I stuck my head around the edge of an even more impressive Portal Of Doom and quickly scanned across the boss’s space. In cages around the room, a number of cultists were engaged in pretty gruesome acts of mutual torture, thrashing around in pleasure. The rest of the walls were lined with boring-looking bookshelves and desks. In the centre, sitting in an ornate chair carved with highly pornographic images, sat a woman in a business suit.
The altar was more of a heavy stone desk. It was fifteen feet long, and at each end, a figure was tied down to it. A man and a woman were struggling against the ropes that held them in place while the smartly dressed woman sat and did paperwork.
She moved one document from a tray, glanced over it, scribbled some notes on it, and then moved it to another tray.
“What is this?” I whispered after I pulled my head back.
“Just kill her. She’s obviously the boss!” hissed Kat in my ear.
“But she’s just doing paperwork! It’s not exactly threatening.”
“Just do it, Bob. I want to get this one over with.”
“Oh, is it not so much fun as watching me berserk my way through fields of cute little spiny bastards? I’m so sorry for you,” I snarked.
“Bob. Just do it,” she repeated. I sighed and charged into the office-like inner sanctum of an evil cult.
I ignored the cultists in the cages along the walls. They were thoroughly occupied with the unspeakable acts that they seemed to pass their time performing on each other. I roared as I charged and was preparing to leap over the desk and tear the woman's head off when she placed down the document she’d been reading and, without looking up, raised a single digit.
I froze midstride, all my muscles seizing and locking me in place. She looked up and used her raised digit to adjust her glasses, pushing them back up her nose. She was pretty in a girl-next-door way. Her brown hair was tied up in a tidy bun at the back of her head, and her grey suit was neatly pressed.
“Ah. Well, I was warned there might be some disruption to the planned schedule today. And who might you be? Don’t play silly buggers, I don’t want to have to get HR involved.” Her voice was rich and smooth, and I imagined she could make a decent living doing ASMR videos back home.
“I’m Bob the Dragon.” I had planned to roar it out, but it came out more like a kid who just got caught stealing cookies by his mum. “I’m here to–”
“I didn’t ask about that. So Bob–” she steepled her hands under her chin and peered at me over the tops of her glasses, “–whatever am I going to do with you?” she asked. I strained against whatever was holding me in place.
“Little help here, please, Kat?” I asked.
“Who is Kat? Is someone else here with you? No matter. Now, I hope you understand how much trouble you’re in, young man?”
“I’m a bloody dragon, and I’m here to kill you,” I snapped, getting some of the old fire back. I contracted the unusual muscles in my back, and a jet of acid shot towards her. I couldn’t move, but I could still shoot.
A sheaf of paperwork flew up from her desk and intercepted the acid, falling to sodden mulch as more and more documents flew from her desk to absorb the stream.
“That wasn’t in line with the company's Behaviours and Ideals, young man. Administratus Novelicum!” she snapped the last words, and my head craned down as a scroll unfolded below me. A pen, scaled for a human being, appeared and floated in place while my right arm was compelled to reach out and take it gently between two of my claws.
“I’ll deal with you when you’ve completed the incident report! That should give you some time to think about what you’ve done,” she said in a kindly voice. This boss was worse than the dildo-bot!
“I can’t even read this!” I snapped.
“I counter Illiteracy with It’s Mandatory!” she answered quickly. For just a second, I felt my body come back under my control. I began to think very quickly indeed.
“I counter It’s Mandatory with Translator Required!” Again, I moved a couple of inches towards her.
“You’re not in the Union! Duty of Care Void!” she barked angrily.
“Universal Workers' Rights!” I grunted, but nothing happened. “Seriously? What kind of third-world working conditions do you have in this world?”
“Nice try!” she sneered as she resumed her seat and reached for another document.
“I invoke the Right to be Accompanied!” I snarled, and I moved forward slightly. I was only a foot away from the altar/desk now, and I narrowed my eyes as she looked up.
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“You are alone. You’re here of your own free will and have missed the Opportunity for Representation.” My muscles locked up again.
“I’m not! Kat! Help me! I hate paperwork!” I cried. My eyes rolled from side to side as I expected the tiny pixie to shoot past me with her sword swinging. Nothing.
“Undeclared Guest in the Workplace, hmm?” She glared at me angrily, and I was forced back slightly.
“I don’t even fucking work here, lady!” I barked, and her eyes went wide.
“Oh shit!” were the last words she said before my jaws closed around her skull. I shook my head savagely to break her neck, then spat her out.
“Yuck. She tastes like ink and dust!” I spat to try and get rid of the flavour of HR.
“Finally. I was wondering when you’d figure out she had no power over you,” Kat said. She hopped down from my neck and began hacking at the ropes, pinning the victims to the desk.
Floor Boss slain!
Congratulations dungeoneer!
Rolling for loot…
Item: Potion of Unfair Dismissal x1
Currency gained: 765 gold
>Autolooting Remaining Chests!
Rolling for contents…
Congratulations Dungeoneer!
Item: Baldric of Sexual Harassment x1
Item: Guide to Helstat Laws and Lore x1
Item: Basic Tier Pill of Bone Tempering x1
Item: Real Shard of a True God’s Soul (Fake) x1
Item: Ingot of Jasprink x3
Item: Halberd Of Smiting x1
Item: Armour Of The Gimp (Complete suit) x1
Item: Potion of Cure Angst x1
Item: Scroll of Transmogrify to Teenager x1
Currency gained: 2243 gold
5 of 10 Prisoners Remain Alive!
Convert to Minions: Y/N?
I clicked yes and checked my dungeon status.
Dungeon Status:
Unnamed Dungeon.
Level: 1
Floors: 6 (Residential) (Agricultural) (Industrial) (TBCx3)
Rooms: 6
Sprite level: 1
Minions: 11/30
Hoard: 11469 gold
Well, purely in terms of treasure, it was worth it, but it would leave me with hideous mental scarring that would take years to get over. Paperwork, dude. I shook my head to get rid of the foul thought.
“Let’s go find your boyfriend and see what the rest of the new minions are like,” I said roughly, still annoyed at her total absence during the worst fight of my life.
“You two! Names and classes!” Kat barked at the two torture victims she had just released.
“If it pleases milord, milady, I’m Pedro, Pedro Pasquital. I’m a portal mage,” Pedro bowed his head and tugged his forelock with one hand. The other was preserving his modesty. “I’m Salnia Saint-Slayer. I do not agree to become a minion! I need to fight! I need to see the world! You can’t keep me cooped up in this shithole!” the female barked.
“Pretty feisty for someone wearing fewer clothes than Kat,” I chuckled.
“I demand suitable armour and a weapon. Then set me loose! I’ll not be a slave to a dragon!” she snarled. Kat took a run-up and leaped into the air to punch her in the nose.
“Oof! Hostile work environment! I’m going to file a complaint with–” she began but stopped as my head snapped round to her and my eyes flared brightly.
“Don’t. Mention. That. Abbreviation.” My voice was like iron. She nodded hurriedly but began muttering to herself as soon as I looked down at Kat.
“She’s a fighter; make a good dungeon floor boss if we kit her out properly. Or we could send her out to clear new floors. Not very bright, sadly, but that’s fine if her only job is to hit things,” my sprite added thoughtfully. “I need some more funds, Bob. I’ll get another barracks on the residential floor; we should turn one of the free floors into a training room. Reg can setup some portals so we don’t need to piss about with the stairs, right?” she cocked her head at the naked man and he nodded hurriedly.
“It would be my pleasure, but I will require some materials, good ores, and some unenchanted gems to use as spell nexi. Nexuses?” he said.
“Both are fine,” Kat grumbled. “We’ll have to call Tex and put in an order for anything we can’t source locally.”
“Where are we going to source gems locally?” I asked aloud, earning a glare from Kat.
“There are a number of options available to us,” she said icily, but I had no idea what she was talking about. “Let’s check the other two out, and then I’ll get this lot settled in. Hopefully, one of the others is a smith or a metalworker. Come on, then, you two, let's go meet your new friends.”
“Why didn’t you help me out in that fight, Kat?” I asked as we headed back to the entrance.
“Administrative privileges. Hers superseded mine, so I was locked out as soon as you entered the fight. I’m sorry about that.” I felt her pat me on the neck far more gently than she usually would.
“Is that something that will happen often?”
“Nah. We got unlucky with the cult. Most of them were Garnok’s Bone Lickers, the creepy BDSM guys, but she was a High Priestess of Karen, the Goddess of Middle Management. Probably seconded in to help run the place.”
“It only existed for a few minutes, so why would they need– A goddess of Middle Management?” I snapped.
“Yeah. She’s a right pain in the ass; her acolytes spend eight years inscribing the Law of People and Planet, her holy coda, into their skin in areas that can be easily covered by business wear. If you stripped her corpse, you’d see she had more tattoos and ritual scarring than the Garnok freaks.”
“Middle management has a patron deity. I had a feeling I would grow to hate this world,” I complained.
“It’s not so bad. She’s very niche, but if we catch her ire out in the real world, we’ll have to hire half a dozen minions just to deal with the angry letters demanding meetings with the management team. Their strategy is to grind you down with constant demands for ‘form P81’ to be completed in triplicate and returned by teleportation magic. Then when you send it off, they deny they ever fucking received it, and make you do it again. That can go on for a very long time. Dicks.”
