The Adventurers' Guild mission board loomed before them like a restaurant menu written in a language Pyra almost understood. Almost, because while the words made sense individually, their combination suggested someone had gotten creative with what constituted "adventure."

"'Deliver correspondence to Lord Pemberton's estate,'" Cinder read aloud, her voice dripping with the sort of disdain usually reserved for lukewarm coffee. "'Time estimate: Three days.' Three days? To walk twenty miles?"

The mathematics of it sat wrong in all their minds. Twenty miles in three days meant deliberately moving slower than a leisurely stroll. They could cover that distance in the time it took most people to finish breakfast—assuming they bothered with breakfast at all instead of just grabbing something while moving at speeds that turned landscape into watercolor smears.

Kindle bounced on her heels, azure flames creating tiny heat mirages around her boots that made the wooden floor shimmer like summer pavement. "Ooh, what about this one? 'Clear rodent infestation from Miller's warehouse!' It has a little drawing of angry rats!"

"Those aren't rats," Ash observed, leaning closer to examine the crude illustration with the focused attention she usually reserved for dimensional theory scrolls. "Based on the scale relative to the grain sacks, they appear to be Nibblegnaws—minor magical pests that spontaneously combust when startled. The universe has a dark sense of humor about flammable creatures in grain storage."

Which meant even the "dangerous" mission could potentially be solved by walking into the warehouse and existing near the creatures. Not exactly the heroic challenge the posting implied.

Ember plucked a mission notice from the board, golden flames dancing between her fingers as she scanned the text. The parchment curled slightly from the heat, edges browning in a way that suggested the Guild might need to invest in flame-resistant mission postings. "How about 'Patrol eastern trade route for bandits'? Says here it's a week-long assignment."

"A week?" Pyra's orange fire flared with indignation, creating a small thermal that sent several other mission notices fluttering like startled birds. "We could run that route in what, an hour?"

"Thirty-seven minutes at cruising speed," Cinder corrected automatically, then paused as the reality of that statement settled over them like a wet blanket. Thirty-seven minutes to do what the Guild expected to take a week. The disconnect felt almost surreal—like being asked to use a race car for grocery shopping.

"Twenty-two if we push it," she added, though her voice had lost some of its earlier sharpness. There was something deflating about having capabilities that rendered most challenges meaningless, even when those capabilities should have felt like advantages.

The Guild hall hummed with its usual morning chaos—adventurers nursing hangovers that suggested last night's victory celebrations had gotten creative, clerks processing paperwork with the practiced efficiency of people who'd given up on surprise, and the ever-present background cacophony of dozens of languages, accents, and interpersonal dramas that somehow formed the backdrop of their new reality.

This was home now—at least until their "situation" was resolved.

Their corner of the hall had developed its own microclimate, the air shimmering with heat distortions that made other adventurers give them a wide berth. Not hostile, exactly, but cautious—the way people moved around expensive equipment they weren't qualified to operate.

It was starting to feel familiar, that careful distance. The polite nods coupled with relieved expressions when conversations ended quickly. Even here, among people who made their living dealing with the impossible, they were still too much.

Too bright, too hot, too obviously other.

Three weeks of this pattern had worn the novelty thin. They'd become the Guild's efficiency anomaly—useful for clearing backlogs, but impossible to schedule around because no one knew how to estimate their completion times anymore.

"Look at this one," Kindle said, attempting to inject some enthusiasm into her voice as she pointed to another posting. "'Escort merchant caravan from Millbrook to Thornfield.' Estimated duration: five days. Payment: fifteen silver pieces." She paused, doing the mental math that came automatically now. "We could make that trip twelve times in the same period."

"But we won't," Ember said quietly, and there was something in her tone that made the others glance at her. "Because that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works."

The unspoken truth hung between them: they weren't just fast—they were fundamentally incompatible with the pace of normal life. Every mission posting was a reminder that they existed in a different temporal reality from everyone else, one where distances meant nothing and time moved at half-speed.

"Ladies." Kaelin Reed's voice cut through their contemplation like a blade through butter that had been left too close to Pyra. The Guild leader approached with her characteristic limp, her mechanical brace clicking against the wooden floor in a rhythm that had become as familiar as their own heartbeats. "Ready for your next assignments?"

The word 'next' carried weight now.

Three weeks of Guild missions had established a pattern: they'd complete assignments in fractions of the estimated time, file their reports, collect payment while trying to look appropriately tired, and start the cycle again. Each success confirmed their reputation as the Adventurers' Guild's most efficient—some might say unnervingly efficient—team.

It was becoming routine in the most soul-crushing way possible.

"Define 'ready,'" Cinder muttered, though she kept her voice low enough that only her sisters-selves could hear it. They'd had this conversation before—several times, in fact—and Kaelin's responses had become as predictable as the sunrise.

Kaelin's scarred face might have been carved from stone for all the expression it showed, but her eyes held the weary look of someone who'd spent weeks watching the same impossible pattern repeat itself. She'd assigned them a dozen missions by now, each with carefully calculated time estimates, and each completed with the sort of efficiency that made the Guild's administrative systems look foolish.

The assumption was still written clearly in her posture, though it had evolved over their weeks of interaction: here were five overconfident girls who defied every reasonable expectation, and she'd stopped trying to teach them humility because they'd proven immune to the lessons.

"Standard package," Kaelin continued, apparently determined to pretend that everything was perfectly normal despite weeks of evidence to the contrary. "Three D-rank missions. I'm sure you'll manage them with your usual... efficiency."

The pause before 'efficiency' had become pointed. After their fifth assignment came back completed in record time, Kaelin had started adding those pauses, as if the word itself had become somehow suspicious.

She handed Ember a leather folder stuffed with official-looking documents that crinkled with the bureaucratic authority of forms filled out in triplicate. "Rat extermination at the docks—Miller's been waiting for this one. Message delivery to Three Rivers Township. And patrol duty on the southern merchant road. Should keep you occupied for the usual timeframe."

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The 'usual timeframe' was Guild-speak for 'however long it actually takes you to do this, since we've given up on realistic estimates.' It was progress of a sort, though not the kind that felt particularly satisfying.

The five sisters-selves exchanged glances—or rather, four of them looked at Pyra, who was already vibrating with barely contained excitement despite the mundane nature of their assignments and the fact that they'd been doing variations of these same tasks for weeks.

"The usual timeframe," Ember repeated diplomatically, her tone carefully neutral in the way that suggested she was working very hard to keep other words from escaping. "Of course. We'll pace ourselves appropriately."

Pace themselves. The phrase had become almost absurd over the past three weeks. Like being asked to pace yourself while walking when you were capable of flight.

"Good," Kaelin said, apparently taking Ember's response at face value despite everything they'd learned about each other over the past month. "The docks mission is time-sensitive—Miller's been complaining about the Nibblegnaws for three days now, and they're starting to spread to neighboring warehouses. Priority assignment."

She turned to leave, then paused, her expression shifting slightly in the way it did when she was about to repeat advice they'd heard multiple times before. "Word of advice? I know you've... developed your own methods, but try not to overcomplicate things. Sometimes the simplest approach is the most effective."

After she'd walked away, they stood in silence for a moment, staring at the folder of assignments that represented their immediate future and looked disturbingly similar to the folders they'd received every week since joining.

"Simplest approach," Pyra repeated, her voice thoughtful. "Walk into warehouse full of fire-sensitive pests while being made of fire. Yeah, that's definitely going to require some strategic complexity."

"Maybe that's the point," Ash said quietly. "Maybe the real challenge isn't the missions themselves."

"Then what is it?" Kindle asked, though after three weeks of this routine, she suspected she already knew the answer.

Ash's smoky flames curled thoughtfully around her fingers as she considered the question. "Learning to exist in a world that moves at a different speed than we do. Learning to find meaning in tasks that don't require our full capabilities."

"That's depressing," Cinder observed.

"That's reality," Ember corrected, though her tone suggested that three weeks of this reality hadn't made her any happier about it.

The Guild hall continued its morning bustle around them, full of people preparing for adventures that would challenge them, excite them, maybe even change them. Meanwhile, they stood holding assignments that felt more like elaborate patience exercises with increasingly familiar parameters.

"Well," Pyra said finally, her characteristic optimism reasserting itself despite everything, "at least we get to travel. Three Rivers Township, southern merchant road... we'll see more of the world."

"At walking speed," Cinder added.

"At walking speed," Pyra agreed cheerfully. "Think of it as... immersive tourism."

"We've been doing immersive tourism for three weeks," Kindle pointed out. "I'm starting to feel very immersed."

Three Rivers Township appeared ahead like something out of a pastoral painting, all thatched roofs and cobblestone streets that probably looked quaint to people who hadn't just covered forty-seven miles in thirty-eight minutes while pretending to take the scenic route.

They'd managed to stretch the journey to almost two hours by making strategic stops to "rest" and "admire the countryside," though mostly they'd used the time to practice looking like people who'd been traveling at normal speeds. It involved a surprising amount of acting—making sure their clothes looked appropriately road-dusty, working up the right amount of perspiration, even walking the last half-mile to ensure they approached the town on foot rather than in the telltale heat shimmer that surrounded them at speed.

The performance aspect of mundane life was exhausting in ways that actual adventure had never been. After three weeks of practice, they'd gotten better at the charade, but it still felt fundamentally ridiculous.

The Magistrate's office occupied a stern-looking building near the town square, its stone facade suggesting that Legal Matters Were Taken Seriously Here. Morning sunlight slanted through tall windows, illuminating dust motes that danced in the air like tiny, non-magical sprites.

A clerk sat behind a mahogany desk that had clearly been designed to impress visitors with its sheer mass, spectacles perched precariously on his nose as he sorted through what seemed to be an entire tree's worth of paperwork. He looked up as they entered, and his expression immediately shifted to one of resigned recognition.

"Oh. It's you again."

It wasn't hostility, exactly—more like the expression of someone who'd learned to expect his carefully organized schedule to be completely upended by forces beyond his control.

"Delivery for Magistrate Corven," Ember announced, producing the sealed document pouch with the sort of crisp efficiency that suggested this was a routine transaction, which it had become over their previous visits. "From the Amaranth Courthouse."

"Let me guess," the clerk said without looking at his ledger, his tone carrying the weary patience of someone who'd had this conversation multiple times before. "Another three-day journey completed in three hours?"

"Two hours and seventeen minutes this time," Kindle supplied helpfully. "We stopped for lunch."

The clerk made a note in his ledger without breaking eye contact with them, a practiced maneuver that indicated he'd had plenty of opportunities to perfect the art of disbelief at their expense. "I'll inform the Magistrate. He owes Captain Morris another five silver pieces."

"He's still betting against us?" Cinder asked, genuinely curious about the ongoing wager that had apparently developed around their delivery times.

"He's betting on increasingly shorter timeframes," the clerk explained with the weary patience of someone who'd become an unwitting bookmaker. "Yesterday, he wagered you'd make the Millbrook run in under an hour. Captain Morris took the bet that you'd deliberately slow down to make it look reasonable."

"Who won?" Pyra asked.

"Captain Morris. You clocked in at exactly one hour and fifteen minutes." The clerk's expression suggested he found their attempts at appearing normal almost as exhausting as their supernatural efficiency. "Very considerate pacing."

He stamped their receipt with the sort of emphatic finality that suggested the conversation was over, then paused, looking at them with something approaching curiosity. "If you don't mind me asking... why do you do it?"

"Do what?" Ember asked.

"Pretend to be slower than you are. Everyone knows you could make these runs in minutes. The whole township's been talking about it since your second delivery."

The five exchanged glances, and for a moment, the weight of their situation settled over them like a familiar but unwelcome blanket.

How do you explain that moving at your natural speed would shatter every social convention, every economic assumption, every careful balance that kept society functioning? How do you say that being exceptional was sometimes its own kind of prison?

"Because," Ash said quietly, "some things are more important than being fast."

The clerk nodded slowly, as if this made perfect sense, though his expression made it clear that he knew he was only getting part of the story. He stamped their paperwork again, the sound loud enough that it echoed off the stone walls.

"Fair enough," he said, though the 'fair' part was clearly in doubt. "Tell Captain Morris he owes me five silver pieces for coordinating wagers."

As they left the Magistrate's office, receipt stamped and mission technically complete, the morning sun had climbed high enough to burn off the last wisps of dawn mist. Three Rivers Township was fully awake now, streets bustling with the kind of purposeful activity that came with market day.

Ember found herself wondering if this was what their lives would be like indefinitely: a series of small impossibilities that looked like miracles to everyone else but felt like elaborate exercises in underachievement to them, repeated week after week until the novelty wore completely thin.

The thought wasn't particularly comforting, especially since the novelty had already worn thin somewhere around week two.

"Next stop, the docks," Ember announced, consulting their itinerary. "Miller's warehouse. Nibblegnaw extermination."

"Race you there?" Pyra suggested with forced cheer.

"We always race there," Cinder pointed out. "It's the only part of these missions that actually feels like us."

And wasn't that a depressing thought to end on.

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