Worthy Core

DAY 336

 

"Laeniel, if you weren't already a married woman, I'd propose to you right now."

Hearing that, the elf's jaw drops open in a mixture of amusement and shock. "Alizz! I didn't even know you were interested in women!"

The drider shakes her head. "I'm not. I'm interested in competency with paperwork though, and for that I'd put up with almost any variety of anatomy." Alizz begins to sort out the files Laeniel is handing over to her while she sits at her desk, and the elf sadly shakes her head.

"How did you manage all this before I came to town? Kelsey is your second-in-command, shouldn't he be helping you with some of this?" That question draws a sharp laugh.

"Kelsey? Paperwork? The most I can expect from him is to have him sign off for me on a delivery or a Challenger report. I'm almost certain he pulls the old 'do a job incompetently so that you're never asked to do it again' trick whenever I have him do things involving budgets or actually writing up full reports. But we all have our specialties, and I'll admit he's better at wrangling Challengers than I am most days."

Frowning, Laeniel continues pressing the point. "How about your other clerks? This branch is much larger than it was even just since I first arrived in town, surely some of the new staff are helping with the workload?"

Again, Alizz shakes her head. "The new staff is barely keeping up with the new Challengers. You know, when we first set up shop here there wasn't even a dungeon challenge done every day? Now there's an average of at least half a dozen, maybe ten. Sure, they tend to be fairly short ones, the convenience of it making it easy for a party to do just one or two floors then take a break for the day, but each one generates paperwork."

While she had just been standing in front of Alizz's desk while delivering her summaries of the branch's monthly expenses, now Laeniel claims herself a seat as she settles in for a longer conversation. "I suppose I've mostly just been focused on your financial requirements, since that's my specialty. But just how much paperwork does an Association branch generate on a daily basis?"

"Well, there's a lot of new tasks that have been added on now that we've expanded." The bookish drider pulls out a sheaf of small papers from one folder and waves it around. "For example, thanks to new funding from House Highbranch, we can now offer paid Challenger contracts for wild monster hunting and road patrols. Even the Fort's sent us a few for help patrolling the border, although I suspect they're only doing it to help the army build contacts with the local Challengers."

"I've seen those expenses, yes, although I didn't realize House Highbranch was the one ultimately paying out on them. There's not very many of those, though? Grassbrook doesn't have much of a wild monster population, and it'll have even less of one soon enough."

Alizz pulls out another file. "That's just one thing. Another is the expansion in our healing and training staff. That needs scheduling, maintenance of equipment and replacement of expendable supplies, graduation testing requirements, and so on. Every class needs slightly different training, so making sure we're using our resources efficiently is quite the balancing act. I don't want to request that, say, an Expert Pyromancer move down here only for them to discover that they only have one student every month or two. While we pay them a minimal baseline just for being on call, for the most part they don't get paid if they don't have students purchasing the training."

Laeniel gets a bit confused as she scans all of the folders organized in different places on Alizz's desk and elsewhere around the room. "But why are you handling all of these? What are the other new clerks doing?"

The Mana Wrecker smiles with a wry grin. "Dealing with the worst job of all - processing Challenger reports. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to accurately track Challenger level credit across the whole of the Association? Especially with so many of our Challengers being new arrivals? Unless they were bright enough to have their home branches send their paperwork here before they arrived - and gods know there's few enough of those - we basically have to create temporary files for most of them until the official records arrive, and then we have to make sure everything merges properly. Then there's the matter of calculating how much credit any given dungeon delve ought to have earned them, made more complicated now by the fact that Challenger parties are spending an entire week up at that damn inn, and then filing half a dozen delve reports in one big batch. And finally there's the worst part of it all - making sure they're not lying on the reports."

The elf nods along. "Parker mentioned you have some sort of special process for ensuring Challenger levels are proper and honest?"

Rather than nodding, Alizz frowns instead. "Technically, yes. We of course have truth spells and enchanted charms to catch the most blatant lying. But an inexperienced questioner or experienced liar can turn those into more of a theater performance than anything effective. Besides, we can't go through that process for every single report. We do have random audits, but mostly we reserve it for Initiates and Advanced Challengers...it's the newbies who think lying about their record actually helps them rather than hurts them."

"How does it hurt them? You mean getting them expelled from the Association, or something like that?"

The drider chuckles ruefully. "Oh, they wish they were that lucky. Yes, being expelled is a potential punishment for repeated violations. But - you know the average serious casualty rate for a dungeon delve is about ten percent?" When Laeniel nods, she continues. "The average casualty rate for an Advanced-level Challenger who's joining higher-ranked teams and delving deeper floors than they ought to, pretending they're an Expert, is over twenty percent. The rate for Initiates pretending to be anything else is fifty. While we take the accuracy of our records seriously...well, let's just say cheating is something of a self-correcting problem. The truly bothersome part is when that lying puts other Challengers at risk. Entire parties have occasionally lost their lives because they were depending on a fraud."

The accountant grimaces before asking a new question. "So, if your workload is so heavy...would you like me to take on more assignments for you? I still prefer my role as a freelancer rather than an Association clerk, but I do still have some free time if you have more that needs doing."

Alizz chews that over a bit before nodding. "We could definitely use the help. However, as I've described, all of this other work is much more directly tied into our activities managing Challengers than simply managing the budget is. Normally there'd be a whole training process about what it is we do here, and I don't want to entirely skip over that. Would you be willing to spend some time working with the other staff? Just long enough to get some hands-on experience with what it is they do on a day-to-day basis."

With a bright grin, Laeniel agrees. "I'd be happy to!"

 

---

 

"Gah! I thought you were a Divine Masochist, not a sadist!"

Sely frowns down at the man on her examination table as she works on re-attaching the orc's finger. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you'd want me to be focusing on making sure you could actually use the damn digit after I attach it. You know, making sure the nerves and tendons actually connect properly? If you'd rather I focus my efforts on a pain-relief spell instead..."

The orc shakes his head. "No, no, just get it done. Just thought you were enjoying it a little much, is all."

As Laeniel watches on from the side of the room, Sely narrows her eyes. "You know what I don't enjoy? Repeat customers. Or people coming in here because of entirely stupid, avoidable injuries. Just because you're paying for the healing services doesn't mean I don't have better things I could be doing with my time."

The man frowns. "Hey, not like I was trying to lose a finger! But shit happens in the dungeon, you know?"

"Sure, finger injuries are common." The orc winces as Sely puts additional pressure on the healing joint. "Specifically losing a middle finger, however? While the rest of the hand is intact? I'm curious how a sword swing or falling trap might have managed such a precise injury."

The Challenger withers under the Cleric's intent gaze for a while before eventually answering. "...I may have had it shot off by the Banshee Queen. While I was...waving it in her general direction."

Closing her eyes, Sely sighs. "Taly, Taly. You couldn't have taught the lug a lesson in a way that didn't make more work for me?"

The orc is a little confused by that statement, until eventually his eyes widen in realization. "Wait - I heard one of the monsters had a sister in the Association here! Don't tell me that monster is your kin!?" Rather than a verbal response, the next noise to fill the room is the orc's own pained howling.

"Well, looks like your finger's nerves are working properly! Now, keep exercising it for the next two days, and you can pay the rest of your bill at the front desk. And don't go waving it around if you'd like to keep it. You're lucky you were able to recover it and get down the mountain in time, I may be a Cleric but I don't perform miracles."

"Yes...thank you, Masochist..." Clearly working hard to keep tears from his eyes, the muscular orc climbs off of the examination table and leaves the room, leaving behind a slightly bemused elf.

"I see you have a very unique brand of bedside manner, madame Masochist."

Sely grunts. "I'm treating Challengers, not children who need a sweet with their medicine - although I imagine most of them would probably ask for one. I hope that's an educational lesson for you at least, Mrs. Reeves."

"Laeniel, please. Honestly, I'm not sure what I should be learning here. Unless Alizz just wanted me to become more familiar with the concept of Challengers being injured - and I'm quite familiar enough with that, having been married to one for a few decades now."

Sighing again, Sely looks around the treatment center. "Do you know how much paperwork that half-hour visit generated? I had to expend healing agents to clean the wound and restore the finger. There's the billing for the services, of course. The injury will also need to go into his record, to show that he qualifies for less Association level credit for that last run due to having received it. I also need to track the man's personal medical history, as this treatment could have implications if he does become a repeat customer. Limbs that need to be re-attached multiple times need more extensive treatments on future procedures."

Laeniel nods. "I see, good point." She pauses for a moment, before asking another question. "Is it...difficult to work with people who were injured by your sister? Parker's slain and injured a number of Challengers by now, and I do worry a little about...upset neighbors."

"Hrmph. You're lucky that Parker's on such a low floor, at least by local standards. Only vets come by to his arena, and those sorts of Challengers tend to know the score. Taly occasionally faces Advanced-level Challengers, and the newbies are much more likely to take things personally." A grin reaches Sely's face, although it seems somehow cold. "Or, I suppose, the occasional thin-skinned noble. But I can take care of myself." This time, her grin is matched by an evil gleam in her eye. "And if anyone tries to make trouble, they'll find out that I can hurt them far worse than Taly does."

"I...see."

Realizing that Laeniel might not exactly have that option, Sely continues. "Of course, if anyone does start making trouble for you, feel free to let us know. Alizz won't stand for Challengers making trouble, nor I. You have our support if we need it."

Laeniel nods. "Thank you, that's good to know. Do Challengers make much trouble, outside of the dungeon? I didn't often spend time with ones other than Parker and a few of his close associates."

"Do they!? Well...it's a good thing Kelsey's on your list of tour stops..."

 

---

 

"Dudes. My friends, my pals. You absolute, stinking, slug-brained morons. What in the world were you thinking!?"

The two gnolls standing in front of the angry kobold, a pair of young brothers, shift uneasily under the older man's attentions. "...That some of the new garrison archers were sort of cute, yes?"

"So that justified trying to sneak into the Fort barracks!? You realize some of those cute gnoll girls might have been the ones to shoot you, if you'd actually gotten much further past the walls!?"

"What? No! ...They were off duty that time of night, yes."

Kelsey sighs, pinching his snout. "If they're on the Fort premises, they're on duty. Renter, you spent like two months dating one of their Rangers, didn't you? Mind informing these furbrains how you actually go about courting a soldier?"

The scruffy Tracker smirks as he turns to face the two brothers standing in the Association office's main waiting room. "When the lass was actually off duty, that meant she had time to meet up at the Lucky Bastard. Or the marketplace. Or, y'know, anywhere that wasn't the Fort itself. I never even stepped foot into the place aside from them one or two times I was submitting scout reports. Civilians are kind of not generally allowed into the place, y'know."

One of the brothers scoffs. "...Thought our stealth skills were up to the task, yes."

Kelsey takes in a deep breath. "Kid, you are Advanced. This is a border garrison, recently reinforced. Even if the guard shift ain't got at least one Expert in it, that wall's probably got Master-tier defensive enchantments on it at least. Look, part of maintaining a good record in the Association is having a clean criminal record, and Rogue classes do not get an exception on that. You're lucky Commander Paulados isn't making a bigger deal out of this, but we're still making a note of it in your record, understand? I don't want to see you two getting dragged in here again. Now get out of here, stick to stealing candy from babes or whatever."

The two gnolls quickly nod and beat a hasty retreat, leaving behind the one who had dragged them down to the office to start with.

"Ah, to be young and heavy of testicles, yes?"

The kobold chuckles. "Better than being old and dangly of testicles, I'll say that. Not that either of us are old enough to be worrying about that yet, even if keeping these kids in line damn well makes me feel like it sometimes. Sorry they were causing you trouble, Taffy."

Tafyaf answers with a shrug. "Makes for good amusement, hehe. Enjoy watching your show as well, yes yes."

"Heh. Speaking of romance, how's things with you and the Combat Medic? Heard you've been ranging further out now that the weather's better."

"Good, good! Got Grayana to revisit the dungeon, yes, spending time in the inn. Already had credit for the third floor, even if we couldn't remember her actually clearing it, still an odd delve, yes. Going back this weekend, I believe."

"Nice, maybe I'll meet you two up there for a round. Due for a dungeon check-in soon anyhow. For now, though, gotta get the report for this shit filled out before I forget their damn names. Was it Draga and Bragga?"

Laeniel finally speaks up, from where she was watching by a nearby clerk's desk. "Broga and Drago, I believe."

Kelsey snaps his talons. "Right, that! Good ear for detail there. Could definitely use you helping out with all the scribing work around here, if we ain't scared you off yet. Think you'd still be interested in the gig?"

"Interested?" Laeniel slowly smiles. "Mr. Kelsey, I think this might be one of the most interesting places I've ever worked..."