#mr soot’s mind works in mysterious ways and i could be completely wrong | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scatterednova · 4 years

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Summary: Asmodeus and Clara discover the truth behind Iruma's parents and decide that it's their responsibility to make up for the love and affection he missed out on growing up. But they somehow miss the fact that Iruma is doing just fine without his previous family, and he's enjoying his new one very much.

“Whoah, Azz-kun! Your bloodline magic is so cool!” Iruma gushed. He had roped himself into helping the janitors clear the cherry blossoms again, but thankfully Azz-kun was there to burn them to a crisp.

“Thank you, Iruma-sama! But my magic pales into comparison to yours!” Azz-kun puffed up in pride with a literal sparkle in his eyes. But that quickly morphed to anger as Clara slammed into his side.

“Iruma-chi! Are you done yet? I wanna play!” she whined as Azz-kun tried to pry her off. Iruma rubbed her head and laughed.

“Yeah, just finished thanks to Azz-kun. What do you want to do?” Clara launched herself off of Azz-kun to latch onto Iruma.

“I wanna play with the fire!” she cheered and lunged for the small traces of soot that Azz-kun’s fire had left behind. She slammed her hands in the ash and spun around. “Look! It’s like chalk! I bet we can draw with it!”

“You idiot! You’re going to get our uniforms dirty!” Azz-kun growled as he hoised Clara up to keep her from touching anything. That backfired, and Clara latched onto the sleeve of Azz-kun’ all-white uniform. He dropped her and started rubbing his sleeve. “See what I mean! You’re lucky class is already over!”

“Don’t worry Azz-azz! I can make another one!” She pulled a nearly identical copy of Azz-kun’ uniform, but in a glaring shade of hot pink and sparkling like a disco ball.

“I’m not wearing that thing!” Azz-kun yelled back. Iruma was left in the background to watch with an awkward smile. He knew that if he let them keep at it they would never get around to leaving.

“Clara! How about we play as we walk home?” He interjected into their little squabble. By this point, Clara had climbed on top of Azz-kun’s head and was cackling madly while waving the uniform around. They both turned to face him at the same time, which looked a little creepy. Clara launched herself off once again, causing Azz-kun to squawk about his hair, and landed next to Iruma.

“Can we play tag?” Clara started bouncing in place while flashing Iruma puppy-dog eyes.

“Sure thing, that sounds like fun!” Iruma gave her another pat to the head and started leading her out the gates. He trusted Azz-kun to follow, and by the time they got to the gate he had reclaimed his usual position by Iruma’s side. Clara started skipping ahead of the pair before screeching to a halt right outside the gate.

“Alright! If you don’t have a ribbon you’re not it!” Clara yelled as she produced two ribbons patterned with some creature that Iruma didn’t recognize. She shoved one in Iruma’s hands before sprinting off. Iruma fumbled with it for another moment before following suit.

“Hey! We didn’t agree on who it would be! Why am I stuck with it!”

Iruma sprawled out across his bed, idly watching Clara build an entire fort out of materials she pulled from her pockets. Azz-kun was yelling at her about ‘disrespecting the sanctity of Iruma-sama’s room!’. Iruma was content to stay there and watch them. He was still unused to having so many people around him, especially people who seemed to have an interest in his happiness. And his friends were so powerful, it still blew his mind whenever he saw them pull off some powerful feat of magic.

“Clara! That’s amazing!” Speaking of magic, Clara had just finished her elaborate three-story fort, complete with a ball pit and balcony. It was easily one of the coolest things Iruma had seen that week, and Clara had just assembled it before his very eyes. “Both of you have the coolest bloodline magic.”

“Iruma-sama, you honor us! But your bloodline magic is surely far superior….” Azz-kun gushed, only to be cut off by Clara.

“Iruma-chi, what’s your bloodline magic?” She jumped up next to him and leaned in until their noses were almost touching.

“Valac! If he wanted us to know he would have let us know by now!” Azz-kun started to scold her in the background, but Iruma laughed.

“Oh, I don’t know either.” Technically, he didn’t have any bloodline magic. But he had Grandpa’s magic, so that might have ended up in his ring as well. But Grandpa had never mentioned it, and Iruma had never thought about it before.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as both his friends were giving him weird looks.

“How do you not know?” Clara cocked her head and gave him a puzzled look.

“Well, I haven’t spoken to my parents in ages, and Grandpa never mentions it. So I just never figured it out,” Iruma tried to laugh it off, but he just got even weirder looks.

“Valac! You shouldn’t pry! You could be messing with very painful memories!”Azz-kun was fuming in the background and tried to yank Clara away.

“Don’t worry, I’m over it. They didn’t want anything to do with me, and I’ve accepted that.” Iruma had spent hours thinking it over, and it had taken a while for him to realize that he no longer felt an affection for the people who had tossed him aside after he spent his entire life trying to please them. He even felt comfortable enough to open up about it, as he was doing now.

“Iruma-chi…” For once in her life, Clara was shocked speechless. Azz-kun was in a similar boat, but he looked more offended than shocked. “Your parents...just left you?”

“Yeah, but now I live with Grandpa. I’m happier than I’ve ever been!” Iruma tried to appease his friends, but they still looked disturbed. Clara was plastered to his side, and Azz-kun was hovering around the edges of the bed. “Really guys, It doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m happier here than I ever was there with them. You don’t need to worry.”

Clara and Azz-kun still seemed deeply disturbed, but they seemed to be willing to drop it. The rest of the afternoon had a tense current to it despite that.

“Do you remember what Iruma-chi said earlier?” Clara would usually use the walk home to mess with Alice, but today she quietly trailed behind him. She’d tried to brush off Iruma’s words when she was playing with him, but it stuck with her.

“About his parents? Vividly,” Alice, on the other hand, was trying not to combust until they were out of Iruma’s line of sight. “Iruma-sama is the pinnacle of ability and compassion! Any respectable demon would kill to have him as an heir, and those idiots just throw him away!”

“I can’t even think about my mom doing that to me.” Clara moped as she thought about her own family. Whenever she tried to think of her mom doing that to her, her mind just blanked.

“I don’t exactly see eye to eye with my mother, but to think that she didn’t even care about me…” Alice had gone from fuming to staring at the ground. Similarly to Clara, he simply couldn’t imagine his parents turning on him. “His grandfather really seems to care about him, though.”

“Yeah! Iruma-chi doesn’t need those losers! He has everything he needs right here!” Clara declared. She was starting to get pumped up. “We can be all the family he needs!”

“Valac, you’re on to something! Iruma-sama seems to be doing fine, but it’s our duty as friends to make sure that he has the love and support he needs in life!” Alice yelled. He was blazing with determination, and in his haste, he forgot that Iruma had clearly told them that he was fine with the whole thing.

“Clara, is something going on?” Iruma was getting a little suspicious. Azz-kun and Clara had seemingly been on the same page all day, which was weird in of itself. But now Clara was dragging him off on an ‘adventure’, and Azz-kun hadn’t yelled at her about it. As a matter of fact, he seemed to be as excited as Clara was about all this.

“Don’t worry Iruma-chi! We’re gonna have fun!” That didn’t calm Iruma down in the slightest, but if Azz-kun seemed okay with it he probably wouldn’t die. He shrugged and let himself be dragged away. Grandpa wasn’t expecting him home for a while, so he could text him once they got to their mystery destination.

“Yes, Iruma-sama! You have nothing to fear?” Well, that sealed it. Iruma was just going to roll with it.

Alice regretted every decision that led him to this personal torture. He should have remembered the festival, but he got swept up in Valac’s enthusiasm and forgot that Valac’s entire family were carbon copies of her.

“Azz-kun, are you okay? You’re looking a little pale,” Iruma asked.

“I am quite alright, Iruma-sama!” Alice gripped his cup tighter as one of the boys plastered his uniform with a supply of stickers that he hadn’t been holding a minute ago. His hair had been yanked into braids and tied with bows. Iruma had half a flower garden in his, and a new manicure that was so blinding it gave him a migraine every time he looked at it.

“If you’re sure, Azz-kun.” Iruma-same gave him a blinding smile and Alice felt better about the whole thing.

“Dinner’s ready! Everyone gather around!” Valac’s mother swooped in with an entire feast. Iruma-sama’s eyes lit up, and he and Valac shared a look across the table. It appeared that Operation: Home Cooked Meal was a success. Mrs. Valac, who had been informed of their plan, seemed to take great pleasure in lovingly piling more on Iruma-sama’s plate. Time for the next phase!

“Alright, kiddos! Have fun while I’m out! Take care of yourselves!” Valac’s mother gave all the kids one last pat on the head before breezing out the door.

“Bye-bye!” The Valac children waved after their mother as she made her way to do whatever it was she was doing. Clara spun around and grabbed Iruma-sama by the sleeves while her siblings attached themselves to his legs. “Iruma-chi! Do you want to play now?”

“Of course! What do you guys usually play when you’re home?” Iruma-sama gave them another beaming smile.

“It’s a surprise!” Iruma-sama was dragged over to one of the many piles of pillows in a corner of the room. Alice trailed behind them while suppressing the urge to lecture them on their treatment of Iruma-sama. But this part of the operation required authentic sibling bonding, so it would be counterproductive to intervene. But he still made sure to nab the cushion next to Iruma-sama. For all he knew, those little demons had more stickers stuck up their sleeves.

“Behold! The ultimate sibling experience!” The boys shouted in unison as they raised what looked like an ordinary board game in the air. Iruma-same clapped his hands together.

“That looks like a lot of fun! How do you play?” Iruma-sama gushed as he praised the little ones.

“Last one to turn pink wins!” Alice should have been concerned about the helmets that were being passed around, but this was just a board game, right? Surely Clara didn’t really need all those balloons filled with a mystery liquid.

The matriarch of the Valac family sighed and put her head in her hands. She wished she could join in on the fun back home, but it was important for kids to have space to express themselves. And it was her duty as a mother to give the kids the enrichment they need! Her heart went out for that poor Iruma boy, but he seemed to be doing just fine. He had some very caring friends and a home to go back to. But it wouldn’t hurt if she ‘accidentally’ made too much food in the morning and sent Clara to school with an extra bento.

Iruma staggered home, covered in paint and glitter but loving it at the same time. He’d always wondered what having siblings would be like, be he never imagined something so explosive. Though, Clara’s family was probably a special case. The only thing that could top it was spending an evening with his new family.

“Opera-san? Are you here?” He called out as he stepped through the doors of his home. The cat demon in question appeared at his side and gave him a critical look-over. Her tail twitched, the only sign of her slight displeasure at his appearance. “Sorry I got the uniform dirty.” He gave her a sheepish look as he took his shoes off.

“Who did this? Do I need to handle them?” She got a slightly dangerous look on her face. “I will inform Lord Sullivan of this if I need to.”

“Oh no, it’s not like that. I just went to Clara’s house to play and it got a little out of hand. It wasn’t a prank or anything.” Iruma waved his hands in front of his face as he tried to calm her down. “And sorry again about the uniform.”

“You don’t need to apologize for something like that. I’ll draw a bath for you. Try and brush some of the glitter off in the meantime,” Opera-san reassured him. Her face was still blank, but her tail had stopped lashing around. He took that as a good sign and followed her upstairs.

“Is grandpa around?”

“He had some business at the school, but he’ll be home shortly. I believe that he has a surprise for you afterward. “ Iruma cringed slightly. Surprises from Grandpa were always a big deal, but they had a tendency to go overboard. Like his entire first day here, for example. And nearly every day after that.

“Well, I’m still looking forward to it.”

“Iruma! My precious grandson!” Iruma found himself in a familiar set of arms.

“Grandpa! How was your day?” He returned the hug with a warm smile.

“Ahh! You get cuter every time I see you!” Sullivan cooed as he squeezed Iruma tighter.

“If you’re done, you have something to tell him.” He could always trust Opera-san to be the voice of reason in this household. His grandpa started sparkling at the reminder and he finally released Iruma from his embrace.

“Your beloved Grandpa has set up a playdate for you! I’ve spoken with their parents and both of your friends are coming over for dinner tomorrow!” Grandpa straightened up and spun around.

“Wow! Azz-kun and Clara are coming over? I’m so excited!” Iruma gushed and got caught in another hug. Even Opera-kun looked pleased with the situation. His friends had been over to his house before, but they had always just kinda ended up here. The few planned social events were usually class-wide, and while he loved his other friends he looked forward to hanging out with Clara and Azz-kun.

“My grandson is so cute!”

“Sir, please let go of Iruma-san so he can eat.”

“Iruma-chi!” Clara sprung forward the instant the door was opened and plastered herself against Iruma’s side. He laughed and patted her head.

‘I’m glad you’re here! Have you seen Azz-kun yet?” Iruma looked back out the door and into the woods, trying to spot a flash of pink and white. He saw him a second later when he came barreling into view.

“Valac! Don’t go running off like that!” He growled at Clara, who was hanging off of Iruma’s arm like a monkey. Clara laughed and ran off farther into Iruma’s house. Azz-kun scowled after her. He bowed deeply. “Iruma-sama, I apologize for her manners. To think that she would disrupt the sanctity of your home,” he growled softly.

“Don’t worry about it! You know how she is.” Iruma waved his hands in front of his face while he assured his friend. Azz-kun raised himself with a sparkle in his eyes.

“Iruma-sama is so gracious!” Azz-kun gushed. Iruma felt the urge to slam his face into his hands in embarrassment, but he’d gotten better at handling Azz-kun and had developed something of an immunity.

“Come on, Azz-kun. The food will get cold.” He shot him a grin while leading his friend down the hall. He was followed by Azz-kun’s fervent compliments.

“Iruma-sama! I will avenge your honor!” Azz-kun shouted as he mashed the buttons on the controller. Clara was perched on the back of the couch like the gremlin she was, and Iruma was enjoying the sight. He’d been knocked out by the boss, so he had a minute or two before he respawned. He took the time to enjoy the atmosphere. Opera-san occasionally popped in with snacks and advice, and Grandpa was lurking in the corner with a camera.

“This blasted creature!” Azz-kun threw his controller down after his character took a fireball to the face and died.

“Don’t worry, Azz-kun! The longer you play the easier it gets.” Iruma comforted his friend while he prepared himself to rejoin the game again.

“You are truly an admirable person to master this blasted device.” And Azz-kun was back to complimenting him. He shot him a quick smile before joining the game again.

“Well, I play them a lot. Opera-san plays with me every day. It’s not as chaotic as Clara’s games, but it’s nice to just hang out with my family.” Iruma was fully focused on the game at this point, so he missed Azz-kun’s revelation.

“I think we miscalculated,” Alice hissed as soon as he and Valac were out of earshot. He had made sure to properly say goodbye to Iruma-sama and his family, but he had to admit that he rushed a bit. He needed to talk this over with Valac.

“About Iruma-chi’s family?” Valac had gone quiet, and the whole situation was very reminiscent of the conversation that had started this whole thing. “I felt bad for him because his parents suck, but he seems to be doing alright.”

“Opera-san and Lord Sullivan gave him everything we thought he was missing,” Alice mussed. Valac latched onto his arm and gave him a look that he assumed was her version of being thoughtful.

“I guess we don’t need to do anything else,” Valac declared as she danced ahead on the path. Alice instinctively lunged forward to grab her.

“Well, that’s obvious! Now stop running around!”

#welcome to demon school iruma-kun #mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #iruma suzuki #asmodeus alice #clara valac #mairimashita! iruma-kun

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washingtonlaws-blog · 7 years

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Delve, Episode 1: The New Hire

Epub File Here

Now a Fantasy World- your average, garden-variety, starter-kit Fantasy World and up- has to have one very vital thing to start it off right. It needs one thing before it can fill up with heroes and spirits and mysteries and a complicated totally-unique magic system that your friends will love explaining to you in breathless detail. It needs a failure.

Otherwise there’s nothing much to do. For there to be ruins to explore, someone’s got to have ruined them. Mines must go too deep so they can be properly abandoned and restocked with mysterious terror, past relationships must go sour so that secrets can boil beneath the surfaces of jilted lovers who simmer with frustrated sex appeal, a hero’s parents must die before or during their developmental stages to properly instill them with abandonment issues, and the Dark Lord must be almost vanquished but not quite so that he can come back with a literal vengeance.

So for a Fantasy to be Fantastic, it needs to have a fantastic cock-up.

And then, the magic happens, and we discover what all these failures were, and the adventure lies therein to fix what went wrong, to stop the return of darkness for good this time, and to get everyone who’s been hiding their emotions from each other to either (A) tearily reveal them or (B) die dramatically and conveniently until the only people left have got their various love interests all good and sorted. Then, the world continues apace, all the fantastic failures are done, and life can continue with ordinary failures.

That’s the general theme. People learn from their mistakes, and don’t repeat the failures of history.

That’s why they call it fantasy.

And then, once the adventures are done with and the heroes have settled down and their magic swords have been turned to plowshares, we can leave a fantasy world behind. It’s settled. Everyone knows their place.

Unless, of course, you know, people forget, and settle into routines, and start to think the world around them is all there is, all there’s ever been, and the world outside is something that can just be ignored. Until that world gets ignored so long it becomes something completely new. Until rediscovery becomes such a forgotten skill, and yet so inevitable, that when it is practiced again it’s bound to result in a few mistakes.

Fantastic ones.

This story starts with an ordinary mistake, that will, of course, lead to discovering the bigger ones.

It starts with a bang.

God, it’s a beautiful day, he thought. Vode laid on his back and stared into the blue sky. Blue, he thought. So blue! And clear! Strange, though. There should be clouds.

Now why did he think there should be clouds? Also, why was he laying on his back? He looked down his body and saw smoke rising off his boots. Further down from his boots he saw a hole in a wall. The hole looked very recent, and had smoking pouring out of it, too. Smoke clouds, right. Those were relevant, somehow.

He sat up, and saw the whole building that the wall was part of. It was mildly on fire. The last few seconds came back to him.

Ah, yes. He had been blown up.

Well to be more accurate, he had been blown out, and to be more honest, he had blown himself up. Vode patted himself down, found a few holes in his clothing but otherwise found himself intact, and wondered at what trick of physics had allowed the force of the explosion to demolish a wall while leaving him fairly whole. But then, if he understood that, he would probably have understood enough to not have mixed those chemicals together in the first place.

Mr. Rensington stepped out of the hole in the wall, coughing and trying to wipe soot from his face with a smoldering rag. He was a tall, ruddy man, with a curved posture that always made him loom over people like a bent tree. He batted out small fires on the smock he wore over stained, heavy clothing. He began to step slowly but deliberately towards Vode.

Vodelian laid back down again, trying to go still. Predators can sense movement, and he assumed that extended to employers as well.

He had been apprenticed to the master alchemist for the better part of a week, which was a new record. The time in stonemasonry had ended with shouts from a very angry man with a large brick on his toes, his term ended with the miners by a major accident, and even the ragpickers had decided not to pick him. So he laid still, and tried to wait this one out.

“I’m sorry, Vode.” said Mr. Rensington without a trace of remorse in his voice, only with a trace of smoke. “I just don’t think you’re going to work out here. You’re a bright lad, really, but this requires someone more, well, methodical. Consider my not charging you for the damages to be your severance pay.”

With that, the alchemist stepped back towards the smoking building, putting out a few last flickers of flame on his shoulders. Vode stayed laying on the ground, trying to figure out if there was a point to standing up. Maybe if he didn’t get up, his being fired would retroactively not happen.

Eventually, enough people were walking down the middle of the street that he was laying in that he decided to get up, if only to avoid having his head stepped on.

Vodelian Ragnajiit was short, dark, and sort of handsome in the nervous way some varieties of small dogs are. He had close-cropped hair and was clean shaven, although it was getting towards the time where a five o’clock shadow was trying to show up against his dark skin. Along with his clothing, he had all the signs of someone trying to look as clean-cut and proper as possible. This was his interview clothing, and in fact was some of the only clothing he currently owned.

He was going to get more clothes, just as soon as any employment lasted long enough. But this city, with its new towers springing up every month, with its fresh brick and surrounding old history, with all its opportunities open, had decided that those opportunities didn’t really apply to Vode.

His initial plan had been to join the great Ostwend Trading Company, which had its headquarters here. Now that was the life. Go back and forth between exotic locales and watch numbers tick ever upwards on a ledger. You also got to dress really nice.

But then Vode had actually gotten here and the Company had taken one look at his letter of recommendation and told him he’d have to wait for an opening, and with their current waiting list, they didn’t expect one for half a year.

Half a year. With no backup plans, and the rent on his new room due, and most of his savings spent on interview clothes.

He had been a flurry of job applications after that, desperate, applying everywhere he could find. His carefully laid plans for the future, if planning consisted of fantasizing and daydreaming, were suddenly mutable and changeable for any gig that would have him. Vode would become anything, any walk of life, if it just meant not going back home!

Back home, where his family would be very kind, would nod at each other and welcome him back in, and then a day later would tell him they weren’t running a hotel and they heard that the neighbor’s kid had become a healer, why don’t you do that, it’s a respectable job. Vode had heard healers had to deal with the sight of blood, so no thanks to that, and he also wanted the satisfaction of becoming something that his parents hadn’t suggested first.

Now he was wandering the streets and the day was passing by and the doors were all closing. What was left? Maybe he could join the town guard? He’d have steady meals and a uniform, then, sure. But Vode had seen the way the town guards looked at him, and he thought of all the times he’d drunkenly dealt with authority, and he wondered how they’d receive him. He hadn’t seen too many foreigners in their ranks.

Can’t go back to the room without a promise of rent. His mind was running in circles. He started to look at alleyways and the eaves of buildings, thinking of where a good place to sleep might be.

Oh god, am I really thinking that? thought Vode. Am I going to become destitute? Homeless? I don’t even know how to do that! I’d probably get it all wrong and offend any other derelicts.

Then Vode stopped. He found himself in front of a building, an old, old building, that looked like it had been passed over by the city’s shining growth. It hunched its brick shoulders and slumped away into the background of the city, looking sullen at the new buildings and refusing to dance with them. It had a heavy brass plaque next to its front gate that looked very official and spoke of a long history, but what Vode noticed was a cheap cardboard sign that read: “HELP WANTED.”

He walked in without another moment’s thought. He did not bother reading the words on the plaque, which quietly but definitively told the world that this was The Delver’s Guild, est. long ago, To Bring Light Where It Is Needed.

The foyer Vode found himself standing in looked larger than it needed to be. Walls of dark smoky wood stretched up to a vaulted ceiling with thick rafters. There was a large fireplace set in one wall, full of ashy cobwebs. There were several tables sized for variously sized crowds, but only one table in a corner was occupied by two old men who were either taking no notice of Vode or were quite possibly asleep. There were some things hanging on the walls, shields, old posters, the head of a beast or two, all covered in dust. It was a wasteland.

There was also a desk against the far wall with a clerk sitting at it. She had her feet up and was reading a book. A door behind her read OFFICIAL BUSINESS ONLY.

Vode walked right up to the desk and began to speak.

“Hello, I’m Vodelian Ragnajiit, and whatever it is, I can do it. If I don’t know how to do it, I’ll start anyway and I’ll have learned it by the time I’m done. I’m a hard worker, I work smarter, and I think my greatest flaw is a terror of wasps, but I will figure out how to get over it if you need me to remove a wasp’s nest. I’m great at sales, purchasing, customer service, I can lift fifty pounds regularly, I can stand eight hours a day or eight hours a night, and I’m a motivated persevering initiative-taking extroverted people-oriented high-energy team-member with very nearly a food handler’s permit.”

He sat down. He opened his mouth. He realized didn’t have something else to say.

The clerk looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She was pale, with brown hair tied back to control a riot of split ends.

“Alright.” she said. “Well, we’ll consider your application, and then call you in for a followup interview.”

Vode’s face fell. “Oh. Right. How long will that be?”

“Well.” she said. “Stand up.”

Vode stood up.

“Sit down.”

Vode sat down.

“Well Mr. Ragnajiit,” she said, and Vode was astounded she got his name right on the first try. “We’ve looked over your application and would love to interview you. Is now a good time?”

Vode blinked. “Yes.” he said.

She opened up a drawer in the desk and pulled out a sheaf of dog-eared papers.

“Alright then. Previous places of employment?”

Vode thought over the last few days. “Alchemist, mason, miner, janitor, beekeeper-” he winced at that thought- “-carter, uh, barrel… making… person- what do you call that one?”

“A cooper, I think.” she said.

“Cooper, right. Some other stuff.”

“I see.” she said. She shuffled the papers, not looking at them.

“How fast can you run?”

Vode thought about this for a moment, and curled slightly in on himself as he tried to work out an answer that looked good. “Fairly… fast enough, I suppose?”

“That works.” she nodded. “Does your family have any history of mental illness or plans to acquire one?”

“No and- ah, no.”

“Have you ever been shot in the face?”

Vode struggled for a moment, trying to decide if he should ask her to repeat that question. Surely he misheard her. But he didn’t want to appear inattentive.

“N-no.” he slowly said.

She glanced at the papers in front of her and muttered something that sounded like “Minimal Experience.”

“Alright.” she said. “I’ll just go see the boss and I’ll be right back.”

She left the room through an old door, and Vode managed to count to just past ten before she came back out again.

“Well, we’ve considered your application very carefully and we’d like to welcome you to the company. You can sleep above the kitchen, breakfast is in the morning as long as you help with the dishes, now come with me so you can meet the boss.”

“Oh. Yes! Wonderful. Thank you very much, you won’t regret it.” Vode felt the words coming out of him automatically, as his brain had a fit trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. He stood up and began to follow the clerk, but managed to ask: “Out of, well, curiosity, and just to help me get all ready and able, bring me up to speed and all that, uh... what company have I just joined?”

She smiled a tired smile. “Welcome to the Delvers.”

The offices of the Delver’s Guild were mostly quiet and sparsely populated. The desks were barely separated by thin wooden partitions, which created a sense of division but still left everyone visible to everyone. There was a sense that the room was built for busier times, to allow rushing bodies to bustle and push past each other, but now it resembled a theater after the audience has gone home and nothing’s been cleaned up yet. There was an older woman knitting at one desk and looking quite at home, and a desk labelled CARTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT had an ancient OUT sign on it with the requisite spiderweb hanging from its side*. There were signs of life in the mailroom, which had been rented out as something of a proxy PO box by a distributor of mail-order catalogues and also occasionally hosted illicit dice games.

*In addition to the ability to sense vibrations, spiders also catch prey with a highly-focused sense of comedic timing. If they did not have webs, they would have banana peels. This also informs their mating habits.

A desk labelled HUMAN RESOURCES was occupied.

Nilnacular Torkwald had never been shot in the face. He had a scar along his cheek that suggested otherwise, but the shot had only grazed along his face and never gotten directly in it. A consummate opportunist, his aim in life was for District Manager, but the District Manager had ducked at the last minute and he'd hit a mailroom clerk instead.

He did not like his job. Oh, he liked the title, but it required him to deal with people, and he considered people to be the least necessary part of a society. Human Resources became a lot less exciting when you discovered it did not involve mining or chopping down anybody, and he’d disconsolately had to leave the pickaxe he’d bought at home.

Nil was lean, mean, and blonde. He sat at his desk, which was piled high with papers to conceal a large number of small weapons, and he hunched over a random, disordered series of procurement reports like a predatory animal. His eyes scanned over them without reading anything, while trying to hide his constant watchful glances at the District Manager's desk.

The front-desk clerk, what’s her name, Recca, she’d just come in and talked to the Manager. Nil’s senses were on immediate alert. Something was actually happening! Things had been very dull as of late, which had been all feeding into Nil’s master plan to outlast everyone else, take a controlling share of the company, and mold it into his vision. He wasn’t sure what that vision was yet, but with all the work he’d put into getting to it, he knew it was going to be a good one.

Then a young, dark man came walking in, looked fairly well dressed (if a bit rumpled), and Nil suddenly realized: A new hire.

He gripped his desk, grabbed a random piece of paperwork, and tried to look like he was reading it as he watched.

District Manager Dzerdzik Halffast had been shot in the face several times, as his eyepatch suggested. However the eyepatch was due to an unrelated sports accident. His chipped tooth, meanwhile, did in fact owe itself to being shot in the face: He'd grinned at just the right moment and the arrow had been so discomfited by his disarming smile that it had decided "screw this", taken a bit of his incisor, and headed for the hills.

But now he was in management, and he hardly ever got shot in the face any more.

He regarded the new recruit, who was looking a bit nervous. Dzerdzik gave a big gap-toothed grin, which only seemed to make the recruit more nervous.

“Well now, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Vodelian.” he said. “Or Vode, if you don’t mind.”

Vode shook his head.

“And y’can call me Dzerd.”

“Um, thank you, mister, um, De-Zerd.”

“Ah, you’ll get the hang of it.” said the manager. “I’d just like to first of all welcome you to the Delvers. It’s been awhile since we had some new blood. Or hell, any blood!” He chuckled to himself.

“Really,” he continued. “We could use someone to run some of our fresher errands. I mean, some of the older staff- well, they’re not really get-up-and-go these days. And the last I heard from our Senior Field Agent- Recca, just when did we last hear from Drawm?”

“The winter before last, sir.” said the clerk, who had lingered to assist the orientation.

Halffast sighed. “I figure he’s lost again. Or maybe he’s finally dead, for real this time.”

“You- you mentioned errands.” said Vode. He hated to admit it, but he was a little intimidated. The man in front of him had the build of a canvas sack full of tennis balls, and was at least a head shorter than Vode, but there was something big and tough and confident about him. He wasn’t much to look at, but on the canvas of the world he sat like a stain, unsightly but ready to put up a fight before it’s gone.

“Just-” Vode gathered himself. “I think I may be a little unclear on things, but just what do you do here?”

Halffast eyed Vode, and his grin was gone. He didn’t look displeased or offended by the question. He was just quiet, for a moment, and then he sighed and leaned back in his chair. It was the sigh of someone taking a brief rest from a long, long trek.

“Isn’t that a shame?” he said. “You have to ask. There was a time when everyone knew what we did. This city is here because of us!” He gestured around him, letting the office surroundings stand in for the world at large. “The Delvers! We delved. Into dark places, strange places, alien places, all the places everyone else wanted to go but needed someone else to go first. Ah! The things we found, that made kings! The secrets we learned, that burned old tyrannies to the ground! With just your wits, a fire, and maybe a sharp object or two you’d go where everyone else feared to tread, see if it was a place worth being, drive out the dangers that lurked there, solve the riddles left as a last puzzling legacy by forgotten peoples, find the forgotten lores of magic, and maybe even get rich.”

He’s going to say those were the days, realized Vode.

“Those were the days.” said Halffast. “And it was alright, you know? People got hurt, maybe reading the wrong inscription or pulling the wrong lever gave us the odd earthquake or pillar of fire or two, but overall it was profitable, and it made a difference. But I guess- well, I guess we ran out of secret places. Or at least ones worth finding. Makes sense. Eventually all the treasure gets found, all the caverns get mapped, all the lost royalty gets saved. It was all bound to run out.”

Then he just sat there silently, looking into the distance with his teeth showing.

“So now…” Vode prompted.

“Oh, we’re sort of odd-jobbers now.” Halffast tapped his thick fingers on the desk. “The set-up we’ve got left is pretty ideal on keeping tabs on lotsa places. So we run errands, we do surveys, we go get news and reports from places and get paid for the information. A lot of stuff for governments and… trading companies.” His voice seemed to slow on that last phrase. He looked like he didn’t like the taste of it.

“Anyway.” He pointed at Vode. “I’m sure Recca told you about the benefits. It’s getting late, your spare place to sleep is all ready, in the morning you can get your first assignment from Nil Torkwald, that fellow over there with the scar who’s been watching us this whole time.”

There was the sound of a panicked flurry of papers from the direction of the Human Resources desk.

“You didn’t ask me if I already had a place to sleep.” said Vode.

“No, I didn’t.” There was a knowing look.

Vode settled into a worn cot under old blankets. There was a wooden footlocker at the end of it, a small lantern next to it, and otherwise the room was fairly unadorned. It was at least warm from the kitchen below it, and it was a sight better than trying to deal with the rent on his last place. Here, now, he let himself settle back, his nerves too shot to think about what he was going to do in the morning.

Adventurers, huh, he thought as his brain tried to wind down. What a strange old curiosity to find. Well, it would keep him fed for awhile, until he could get a Real Job. Yes, he’d sleep here for a bit, build up a presence that could get put on a resume, and then an opening in the Trading Companies would surely arrive and he would be off to the world.

He slept. The world outside waited.

Next: A Rapture of Raptors

#delve #serial

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