You’re deep into the transitory AMs between Friday night and Saturday morning, and the fact you don’t remember if the bar you just left was the third or fourth of the night means you need to start sobering up if you don’t want to black out somewhere downtown. A year ago you’d have had the option to just have an Uber deliver your drunk butt home, but the governor demanded they meet taxi regulations, Uber pulled out, none of the Uber knock-offs are worth a damn, and you’d swear the taxi companies got even worse out of spite… so it’s sobering yourself up or bust. With dinner having been several bars ago and drunken munchies in full swing, that means it’s time for entirely necessary, guilt-free, greasy-to-the-point-you’d-be-worried-about-heart-attacks-if-you-cared comfort food; you don’t have much truck with most home remedies but you absolutely swear by grease as a sobering agent.
Thankfully you know just the place.
As your feet belligerently stumble your sauced body into the sort of mom and pop 24/7 diner IHOP wishes it could be, you remind yourself that
technically, you’re celebrating. Celebrating, because you managed to keep your job through another round of downsizing. Technically, because this is the fifth downsizing in as many months, and you’d have to be blind to not see how the paper you work for is circling the drain. Just like the entire city, honestly. It doesn’t really matter how efficiently you translate this opinion piece or that analytic into an easily digested archived web page, the fact of the matter is: that place that pays you? It probably won’t survive until year’s end; they just refused to adapt fast enough or hard enough as the internet and its myriad resources choked out print media. Aaaaand as you’re reflecting in maudlin fashion you blearily realize two things at the same time: that you’ve been swaying in the fantastically filling waffle house’s entrance for long enough that some of the other late night patrons are staring… and that you
desperately need to piss.
Thankfully, you can solve both problems at once.
With nothing more than a haphazard nod to the shop owner’s wife behind the counter, you make for the back rooms with the sort of determination that could see you march across burning coals or through a bloody battlefield without flinching, dead-set on the holy grail that is the staff bathroom. Shoving the door open you make for the nearest stall, kicking the door shut and unzipping with a sense of expectant glee. Pure relief radiates from your groin as you address your most pressing need… and keep addressing it, growing increasingly impressed at just how much you had to vent. It’s well more than a minute later that you’re zipping back up with a sigh, and you do a sloppy job washing your hands before you step back out, and stumble your way back towards the eatery’s seating.
Or you try to, at least; was it a right past their ice box, or a left… ah, you’ll work it out.
You come to a dead stop after turning a corner, squinting as you try to make sense of what’s before you.
...You’re more drunk than you thought, if some of what have to be members of the place’s delivery crew look like nothing more than red-skinned demons to your bleary eyes, complete with hooved feet and burning horns. Yeah, you’re… just gonna play it cool, here; this place is close to your apartment and you
really like it. They’ve got the best chicken and waffles in the town, and getting banned for making a scene over drunken hallucinations is not high on your priority list. So you do your best to ignore what your eyes are telling you, and get back to the main seating area… only, one of the ‘demons’ stops you, and says something you just plain can’t make sense of. Really, you should know more Spanish than you do; the city’s close enough to the border that plenty of immigrants live here.
When you just stand there staring at them they speak again, and then helpfully give your sleeve a tug; you guess you wandered too far into the staff-only area, and you need to vamoose. Fair enough; you let the person lead you along, and you don’t say shit. You similarly don’t make a peep when they shove some bags of food into your arms and beckon for you to follow; if you have to bring someone their to-go order to make sure that your intoxicated gaffe is water under the bridge, then god dammit that’s what you’ll do.
When the lights that are way brighter than you recall make you nearly squint your eyes shut at the door, you’re just grateful you don’t stumble on the portal’s lip - you do not want to have to apologize for faceplanting in someone’s food.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
It’s somewhere around the time that you’re seeing the sixth group of people literally flying through the air, their colorful robes fluttering, that you wonder if maybe something’s a bit wrong. The first few times, well, that could have been birds from the far side of drunkenly bleary vision, or something. Or more outright hallucinations. That many, though… you try to keep cool about things.
“Okay,” a sharp, piercing and above all
commanding voice that just oozes ‘management’ barks out, and you snap to your best facsimile of attention with a tower of boxed food precariously perched in your grasp as they keep speaking, “how in the blazes did you stupid creatures muck this up?”
The sound of crinkling plastic draws your attention back to your arms; it’s hard to keep hold of everything that just got shoved into your arms, and you aren’t super well-coordinated at the best of times - crap, you almost dropped-
“Forgive us, oh great contractor,” one of the devilish-looking fellows beside you says as they do a damned good job at looking penitent, falling to the ground and full-on kowtowing to the person that first spoke as they press smoldering horns to tile while you manage to not drop your burden, “we were given so little time, and when the meat-puppets were coming back he was amongst them, and his soul was so subdued that we thought-”
“You thought
wrong,” the definitely-manager-type harshly cuts in with the sort of tone that normally means someone’s being fired, “you grabbed one of the… bah, fine, too late to undo it now.”
You blink hard a few times, and no, there is still a pretty-boy in front of you wearing brilliant red robes with colorful peacocks worked into its surface like he’s all set for a costume party… and hey, he’s looking at you.
“...I suppose you are lucky you are so passionate about the wonders of wine,” he derisively snorts, and you could swear there is literal smoke coming out of his nose as he snorts in contempt, “at least it will make this less painful for you.”
“Actually I’m more of a beer guy,” you can’t help but hipfire back, because you are terrible at not running your mouth when deep in your cups, “and I can’t help but wonder
oooooowwww, fuck that hurts.”
You stumble and stagger, as a stabbing headache decides to inform you that you most certainly did
not hydrate well. It feels like your skull is trying to twist your brain into a noodle; you wish you were less familiar with the sensation.
“...He won’t be missed,” you manage to catch the fancily dressed person saying as the horrendous bout of head pains ebb enough you aren’t wishing you were dead, “take him to Senior Daoist GreenBrother, he’ll find a use for him.”
You suppose you’re happy that someone, at least, had the wherewithal to grab the boxes of greasy deliciousness before you dropped it - though, one of the demon-looking things is shoving a container back into your care, it seems?
Nothing for it but to grab it, as the alternative is to let it drop.
Unusually warm arms loop around your own the moment they’re anchored to the plastic-wrapped consumables, and you’re frog-marched down hallways you don’t recognize; you just go with it rather than make an ass of yourself, as clearly you’re far too drunk to properly get what’s going on… and things honestly seem pretty okay, considering. No point in rocking the hallucinatory boat when it’s working well for you so far.
Soon you’re standing in front of a guy in robes the color of fresh grass, and when did you get to one of the nearby parks - actually, when did
any park in this dump of a city have plantings as nice as these?
“Your admiration is appreciated,” the green-robed guy says, and you wish you’d known you were speaking aloud right as you realize his well-weathered face just oozes ‘old-money’ and ‘upper management’, “and your sense for assessing one’s nature is… impressive, given your origin and current state.”
...Yeah, you have no frame of reference for this other than work, so you guess you’ll go with that.
“I hope the fact you’re leading with compliments means that I’m not in trouble?”
The man with such a good tan that he
has to get way more vacation time than you could even dream of offers an easy chuckle at your words, and you feel gratified you went for the right approach for… whatever this is.
“I suppose you couldn’t call this a catastrophe, and that in itself is far less trouble than it should be,” the man… you suppose agrees with you as he gestures to your left, “please, have a seat and we’ll work this out.”
Huh, a chair of carefully-woven, slowly undulating vines; stylish, and also surprisingly comfortable - like a massage chair in slow motion.
You’re so enthralled with the most relaxing seat you can recall ever sitting in, that you barely pay any mind as soft hands gently pluck the remaining box of food from your grasp.
“I shall thank you for bringing me my portion of the order,” the calm-and-collected sounding guy with a pretty face says as he folds well-manicured hands over a potbelly you had
definitely not noticed until now, “now… on to less hedonistic matters, hm?”
The world feels like it goes just a bit fuzzier, like your drunkenness is trying to resurge, and you do your best to not feel sick.
“I admit I am somewhat at a loss, in that you do not seem compelled to ask any of the desperate questions asked by those in situations similar to yours; where I expected you to be a babbling brook of words I instead find a placid pool.”
“I’ve always been quick to adapt,” you promptly reply, guessing that now’s a good time to go into interview mode since that’s how this exchange feels, “and if there is anything about myself I feel accomplished in, it’s my flexibility.”
“...Yes, I see that,” the green-robed man says while subjecting you to a gaze so piercing your bosses wish they could deploy a look so socially penetrative, looking all the more interested with every passing moment as they continue, “which… hm.”
Some people would fidget or speak up in the face of the ensuing silence in such a strange situation when as sauced as this, but not you. You can fake even-keeled comportment like a pro, and you’ve done it when feeling worse than this - admittedly not when hammered, sure, but the principle’s the same, you tell yourself.
“...I suppose you both can and have,” the man you find yourself talking to in whatever park this is says as a wide grin sedately infests his face and seems to make his features glow as you once again wish you’d noticed you were speaking aloud, “well, we’ll give you room, board, and a role to fill, then, and… see how this plays out.”
That’s great and all, but you’ve got a job with not-terrible benefits that you need to be ready for come Monday, so as nice as the offer is-
“We’ll happily give you the ability to set your hours as you will,” the green robed man says with a impersonally gentile grin that makes your estimation of his rank rise to somewhere in the regional executive range, “and whatever perks or pay your prior vocation offered, we’re happy to utterly exceed… so long as you can perform adequately, of course.”
“...My current job gives me twelve days of paid sick and vacation a year and a retirement package,” you say, doing your damnedest to force yourself to sobriety and utterly failing, “and I can work from home just about any day I want, so-”
“You would sneer at… millionaires, yes? You would feel contempt towards such people after but a year’s labor - assuming, of course,” the man counters with the same easy tone, “that you can perform adequately you will be amply compensated - and it seems like your life has left you somewhat versed in the skills one needs for such a position. ...Also, I’m afraid you don’t have the option of refusing.”
You’re still trying to get the sudden surge of elation under control when you register the guy in green’s last words - but before you can say anything more, your head resurges with painful pressure, rapidly building to the point that everything… goes… dark.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
A stiff body and groggy senses are your companions as you wake up, eyes snapping back shut the moment the first harsh glint of light catches their bloodshot depths. Yep, you probably shouldn’t have bar-hopped long enough you made it halfway across the city last night.
Slowly stirring with your eyes squeezed shut, you find your brow clenching as it becomes clear that there are unfamiliar blankets on you and an alien pillow beneath your pained head. Oooookay. Did you hook up with someone while blackout drunk? That… could be a problem, depending; your beer goggles have led you astray before. At least this can’t be a drunk tank or anything like that: wherever you are is furnished by people who have got to be snobby about their thread counts and for that you’re grateful; all this downy fluff’s a wondrous treat to nestle in, right now. In fact… is this silk? It feels like silk. The mattress is a bit strange, but it’s not bad either. Honestly this is probably better than your bed back at home, and you take your sleep pretty seriously.
Okay, you’ve been putting this off long enough that any more and you might just go back to sleep rather than deal with anything. Time to open your eyes and live with what being in this bed
means, whatever that may be.
You lurch upright and force your squint-inclined peepers to open… your frown grows more serious and sober.
The bed that felt so strange to you turns out to be a padded mat on the ground of indeterminate Asian design surrounded by plush pillows. The sheets covering you, the pillows surrounding you and the mattress supporting you are all intricately stitched with stylized images folded into detailed patterns. Scenes of some ancient and fantastical looking cityscape, scenes of warfare that look to be showing gods doing battle above hordes of men, it goes on and on and you could spend long minutes just getting a good sense of what’s worked into the nearest bits of cloth. You’re no expert on sewing, weaving or any of that, but this stuff’s design screams ‘expensive as hell’ just by the velvety-smooth feel it all sports.
The suspicion you somehow ended up horribly above your paygrade continues to firm as you look further. The massive floor-bed is dwarfed by the scale of the enormous room containing it. Loft apartments wish they were this big. You’ve seen smaller theaters! The ceiling is dozens of feet above, a delicately glittering skylight of stained glass in a style you don’t recognize that fills the room with softly prismatic light. Rich, dark woods are expertly cut and fit together into patterned walls and floors, and armoires and cabinetry with gently-stylized lacquering line the walls, interspersed with silvery-framed mirrors. Everything you see is accented with fiendishly intricate and overly-detailed works the likes of which you could spend days carefully inspecting. There’s a door on one of the walls, and at this point you don’t feel like you’re leaping to conclusions when you wonder if that distinctive yellowish gleam to the door’s handle is
actually gold.
… Right, okay. This can be as insanely ramification-laden as it wants, it’s just plain too much for you right now. Your first step remains ‘find the bathroom’.
Given there is just the one door, and you seem to still be in your clothes sans shoes, it seems like your path is clear.
Swaying to your feet with only a little bit of remaining intoxication, you try to stomp as quietly as you can towards the door - just like that your prize is found the moment you sought it, and you waste no time in dropping trou and getting to business.
As relief begins to ease its way upwards into your previously-pickled innards, you take some time to think… and it starts coming back to you. A night’s end that had felt more like some particularly strange dream or delusion. Like some sort of faustian deal - redressed in generically Asian trappings - being forced on you rather than offered. That… did that happen?
...Wait, if the only door the room had lead you to here, and this is just a regular-seeming bathroom, then where… no point thinking about that this very second. All the familiar amenities that on second consideration are rather out of place when you’re one door away from a bedroom straight out of some historical drama about oriental kings manage to keep you occupied on thoughts other than your potential trapped-ness. Instead, you dwell on such simple concerns as ‘where on earth can you get toilet paper this soft yet durable, because
dang is it good. Wrapping up your ablutions on autopilot, you step back into the palatially appointed room, letting the bathroom door swing shut in your wake-
The door swings back open so fast it clips the hand you’d just closed it with, heavily clunking against the nearby lacquered dresser, the lacquer thankfully not chipping.
“I saw you used your Door of Wonder, and since you’re aware enough to do that, this means it’s time for your New Hire’s Tour!” You hear audible capitalization in a chirpy feminine voice, as you whirl around while clutching your elbow and very nearly fall flat on your ass.
...There is a starlet-beautiful girl with visibly rippling golden hair like she’s living in a photo-shoot. Who just walked out of the bathroom you were just in. No, the door she barged through is still open behind her, and the sprawling labyrinth of hallways you can see through the door is most definitely not the bathroom you just used. She’s casually balancing a saw-toothed and heavy-looking sword on the shoulder of an elaborately colorful outfit that is halfway cut to ribbons. She’s peering at you with color-shifting eyes that traipse through the rainbow’s hues as she stands in a growing pile of her dresses’ shreds with bare feet. You’d claim you’ve had wet dreams that start like this, but honestly you’d be lying; your imagination isn’t that good. Also her bare feet - and fingers - are capped with sharply pointed nails that don’t look painted so much as
actually made of metal: they honestly look more like short scissor-blades - and that is definitely not a feature you’d associate with ‘dream-like hottie’.
What.
She offers you a sharply pointed, brilliant grin that makes you think of fine china, and takes a deep breath that does interesting things to her tatter-dress. You politely try to avoid staring too much.
“Welcome to the Immortal Imperial Court’s Myriad Wonders Continent’s Western Regional Headquarters,” she says with theatrical roteness, “Praise be to the Eternal Sovereign Above All, Celestial Body Seizer, for allowing our humbly-cultivating selves such an opportunity as to join the scholarly legions tasked with administering the world! Our division’s own timelessly exalted Chief Seated Elders hope you will be a reliable, productive and above all loyal member of the invincible and global bureaucracy!”
What.
“With the endorsement of Deviant Cultivation Research Branch Manager Daoist GreenBrother, you have had your sentence of lifelong menial labor for the transgression of interdimensional trespassing on government property commuted into a position as a Dao Research Processor of his branch! As you are from a mortal realm and are listed as unfamiliar with our systems and society, I have been tasked with providing you both a list of your new vocation’s requirements and benefits, as well as comparative assessments of your compensation.”
The distractingly attractive girl waves her hand, delicately slender fingers clutching at a pair of white silk scrolls that seem to quietly spring into existence between one moment and the next.
“So here’s your employment contract in Formal Court Script - you’ll be able to read it now,” she says while proffering one of the two scrolls on which you see some shockingly blurry-seeming symbols that wriggle on the vellum until they start to make some sense, “but languages packages aren’t really designed for unrefined minds, and it’s a legal document, which makes definition drift a big concern… so here’s a copy in your native tongue!”
She hands you the second scroll and while it’s certainly written in Latin characters, the text looks just as blurry as the first scroll. Huh.
“Your native written language is Español, right?”
...You can’t read Spanish, so why can you - right, she literally just said why, insane as it sounds.
“English, actually, sorry if that was miscommunicated,” you reflexively correct with a politely deferential but direct comment, and freeze as you realize you said that.
Big eyes that gleam like gems widen in surprise, and a pastel pinkness blooms in lightly freckled cheeks.
“Oh no, no, my apologies, fellow daoist,” she says with a quick duck of her head that sees her sunny hair cascading in a way that makes you think crashing waves, “I am sure it was our own lower staff’s fault; we rarely get members of your particular realm sent here. Please be assured they will be properly punished for their transgressions.”
“I don’t feel insulted at all and completely understand how little things can slip through the cracks when unfamiliar, really it’s fine,” you say as your cheek stings from where you fiercely bit it amidst the strange girl’s apology, “there isn’t a need to, ah, punish anyone, surely? I’d feel terrible if people that are supposed to be my coworkers soon were punished before I’d even started - would it be alright if we just called this water under the bridge?”
You feel the coppery taste of blood spreading in your mouth, as the girl seems to give you a far more interested look over.
“Hm-
hm…. I see I see I seeee. Okay, I’m starting to get why Leader GreenBrother wants you in our department,” she impishly giggles into a finely ribboned, once-thick sleeve of dyed silks as she continues to unashamedly inspect you as gleefully and earnestly as a more normal teenager looking over the City Pound’s adoptable puppies, “if that’s what you can do right off the bat without even getting mentored for the job, then you’re sure to at least not be terrible.”
She continues to laugh musically, gleefully bouncing the intricately inlaid, oversized and fanged sword off her shoulder, its edges gleaming as if razor sharp yet the action cutting neither flesh nor self-shredding dress.
She buffs her free hand’s nails against the sword, the sound harsh like metal getting rasped, and you can’t help but stare as sparks fly. Something about her scissor nails sliding against the sword is odd to you, and after a good dozen plus rhythmic buffings you grasp it; her nails, metallic and sharp or no, are decorated, gleaming lines of golden yellows and reds picking out tidy little patterns. You glance from her moving hand to the one hefting her sword, and see the same symbols there… and they most certainly do not look like lacquer, polish or anything of the sort. In fact, given they’re patterns on metal, you almost wonder-
“Ah, sorry if this is too forward, but I’m something of a trivia man and know a bit about metallurgy, and so, about your nails I have to ask,” you prevaricate as inoffensively as you can before getting to your question, “is that Damascening?”
The eccentrically dressed figure tilts her head, looking somewhere over your ear with a thoughtful expression before brightening with a smile and nodding.
“Damascening… ah, I see what that means; yes, something very like that - wow, I didn’t expect you’d know something about one of my interests, that’s neat, interesting and fascinating! You know, between that and you seeming like you’re not a joke… I’d like to properly introduce myself!”
With a flickering flash of twirled metal the sword on her shoulder is spun about to point straight down, its pommel clasped in both hands as she bows to you.
“Good fortune to you on this meeting,” she says as matte red ideographs bleed into existence over her head like solid smoke, “my Daoist title is SheerShear, and I’m pleased to call you comrade!”
“I… and the same to you,” you do your best to match the pace of what’s going on, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m…”
You trail off as she simply stares at your offered hand, and you let it drop back to your side as she offers an apologetic shrug.
“I’m not completely, perfectly and utterly able to control my Dao’s manifestation, and with you still being all squishy-mortal and all, it’d be best to avoid any undue contact; I wouldn’t want to accidentally flay you on contact, after all!”
Her pleasant tone does not at
all make her words less terrifying, but you nod all the same.
“Anyway, what’s your name?”
“I’m Robert Williams, nice to meet you.”
“Wow, is that your real name? Yikes, that’s weird, but I guess you wouldn’t have a Dao-title, huh? Anyway it’s really good you’re as you are; I was worried you were going to be another of Leader’s little games to amuse us underlings that was going to fall a bit off-target again.”
You smile with polite interest at the confessed office gossip.
“Oh?”
“He tried getting an otherverse mortal for an office pet not even a decade ago and it was just sad and weird rather than fun.”
Your smile does not falter or twitch, nor do you flinch; the terrifying implications bounce off your determinedly affable skull.
“...Is that so? It’s great to hear he’s so invested in trying to keep his workers entertained in the office, that’s quite a valuable skill, and I’m lucky I’ll get to join you in benefitting from it soon!”
“The amount that you have been favored by Heavenly Fate is
most impressive, yep yep yep, I wish I could get a karmic windfall sometime this century that could come close to rivalling yours!”
You pretend to not see the predatory gleam in her eyes and to her sharp smile’s edge as she says those words with such cheerful energy.
“I wish you the best in that as well!” you offer as your level best attempt to pretend you don’t see her metaphorically eyeing what she considers your good fortune.
Her smile re-softens, and she waves her hand again, the white silk scroll shimmering as if illusory before solidifying.
“Anyway I’ve rewritten your work contract to English, please look it over!”
You continue not spending any time seriously pondering the ramifications of… pretty much any of this madness, and instead look over what at a glance is a totally normal summary of a job’s requirements, qualifications and compensation.
You have trouble returning to properly read the document over, when amidst your initial skim you see some dollar values, and...
The White Scroll said:
Pay:
Three Masterwork Heavenly Refinement Pills a week - Pills meant to forcibly collect Astral, Spiritual, Mortal and Heavenly Essences into the imbiber’s body, inducing cultivation regardless of personal talent or affinity. Equivalent value converted to employee’s origin-realm’s material availability, calculated using comparable volumes of first-quality rice as a baseline commodity fairly bargained for with earnest and aware effort as of day-of-employment and relative resource availability; $875,650.00 US
One Masterwork Immortality Pill a week - Pill meant to push one’s physical existence towards their prime if they’re away from it and generally bestow greater longevity and natural lifespan. Equivalent value converted to origin-realm’s homeland’s equivalent value, calculated using comparable volumes of first-quality rice as a baseline commodity fairly bargained for with earnest and aware effort as of day-of-employment and relative resource availability;$529,193.00 US
One Masterwork Sage’s Restorative Pill a week - Pill meant to rapidly restore the imbiber and heal their physical form of injuries. Equivalent value converted to origin-realm’s homeland’s equivalent value, calculated using comparable volumes of first-quality rice as a baseline commodity fairly bargained for with earnest and aware effort as of day-of-employment and relative resource availability; $1,290,892.00 US
Total equivalent pay rate converted to origin-realm homeland’s currency and relative resource availability: $2,695,735.00 US per seven-day cycle, as origin-realm’s ‘week’, heretofore defined by the collective memories of all origin-realm’s inhabitants as-employed.
Th… this…
“If I had any questions, am I supposed to save them for later on and someone else, or…?”
“You can absolutely ask me questions, do go ahead!”
“Thank you, and I apologize in advance if any of these end up sounding ignorant due to the… unexpected suddenness with which I find myself here about to start something like this, but… would an employee like the sort I’m about to become, have access to anything like a company store? A place that could assist me if I wanted to exchange my… pills, for other goods?”
“Oh, of course there is, definitely, assuredly for certain! There’s our in-house merchant clans that staff all the different Immortal Imperial Court administrative buildings around the world, who will offer at-cost conversions of any employee’s offered cultivation wealth into whatever they want! Artifacts, Treasures, exotic delicacies, mortal lordly titles, land, enslaved minions, practice partners or cultivation furnaces, exchanging for any other sorts of cultivating resources they might want and not currently have - honestly it’d be the rare event where you’d want to shop elsewhere, if that’s what you’re asking.”
...Which means you are indeed being offering what amounts to $2.7 million in pay, weekly.
“It is, and thank you so much for clearing that up,” you say while trying not to hyperventilate or freak out for very different reasons, now, “It was really helpful of you - now, should I read this through all right now, or should I wait until after you’ve finished my tour?”
“Right, mortal reading speeds,” SheerShear mutters while dazzling eyes continue to stay wide and her smile slips only a little, “and you truly, really, seriously wouldn’t mind waiting until later? I didn’t plan the tour timeframe with such a delay in mind, and I’d have to rework my day’s schedule a bit otherwise.”
“It’s no trouble,” you reassure, “if I still end up with questions at the end, I’m sure I’ll be able to save them until they can be properly addressed later, when it won’t inconvenience anyone.”
“Your skill at accommodating others and shrugging off the loss of face is so refreshing, so novel, so unusual; I love it! Now, let’s go.”
Tiny, supple fingers wrap around your hand like soft steel shackles, and a buzzing sort of something invisibly spreads across you.
Then your strange new coworker leaps backwards through the Door of Wonders, flying into the sky while pulling you along in her wake. There is zero reason behind the tightening of your hand around hers other than
holy shit the ground is far away nothing is under your feet, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. Neatly tiled walkways scrawl their way beneath, around and overhead, MC Escher’s wet dream utterly covered with rapidly moving and brightly clothed figures that look the size of ants. Here a sideways door spits out dozens of flying figures, there a portal floating in open air vomits burning creatures that hurriedly flap their wings, everywhere there is fantastical bustle making it hard to take in the big picture. Your efforts to make sense of things aren’t helped by how your airborne guide is bobbing and darting around traffic like a hummingbird hopped up on way too much caffeine, either.
You swing from SheerShear’s hand like flag caught in the wind and try very hard not to panic as she abruptly stops mid-air before a massive and ruler-straight path of glimmering crystal, people fading in and out of view near its splendor.
“This is the
Eldritch Connection, which binds every employee’s Door of Wonder together as well as powers each portal-based Treasure so that employees have constant access to whatever sorts of rooms they feel they need, and can also always be reached. If you ever have problems getting your Door of Wonder to do what you want, or need to find someone that’s proving troublesome to reach, just come here and focus on what you need, and your issues
will be addressed!”
Your shoulder aches as you’re forcefully pulled back into motion, the figure in the cut-up dress zooming along to the far end of the transparent walkway she just described.
“These are the
Ways of Venerable Prompt Service,” SheerShear says while gesturing at glowing wooden pathways that twist and slither their way from one end of the crystal path out into infinity like fabricated roots, “whose treasure spirit will teleport any entrant to whatever place currently most needs that Daoist’s efforts - it can make any amount of time, no matter how small, miniscule, or tiny, long enough to get to a work assignment without being late! Well, so long as you give it
something to work with at least! It’s saved me from more trips into chastising seclusion than I would care to count!”
Before you can think of how to politely ask about any of that, your flight partner’s dragging you higher and higher, her distractingly shredded finery fluttering like an iridescent tumbleweed, blocking out what’s to come.
“Those are the
Seated Elder Palaces,” SheerShear says while slowing down and expansively gesturing with her sword at a series of floating castles that each look like someone simultaneously made them to match middle-school dreams of coolness and also wanted to keep up with their fellow skycastle Joneses, “where all of the headquarters true leaders reside, and issue their edicts and orders to the rest of the workforce, and command the regional Immortal Army Legions. See, an order’s going out now!”
You try to look past comparing the sort of minaret-capped gothic structure of gold-inlaid obsidian replete with grotesqueries and one that looks a bit like a puzzle-box made out of a wrought-gold globe, and you see it.
A rainbow-edged ripple blooms from one of the elaborate structures, but before it can arrive your arm once more wrenches the rest of you along with it as its tugged a new direction - this time straight down, with the gloom beyond the sprawling doors and pathways giving way to what looks like a tiny green world covered in tented camps.
“This is our headquarters’
Mercantile Heartland, where our internal clanships grow specialty crops and store commodities acquired for employees either on specific request or for general purposes; great place to pick up gossip on who’s ordering what strange things!”
You’re still trying to make out the details of the little moving dots that are probably people down below your dangling feet when you’re once again flung into motion, blurred passage re-halting before an intimidating black fortress that seems to grow out of the dark void beneath the whole of this impossible expanse.
“These are our
Barracks of Absolute Suppression, where the Immortal Army Legions assigned here are stationed and deploy from - it is a pretty cheap place to source standard military equipment even compared to our internal merchants, and so long as you don’t mind having to get healing they’re always happy to assist fellow workers with their martial training efforts! And just like the other places I’ve shown you, they’re just a quick Door of Wonder trip away to all who work here, the very model of convenience, yep yep yep!”
...Okay but she had to fly to get you to literally all of those places she just introduced you to, so-
Your shoulder creaks as you are jerked away from a sudden blur of motion, something managing to make a heavy impact against the open nothingness of the void.
A big angry looking man scowls past you, from the far side of a massive metal-paged book with a spine at least a foot thick, its weighty mass attached to the top of a long haft. If it is half as solidly built as it looks, it would make a formidable maul.
Your second good look at someone suggests that the tour guide’s eccentric style is very much so the norm on some level. You see nine pointed stars tattooed in the crevices of the assaulting man’s sharply widow’s peaked hair that’s drawn up in a harsh black topknot, golden studs gleaming at each inked point. His right cheek sports an even bigger, equally gold-capped star tattoo, and his left cheek is dominated by a deep and gnarled splotch of scarring that manages to vaguely look like another star in the constellation adorning his face. Wipe the markings away, and you’re staring at a man with resting bitchface, a wide and jutting jawline, eyebrows that look like something a cat would cough up and a generally blocky and harsh set of features. Putting all that atop a set of darkly gleaming armor, just as generically Asian as everything else you’ve seen, and sporting a lacquer coat that seems so ordered you wonder if it denotes his rank.
“You shall traipse about this grand office/structure no longer, shamelessly thieving wench,” the gruff looking man barks out with an equally gruff voice as his face remains in a perpetually disdainful scowl, “I shall have answers for your transgression!”
As the hulking figure strikes a dynamic pose that you feel would look more at home on stage for a kid’s show than in anything close to real life, SheerShear sighs, bouncing her saw-toothed sword off her shoulder and tapping it against her head like a distracted tic.
“...Okay fine, Quartermaster Star Qi, why don’t you tell me why you think I’ve committed whatever grave insult you’re convinced has transpired.”
You can’t tell if the man called Star Qi can’t hear how exasperated your companion’s words are, or if he just doesn’t care as he heaves his book-themed hammer aloft and stabs it in her direction as if pointing at something vile.
“Your fey mannerisms will do you no good in the face of what you’ve done! Stealing a slot at the Gleaming Heavens Utopian Wine Lake for the next lunar eclipse - a slot that has always been mine! To take a man’s relaxation from him without apology or care is the height of insult, and I shall not suffer it in silence!”
The flying figure holding your hand does not cast aside her airily bubbly persona, so much as sharpen its edges as she shrugs, twirling her spiked armament.
“I put in a vacation request when the time slots were open, as was my right. Seems to me it’s your fault you didn’t do the same as quickly as you could have.”
“Such impudence from naught but an upjumped door guard,” the armored man growls as veins bulge on his head, “I’ve served the courts since before you were born, and I shall not suffer a discourteous junior’s act-”
“Can we just skip the posturing and get to settling this,” your guide says with a voice that seems uncertain if it wants to be a bored sigh or an excited purr, “we’ve both got duties to attend to, and I’d rather not waste time.”
“Hmmph, at least you have courage, I shall commend you for that! Have at-”
This time you’re reasonably sure your shoulder
actually gets dislocated, as you’re yanked forward in a blur of blinding speed, the gleaming sword leading your paired charge looking like nothing more than a metal monster baring its fangs.
It happens in a flash.
The metal-book-come-hammer is swung as if it’s meant to drive a stake deep into the earth, the whole of the armored man’s body tensing and flexing behind the strike. The writhing-haired and fluttery-dressed SheerShear holding your hand whips her sawtoothed sword up against its side, sparks flying as the hammerhead goes off-course. Her arm buzzes and flicks again, and in a looping motion blood is spraying everywhere, splattering against your face. It takes a moment to realize you’ve just had first-row seats to watching a man be disarmed in a most literal sense, the book-hammer spinning off into the inky void with two hands still tightly clenched about its haft.
Conflict ends as soon as it began, with a scarlet-stained blade’s tip poised at the once blustering man’s throat, as blood oozes from the stumps of his arms.
“I’m going to assume you’re a classicalist and feel that might makes right; so believe me when I say that if you don’t properly learn from this, I will
kill you the next time you try to start something, okay? Is that clearly communicated, clarified, and understood?”
The severely faced man doesn’t so much as flinch or even glance at his sudden maiming, simply offering a gritted-toothed nod in sullen silence.
“Great,” SheerShear says as she flicks the blood from her blade with a disturbingly sharp smile, “I was hoping you could be reasonable! Now you go get your wounds tended, treated, mended; I’ve got to get back to work!”
Waiting not a moment longer, she turns to you with a far less predatory grin and nod before she resumes her flight as if nothing happened.
...Yeah you’re not going to ask about the whole ‘casually dismembering a coworker over a vacation-spot argument’ thing; you imagine any explanation she might give would make you even more perturbed.
Soon your feet touch back down onto the blessedly comprehensible ground, your flight terminating before a door that looks like any other in this vast collection of winding paths and portals.
“And here, finally,” she says while kicking the door open and barging in pretty much exactly as you expect she did into the room you awoke in, “we have our own department!”
Darkling shadow and gloom beyond the opened door silently give way to a mutely lit room the size of an auditorium - and every detail you take in past that makes it increasingly alien.
The walls, the cubicle-like delineations between workspaces, even the ceilings and floors: everything is a bookcase. Thick tomes, loose sheets of papers, scrolls, even artfully carved slabs of jade pack their every nook and cranny as tightly as can be, seeming fit to burst. It deeply disturbs you that you can see no sort of reference - no alphabetical markers, or chronology, no serializing system, nothing to guide anyone delving a seemingly endless collection of data. Not even a card catalog. The assorted recesses that look vaguely like cubicles house the sort of beings that really should come off as impossible, but at this point just feel grimly appropriate to your life’s new brand of nonsense. Here, you see what looks like a prehistoric man idly scratching at his fur as he inspects a collection of floating stone slabs while smacking big, gorilla-like wrinkled lips. There, you see a mound of stitched together faces of vaguely demonic cast shifting about, pale limbs darting in and out of its folds to turn pages or jot down notes. An otherwise normal-looking man is having what looks like some sort of holographic conference with a bevy of people that look like his twins but of assorted ages, all considerably older than him.
Your slack-jawed staring is interrupted by the inexorable strength of your escort pulling you along, and you quickly weave a path through the room’s maze-like confines to something that even in this strange setting screams ‘manager’s office’ to you.
“And here is where Daoist GreenBrother’s office is,” the girl with ever-rippling golden hair and a heavily sliced dress happily declares while pushing you forward and letting go of your hand, “now, that’s my part of the tour done, and if you have any questions I’ll be the one closest to the Door of Wonder connecting our office to the rest of the Immortal Imperial Court!”
A dazzlingly pleased smile blinds you before she bounces away, humming to herself as she continues to pop her serrated blade off her shoulder over and over.
The hand you’d started to raise at her departure stalls out in midair, dropping back to your side as you recognize that this just isn’t the place for that, no matter how many questions for her you may have.
Right now you are, essentially, starting your first day at a new job you can’t afford to fuck up, outside your immediate boss(and you think hirer)’s office, about to wrap up your orientation and get to work; clearly your focus must be on comporting yourself well through such a faux-interview.
Taking a quiet breath you tell yourself is steadying, you step forward, trying to keep your eyes focused on the boss-man and not on ogling his office.
This proves hard, as ‘fat guy with a pretty face and clear complexion in expensive robes’ isn’t too out there by your standards, but the guy’s office… you feel like someone shoved some Star Wars into this fantasy Asian setting. Washed out images that look like holograms cover the book and scroll-filled walls from corner to corner, jeweled projectors cover the floor and ceiling throwing up life-size images of the same. The whole room’s dyed in the bleached hues of the many images of what appear to be plant people. Tree women - dryads, you think - delicate floral incarnations, breezy figures woven of grass or reeds, rotund seed figures, any way a plant person could be made, you’re pretty sure you could see them here. And… something along the lines of 90% of them look blatantly feminine. All of this would be mostly fine and ignorable, but… they’re all, to the last, posing rather flirtatiously; it’s a bit like walking into an office covered in TVs playing muted swimsuit modelling.
Forcibly suppressing the parts of you that really want to dwell on the oddity of all that and just what it says about the guy whose office this is, you instead meet the man’s gaze and give him an earnest duck of your head, stepping forward to offer your hand.
“Hello, sir - ah, Daoist GreenBrother, was it? I’m-”
“I know your name,” the portly man says with a half-smile while pointedly ignoring your proffered hand, “now, let’s get right into it.”
You put your hand away, and also put aside your concern about whether he’s being rude or you’re ignorant of a social faux paus your handshake fell into, and studiously focus.
“As the scroll you were provided noted, you are now an Archival Clerk in Dao Research, which places you under my command. As I’m fairly invested in having a competent workforce, I shall instruct you on how to become an effective member of this branch.”
You find yourself regretting the choice to pass on reading over the job scroll in detail before, and do your best to not reveal your ignorance as you offer a smile and polite words.
“Please do.”
Seated atop a collection of books and carved stone slabs that looks like a sloppy replica of a throne, the rotund figure drums well-manicured fingers on the jade armrests of his seat.
“While there are abstruse vagaries beyond this, the vast majority of the duties involved with an appointment here can be summed up as such; turning the disjointed ramblings of eccentric Dao researchers into something more easily parsed by Courtly scholars and those that successfully petition for access to said research.”
That… the specifics are utterly alien, of course, but the overall shape of it… this sounds like work you’re rather familiar with.
“There is no one right way to do this,” Daoist GreenBrother continues, “and no one way that Dao Researchers render their work so… difficult to access.”
“Everyone has their own unique way of thinking no matter how similar they may be to others in this way or that,” you paraphrase to demonstrate you grasp his point, “and the ways to convert such specific trains of thought into something more broadly accessible are endless.”
You are rewarded with a small smile.
“Just so: The way in which you approach your duties should and will change on a case by case basis. I encourage you to ask your seniors in this department for their thoughts and advise as appropriate, but never assume that they know better than you. I would much rather have two different attempts at making sense of a given piece of Dao research to compare between, than have a somewhat more refined single attempt.”
“So the cases - excuse me, the Dao research is not assigned to a specific worker, but looked over by many?”
“Yes; the goal is to get as many people’s thoughts on how to render it simplified and accessible as possible, so you should try to define your own way of performing such… translation. As an otherverse mortal, that shouldn’t be difficult for you.”
You nod, the shape of your new job taking shape in your mind.
GreenBrother lazily gestures, three loosely bound tomes and three jade tablets quietly blinking into existence to float between the two of you.
“You will need to choose a senior Daoist in the department as mentor, from among these three options.”
The first jade tablet, a sharply cut piece of scarlet stone, begins to gleam as if under a spotlight.
“You’ve already met Daoist SheerShear, who besides doing research revisions is our visitors service clerk. She is our face to visitors from beyond the court, and our first line of defense against the ire of others. Should you pick her as your mentor, you will be trained to in how to properly greet and receive visitors, and how to de-escalate contentious events as they face our department. As a mortal I would not advise following her particular methodology, but it’s my understanding you’re already well-versed in how to talk agitated individuals down and refocus them on the bigger picture.”
“Please do forgive me if this is considered a silly question-” you begin before Daois GreenBrother cuts you off.
“No need for such obsequious prevarication right now; speak candidly.”
Well, if that’s what the boss-man says…
“On the tour, there was someone from the… Immortal Legion, I believe, that had a disagreement with Daoist SheerShear, which was resolved quite… violently. Is it common for people to bring such violent grievances here?”
“To our department? No, meaningfully combative disagreements are rare enough it’s unusual to have such a thing happen more than once every century or so… but it has been known to happen. The majority of issues you’d be getting trained to handle under SheerShear, would at least start as verbal - and it would be your job to keep them as such as you defuse them as best you can. Well, your secondary duty, at least; most of your time would still be on rewriting Dao research.”
“Something like a receptionist then,” you mumble to yourself, which the plump man nods at.
“Just so.”
That should reassure you, but-
“So having to deal with readily violent, ah, guests to the department here, is it really that infrequent, or do only major fights merit mention to you?”
The robed man nods thoughtfully at your question.
“You know on attempting to adjust for cultural differences, that’s a good point; let’s ask SheerShear right now.”
Just about the moment he’s done speaking, the now familiar golden-maned head pokes its way into the bookcase and plant-porn themed office.
“That mild disagreement that our new hire just saw? That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t even merit mention, really; I mean, no one even died, or had their cultivation crippled!”
“And there you go,” Daoist GreenBrother says as your former tour guide vanishes as quickly as she appeared, “certainly, less important sorts of altercations happen more frequently, but those hardly matter, yes?”
You feel like your mortal viewpoint is the odd man out, here, and that you’d either have to be a bit suicidal or be
exceptionally confident in your ability to be successfully creative, if you wanted to go down that route.
Such a takeaway leaves you both hopeful and filled with dread, as Daoist GreenBrother moves on to your other options.
The second jade table, an age-worn-looking piece of deep myrtle green jade, becomes the focus of invisible lighting.
“Daoist Abominable is one of the longest serving members of my division, and is an expert in referencing against archived research to create sweeping summary pieces. He is among those we turn to when we want more than just the current musings of a Dao Researcher translated, or when we want to compare similar Dao studies to one another to glean greater overarching truths. Should you pick him as your mentor, you will be trained in how to locate old records within our office, and how to locate the notes of prior courtly workers that have labored on those records. As a mortal you would likely need to petition for some Treasures to assist you in such efforts, as much of how he does his work relies on senses you do not yet possess. Given your background, however, I imagine you could thrive as his workplace disciple.”
“Are, ah, such senses common among my coworkers? Or I suppose, would it be possible to develop them myself somehow?”
Daoist Greenbrother smiles at you in a way that makes you think of a jolly grandpa doting upon a child.
“That is a fortunate question for you to have asked, new to this or no; yes, the sense is generally fairly common, and yes most Daos and cultivation paths would afford you the chance to develop such abilities.”
“Is that so? I have to admit I’d rather not have to hold onto one of the, ah, Court’s Treasures to do my job.”
“Well if you spend a few decades consuming your position’s compensation and pick a Dao, I’m sure you could do just that! And as an uplifted tribal king that was once a slave, I’m sure Abominable would have plenty of words of wisdom for you - even I’ve learned a thing or two from that old soul!”
D… decades - you don’t let your smile slip as you nod back at your new bosses attempt at encouragement.
“That sounds like an excellent way to get trained in archived data collation.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
The third and final jade tablet, somewhere between the color of milk and bone and as translucent as a fingernail, glimmers as you and GreenBrother focus on it.
“Daoist StoneChild is our resident expert at creating Dao research reports to specifications, rather than just producing generally comprehensible renditions. It is one of those that produces summary versions to the specifications of other departments when they requisition a given bit of research, and desire it to be couched in terms relevant to their field. Should you pick it as your mentor, you will be trained in how to acquire wording samples from other departments, who to reach out to and petition for such reference material, and how to properly transmit the resultant custom reporting. You may find StoneChild to be somewhat more difficult to converse with than your other two prospective mentors, but I daresay no one can exceed its dedication to doing any job as well as possible; to StoneChild, work excellence is as important as their very life.”
Those pronouns, this does seem like a reality where it could be possible, so… could they be a construct or something?
“If it’s okay to ask, does Senior Daoist StoneChild do anything besides work?”
GreenBrother gives you a look, and you carefully suppress the urge to start sweating.
“Why, StoneChild has plenty of hobbies if that’s what you’re asking! It’s keen to stay abreast of as much local news as it can, it’s a great fan of plays, and it collects the faces of people with powerful egos to add to its cloak!”
Rather than dwell on the morbidness of that last one, you instead dwell on how you might have to dust off the Spivak pronouns with StoneChild, just to be safe; wouldn’t do to offend.
Well, those are… not the sorts of mentors you’re used to picking between, but if you squint hard enough you feel like you’re on something approaching familiar ground, so you can make do.
“Whoever you pick,” GreenBrother continues, “you will first begin working on these three Daoists’ research.”
One of the the three loosely bound tomes begins to slowly revolve, a stylized thunderstorm embossed on its cover.
“There is someone who has made it their life’s mission to better understand the nature of Heavenly Tribulation…”
The first book stops and the middle one takes its place lazily spinning, an empty circle the symbol marking its cover.
“There is someone who’s chosen to study the underlying structure of how Abandonment so often acts as an empowering agent for Daoists so-resolved…”
The second loosely bound volume stills, the third and final one swirling as light gleams off a cover that seems liable to burst, it’s so densely packed with images.
“Lastly you’ll be looking at the work of someone who’s trying to make the Dao of Wishes more easily defined and accessible to those that aren’t heaven-favored.”
You’re about to ask some questions when an immaculate hand is elegantly held up to forestall you.
“Please save your questions about the subject matter for whoever you pick as mentor, at least for now; I’m certain much of what currently may confuse you will either explain itself as you settle into your new vocation, or be easily addressed by your mentor. While I am happy to assist my underlings where necessary, I prefer to keep my time free of such things as could be taken care of by other means.”
Okay, no more questions right now, fine; you just need to pick who you want as your mentor.
...And also, because you’re you, you’re going to need to pick which of these three collections of research you’re going to focus on first, so you have a proper work sample to benchmark yourself with your mentor.
Got to be sure you’re doing your work largely right before you sink your nose too deeply into the grindstone, after all.
Bemusedly, you realize that by this point you’re feeling a bit numbly accepting that this is your life now.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
[What is the PC’s name?]
[X] - Robert Williams
[ ] - Pau Serra
[ ] - Terrance Brown
[ ] - Write In! (Subject to QM approval)
[Who does the PC pick as their mentor?]
[ ] - Daoist SheerShear
[X] - Daoist Abominable
[ ] - Daoist StoneChild
[Which set of research does the PC focus on first?]
[X] - The Dao of Heavenly Tribulation
[ ] - The Dao of Abandonment
[ ] - The Dao of Wish
