Keylynn handed over her matrix to Ragna so he could scan in the document. After her many failed attempts at the so-called easy task, he offered to help, and she happily accepted the offer. She’d like to see him struggle with the task as much as she did.

  He held the tablet over the wrinkled, stained, worn piece of paper that outlined the original deal between the Mimic Farms and the RADAWC. He made that seem much easier than what it was; she must have helped him somehow.

  “Do you know how to attach it to an email… actually I’ll just do that for you,” Ragna said before typing on her tablet with some difficulty. She had to envelop his hand in her hyphae before it would work at all, and he’s just not used to experiencing the world through them.

  “There.” He handed back her matrix tablet. “All you have to do is draft up the email and send it to Lark.”

  She took her matrix back happily. He was making it seem like she was incapable of doing anything for herself. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  She longed for the old teleportation tubes that they used to use. Anything she put inside would be teleported to the internal tube message delivery network, the ITMD for short, and within a day it would be on her boss's desk. It was simpler because she didn’t have to fiddle with anything. All she had to do was put a document in a tube.

  The little space they had in the cramped office was filled with Demetra and Ragna sorting through relevant paperwork. Keylynn awkwardly leaned against the wall while bending her knees to make herself a makeshift table to rest her matrix on. She drafted her email as quickly as she could, racing against the clock of her aching muscles.

  To: Lark

  From: Keylynn

  Subject: The Mimic Farm Deal

  Please see the attached scanned version of a document that outlines a deal between the Mimic Farms and RADAWC. In short, it states that the farm acts to cull adventurers while the adventurers cull their mimics. I haven’t heard of a deal before. We are going to find it very difficult to work with Cleatus, due to the deal. He doesn’t need to have a functional quest, which he lacks.

  The farm itself has the good backbones of what could be a good mid-level quest. It’s an old, rundown farm overrun with mimics. There is a mimic that is over 100 years old, and she is the size of a windmill.

  I am willing to work with Cleatus to get his farm up to a more functional state, but that deal has to be renegotiated, and I’ll need the proper paperwork. Until then, would you like for my team to return to the office, send them to a different assessment, or wait?

  Signed, Keylynn, HR Consultant, team lead of Team Mushroom (the name stays) of the Annual Assessment Division, formerly known as Floor Seven

  “So what now?” Tsunami asked while playing with a dagger.

  “You can always go out in the farms and play with Lucille again,” Demetra offered. He stuck his tongue out at her.

  “We continue with our assessment while we wait for a response. The deal is a unique wrinkle, but there isn’t much that we can do without proper authorization,” she answered to a chorus of groans.

  “How about we find accommodations and take a break from the mimic farm until tomorrow?” She offered, hoping to boost their morale. Team morale was an important resource that a team lead such as herself has to be mindful of. When morale is high, productivity is high.

  “That is the smartest thing you’ve said all day,” Demetra stated. “No offence.”

  “None taken. You’ve had a long day,” she answered sternly. “I’ll go tell Cleatus that we will return tomorrow.” She caught a slug mushroom right before it fell on the office ground. She doubted that slime mould was the perfect thing for the office. She didn’t even know what form she would need to fill out if one of her fungal colonies caused mimic destruction of vital paperwork.

  While her team escaped the farm, she looked for Cleatus. She let out a loud sigh. He wasn't in his farmhouse.

  Outside of the farm she reached out with her magic to find the old man. Her magic stretched across the entirety of the farm when she found him, on the edge of his property. She mentally thanked him for his hygienic practices and walked past the rusted tractor and onto the muddy, patchy field of various vegetables.

  Letting out a heavy sigh, she scolded the mud, informing it that under no circumstances was it to invade her footwear. She will not have soggy socks on this farm. Cleatus was in the complete opposite direction of the team, meaning she would have to walk all the way back through the mud when she was done speaking with him. At least the mud was just mud. The things in the mud, however, were mimics.

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  The mimics swimming in the deeper puddles were easily avoided just as long as she didn't walk through the puddles. The clods of various coloured grasses were innocuous as far as mimics go and disappointing. Coloured grasses would have been a fantastic find to collect samples. The farm crops were a convincing disguise for mimics on a farm. All of the crops that she saw were exceptionally convincing, except for seeing all states of a plant's life cycle all in one field.

  There were far more than a hundred mimics on this farm. Keylynn feared the answer to how he manages to keep all the mimics well fed. One hungry mimic could be the death of him.

  The thoughts of hungry mimics reminded her to grow several large mushrooms on her shoulder to feed Pebble. The last thing she needed was for her mimic to get hungry and learn bad habits from the farm.

  It ate happily as she walked, stepping over a rotten pumpkin filled with seeds. Both the pumpkin and all of its seeds were mimics. She could spend all day and night growing mushrooms to feed them and still find hungry mimics. The sheer volume of mimics was unsustainable.

  She followed the sound of dull banging and found Cleatus swinging a mallet on a wooden post driving into the ground. He looked up when he saw her and stopped his swinging.

  “Oh, it’s you, that strange elf doing her assessment. Didn’t realize ya were still here and all. You finding everything ya need okay?”

  “Salutations, Cleatus. My apologies. We were working in your office, and we are finding everything easily enough.” She omitted the part where she terminated several mimics. She didn’t think he’d notice unless she told him, and that was just paperwork that she’d rather not do. “And I just wanted to inform you that we will be departing for the day, and you can expect us to return tomorrow.”

  Cleatus crossed his arms and leaned against the post, causing it to tilt. “The bosses wants ya to read everything, heh?”

  She nodded, holding her tongue about what she was currently discussing with her boss. She imagined he wouldn't be as friendly if he discovered the deal his ancestors made was one that never should have been made. “Yes, that’s it exactly. They are wanting us to read everything and make note of everything. We are to leave nothing untouched.”

  He nodded slowly. “Don’t feel bad. Ol’ Cleatus knows how bosses be. Pains in the asses every time. It’s why I don’t got any. Ye and yer kin are welcome as long as need be.”

  “You have my thanks,” she smiled before walking away. She wondered if he would right the post before he began hammering it again.

  She trudged back through the soggy farm casing warning looks to the mud with every step. Eventually she crossed the boundary of the farm, and she felt all tension from her body evaporate.

  “I did some research while we waited for you. There’s a small inn; they didn’t say how many rooms they had, but at least we don’t have to teleport back home only to come back,” Ragna announced cheerfully. That was at least good news. She hated doing several teleportations in a short period of time. The feeling of teleportation was disorienting and just felt wrong.

  They started to walk down the path that led away from the farm. The weather didn’t improve the further they were from the farm, confirming that the weather wasn’t by design.

  “I for one hope Lark sends us somewhere else ya know? We still get a bonus, and we get to start working on the next assessment. The whole ancient deal is well above our pay grade.” Tsunami walked behind the rest of the team with his hands in his pockets.

  Demetra kicked a rock on the hard-packed dirt road. “If it is above our pay grade, then we should get a bigger bonus if we see it through,” she countered. “But I agree; that old man needs to learn how to wear a shirt.”

  Keylynn felt her team's morale plummet. She needed to reinvigorate them, regardless of whether or not Cleatus learns how to don a shirt. “If we remain on this assessment, there is a good chance that we will be guiding the rehabilitation of the quest. That is an experience I wish for all of you.” Rehabilitating quests and consulting with adventuring parties used to be her favourite parts of her job. Unfortunately, rehabilitation became something of a lost art at RADAWC.

  The inn that Ragna researched was incredibly small. It had a total of seven rooms, and one of those rooms was much larger, holding six beds total. The inn's common room was so small that it was unclear if it was big enough to hold everyone if the inn was fully booked.

  The meal the inn served was edible, but nowhere close to Zukyov’s standard. The vegetables were boiled and drained of flavour, resulting in bland, soggy mush. The baked potato was both burnt and raw, which was too much crunch for something that shouldn’t have been crunchy. Keylynn refused to eat the mystery meat, but according to her team, it was tough, bland, and dry. No one could confidently place exactly what kind of meat it was.

  Thankfully she received an email from Lark, saving her from sampling the wine or ale. Judging by her team's faces, she was better off not sampling them.

  To: Keylynn

  From: Lark

  Subject: The Deal is Dead

  I have reviewed that deal and have terminated it. I will have a courier deliver a revised contract for Cleatus to look over. Please provide the courier with the hard copy of the deal. I have started an investigation into who authorized that deal.

  I trust you can handle negotiations and your judgment on what should be done with the quest. If the quest can be rehabilitated, you are fully authorized to make that a reality. If that means removing Cleatus from the farm, then so be it. Try to have your team as involved with the rehabilitation as much as possible. It's a skill that more of our division needs to have. Every quest that we can fix proves that our division is necessary.

  I want your team to be as thorough as possible with their reports, and I would like to see those in my inbox ASAP. I want a complete report for the quest assessment as well as for its rehabilitation.

  Are you sure about that team name? The Mushroom Team seems a little pointed. But it’s your choice.

  Lark, manager of the Annual Assessment Division

  That settled that; they will be returning the farm tomorrow. At least the promise of a larger bonus should motivate her team. She spent her evening drafting up potential quest plot lines and layouts for the farm mimics. Part of her wanted to reach out to Dauven for help, but a larger part of her wanted to do it on her own. Her plans were going to act as guidelines or a backup plan for her team. She didn’t want to throw them to the wolves, so to speak. They were working on their second assessment, and it ended up being another difficult one.