The Staff Room in the Monster Hunter Headquarters is a long, dimly lit cylinder, with a doorway at the top and a spiral staircase leading to the bottom. On the floor, a stand props up the Staff of Placeholder. Its mostly spherical blue and black orb has an odd red spiky protrusion, and the blob floated on top of a long white stick. Many do not know of its existence, and of those who do, few know of its origin. With the exception of the Mixvobo family, anyone granted with its magical power is blindfolded while they do so, and have learned to not question what happens when their eyes are covered. Just be grateful that you have magical powers to assist you, and assist the Monster Hunters in hunting monsters more effectively. Luckily for Sarina, she is a Mixvobo, though she has already seen the staff many times due to cleaning duties. She and her father, Paxton, descend down the stairs. Sarina carries a lantern, and Paxton carries a stack of boxes filled with jewelry and miscellaneous items.

 “Why did I have to wait so long to receive my artifact? I get that I’m not an active combatant, but it would’ve been nice to not waste eight hours everyday sleeping.”

 “I’m going off what the guidelines say.”

 “Guidelines from that creepy magical organization nobody knows about?”

 “We have records of them tucked away somewhere, though you’re not going to see them until the far future.”

 “Do the guidelines have an actual name for the staff? Or are we seriously going to continue calling it the Staff of Placeholder for all of eternity?”

 “The guidelines call it the Staff of Placeholder, hence we’re calling it the Staff of Placeholder.”

 Both of them reach the ground, and Sarina sets her lantern down. Paxton scatters the contents of the boxes around the staff and places a vial prefilled with a strange liquid on the ground below the spike. 

 “Draw your blood on the spike.”

 Sarina hesitates for a moment but does poke her pinky finger, allowing her blood to drip into the vial. Paxton offers her a bandage, which Sarina accepts and uses to tend to her finger. He places a lid on the vial and shakes it. Paxton removes the lid and moves toward Sarina before she puts her hand out to stop him.

 “I can see, you don’t need to feed me anything.”

 Paxton hands over the vial to Sarina as she stares at it.

 “What was the liquid in this beforehand?”

 “I can’t tell you that right now.”

 Sarina continues to stare at the vial.

 “Are you sure-?”

 “Yes, I’m sure!”

 After staring at it some more, Sarina takes a deep breath, shuts her eyes tight, and chugs the vial. It didn’t seem like the strange liquid tasted like anything, because all Sarina tasted was blood. The blood was still horrible though. She hands back the vial to Paxton, who puts the vial back into his pocket.

 “Alright”, Sarina says. “Let’s start finding my artifact.”