There was this particular purple girl knocking on their door step on that day.
Saber, as the mascot girl of this agency greeted her with utmost courtesy and returned back to the seat on the edge of the room.
Saber's role to simply put, was that of an eye candy of sort. In other words that was all there was for her to do, Just sitting there still and opening the door whenever there are customers around and smile smile.
To think that Britain's biggest hero was doing a bellgirl's job, that's definitely out of place. But as she got used to the inner workings of capitalism overtime, such a thing wasn't all that hard a thing to do, the large snack basket on the table to her right wasn't there for nothing. The snacking expense wasn't to be overlooked though.
Still, the aesthetic effect of Saber was enough to tilt the cost-benefit balance towards Saber's favor; the image of a teenage cutie gobbling on snacks would definitely add to the atmosphere according to Rin, their CEO.
Aside from that, there isn't much to be said about this office, the tiles are ceramic, there is one large window behind the single Desk of this office and pots of plants are there in every corner of the box, to over simplify it all, it's pretty much dull. Keep in mind though that the exterior of this building is far from immaculate.
"Good evening Miss.."
with her superhuman reflex Rin picked up one of the document on her desk, an overdue electricity Bill. Definitely what every successful CEO would take interest in
there were light shining down from the window behind, exposing the contents of the paper. The client didn't seem to mind however.
"Sion Eltnam Atlasia, please call me Sion."
Their new client; a girl in peculiar white one piece dress and tight purple overcoat replied in a nonchalant tone as she gently took off her purple beret and took her seat, an attitude that was sort of reminiscent of the aristocrats in the Association.
"is there any case that needs solving Eltnam?...err, sorry miss..Sion?"
Shirou, who was sitting next to Rin spoke, Trying not to be the only excluded one here. The woman was seemingly uninterested with minor formal conversations, what Shirouu could see in her eyes was that she didn't seem to have high expectations of them. A conjecture that was evident in her rather nonchalant attitude.
"Our organization mentioned that your team might be... good at these sort of cases, but now I doubt if this information is to be taken as relevant."
Rin and Shirouu rolled their heads, looking at each other rather confused. This woman was definitely not your average customer but peculiarity is sometimes a good sign, as Prof Melloi would often say as an excuse to his peculiar sleeping habit at mandatory thaumaturgy classes.
"pardon, miss Eltnam?"
After a brief silence, Shirou started with. The girl let out a sigh before Answering Shirou in a rather haughty attitude.
"We originally planned on handing this particular task to the Red Mage. But we failed to contact her and instead decided to trust our money on your agency, seeing that you're close affiliate to that exile of London, we expect your agency to share the same... expertise or a level on par to her. Keep in mind that we are a concealed group, and external reference materials are rather hard to import. Precisely why we need you to keep this a confidential matter."
By now, the group realized she was no ordinary customer
"Red-Mage?"
"Shirouu, that's Tohko Aozaki!"
Rin, gave a nice prop on Shirou's side as she whispered on his ear. There are five main colors given to the five highest ranking mages in the association, Blue is the title given to a Mage of the highest caliber while red falls right behind that category. Tohko's sister was given the title Blue; While Tohko herself was given red as the title.
"Oh yeah...but I remember her hair as being blue!"
replied Shirou, genuinely confused.
"She has both colors, idiot!"
"Oh I didn't know she had wigs"
"for the love of..."
Pinching Shirou's belly, Rin returned to her customer, this time with a much more professional outlook.
"So, I'm guessing you're a Mage, now what exactly does this have to do with our Partner in Russia?"
Tohko's residence was apparently in Russia at that time according to their record
"These are the documents you'll need to get started. We'll deliver 20 percent through your account as the initial payment and the rest via up-front... That is, IF you make it to the deadline... In the event that you fail to deliver this item within this specified month, we will consider this agreement void and re-confiscate the money. The rest of the details are written in the document. I hope we're in business."
IgnoRing Rin's question she brusquely tossed a document filer on the table and returned back to where she came. This time though Saber was too preoccupied with eating snacks to do as much as pardoning her customer from the duty of opening the door.
"Hey Answer my questions!"
Rin was about to catapult out of her chair when she heard Shirouu's loud Gasp.
"R...Rin! The...They're talking about a hundred here... in coins!"
"Say what?"
Turns out money is the cure to all kinds of anger
After a quick examination of the Document's first ten introductory page, it became clear that the girl was some high ranking Alchemist in Atlas who is In charge of some weird subset of magical studies called Archaeological mysticism.
After some more cursory scrutiny Rin went into concluding that the woman is actually a revolutionary Progressive in atlas, She was initially exiled from Atlas for her off the paper attitude towards Atlasian values. But it seems after the news came that she managed to seal Tatari, the tenth of the 27 dead apostles, the Alchemists of Atlas had no choice but to give her a new, much more authoritative seat.
while genuinely surprised that such a high profile Alchemist went through all the trouble of visiting her, she was also wasn't all so impressed at her stereotypical attitude towards mages.
Alchemists and mages aren't really considered compatible and the Sion girl wasn't an exception it seemed. But the main objective they were on for was, of course, wasn't about the woman.
After going through some basic signature duties and plenty of introductory pages, Shirou and Rin soon came to the main idea of their quest. The Atlas was basically asking them to retrieve a Mesopotamian Artifact in the ruins of Babylon.
Other than the illustration pictures of an oddly familiar drill-y pointy artifact. No other clues were there to be found; she was literally asking them to start from Nil. It was truly a daunting task but The Money of course, wasn't to be forsaken.
As per precaution Rin began by phoning the puppet master, after Continuous streaks of Stoic electronic Russian Ringing her ear, it became clear; Tohko was in another one of her nomadic journeys, She has definitely been spotted by the Association yet again.
That situation wasn't much of a problem for them, The call was just a confirmation of the authenticity of that Sion girl's claim anyway. And in truth, they didn't really want her to change her mind... so badly.
They started their quest in a nearby bank. After finding out that their account was indeed filled with a big two hundred grand check. They immediately began with their investigation. If they wanted to find a thing as rare as EA it had to be in some old Mesopotamian Ruins, it was clear that they had to hire a professional archaeologist as a guide.
In the Information age, that shouldn't be very hard task if only Rin had been more open minded towards contemporary technologies. So instead of simply looking through Google, they resorted to an archaic method to deal with that problem; Newspapers. After browsing through some old newspapers they went across a peculiar headline.
"Profesor Elongate Discovers The Lost Garden of Babylon!"
Professor Elongate... yes, Rin clearly remembered that name. Who else wouldn't? After all, that event was something of universal sensation to the world. A historic event in history where a mere human discovering an artifact of the highest mysticism before any Magus, In fact, so universal that it even managed to dethrone many of the elder council members in the Magi association.
So, by now, their target was locked, .the problem was where could they find him? There weren't anymore mentions about him in any other recent news coverages. His name was never again mentioned ever since The Novel Prize controversy three years ago. It was definitely a time to get down to an old fashioned Q&A's.
First they began with a visiting trip to the museums in Ireland, after going through three of Ireland's most renown museums, they picked up an info about his whereabouts, indicating that he was currently residing in America.
His latest address seemed to indicate a mental hospital. A quick call on the facility revealed his absence in that ground. The prof managed to escape after being detained in he mental hospital; and it was never actually made public.
Mental disorder is a common low-key tool the Magi association uses to isolate non-magus who are deemed dangerous to preservance of the Mystic. By Rin's knowledge Mental Hospitals around the world have tight connections with the underground society of Magis which would have made it easy to cover up the professor's escape. There was no other choice for Shirouu and Rin. A trip to America was the only option for them was to directly get to the old Prof.
By then Rin realized why they were hired. As exposure of magic wasn't a thing Magicians would risk to delve into a publicly disclosed ruin such as Babylon, the only option left for Magicians, or in this case Alchemists could at best do, was hiRing a rogue mage the likes exiled Tohko and if she was unavailable, former Masters who had survived the 5th Holy Grail War, one of who was a five star Magus at the Magi Association would have been the next logical choice.
Rin's conjecture was that the Magus society was desperate enough to hire an exile or even rookies to aid their cause. as at this state it was just a matter of time before the humans got to the secrets of the Mystic first. Which equals,
Dispersion of Magic- Thinning of Magic- and Acceleration of Magic decomposition
With loads of financial support and no time to spare, they accelerated their search. They first made their way to the Mental hospital in Utah, Texas.
The investigation actually turned out to be pretty easy when they found out that the hospital actually had the record of the prof's current residence which was meant to be put to good use in case he makes any bold moves.
What Rin did after wards was simply waving the evidences of their treachery on the face of the institutional director. The director, fearing that it would cost his seat dearly, simply handed the detail sheets pronto.
The rest they had to do hitchhike their way to Santa Fe,Texas and find the Professor drinking scotch in his usual strip Bar. After the commotion that took them a week to solve, they were now here two weeks later, somewhere in the desert of Arabia, Well on course to reaching their client's deadline.