It was clear they weren’t going to be let out of the conference room anytime soon. Keylynn used the time to start working on her new fungal form ability. Barnibus made her a chart to help her plan her different experiments as well as to keep track of her fungal forms. She was able to experiment several times with her colonies before she had to take a break. She learned that the slime moulds that were at her disposal currently weren't compatible with one another. She wanted to try combining her brown or slime Eugene moulds with her corpse flower mushrooms, but that will have to wait.

  “Now what we need is a completely comprehensive list of all of your fungal colonies, and we need to start testing trends. Are all fungi of the same type, such as slime mould, not compatible, or are there certain circumstances that make them compatible?” Barninbus mused, looking at the table they made. She included her most recent cultivations and her common mushroom manifestations. She didn’t think common mushrooms would have a spectacular fungal form; however, they were easy for her to summon.

  “I need to be surrounded by my colonies because the environmental spells of the island have taken their toll on them.” She was lucky she still had her brown slime mould with her. The colony that she saved in the sample jar with slime, a small portion of slime Eugene, was smaller than it was before. She filled her brown slime mould with as much magic and nutrition that she dared to. She will try it again with her fungal form when the colony is thriving.

  Keylynn slumped against a wall, sitting on the ground. In truth she was exhausted from so many fungal form attempts back to back. She hoped that as she used the ability, it wouldn’t drain her as much.

  “We’ve been trapped here forever! Can’t someone do something? Tell someone? Holding us hostage must be breaking a rule or twenty!” Gwen exclaimed.

  BEEG let out a deep sigh and reached for another cupcake.

  “If I could, I’d throw you out to go get us some real food. But we saw how that went last time.” Shortly after Keylynn joined them in the conference room, Gwen started a long rant of complaints. Barnibus responded by opening the door and throwing her out of the room into the arms of one of the security guards. Both Gwen and the guard who caught her were confused. After a few minutes she was returned to the conference room.

  Gwen was looking at her paws. She had already chewed her claws to the quicks. “At least I was allowed to use the washroom.”

  “Then maybe you can wash your brain out; clearly you need to if you think the bosses over there haven’t done anything to get us out of this mess.”

  Gwen looked down.

  “I emailed Lark, and his reply was to wait, and that’s what we are doing,” Dauven said, making Gwen jump. Dauven was leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest with his eyes closed. Keylynn thought he was sleeping.

  Keylynn glanced at Eugene. “I also emailed Grief to update him on the full situation with human Eugene. He agreed that Eugene shouldn’t be penalized. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do much regarding our imprisonment. I emailed Akzer, and as expected, they haven’t responded.” Not that she expected either of them to really solve the problem. Grief wasn’t even her HR floor manager.

  “Gwen needs a nap,” BEEG said, patting Gwen’s head.

  “I already had a nap! I had two!” Gwen exclaimed. If she were standing, she would have stomped her foot.

  “Then why don’t you count how many dots there are on the roof?” Keylynn suggested. She looked to her trainees, who were all huddled together with their comms devices watching a video of some sort.

  Gwen gave her a withering glare. “I will not count the spots on the roof.”

  “It was a suggestion, not a demand.”

  “Here’s a demand: shut it,” Barnibus snapped at her.

  Gwen huffed but remained silent.

  Keylynn let out a small sigh and closed her eyes. She had no doubt that their internment will end, freeing them from the uncomfortable temperature. The only food and drink they had was whatever anyone had on them, which amounted to Gwen’s baked goods, Dauven’s coffee, and human Eugene’s cans of Lonster.

  “I don’t care if they killed every single one of your employees. You don’t have the authority or the right to detain them without proper protocol! Now you will release them!” A voice boomed from outside of the conference room door, pulling her from her rest. Keylynn cracked her eyes open and joined her team in staring at the door.

  “I will not release them to continue their campaign to discredit my quest! That disgusting elf is out to ruin me over a stupid cyclops!!” Ody boomed louder.

  “I already have Penny in custody. Do you wish to join her?” The first voice asked eerily calmly. Keylynn knew that voice. It was Lark.

  She didn’t hear a reply from Ody.

  The door swung open, revealing Lark dressed in a black suit. His black-lensed glasses were nowhere to be found, but Keylynn knew he had them on him. His eyes were bright and vibrant. “He tried to fight and learned a lesson in the process,” he said with a smirk.

  Keylynn stood up and joined Dauven and Lark at the doorway. “Thank you for your expeditious arrival. Do you have transport to the main office arranged?”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “You can send your team down as soon as they are ready. We have complete control of the office. I have staff working to collect everything from the records room and stripping the offices.” He answered with a small smirk. He liked clearing the office floor.

  “Barnibus, may I ask you to ensure that my team doesn’t get left behind?” She would do it herself, but she needed to talk to Lark. It didn’t help that she missed the last meeting with him because she was setting up the coffee cart.

  “That I can do while I make sure Gwenie eats her vegetables,” he grinned snuggly at Gwen.

  She pouted. “I don’t need to eat any vegetables.”

  “Now I heard there was an HR floater who was assisting you,” Lark stated.

  “That would be me, Eugene,” he introduced himself, standing beside Keylynn.

  “Can you lead us to your office? I’ve been told you have been instrumental in the investigation.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

  Eugene’s office was a small room that looked like it used to be a supply closet rather than an office. It was barely large enough to fit everyone, let alone the furniture. His desk was an old folding table paired with a folding chair. Lining the walls were tall stacks of file boxes. Every available surface was covered with stacks of papers. Keylynn was going to have to have a word with Eugene about how he treats his workspace.

  Lark looked around the office as everyone awkwardly filled the room. “This is the office they provided you with as their only HR floater?”

  “For here in the Ithika office, yeah. There is another office on the Isle of Eyes, not that I had much of a reason to be there. There used to be offices on all the islands, but since then the quest has undergone staff downsizing. Actually, I have a compilation of paperwork detailing that.” Eugene said, squeezing behind Keylynn. “Not grabbing your ass, Keke, only boxes.” After removing several boxes from a stack, he rifled through one and pulled out a large manila envelope.

  “I was mostly assigned to organizing their records, so I had a lot of time in the records room. I actually asked Keke if she could come help me because I saw quite a few troubling things,” he explained as he handed the envelope to Lark.

  Lark opened the envelope and slid a collection of papers out and began to flip through them. From where she stood, she saw Eugene’s annotations covering the page. Lark slid everything back into the envelope carefully.

  “Are all of your boxes organized like this?”

  “Most of them, yeah,” Eugene nodded confidently. “As I said, I had a lot of time on my hands.”

  “I’d like to offer you a job. Your friends have been working with me on an investigation of floor seven. It’s not an official investigation, which means we have to tread carefully. I don’t want the directors involved until we need them to be.” Lark gave him a condensed pitch compared to the one he gave Keylynn. “What I need from you is help going through the records room. I can get you a job in the records room.”

  Eugene looked from Lark to Keylynn. “You agreed to help him conduct unofficial investigations? Is that how you finally got promoted?”

  “Yes, also I discovered a corporate cover-up. I am endlessly frustrated with the many ways that corporate makes our jobs harder. Currently very few have authorization to view adventurer files. I had to investigate a complete party kill without knowing anything about the adventurers in question,” she explained simply to Eugene. Several carrion flies appeared and flew around her.

  “If Keke and the old man both think it’s the right thing to do, then it is. I’m in,” he declared confidently. “I’m currently working as a contract temp worker because I owe Grief a lot of work hours. So you’ll have to work that out with him. He’s the HR manager on floor five.”

  “Very well, I plan to have your new placement settled before we are back in the office. Do I want to know what you did to get you in this position?” Lark asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Probably not. Keke already lectured me on it. And not to worry, my next attempt at elven wine will go better,” he answered with a grin.

  Keylynn let out a groan. If there was any time for Eugene to keep his mouth shut, this would have been it.

  Lark shot her a questioning look.

  “He is many things. Honesty is one of them. He keeps his word, and I know he would never do something stupid that would significantly affect others.” She trusted Eugene to work when he needed to.

  Lark nodded and explained his investigation in greater detail now that Eugene was part of their investigation team. He outlined the result of the initial audit of the seventh floor, which indicated that the floor was both widely efficient and inefficient. Floor seven also had one of the smallest HR departments of the RADAWC, which was another red flag. But because there weren't any broken policies cited, there wasn't much that could be done. He also explained the collection of observations that Keylynn and Dauven made. Annual assessments aren’t done in the field anymore. That was something that Lark was investigating further, as it wasn’t isolated to floor seven. There are teams given busy work, including file digitization or file compilation, while only a small selection of teams are assigned fieldwork. Floor seven has a team in training that until recently hasn’t received any oversight or training at all. The fact that the team is comprised mostly of the director's family members didn't help matters. And that doesn't even touch the ongoing break room dispute.

  Lark turned his attention to Dauven and Keylynn. “While I have you two here, what are your thoughts on Akzer?”

  Dauven cleared his throat and pulled out his matrix. “I can email you my thorough thoughts, but to sum up, I’m unimpressed with their managing style. They took a small miscommunication between two employees to a very public forum intended to humiliate and ridicule both employees involved."

  Lark nodded and turned to Keylynn expectantly.

  “I can also make a report that is more detailed, with evidence, but my initial thoughts are concerning. Akzer shows favouritism in how weekly and daily assignments are distributed in the office. They use humiliation and ridicule rather than follow company policy. They enforce different hours than the rest of the floor, including an unpaid meeting, and their different office hours were used to humiliate us upon our first day. They are also playing a role in the ongoing break room dispute, villainizing the break room brownie, Gil. And the complete neglect they have for my team of trainees was alarming. They have been fighting me every step of the way in trying to train them.” She felt more carrion flies manifest around her. She hoped the corpse flower wasn’t going to bloom. Now was not the time to fill a room with the smell of rotting flesh. The corpse mushrooms on her head grew and quivered.

  Lark nodded. “I would like that report as well as reports from both of your teams. I think that will give us a more well-rounded picture. The more evidence you can provide for your complaints, the better. Even having the same events mentioned and detailed in multiple reports will help. It’s becoming increasingly clear that they are behind all the irregularities of floor seven, which is why I need Eugene to dive deep through the records room. We need evidence and proof, and the more the better. They are very good at changing the narrative to suit themselves.”

  The corpse flower mushrooms bloomed, releasing a wave of spores around her, filling the room with the smell of rotting flesh.

  Lark’s face pinched, and he covered his mouth. “I think that’s time for this meeting to come to an end. Eugene, can you help me clear out your old office? Keylynn and Dauven, you can go see to your teams.” He dismissed them.