Chapter Two - Paperwork Pleasures

I was all for giving Cinder time to secure our passage into the city, but after the first half hour I began to wonder if there was trouble. Once an hour had passed since I’d last seen the young lady my concern grow into full-fledged worry.

“Mem wonders if Cinder is okay,” Mem said as she dangled halfway out of the carriage’s window.

Rem snorted from her seat atop the carriage. “Maybe she was eaten by one of the bureaucrats,” she said. “What a waste. It would have been better for Rem to eat her.”

"Are the bureaucrats here truly so awful?” I asked.

Both Rem and Mem shuddered. “Mem doesn’t like them very much,” Mem admitted. “Sometimes they’ll help Mem a little, but when they explain things, Mem doesn’t always understand, and then Mem has to run all over the city doing stuff and bringing forms to people and Mem never has the right ones and it’s very scary.”

“Rem just stabs them,” Rem said while making stabby gestures at the air. “That makes them angry, but I’m stronger than they are, higher up on the food chain. They can’t make me do anything. Then can’t.” She stabbed her scythe into the roof of the carriage rather insistently.

“That all sounds rather exciting,” I said. “Alex, watch over the girls, don’t let them bug you too much, oho! I’m going to go see if Miss Cinder needs any assistance.”

Alex curtsied. “Yes, Father Big Bones.”

I paused. “That’s a new one.”

Alex nodded, a smile forming as he did. “I’m trying new names for the Bone Daddy, since sometimes you don’t seem to like that one.”

“Well, keep at it,” I said.

If I was going to actually assist Cinder, then I’d need to be somewhat more presentable than usual. That is to say, I couldn’t merely walk into an office with my natural appearance. The last thing one wanted to do while dealing with bureaucrats was to give them an easy way to dismiss you, in this case, the illegality of the undead complicated things for me quite a bit.

Fortunately, Disguise Self was a simple first tier spell. Properly cast it would take a particularly discerning and intelligent individual to see through the illusion. I fetched a mirror out from my pocket and looked myself over, paying particular attention to the face.

The face was the part that one had to be the most careful with when crafting an illusion. Someone whose limbs were slightly too long might trigger a slight amount of suspicion, but an illusory face being even a minuscule bit inaccurate would foster a deep sense of unease in even the most foolish of people.

At the moment, I looked like a kindly older gentleman. Someone who was perhaps a very healthy seventy year old human, or a prematurely aged but recovering fifty. A few artful wrinkles suggested a life with many smiles and sharp eyes hinted at something like intelligence.

I tugged on the lapels of my jacket--tweed, of course--and then started walking my way over to the front of the line of carriages while tucking my mirror away.

I noticed as I walked over that the people in line seemed entirely ready for a long wait. Several had formed a small group off to one side of the road, sharing a meal over a small fire. Others were reading from scrolls, or taking a nap while lounging across the seats of their carts.

These were people who expected to wait for quite some time. Either Shitake city was a place that catered to layabouts, or this kind of pace was business as usual.

That was... interesting, actually. The purpose of a good bureaucracy was to streamline processes, to establish order and make a society function efficiently. But it seemed the bureaucracy here had the opposite effect--creating a bottleneck that led to idle hands and idle minds.

Was that on purpose?

As I approached the city gate, the sight confirmed my earlier observations. Miss Cinder was just within, standing tall and proud in front of a small stall manned by a bespectacled gentleman who was very carefully looking over a long sheet of paper. She seemed entirely calm on the surface, but her parasol was spinning quite rapidly, and I could sense the slow, roiling frustration wafting off of her as I approached.

“Ah, Miss Cinder. Seems like we're a bit entangled in red tape, are we?” I announced, walking up to them.

Cinder turned toward me, her eyes lighting up for a fraction of a second before she regained her composure. “Ah, Harold, your timing is impeccable. This gentleman here is scrutinising every letter of my documents as if they were the sacred texts of some ancient prophecy.”

The bureaucrat looked up, adjusting his spectacles to get a better look at me. “And who might you be?”

“A friend,” I said, adding a slight bow for good measure. “Harold, at your service. I was just wondering if perhaps I could assist in streamlining this process? A watchful eye and a second opinion often aid in such matters”

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He looked me over cautiously but then shrugged. "Very well. There are no regulations against a citizen in good standing receiving assistance with their paperwork as long as there are no outward signs of coercion. But know that any irregularities will be met with the utmost scrutiny."

“Understood,” I said. “Now, what seems to be the issue?”

“I needed to prove that I’m a citizen, which I have,” Cinder said.

“With some irregularities,” the man behind the counter said.

Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. With some irregularities. My papers are all fine, however.”

“Yes, but we strongly suggest that people renew their paperwork more frequently. If your papers are within a year of their expiry date, they can be refused.”

I had my illusory eyes blink. “Just to be clear, you mean a year before they expire?”

“Yes,” the man said. “You wouldn’t eat something just moments before it has gone bad, would you? There’s no sense in waiting until the last moment to renew your papers.”

“Ah, but unlike perishable goods, documents don't rot,” I said, leaning slightly forward on the counter. “It's not a matter of physical degradation but of administrative continuity, isn't it? Besides, the idea behind an expiry date is that the document is valid until that date arrives, correct?”

The bureaucrat hesitated, perhaps considering the flaw in his logic. “Well, yes, but it's advisable--”

“Advisable is not mandatory,” Cinder snapped. It sounded like her patience was wearing thin. “Now, my papers are valid, are they not?”

He sighed. “Technically, yes. We covered that already. Very well, let's proceed.” he shifted some papers around. “Your reason for entry isn’t clear. You need to fill out a form 6b with full disclosure of the items and materials you’re bringing into the city as well.”

“I just did that,” Cinder said as she snatched a paper from the man’s hands. At a glance, it looked like a long list of items written in a careful pen.

“You didn’t fill it out entirely. I can see from here that the carriage in question has four horsesleading it. The form you filled makes no mention of those. I’d suggest you fill it out entirely or else you might be pulled aside for an inspection which might lead to some fines.”

I raised my illusory brows as I took this all in. “This seems like a rather slow process for allowing people into the city. I thought your sect had some power in this region, Miss Cinder.”

Cinder nodded. “This is the expedited version,” she said.

With a sense of incredulity in my voice, I said, “The expedited version, you say? Fascinating. Well, perhaps I should offer a philosophical perspective on the nature of bureaucracy.”

Both Cinder and the bureaucrat turned to look at me, clearly intrigued by the change of tone.

“You see,” I continued, "in the end, the true weight of a bureaucracy isn't determined by how many papers one has to fill out, or how meticulous the vetting process is. It's determined by the force that stands behind it, the ability to impose its rules and edicts.”

The bureaucrat seemed slightly confused, but Cinder nodded, clearly understanding where I was going with this.

“To put it more plainly,” I said, leaning in closer and lowering my voice, “at the end of the day, the only bureaucracy that truly matters is the one with sufficient firepower to demand that you take part in it.”

“Was that a threat, sir?” the bespectacled man asked.

“No, but this is, Phantasmal Paperwork Killer.”

The spell, invisible to most, struck the bureaucrat in the chest and he gasped.

This was an altered version of the rather potent Phantasmal Killer spell. The original tapped into the nightmares of the creature it was cast upon, creating illusions of their greatest fears. This version targeted the deeply embedded anxiety of bureaucrats everywhere, making the man suddenly feel as if he was overwhelmed by an insurmountable pile of paperwork, each sheet filled with confusing clauses, contradictory instructions, and incomprehensible legalese for which he wasn’t trained.

His face paled, and he clutched at his chest as if he were drowning in an ocean of forms and documents. His eyes widened in panic as he looked from Cinder to me, grasping the edge of the counter for support.

“Now,” I said calmly, dispelling the illusion and giving him a moment to catch his breath. “Perhaps we can simplify this process and let Miss Cinder and her party pass? Unless you'd like me to fill out forms for a formal complaint about the unnecessarily cumbersome bureaucratic procedure here, citing your inefficiency as a prime example?”

***