Scholarly Entry #T29-157-Lm9:

  Delver Management Contracts, Part 2

  While any discussion concerning System overseen contracts could easily turn into one about how you might, quite legally, exchange your immortal essence for a discount coffee mug, this is about Delvers, their Managers, and the contractual backbone that keeps the Nexus ever-so-mysteriously accumulating wealth propped up.

  To keep things mercifully brief, we turn to the official Nexus Manual—handed to Delvers who somehow reach the Second Layer still breathing, bleeding, or otherwise in possession of a heartbeat:

  “For anyone still under the quaint illusion that Delvers are mysterious lone wolves, shining heroes destined for greatness, or multitalented paragons born to have their faces on collectible lunchboxes—grow up. Really. The universe is already ridiculous enough without you adding to it.

  Without the proper machinery of fame—PR teams, flattering camera angles, makeup thick enough to stop small-caliber bullets, marketing departments, networking dinners that end with someone mysteriously on fire, research staff, collaboration deals, and, most importantly, an industrial-strength vat of dumb luck—about 99.9999% of Delvers will die in an unremarkable hole that nobody’s ever heard of, and whose chief contribution to history will be the smell.

  And don’t you dare bring up someone like the Wanderer or Lady Friday. Yes, yes, they stormed the Lost Temples on the Fifth Layer all on their own. Everyone brings them up, as if one or two statistical anomalies somehow invalidate mathematics. I said 99.9999%, didn’t I? That extra 0.0001% is them. You are not them.

  For the rest of you sensible individuals with dreams of survival—or at least a death worth merchandising—get a manager. Get a good one. Even if 70% of you end up swindled, exploited, or bound by contracts so abusive they’ve been studied by sadists for inspiration, that still leaves 29.9999% of you with something resembling a career. Which, if you think about it, is infinitely better than being 100% dead.

  Trust me. There are necromancers out there, and their benefit packages make Delver contracts look positively charitable.”

  —A Nexus official who is very, very tired of answering this question.

  ***

  It had been—by Lionel’s increasingly loose estimation—somewhere between an eternity and the inevitable heat death of the universe since he’d handed the Pink Menace the contract to sign.

  Of course, “eternity” was a relative term. In this case, it referred to the kind of temporal stretch where stars grow bored, civilisations rise and fall, and Lionel had yawned so many times he feared his jaw would actually fall off.

  It had started off as an act of pure and distilled sarcasm. He had leaned back against the wall, hands clasped behind his head, and demonstrated through the ancient and subtle art of exaggerated boredom that some people might conceivably move slower than geological eras. He never meant to fall asleep.

  But the thing about pretending to be asleep is that sometimes you discover you’re rather good at it. Somewhere between his fourth “hmnngh” and “g’night then”, Lionel had genuinely dozed off.

  When his consciousness finally dog-paddled its way back to the surface, it found itself greeted not with silence, but with the Pink Menace mid-monologue—murmuring with all the gut-wrenching gravitas of someone deciding whether or not to sell their soul for a biscuit.

  “I know, Wallace,” she quietly said, “but… maybe it’ll be different this time? I mean, it could be. And…” there was the clink and scrape of glass spinning against the floor, “the bottle hasn’t changed its mind yet. At this point, refusing outright feels kind of rude, no? After how pushy he was about wanting to be our friend and all, I mean…”

  Lionel’s mental machinery ground back into motion. He was just about to open one eye and inquire—politely, which in current circumstances meant “not actively growling”—who exactly had been pushy about what, when—

  Scritch-scratch.

  The pen. The signature. The blessed end of this bureaucratic purgatory.

  A faint glow bloomed behind Lionel’s eyelids. He blinked them open, only to find a message hovering smugly in the air, like an accountant who’s been waiting just long enough to make you nervous.

  Congratulations!

  Delver Management Contract signed.

  Lionel J’Khall — Profession changed from Dungeon Master (aspiring) to Delver Manager (prospective handler).

  Current Ward(s): 1 — Annabell Smith, Gremlin (Level 9).

  After what had felt like an even longer eternity, a fraction of his System access had, at last, returned. It wasn’t the detailed, customized display he was used to, but it was something. And after so long stumbling through metaphysical darkness, he’d take something.

  “Annabell Smith…” he quietly mouthed, able to, at last, confirm that the Pink Menace did have a name. A proper one. Something civilized, with vowels in all the right places.

  Not that the subject in question seemed to appreciate having her secrets revealed.

  “Hey!” came the indignant squawk of one Annabell Smith—Gremlin by nature, circumstance, and unfortunate wardrobe decisions—bristling with indignation. “You can’t just take someone’s name like that! It’s supposed to be given!”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Right,” said Lionel wryly. “Because you’ve been so forthcoming with that particular detail.” He pushed himself off the floor, rolling out a kink in his neck as he gave her a pointed look. “But if you’d prefer, I can stick with ‘Brat,’ ‘Headache,’ or ‘Menace.’ Dealer’s choice.”

  She made a face. One of those complex, scrunched-up affairs that made it look as if she’d just bitten into something sour but was too stubborn to spit it out. Then, with a huff, she said, “Annabell. My name is Annabell. There. Now you’re allowed to use it.”

  “How generous,” Lionel said, yawn stifled, attention already slithering back to the glowing message hovering in his peripheral vision. The faintest of frowns carved a small, thoughtful canyon between his eyebrows as he read it for a second time.

  Across the Underfold, there existed—by some estimates—an alarming number of classes, professions, sub-classes, sub-sub-classes, prestige paths, occupational hazards disguised as either, and titles that may or may not have been invented as a joke. The System, in its infinite bureaucratic wisdom, maintained classifications for nearly everything that walked, crawled, or filled out paperwork.

  And yet…

  “Gremlin?” Lionel read aloud. He looked toward the Pink Menace—Annabell Smith. “While I can’t dispute the accuracy of the title, did you, by any chance, convince the System to write this for you?”

  Annabell drew herself up with the offense of someone whose misfortune had just been called intentional. “And why would I do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Lionel said, tapping at the glowing word. “Branding. Self-identification. Marketing appeal. Anonymity. Tax purposes. Pick your reason.” The holographic screen flickered. His finger cut through the projection and—unsurprisingly—the word Gremlin stayed right where it was. His current System access really was bare bones.

  “Any of a hundred explanations,” he continued, “would make more sense than you genuinely being assigned that as your Delver class.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Gremlin is not a class specification. It’s just… something that you are.”

  Lionel gestured vaguely. “It’s like calling someone ‘overpowered,’ or a ‘maverick,’ or a ‘solo player,’ or a ‘returner’, or any of the other billion terms the audience hurls at Delvers who runs head-first into danger and somehow come out with both treasure and a fan club. Gremlin is one of those labels. Usually attached to someone with a proper class—Pyromaniac, Chaos Tinkerer, Demolitionist, or one of the more… flammable variants of the usual fighters or spellcasters. You know the type. The sort who ignore quest tracks, break all established norms, and march to the beat of their own drum. But for the System itself to admit that you’re bending its rules…”

  A vivid image surfaced unbidden in Lionel’s mind: a cackling maniac bursting through the ceiling of his newly acquired Core room astride a screaming, smoke-belching scooter; a creature who had brazenly followed him home uninvited, overturned his kitchen in under three minutes, and shamelessly declared squatter’s rights over his bed. Someone who didn’t so much fight dungeon mobs as she ricochetted between them like a pinball with poor aim, chasing the next jackpot.

  A being with no plan. No grand philosophy or carefully thought-out persona to appease the audience. Just a creature who existed in perfect, blissful disobedience to the concept of “normal.”

  Lionel sighed.

  Yes. “Gremlin” fit rather too well.

  The System did, on occasion, invent new classes. Some were miracles, the sort legends were written about. Others were best described as… administrative errors given sentience. But surely, a Gremlin had to be useful in some way… right?

  Lionel met Annabell’s gaze, searching for even a flicker of self-awareness, some recognition of the cosmic absurdity she embodied.

  She tilted her head slightly, as if waiting for him to deliver a punchline that had clearly taken far too long.

  “What rules?” she asked.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, and said, “Never mind. Just tell me: What can you, a Gremlin, do besides being slapped around by every mob we meet? Any useful talents I should know about?”

  “Useful talents?” Annabell repeated, wearing the expression of a middle schooler who’d just been asked whether they’d accomplished anything over the weekend, when in fact they’d merely stared at a wall and won.

  Then, as though struck by divine inspiration—or perhaps a low-voltage idea—her face lit up.

  “Oh! Oh! I can do this!”

  Without warning, Lionel’s new ward, his sole protégé, and—unfortunately—his only ticket out of this place, threw herself into a cartwheel.

  It was, to her credit, a very committed cartwheel. There was rotation. There was motion. An excessive amount of velocity. And absolutely no intent on slowing down.

  She slammed into the wall sideways, sliding onto the ground upside-down.

  “Impressive, right?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows as though she’d just bested gravity in a duel of wits.

  Lionel made a low, despairing sound somewhere between a groan and a prayer. He abandoned the bridge of his nose entirely and pressed a knuckle into his eyelid.

  She isn’t hopeless, he told himself again. She’s just a bit special, and you only need her until you get out of this place. Then you can retire from dealing with Delvers. Quietly. Somewhere without people.

  “Know what,” he said aloud, voice tight, “just share your stat screen with me, would you?”

  There was a pause. A long, meaningful pause—the kind that implied meaning but mostly contained confusion. Slowly, Annabell pulled herself upright.

  “Erm,” she said, chewing her lip in deep contemplation, “hypothetically speaking… if someone—someone who’s definitely not me—didn’t actually know how to do that… how might they go about sharing this ‘stat screen’ you speak of?”

  Lionel closed his eyes again.

  Deep breaths, Lionel. Deep. Breaths.

  ***

  There were, Lionel realized minutes later, no breaths deep enough to save his sanity. He tried one, for science. Then another, just to be sure. But no—his sanity remained somewhere far, far behind him, waving a little white flag and screaming faintly.

  He’d given her clear instructions. He had even, at one point, gestured emphatically. He’d gone through the steps in slow, careful detail.

  And yet here they were.

  In the early, idealistic days of his time as a student, Lionel had drafted his Delver contract with the optimism of a man who believed in words like “trust” and “professionalism.” He had written clauses about mutual respect, transparency, and the voluntary sharing of System information as a gesture of good faith. He had believed, in the soft, unwrinkled part of his soul, that any Delver he signed would possess reason.

  He had not, at the time, accounted for Annabell.

  He had asked her—politely at first, then with increasing frustration—to share her stat screen. What he got instead, when he finally got something, was not her stats, but this:

  WARNING!!!

  Her shackles weaken. They stir to keep her contained, but the clock is ticking. Hurry, or you might find yourselves trapped in a crumbling realm.

  00:48:33…

  00:48:32…

  00:48:31…

  “For how long,” Lionel said, in the dangerously level tone of someone doing battle with their own blood pressure, “have you been able to see this thing?”

  Annabell followed his pointing finger, tilted her head, and scratched her neck thoughtfully. “Dunno.”

  Somewhere above Lionel’s left eyebrow, a small vein began tapping out a very dangerous rhythm.

  Surely—surely—this warning must have just appeared. Moments ago. Seconds, even.

  Because no sane, sentient being would look at a countdown to realm-wide annihilation and think, Hmm, yes, now’s a good time for cartwheels.

  No one, he told himself firmly, could possibly be that—

  He stopped. Looked at the Pink Menace.

  …Oh.

  Right.