Chapter 16: Taxi! Part 3

A glimmering transparent curtain sprang up in front of the man just in time to catch the remnants of debris that was all that was left of the chair Jenkins had smashed to smithereens. The debris turned to ash, similar to what had happened with the dome outside the city.

Forms and ink were splattered everywhere around the room. Jenkins turned to glare at Robby, who promptly tried to silence his laughter with two small hands as he sat in another corner of the room. A soft alarm could be heard from outside the room, and a faint red light flashed repeatedly under the bottom crack of the door. Jenkins panted heavily.

The alarm cut off as the door swung open, and a large man bearing a cudgel with runes swarming down its length stepped into the room. He was a swarthy man who looked around the room at the scattered ink and papers. He observed the situation momentarily, taking a breath of time to observe the boy failing to stifle his giggles in one corner, then glared at Jenkins.

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

The large man left the room for a minute and returned with two chairs, minus the dangerous-looking cudgel. A wineskin was draped over one shoulder, and a satchel he hadn’t been wearing was over the other. He placed one to either end of the desk Jenkins was still breathing hard in front of.

“Right. Sit.”

Jenkins took a seat, and the man withdrew two wooden goblets from the satchel, setting one near Jenkins and filling it. He looked at the other and chucked it back into the satchel. He took a long pull from the wineskin and said,

“Okay. My name is Devlinidiah, no relation, and you can call me Devlin. Here’s the way I see what happened. That git,”

The man sitting across from Jenkins pointed to the clerk cowering behind the shimmering curtain in one corner, muttering to himself. Jenkins thought there must be some sound dampening on the curtain because he could hear nothing from the man.

“Was giving you lot the run-a-round filling out forms and being a general pain in the arse about it. You,”

He pointed to Jenkins,

“Lost your temper because he’s a right pain in the ass on good days, and you were probably conscripted with the other thousand-odd souls that have been conscripted from the other counties that were attacked two days ago. Both of those factors probably have you in a touchy temper.”

“So, you decided that some judicious redecorating might move the conversation along faster. Have you met Grandmaster Brisco yet? He’d approve of that. Never has the patience to fill out any of this nonsense.”

Jenkins thought back to the meeting that had ended up rearranging his life.

“I think that was one of the people that showed up when the adventurers used that…reclamation seal? I think that’s what they called it. Brisco was the dwarf, wasn’t he?”

The large man glared. Jenkins became uncomfortably aware the large man in front of him was still standing, and he was seated.

“Grandmaster Brisco is a dwarf, aye. And if you lot are part of the intake for the new training program, you’d do well to remember your p’s and q’s when you talk about or to any of the grandmasters. Here’s some free advice. If you can avoid getting mixed up with any of the leadership, don’t. You don’t want that kind of attention.”

Jenkins remembered the conversation he had thoroughly not enjoyed with Lord Tom before leaving Red Adder. He supposed having somebody in charge looking out for him, and Robby would be beneficial, but antagonizing them would be just as terrible for their futures.

“Fair enough. Now what. You looked ready to thump me good on your way in the first time.”

Instead of answering the question, Devlin looked to Robby in the corner, who had gotten his giggling under control, and waved the boy over. Robby scowled at having to move but dragged his stool beside Jenkins and resumed his seat.

As the boy dragged over his seat, Devlin looked over the scattered papers on the desk and snatched a pile from a box marked “ready.” He muttered as he paged through them quickly and looked around the room. He sighed and took his employee’s vacated seat behind the desk.

Devlin seated himself and then appeared to remember the man was still cowering in one corner of the room. He reached under the desk, and Jenkins heard a soft click. The curtain dropped from the corner of the room, and Jenkins could hear the whimpering. Devlin spoke to the fellow,

“Oh, quit whining, Mark. You triggered the failsafe unnecessarily and need to get started on the after-action report. I will be reviewing the recording later, so don’t bother trying to pretty up what is a failure on your part to adhere to the king’s orders to “hurry this the fuck up.” We’ll go over all of this at the end of the week. So get moving."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The man abruptly straightened and stopped whimpering as he shouted,

“Failure?! He attacked me!”

Devlin reached under the desk again, and another click was heard. A panel on the desk’s surface opened, and a handle painted a garish red and yellow checker pattern with a purple knob on top of it emerged from within. Devlin twisted the knob atop the lever until a section of the floor under Mark lit up with flashing lights. Mark put up his hands, changing his bearing on a shilling once again,

“Now Devlin, we can talk ab-”

Devlin pulled the lever. The section of the floor under Mark dropped away as the man disappeared with a scream. The sound cut off as Devlin replaced the lever to its starting position. The floor returned to its pristine state, and he calmly turned his attention back to the pair sitting before the desk.

Jenkins was about to ask another question when the man held up a hand to signify he needed a moment. Devlin finished reading through the stack quicker than Jenkins expected and addressed the pair.

“Better. Now, you tell me your story, and I fill out the forms you need to get filled, and you both sign them. Then I give you entry passes to the military district showing you reported in properly, and you leave my building.”

Jenkins eyed the lever with wariness. Devlin was idly tapping the side of it.

“That’s it? What about the smashed-up furniture? I’m guessing that fellow won’t keep quiet about me throwing a fit, either. If he survived whatever you just did to him.”

Robby interrupted,

“Can’t write, won’t sign.”

Devlin frowned at the boy,

“You’ll make your mark then. As for that git,”

Devlin hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the now bare corner of the room,

“That button he slapped is supposed to be for real emergencies. It’s mighty expensive for it to do what it did, and he’ll have his mountain of paperwork to fill out for hitting it. He’ll fudge what needs to be fudged so he doesn’t get reprimanded for using it more than me chewing him out for being an insufferable jackass that should be thrown from a window. Might be I can black his eye for him, and he’ll say he fell on it. I never liked that chair anyway. Put splinters in my ass when I had to use it last.”

Jenkins couldn’t take a gift horse without checking its teeth, even if it would offend the giver. A horse that died as he was using it to plow would make for more work cleaning up the mess. He asked another question.

“Why are you doing this? Who are you?”

Devlin leaned back in his chair and took another long pull from the wineskin.

“I’m the admin head for this temporary intake building. It’s my building. I’m doin’ this because we have over a hundred different counties checking into the city this week with conscripts like yourself or witnesses to the attacks. Every one of you bastards is gumming up the admin district with delays, and we need to get through all of you as fast as we can to get back to what we should be more focused on."

Jenkins frowned at the man. He didn’t look like a clerk. A well-fitted tunic and sensible pants complimented his olive skin. Jenkins couldn’t fault a city man for having clean boots, but the large man with a dark complexion who had burst into the room looking ready to thump some heads did not fit his idea of another Joclyn-type paper-pusher.

“I’m a plain man, Devlin. I’ll speak pla-”

“Let me stop you. Forgive the interruption, but I’ll lay out the facts I have at hand to speed this interaction along,”

Devlin moved his hand away from the lever and gestured to the stack of papers he was still holding in his other hand before continuing,

“Then you can ask questions if I miss anything. As I have already implied, my administration building doesn’t have time for the usual run around and red tape this week.”

Robby scowled at the man with his tiny arms across his chest as he sullenly listened to the adults converse. Devlin smiled briefly at the boy.

“I know, Robby. We’re almost done here. Here, would you like some candy?”

Devlin reached to one side of the desk and rummaged in a drawer before tossing a wrapped hard candy to the boy. Jenkins stared at the boy in offense as he unwrapped the morsel, sniffed it once, popped it into his mouth, and started chewing it. Crunching noises came from the boy.

“You’ll take candy from a stranger but won’t accept food I spent good money on for you?”

“Robby kept crunching on the candy and answered through his chewing,

“S’different, candy’s good.”

Devlin smiled again at the boy.

“It is. Isn’t it? Now, getting back to it. You have both been conscripted into the accelerated training program our illustrious Knowet-all has decided necessary to be enacted at this time. Without casting blame or criticism, this was done despite unprecedented attacks across most of the kingdom. When we should be using what we have to suppress the problematic monsters running rampant through the kingdom in a historical level of dungeon breakouts instead.”

Jenkins cut in quick,

“Dungeon breakouts? I thought there was just the one here in the capital that we had to worry about that happening. My lord said the other ones were safe if the AG kept up on clearing them.”

“Please hold your questions till the end, Novice Jenkins.”

“Alright.”