the feeling that you are not doing your job properly," Hannah continued, but Shane smiled, "You can try your luck again tomorrow. We might have more capacity then."
"So we have to go through the same hassle again?" I asked, feeling like a bit of a joke at the moment. Unlike me, Hannah still maintained her stoic calm, "Em, let's go. We'll try our luck in one of the neighbouring towns. Maybe the guilds there have more staff to do something as complicated as putting an official stamp on a completed form. Please stop this nonsense. I know that once the stamp is on the paper, our status screen will be updated."

We were about to leave the guild building to inform Sara of the expected outcome when we were suddenly surrounded by a horde of Adventurers' Guild grunts. Not really a surprise. The guild had to act before we left the building, and at least the guy in charge was fully aware of it.
"We happened to overhear your conversation," the grunt leader began, and I groaned, "I'm pretty sure that was an accident."
"Indeed. But since we are talking so bluntly at the moment. Perhaps it would be a good idea if you reconsider your decision and join the guild."
I was surprised at how cultured he was, until he suddenly changed his tune, "To help you with your decision, it would also be better for your families if you made up your mind. We are many, and we have eyes and ears everywhere.
"Great. Then you can make yourselves useful and look for my parents' graves," Hannah replied coldly, while I just muttered, "Are there seriously a dozen grown men threatening two young women right now?"
"We're not threatening you," said the leader of the group, "We're just trying to talk to you in a friendly way."
"In that case the conversation is over," I said as politely as I could, trying to push past two of the grunts, "We definitely have more important things to do today."
Just then I felt a fist hit me in the face, "We'll let you know when our conversation is over. One of the grunts had just punched me and I staggered back a few steps, right into the arms of one of the other punks.

"You idiots know we have a guild behind us?" I snapped, but Shane had already joined the group and said contemptuously, "What's one little guild going to do against us? As far as we know, Angus and the crazy twins aren't in town. They're doing some of those quests we refused to waste resources on. As for the rest of the guild, they are nothing more than useless little girls on a treasure hunt."
I didn't have much of a problem with him calling me useless. I had done it often enough myself. But it certainly didn't apply to the other members of the guild. As far as I knew, they might be a little wild, strange, stubborn, rough - but they were definitely not useless. I wanted to reply defiantly, but Shane wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, "We'll tell you how it works now. Join us or we'll make you disappear forever. I will not allow your talents to be wasted in other guilds. Also, I'm afraid I can't allow you to leave the building to spread new rumours about our beloved Adventurers' Guild".

"Talents? I'm nothing more than a small, insignificant researcher," Hannah fibbed - but Shane said firmly in a hushed voice, "I'm no fool, bitch! If you were a simple researcher, you would probably carry more basic literature in a more common language. Not something written in an old language. I could just chain you up somewhere and force you to translate a few books for us to find out how much knowledge you have. And believe me, we have plenty of those books from cleaning out old dungeons.”
Unfortunately, the bookmark in the book showed that Hannah wasn't just carrying it around for decoration. It was then that I realised that he wasn't talking about the two of us when he talked about talent, he was talking about Hannah.
"And before our little girl here starts looking for an excuse. Although we have no real use for you, I can promise you one thing - there are plenty of ways you can make the guild some good money. Either as a garbage collector in the dungeons or in some rich man's bedroom. Trust me, you will not be the first and you will not be the last," he added with a devilish smile. Shane's crazy look really scared me. That was when I realised that the big hall was suddenly deserted. There were only a handful of other adventurers left, and they didn't really seem to be interested in what was going on as they were looking at the questboards. 

"Take these two to the salvage yard at the back of our complex and give them our special treatment. Break a few bones if necessary. If they still don't want to join us, you know what to do," he ordered his subordinates. It took me a while to figure it out, but it seems they need some kind of agreement from us to force us into the guild. Otherwise, it would have been much easier for them to simply fake our registration. At least there was a small safety net to prevent complete caprice.

"How about you do it yourself, asshole," I said as I spat in his face. I have to admit it was a really stupid move as it made him really angry. And I had no idea where this courage came from, but for a brief moment I was a little impressed with myself. "I'm a high-ranking official in this guild for a reason. Why should I have to deal with someone as shitty as you? You are not worth my time," Shane said - before his face turned into a horrible grimace, "But if you really insist. I'll be more than happy to give you the beating of your life. Trust me - you'll end up wishing you were dead."
As if to prove how much of a man he was, he punched me in the stomach with full force. My jacket absorbed some of the impact, but it wasn't enough. The rest of the pain brought me to my knees, and before I could get up, four of the grunts had grabbed me and carried me to one of the back rooms of the Guild. There they threw me roughly onto a pile of metal scrap. 

I think Hannah shouted something in my direction while they carried me to another area, but I was too far away to understand her.