Keylynn sat squished between BEEG and Dauven around the small table in Dauven's suite. She would have preferred having her own small table to work at, but according to corporate mandate, only team leads warrant anything more than a small rectangular box to sleep in. Therefore, they are all shoved in Dauven's suite.

  She cast her gaze at the cluttered table again, thinking about searching for the missing adventurer files for a fourth time while Duaven is preoccupied brewing his coffee. The table was a lively forest floor of the Neverburrow files, remnants of breakfast, and the odd clod of dirt growing various mushrooms.

  Dauven was nearly done brewing his coffee. He was currently working on steaming the milk. Like any wizard worth his salt, he brewed his coffee to serve. Before he mastered the ability to brew coffee on the fly, he was absolutely dreadful to deal with in the morning.

  Taking advantage of the moment, Keylynn manifested a clod of dirt in front of BEEG. She encouraged Burning Pine Mushrooms to grow, as they are one of his favourite fungal snacks. Slowly at first, bright red caps form and push upwards from the loamy surface on textured reddish-brown stalks that resemble tree trunks. She hoped they would be enough for him during this meeting.

  BEEG perked up when the Burning Pine Mushrooms were nearly tall enough to tickle his nose. One of his hands reached out and delicately plucked one of them and popped it into his mouth. He chewed open-mouthed and happily as bursts of fire erupted from his mouth. “Thank Keke, was hungry.”

  Dauven added steaming milk to his mug and set it down with a satisfied nod. He made the milky hot brew known as the latte.

  “Dauven, do you know the adventurer’s files are missing?” She asked, gesturing to the piles of files littering the table.

  Dauven took a long drink from his mug before setting it back down and made the face that suggests his next brew will be stronger. “I’m aware.”

  “Then where are they?” She inquired further.

  “We don’t have authorization to access them as per the new corporate policies when it comes to adventurer privacy and protection,” Dauven explained before finishing his brew and starting to work on his next mug. It's going to be one of those days.

  “Since when?” Barnibus asked, frowning. “Cuse it seems to me that we are to ignore the fact that they can be at fault.” Their job is to be impartial, not to lay out blame but to find the cause of the truth.

  “That is entirely correct,” Dauven answered, his eyes trained on his magic, brewing a second cup of coffee, having moved on from grinding the beans to percolating them in hot water.

  “So, we are to assess if the dungeon is at fault or not, while only having half the information because…?” Keylynn asked. Several Burning Pine mushrooms sprouted in the clod of dirt closest to her, reaching as high as BEEG's nose. BEEG happily plucked them and ate them.

  “Only the higher-ups can say for sure.”

  She scowled at Dauven. That is not an answer. “Are we set up for failing, or to blame the storymancer?” She felt her anger start to bubble as a puff shroom sprouted a new fruiting body on her head. Her specialty when she was an inquisitor was working with adventurers to determine their role in the incident, while Dauven focused on the corporate side.

  “That has yet to be seen.” He finished his second cup, going for quantity over quality. “Keylynn, I trust you looked over the personnel files. Did you see anything in particular?” He asked, redirecting their conversation.

  She looked around at her team, wondering if she should press the issue or not. Barnibus shook his head while both Riv and Gwen looked as if they were still waking up and catching up. Likely they were waiting for their names to be mentioned for their portion of the report. Riv was tasked with payroll and the financial side of things to make sure everything adds up, while Gwen oversees health and safety.

  “The goblins have filed several complaints in regard to the living conditions that have gone ignored, and there seems to be a lacking in HR on-site,” she read from her notes before stopping at one of her notes off to the side. This is clearly a late-night note, denoted by how linear it is and how difficult it is to read, being in a strange mixture of elven and the universal tongue. “And the fish is missing a file.” She frowned, confused. What fish is she referencing here?

  “Fish? What fish? There is only one location for fish, and it’s a cave waterfall,” Barnibus responded, flipping through his dungeon layouts and maps with a frown.

  “I didn’t see a fish on payroll, unless I missed it,” Riv said, pulling out his illusionary board to read through his tiny gnomish writing written as if it were a spreadsheet. “Unless the fish is a requisitioned item, could it be an enrichment item?”

  “I don’t think so. If this was the case, the goblins wouldn’t have filed their requests,” she added, flipping through her notes again. Perhaps she was incorrect about the fish, or it is elsewhere in the quest line. The summary offered no clues as to where the fish could be lurking.

  “The team collaboration to solve this fish problem is exactly what we need. However, I think Keylynn means the red herring in the quest plotline. This paperwork is messy and outdated. For example, no name or personnel assigned to the role is mentioned anywhere,” Dauven explained, picking up his coffee mug and indulging in the brew he made.

  Of course it's not a real fish. It’s never a fish. There's always a second meaning of the word even though the word is a type of fish. And of course her incorrect inquiry to the fish wakes everyone up from their morning stupor.

  Keylynn listened as Dauven checked in with the rest of the team. Riv found nothing that caught his attention aside from complaints about the disorganized paperwork, nothing caught his attention. As Riv likes to say, patterns make themselves known only when he is ready to see them and not a moment before. Barnibus and BEEG will both be busy assessing two main dungeons as well as the dragon boneyard trap and the human garden, as those are the major places for adventurer combat and experience training. Experience gained in combat is often how adventurers grow, as prowess in arcane skills and weapons are seen as traits of a hero. Gwen noted that there were few health and safety requests made, which to her ears sounded strange—no initial quest with so many on payroll has next to no health and safety problems at all. Gwen was going to investigate further by starting with the townspeople, as they have the lowest stakes in the quest and tend to know all of the gossip.

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  “Keylynn, from the HR perspective, I know the goblins are a special interest to you. I would also like you to be the one to speak with the Storymancer first.” Dauven paused as if to find the right word to say. “I’d like your perspective on Vlahd.”

  Keylynn raised her eyebrow at that. It’s not often that Dauven prefers she make the first introduction for their team and handle the signing of the Assessment Consent Form. It’s a magical contract that allows both sides protections throughout the assessment process, including making it harder for lying to occur. “As you wish.”

  She dug through the files looking for the one on the storymancer. There is a reason why Dauven wants her to make the introduction, and she wants to know why. She felt BEEG start to play with her glowing caps that grew on her shoulder. Upon being disturbed as a defence mechanism, they send out small electric shocks.

  The storymancer in question is Vlahd Vhampyre, a vampire, an old vampire, and a well-known storymancer. He has had his position likely since the advent of storymancers, or even before then. It’s rumoured that he ran his very own demiplane that tested and tried heroes back when he would have been labelled a villain. The only reason she could fathom that Dauven would prefer for her to speak to Vlahd is that he isn’t human, and she tends to fare better with the less human people. BEEG being one of her closest friends only strengthens that.

  When they arrived at the Neverburrow train station she pulled out her greatest secret of success: her brown slime mould. It’s a utilitarian fungus that she has cultivated to help observe and remember all that occurs near it, and it can read the minds of those that come in contact with it. She hopes to cultivate a culture of it that can read minds from a distance. So far she has been unsuccessful on that venture. The current iteration of that cultivation resides in a fishbowl on her desk.

  They were greeted by a tall human dressed entirely in black, with glasses that have darkened lenses. This darkly dressed individual could be the famed Vlahd. If so, it would bode well for him to meet the assessment team.

  “Your team is larger than expected and late.” The tone of voice, if anything, was an imitation of a vampire's bored, irritated drawl. Vampires, like elves, have a tone of voice that is almost ethereal, as if time itself were powerless against them. This one sounded irritated but lacked the timelessness; instead, they sounded as if their soul had died ages ago.

  Dauven walks towards them. “My apologies, Lark. There was a centaur crossing.”

  They nodded in response before pulling down their glasses, revealing very green eyes. Those were not human eyes, those eyes don’t gain gemstone shades without help from other lineages. “I’ll shadow the wood elf first,” he said with a tilt of his chin towards her.

  Keylynn felt her stomach sink low in her abdomen. She didn’t anticipate being the first to be shadowed, she had assumed that honour would go to Dauven. She bends the rules the most, often to the point of breaking them. Now she is expected to do her job with some bureaucratic pencil pusher assessing her every move. Judging every word that leaves her mouth.

  “If you insist,” She said with a tilt of her head, indicating the direction she was going to walk in.

  “Keylynn, you intend to start right away?” Dauven asked from behind her as BEEG began unloading their bags from the train.

  “We don’t want to keep our dear bird here waiting for the fun to begin, now do we?” She asked.

  “Lark, may I inquire as to why you wish to begin with Keylynn?” Dauven asked, keeping his attention divided between the team unloading their bags and Lark.

  “You may.” Lark answered, sounding bored. If Keylynn didn’t know any better, she would say he didn’t care what they did in this very moment.

  Dauven waited for a further answer as Lark continued on. Dauven shook his head slightly and asked, “Why are you starting with her?”

  “I said you could inquire, not that I would answer.” Lark responded blandly. Keylynn cringed. She knew many in the department who were like this one, mostly they were on floor 20 and up. The higher the floor your office is, the more you get to be a flaccid dick.

  Dauven gritted his teeth and walked towards Keylynn. “Before you show Lark here how we like to start our assessments, may I have the items as requested?” He asked Keylynn. His eyes gestured towards the brown slime mould that sat on her shoulder.

  “Yes, of course, I had nearly forgotten.” She reached up to it and gathered half of her brown slime mould, separating it from the main colony gently. Any portion of the colony that is separated will share what it observed with the colony when it returns. She is able to find anyone carrying any of her fungal colonies should the need arise. Dauven and Riv had mentioned previously that they can find her through a sample of her colonies. Gwen can use their scent, and Barnibus has never voiced how he can find her, only that he and BEEG are capable of such things.

  “Thank you, Keylynn. We will set up our living arrangements and workspaces,” Dauven said before taking the ball of slime back to the rest of their team to distribute it amongst them.

  “Come, Lark, let’s not keep the illustrious Vlahd waiting. I do hope he is up for discussing his impaling days,” she said cheerfully to Lark before leading the way to the big office building. For any quest line, the office is always central to travel and the quest line itself. Typically they are invisible to the adventurers and are only visible during the quests' off hours and during crisis management.

  “Why are you initiating the assessment?” Lark asked from behind her.

  “I was asked to.” She responded simply. “I have yet to find someone who fails to sign my forms.” Perhaps that was why Dauven wanted her to initiate this assessment. She is known as ruthless when it comes to getting appropriate paperwork signed, even if she disagrees with its necessity. The few who refuse to sign her paperwork often regret it and make amends for that mistake or die because of it.

  “I wouldn’t peg you as the ruthless bureaucrat.”

  “Oh, I’m not. I just dislike failing,” she retorted, opening the main office door and stepping inside.

  “That’s strange, seeing as you have settled for working on the fifth floor. In my experience, those who hate losing are those who are scaling the corporate ladder,” he commented, following her inside, keeping his darkened glasses on.

  “I didn't get a choice, the ladder chose for me.” She failed to keep the bitterness from her voice. She and Dauven once had been the best and ruthlessly climbed the corporate ladder, ascending from floor to floor. back when the number of floors was not so numerous. Together they chased the prestige of climbing the ladder. When at last they reached floor four, many more were added, ending their celebrations.

  Their time on floor four was marked by the rebrand of the Royal Assessment Department and Adventurer Welfare Council. It was then that teams were recommended, and that is how they found Barnibus, he was in need of rebranding. He lost his workshop, and he lost his commissions in working with storymancers in building the best dungeons they can. They took longer on floor four than they had on the other floors combined, but finally they made it to floor five when their goal was even farther away. Teams were made mandatory, and that’s how they found Riv and Gwen. At first they were all eager to ascend higher, but after constant corporate changes and endless rejections, they simply felt the need to stop trying. It was far kinder and easier to remain where they were than to aim for more.