"Does this somehow mean that the plate is not actually worth money."

"E-rank Bella-four-zero-nine-four-one, I am ordering you to tell me the correct story of how you obtained this guildplate.  We may speak in private if you wish."

"Sure. Where's your office or whatever."

Two floors up.  It's a very lovely huge office with a floor-to-ceiling window-that-is-not-glass, with a view out over the whole city, gleaming-bone academic towers and over the walls to hills and mountains in the distance.

"Well?" says Wroka.

"I'm new at this, would you be so kind as to explain the exact parameters of your authority over adventurers?"

"I give an order.  You follow it."

"Yes, I figured it was something like that, but I was hoping for more detail?"

"No more detail should be necessary."  The glare that Wroka is trying to give Bella would probably have a significantly greater impact on somebody with a more Violable mind.

"Do you want me to start guessing? You could tell me if I'm getting warmer or colder."

"Do not guess.  Obey."  Stronger glare that still doesn't work!

"Maybe you have the power of life and death over adventurers and consider it gauche to mention, but I could just resign my tinplate and walk right out, losing only your difficult-to-access services as a bank and a lot of hassle over my skill sheet. Maybe you aren't telling me how you enforce this rule because you don't, it runs entirely on people not wanting to piss you off. Maybe you can fine me, although then you might be slightly more willing to make sure I had money. Maybe you are planning to convince me that I should tell you my story by deploying your winning personality, any minute now. Maybe if we can't resolve this then we have to go to some kind of arbitration and you aren't telling me that 'cause they take bribes. Any of this close?"

Wroka keeps up the glare for a moment, then snarls and clutches at her ear with one hand, an unfamiliar gesture that translates to Bella as facepalm.  "And she's immune to my Social Skills!  My day just keeps getting better!  Who am I dealing with here, the next dragonfucking Demon Lord?  I have the authority to give you a black mark on your permanent record and fine an E-rank adventurer... one entire gold coin.  I could try to get you kicked out and you could file an appeal that I'd lose.  That said, I do not think you want the Adventurer's Guild admin feeling not only pissed at you but also very worried so can you please have some sympathy for my position here and tell me why you turned in a melted orichalcum guildplate?  I don't have family in this city, but I have friends!"

"This weird guy - actually I'm not even sure it was a guy? This weird person who never actually specified a gender but who had a kind of masculine voice arguably. Was talking about totally unrelated stuff and then described the location to me and I was like, might as well, it's on the way, and I dug there for a bit, and there it was, and I'd heard you can turn the plates in for cash, and I don't have much cash left from killing all those poor pineapple monsters, which I find I have no taste for at all and would rather not turn into a career. I do not know how the orichalcum plate got there. I do not think it was recent violence. I said where I found it and you can go look if you want. I can't rule out the weird person of indeterminate gender having some elaborate plan that involves not themself personally redeeming the plate and them using me as a patsy, I guess, but I don't know what form that would take."

Wroka grabs both ears.  After a second she turns to Haroun and says, "Was all of that true?"  (Pause in which Haroun says nothing.)  "The truth but not the whole truth.  Right."  She sighs heavily.  "Please confirm to me explicitly that so far as you know you are not hiding the imminent destruction of this city by elder liches, or anything else that's going to drag down more than a couple of dozen civilians with you.  Just for my peace of mind, young lady, if that's what you even actually are."

"I am too a young lady. I am not hiding imminent municipal destruction. It seems like a nice municipality so far apart from this holdup about getting my money so I can buy some socks."

"Wonderful!  That doesn't sound at all like it's going down in Relican history as the famous final words that were spoken before the destruction of Cowcorn."  Wroka seizes a pen from her desk and scrawls something on the paperwork that she took from the dark-clad man two floors down.  "But I appreciate that you gave me more of an answer than I could actually have forced from you, so here.  Go ahead and collect your money."  She holds out the paper.  "Just, for the love of mithril, when the day inevitably comes, please go turn into a mind-shatteringly enormous amount of Trouble somewhere that's not inside my jurisdiction."

Bella accepts her paperwork without further comment.

Going back down two floors will find them back at the desk of black-clad guy, who cheerfully takes the paperwork back and gives Bella a nice jingling sack of money, along with instructions to go to the Guild Bank desk and set up some biometric tokens and secret passcodes for her newly wealthy Guild account.

She will go to the bank and do this.

There's a bit of a waiting-in-line delay, but nothing too arduous.  Bella is shortly the owner of a more-than-silvery ring whose exterior bears a translucent gem, which ring will fit nicely over a small finger (not advised) or relatively larger toe (better).  The translucent gem will flash into sparkling light when touched to Bella's, and only Bella's, flesh; at least unless somebody is willing to spend considerably more than 16 mithril on faking it.  And there are passcodes for large expenditures as well.

The Guild Bank officer needs next-of-kin instructions.  Does Bella want to put anything there, or have her money all go to the Adventurer's Guild widows-and-orphans fund in the event of her death?

"Is there a selection of charities?"

Blank look.

"...things like the widows and orphans fund with dissimilar focuses. No?"

"I suppose there's the Church of Teadrinker," says the official, in the tones of somebody who's never before in her life tried to make a mental list of charities for any reason.  The word Teadrinker isn't in Lictic.

"Haroun, if I make you my next of kin, can you avoid developing expensive tastes and dump what's left on something I'd have approved of?"