What do we want? Longer hours!

  "'Little to nothing is confirmed of the Shardforts' origins, although several Shardkeepers are reported to have said they 'found' them; certainly, much about them defies even the most advanced Infernal Engineering. Their portals, for example, which were created by the Shardkeepers and then boriously transported down into the Underworld, bear no retion to any of the most advanced theories of how such powerful and long-range translocation magic might be achieved,'" muttered Marci, reading from a rge tome entitled 'Mysteries of the Keepers.' She groaned and let her face fall into the book.

  It was the same story with every single book she had read. They were full of 'theories' about Shardforts and how they operated, but had little to no concrete information. She had tried to scout out a little bit during the cocktail party, but had not had much success. The others had been too eager to try and figure out if she might be interested in joining their faction, and she hadn't wanted to make it too obvious that she was trying to figure out how to disentangle her soul.

  "Lady Keeps is unhappy?" came a familiar voice. Marci looked up to see the cute, snub-nosed, copper-scaled form of 'Likes Hammers.' "We can comes back if we needs. This 'union' stuff is not importants anyways."

  Union stuff? Oh, right, the 'union stuff' that she'd mentioned days ago to Likes Hammers, and insisted he attend a meeting with her about. She hadn't been looking forward to it, but after hitting her head against a brick wall in her research for the past—she checked her pocketwatch—seven hours, she was willing to take pretty much any distraction.

  "Hold on, no, sit down," said Marci sternly as the small reptilian man attempted to scuttle away. She gestured with a hand, and a chair slid out from the other side of her desk.

  The Kobold looked mutinous, but did as she asked.

  "Alright, so, what I wanted to talk with you about, this 'union stuff,' I want you to have a way to raise concerns with me," said Marci. "I also want to make it clear that any kobold can ask me, at any time, to be released from their bond, for whatever reason, and they will be allowed to leave. No questions asked."

  Likes Hammers looked aghast. "Lady Keeps is not happy with kobolds!?" he said. "But- but we works so hard!"

  "What? No!" said Marci. "You've- you've done exceptional work. I have no compints."

  Likes Hammers rexed in his seat somewhat.

  "I just want to say, that you don't have to work for me, if you don't want to," said Marci.

  Likes Hammers seemed confused by this prospect. Marci sighed. The poor things, they'd been so thoroughly indoctrinated that they actually seemed to like working. Was there some kind of sorcery involved? She hadn't detected anything on the kobolds passively, but it could be something subtle. In the meantime, she would try to rehabilitate their attitude towards work to a more healthy state of general dislike.

  "So, this union, the basics of it are that you will have a meeting, once a week—or more, if you want—and during this meeting all the kobolds will be able to raise their concerns to you, or someone they elect to be their Shopsteward. And that Shopsteward will then be able to bring those concerns to me, and I will listen to them, and we will try and work out a way to address them, OK?"

  Likes Hammers regarded Marci with intense suspicion. "Okays…" he said slowly.

  "And, if I don't do what you want, you can go on strike," said Marci. "Do you know what that means?"

  Likes Hammers shook his head.

  "It means that you can stop working to force me to listen to what you want," said Marci. "Or… or change the way you work, be more inefficient or something-"

  Likes Hammers gasped. "But- but we is good Kobolds! No! Kobolds do not strikes!"

  "But you could if I did something you really disliked," said Marci. "Asked you to do something you didn't want to do, or gave you conditions that weren't fair."

  "But we don't have to strikes?" said Likes Hammers, rubbing his nose with a talon.

  "No, only if there is something you don't like," said Marci. "And you don't have to do it immediately. You can talk with me about it first."

  Likes Hammers cocked his head to one side and considered this, his tongue darting out to lick his eyeballs.

  "And Lady Keeps won't be angrys with kobolds?" he said.

  "I promise I won't," said Marci.

  "Then we has compint," said Likes Hammers, raising his head.

  Marci blinked. "Um… OK?" she said. "About what?"

  "'Working hours,'" said Likes Hammers, making air-quotes with his talons.

  "Oh!" said Marci. "Are they too long? I'm so sorry Likes Hammers, I thought eight hour shifts was okay-"

  "To long!? Noes! They is not long enoughs!" he said. "We want… we want twelve hours shifts!"

  Marci stared at the kobold for several long seconds. Then she smacked her forehead with her hand.

  She really should have seen that one coming.

  "No," she said firmly. "No, you are not bargaining with me to increase the length of time you work."

  Likes Hammers crossed his arms. "Then we strikes!" he said, before lowering his head. "So- so long as Lady Keeps not get angrys..."

  "Hold on," she said. "You're going to try to get longer hours by not working? That is- I mean- it doesn't make much sense-"

  "No, we works fourteen hours every days until Lady Keeps agrees to lets us works more!" said Likes Hammers. He licked his eyes again. "Is we striking properly? You said we could 'changes the ways we works,' that that was striking too."

  "I mean… you're doing something I don't like to try to force me to change your working conditions," said Marci slowly. "So I suppose… yes?"

  Likes Hammers grinned widely. "We do kobolds strikes!"

  Marci groaned and let her face fall back into the book.

  Likes Hammers departed, leaving Marci feeling doubly despondent. Not only was she, against her will, a terrible Dread Shardkeeper, but, worse, she was also an employer, one of the very css of people she'd enthusiastically cursed as parasites during her admittedly not very long stint working in an enchanting factory. And now the kobolds were striking, for more hours. Not with more pay, with less pay.

  Her eyes flicked back to the book beneath her, and she groaned again as she remembered that her research on trying to get out of this problem was also going nowhere. None of the books had anything useful to say at all, which meant that she was, somehow, going to have to try and build an entire branch of research on her own, from scratch.

  Marci slumped back in her seat and stared morosely at the rge library around her, it's thousands of volumes of useless books, its spooky decor, its elegantly vicious wrought iron chandeliers and mps. Was this it? Was this what her life would be? Stuck inside this horrible fortress for the rest of her life, hunted by mortal-kind, forced to colborate with monstrous demons?

  She was sure that a better person would have found a way through this; found how to keep their moral compass intact and rescue their friends and perfectly thread the needle. But she wasn't a better person. She was a shit person, a failure.

  In times past, when she'd been struggling like this, she'd usually have reached out for Of. But he was with Anke, and after a brief, scarring gnce she turned her Shardsense firmly away from the pair. Anger and jealousy fred briefly in her breast, before being smothered by self-loathing as it rose back to the surface. Of course, he was with Anke—she was insufferable and awful, but at least she didn't ruin everything she touched.

  Her eyes slowly traced their way down the desk to the drawer that she had tossed that bottle of alcohol and sealed with a powerful magical locking spell and then, metaphorically, thrown away the key for. Which had been stupid, because… because sometimes a person needed a pick-me-up, a gss or three to help them through a tough time. Marci wasn't a monk, so why was she trying to be one? She was sick of trying to be responsible; it didn't fit her anyway.

  And anyway, it wasn't like she was going to manage anything by staying sober.

  "Hmm," she said, narrowing her eyes at the locked drawer.

  There had to be a way to break the magical seal…