Lucia eventually made it to the communications office in the Adventurer's Guild. The earthquake had caused a lot of damage, and there were toppled bookshelves and scattered papers everywhere. The disaster scene outside of the window was even worse; several buildings had collapsed and the street was full of rubble.
The 27-year-old receptionist felt extremely worried.
How many people were injured? Would everything be okay?
Lucia turned towards her shift supervisor who was standing at the telephone desk. His forehead was bleeding slightly (perhaps he got hit in the head with a rock?), but he held a conch shell to his ear and was shouting orders into it. The Adventurer's Guild possessed a collection of large magical shells that could function as telephones. Unlike Butterflies, these shells could be used to communicate with ordinary citizens who were not registered guild members.
Three more telephone conches started ringing and Supervisor Watson slammed one shell back into the stand and picked up the second phone. He clearly did not have enough hands to handle all of the incoming calls, but he valiantly continued to juggle multiple phone calls at the same time.
"We don't have any extra to spare, dammit!" Supervisor Watson snapped at the conch shell. "If the bridge collapsed, call the city guard! Or the fire brigade! We don't store shovels in the guild office!"
He shoved the phone back onto its stand and his shoulders sagged with a deep sigh. At that point, he seemed to notice that Lucia was standing in the room, and a light bulb went off in his head.
"Lucia! Where's everyone else on the morning shift?"
"Chantilly... ran off to find her family. I don't know about the others." Lucia said.
"Ah... Fuck. Never mind."
"Um... are you okay? You're bleeding."
"I'll be fine. More importantly, I need you for something."
"Huh?"
"The teleportation circles on the islands stopped working," Supervisor Watson said with a grave and serious look.
"Wait? All of them are dead?" Lucia exclaimed in confusion.
"Many of them." Watson corrected her. "And I can't get through to the Harbormaster. I need a status update, and that fella isn't picking up the phone. Makes me think something happened to that old geezer, and I can't have him vanish on me now."
Lucia's supervisor pushed a telephone conch into her arms.
"Deliver this to the Harbormaster. And make it quick. Run. Run as fast as your can. Run like the wind!!"
......
Lucia stared blankly at Supervisor Watson.
He wanted her to... run all the way to the other side of the island...?! Somehow, Lucia felt like she was totally the wrong person for this assignment. It had been years since she properly exercised in the gym, and climbing a five story staircase was already more than enough to leave her gasping for air and panting on death's doorstep.
She was just an ordinary person! Ordinary people can't suddenly go from being a couch potato to a marathon runner!
There was definitely something wrong with her boss's brain.
He probably hit his head too hard...
+ + +
Incidentally, Lucia ended up taking a taxi.
An air taxi, to be specific, since many of the roads were blocked with rubble.
Although they were much more expensive, air taxi's were faster and more convenient than conventional carriages or carts. Hers was essentially just a Flying Bison with a saddle, and her driver had deviously jacked up the prices since a lot of people were trying to travel between the islands with the teleportation circles disabled. It took almost a full hour before Lucia managed to flag one down, and even then the taxi fare was a hundred times more expensive than normal..........
Lucia's poor wallet! T___T
She finally made her way to the Harbormaster's office, and the first thing she noticed was that it was on fire.
Presumably, this was the reason why her boss's phone calls weren't going through.
The local fire brigade was already on the scene, and water mages were spraying the smoking building. People were still running in and out of the building carrying boxes of documents, as if they were trying to save precious valuables from burning up. Lucia couldn't imagine what could possibly be so important that the workers would repeatedly run into a burning building to salvage it, but this seemed like a serious occupational hazard...
Lucia wasn't sure where to find the Harbormaster...
"Um, where can I find the Harbormaster?" Lucia asked a random person in the crowd.
However, the bystander shrugged quizzically and pointed in a vague direction.
Lucia asked five more people after that, and on her sixth try, a large furry bear responded with a booming voice:
"Oh, that would be me," the Harbormaster said. "I'm on duty today. How can I help you?"
At this point, Lucia was practically tipping over from exhaustion.
Guild receptionists ordinarily didn't do this kind of legwork!
She passed the conch shell to the large bear and explained that she was sent from the Adventurer's Guild. There was a tired smile on her face, as if she was eager to go home already. It was way past her regular work hours, and her shift should have ended at two o'clock in the afternoon. Honestly, she just wanted to go home and soak in the bathtub, but then Lucia belatedly realized that her apartment might have been damaged in the earthquake too...
Lucia's smile immediately turned into a deep frown.
"Oh, before you go," the Harbormaster interrupted her, "I have documents for you to bring back to the Adventurer's Guild."
A look of despair immediately appeared in Lucia's eyes.
...She needed to go all the way back? What?!
"It's just an inventory list," the large bear clarified. "A lot of merchant airships... are missing. We can't reach them. Teleportation circles aren't working either. We had many flying caravans inbound that were scheduled to deliver supplies, but it looks like they won't be arriving. There will most likely be a shortage of many goods... sugar, salt, fish, and more items... Sky Archipelago imports many commodities, and we don't have access to our old trade networks anymore."
Lucia blinked in confusion.
The Harbormaster sighed and rubbed his temples.
"We need the Adventurer's Guild to find more food sources. If we can't find new trade partners to import food from, pretty soon there won't be any meat and fish in the grocery stores. A famine would be extremely bad, right?"
