Fiona was surprised to find their new employee wearing presentable clothes, slicked-back feathers, and a nervous smile as he sat by the steps of the shop, early next morning. Bonnie and Greg had just met her by the corner of the row, and even they were surprised.

Fiona pulled her coat closer to her neck–some of these early fall days were getting chilly, and even her status as a Northeast girl was doing little to prepare her for the bite to the air. Maybe elves didn’t have the same body fat? Probably. But the cold couldn’t dissuade the proud moment she had when she called out to Kali.

“Look who showed up! I had fifty-fifty odds that you'd be here,” she laughed. Greg unhappily handed a gold coin from his pocket, and it hummed in her hand.

"Hey, I meant what I said. I'll give it a try. So uh, you really meant all that, yesterday?" He raised a feathery eyebrow, but he sounded hopeful.

“Don’t ruffle your feathers, kid, I meant it. It’s not my style, or Bonnie’s to throw someone to the wolves,” Fiona told him proudly. The kitsune let out an amused sound from her throat and gazed at Kali with her ocean-blue eyes. “Now, try to not look all snack like for this magical vixen, will you? You know what they say, fox in the henhouse kind of deal.”

“What’s a hen?” Kali asked anxiously while rubbing his hands together.

“Oh, this poultry back at home that everyone swears tastes like everything else!” she answered back. “Now, time for your onboarding, young man! We’ve got stuff to do, and I have things to learn from your skill suite! So educate me in your ways!”

“I should have picked jail,” he sighed.

“Wouldn’t blame you, especially if you knew who I was in advance.” She couldn’t help but smile evilly at him. “First, a few rules. You steal, you go to jail. You help other people steal, and I’ll make you into braised chicken. Please be on time, and dressed presentably. We must be fashionable as we make commerce!"

Kali grunted. "I don't have a lot of nice clothes. Most of them are hand me downs I have to custom tailor myself for my wings."

"I'll talk to the orphanage." Greg sounded sincere in his words, but Fiona knew he might still be irritated.

"Oh, one more important rule! The most important one!" Fiona leaned in, and an evil smile creased her face. "Steal my snacks, and you’re doomed.” She tapped her coat for emphasis. “Know what this coat is made of?”

“It’s…griffin feather down. Feral griffins, based on the coloration.” this sharp-minded kid knew his stuff, she realized, as he tapped his beak, as if thinking. “What about it?”

“I would like to emphasize that people who try to kill me, or worse, steal my snacks, become next fall’s fashion lineup!” she added as she wrapped the coat gently. His eyes did that massive dilation thing again, as he shook his head up and down in acknowledgment.

“I presume this griffin attempted to perform one of those ill-advised actions?” he clicked with his beak.

“Ring-a-ding-ding, baby!” Fiona cackled. “So, now that you know what not to do, onward with the tour!”

Ten minutes later, they had the shop prepped for business, and Fiona walked their new ‘hire’ around. “So, Mister fast-fingers. Tell me, what was your vocation before all this?”

“You mean before I dropped out of school for law studies? Yeah I know, ironic,” he added with a roll of his eyes. “I liked studying. I also had a knack for little wizard tricks. Sleight-of-hand stuff used to impress audiences. I made chump change on the street for the orphanage. Stealing was better pay per hour to get into Bricker's school for the legal system.”

“Great career, bad plan,” Fiona groused. She had to remind herself that this was a teenager who didn't always have common sense down to fine art. “If you got busted by someone other than me, you could kiss that career goodbye. A legal professional who himself broke the law? Nah, you'd never make it in.”

“I–uh…I never got caught,” he stammered out. She sighed and rolled up her sleeves. She was starting to think of the button-collar shirt and vest as her armor on this business battlefield.

“Look, at some point, you were going to get caught, or miscalculate badly. Now, here's my first query for you, as a merchant, and as your prospective employer.” She waved to the displays. “What's wrong with this setup?”

“Bad visibility from the counter, and no arcane relays to sight on the blind spots.” He came up with the answer on the spot, his avian eyes peering at the varying corners. “Your witch–”

“Mage, buster,” Bonnie growled with her claws tensed. Kali cleared his throat in response.

“Forgive me, mage, has the right application. You leave fool thieves vulnerable, thinking the job is easy. Hell, sometimes high security scares off customers on rare occasions,” he continued to assess, then took off with a flap of his wings to the second-floor railing and perched all bird-like. The space up there wasn’t used yet–it was serving as extra storage, though it had been cleaned. “Now, from my vantage point, you have exactly three blind spots, from your kiosk, to your displays. Someone could easily run in, jig the case open or spoof the wards, and walk out, without breaking a sweat.”

“He is…correct,” Greg offered a few seconds later. “We have been in such a hurry, that I admit to that oversight.”

“That's not all. Your scanner ward is an old design, miss…” Kali got the curious head tilt Bonnie for a second, before her expression softened.

“Revere,” she answered. Kali nodded and landed smoothly with a quick hop down to the ground floor. “What about the wards?”

He pointed to the subtle rune on the floor that Bonnie had painted in, and the outline was barely visible. “It can be spoofed with the right masker enchantment. It will pick up flags from the town guard when they update their relays, but the signal can be jacked. I've done it twice. I could demonstrate–”

Bonnie put a hand up to halt him, and narrowed her eyes. She looked reluctant to answer before firming up again. “We can do that later. But, you have highlighted a known exploit. You aren't in the system, so it wouldn't work for you.”

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

“Like I said, be a ghost, and you never have a problem,” he said while sounding cocky. Fiona snerked at the internal pun, and he raised a feathery eyebrow. “What's so funny?”

“You. You're quite smart, but did dumb things. You could have just done this from the start!”

“I’m not sure I want to be branded forever as a rogue. A lot of people can be pretty biased about your first class,” he sighed. “I mean, what if my destined class was ‘assassin’ for instance? Would you trust me?”

“How would I know? I wouldn’t ask someone about their class, just like I wouldn’t ask them about their home life. Or, anything with reasonable expectations of privacy,” she shrugged.

“Sheesh, what place did you grow up in? Everyone asks about a class when you’re taking a career,” he pointed out. Greg nodded reluctantly beside her. “It’s not like you could hide it forever, anyway. That’s one of the skills of the administrators. However, it doesn’t work on quite everyone. Sometimes strong-willed or deceptive people can fool them.”

“By and large, most employers will not force the issue,” Greg interjected in a tempering tone. “The experience here in Fiefdala is generally quite…open. However, that may not be the case elsewhere. The Unified Kingdoms do keep a modicum of respect for the privacy of their citizens on this significant aspect of their lives. But a class is not a direct measure of one's actions.”

“Thank you, Greg,” Fiona did feel a certain relief from that technical answer of his. Though she did wonder what this merchant ability of hers was telling her. “Anyway, let’s get onto your duties, which I am making up as I go!”

“Uh…have you ever run a place before?” Kali questioned with a finger raised in the air.

“Of course! Do you think this is my first go? I didn’t always turn monsters into next winter's fashion accessory line as a hobby!” she declared proudly. “Summer might be tougher now that I’m not quite as active on that front.”

“Ahem,” Greg cleared his throat.

“Right. So, your job will be security, and inventory. Greg is doing too many things right now, and quite frankly, we need more people. Now, the security part you’ve gotten well, but I have questions about your prowess on other fronts.”

Kali glanced around the room as if to read the mood. The answer to him resulted in him firming up his expression, tightly etched and focused. “How much inventory do you have?”

----------------------------------------

The thing that Fiona learned about Kali, is that he was quite adorable when he had that beady-eyed look, like he was an oversized beanie baby. And he’d been making that face for a good couple of minutes as he stared at the treasure vault.

“Good gods. All of them.” Kali wandered across the floor, looking at the various treasures, equipment, artifacts, and other baubles that littered the area. Some were wrapped up in burlap, and heavy paper wrap with twine tied around them. Kali peered at the list in his hands, provided by Greg. “And you have to pay tax on this?”

“Yeah, this dragon screwed me. If I ever run into Doug again, I’m making him into boots,” Fiona growled. Greg twitched at this assertion, and she turned to face him. “Yes, Greg, I am gonna make him into boots! I want a pair of dragon scale boots, and dragons are only good for kidnapping princesses, stealing treasure, and being a giant leech on the local livestock economy!”

“Fiona, dragons are sentient beings,” Greg sighed. You can’t make boots out of them.”

“Hey, who made you a dragon advocate?!” Fiona asked him accusingly. “He tried to set me on fire! Feebly, mind you. That armor I was wearing was something! Then it became hammer time, and he regretted that! Anyway, the point is, if it tries to kill me, I will make it into fashion wear!”

“I pray you keep a keen list of all the sentient monsters you’re not supposed to turn into fashion trends,” Greg responded with a wrinkling of his brow. “Now, Kali, my question to you. What is your assessment of this room?”

“You have the only rune keys to get in and out?” he asked.

“They are magically encoded. Only employees can get in and out, and the bank keeps a record log of all ingress and egress. The treasure is also enchanted–thanks to Bonnie–to be magically traceable.”

Kali frowned. “I don’t like it. You leave this inventory sitting around, in one giant pot. If someone gets in here, they’re cleaning you out, period. And Miss Revere is a talent, but no magic is without a counter, from what I’ve learned.”

“Oh, there’s rarely a person that could out-fox me,” she added with a toothy grin, and an adjustment of her wide-brimmed hat. Fiona still wanted one of those–maybe she could wear one for whatever passed for Halloween around here! Though, she doubted it was going to be the same here in this world–or even existed. Bonnie strolled toward the large gold statue. “Kali, how would someone move this?”

“They don't,” he answered. “Big items are massive risks for thieves. It might be worth a lot, but you’re not physically moving this thing. It weighs…probably a few tons. How’d you even get it in here?”

“Levitation, and a lot of patience,” Bonnie replied coolly. “So Greg, what do you want to do?”

Fiona however, had to test something. She grunted and tried to lift the statue by the base, but barely could lift it more than a few inches. "Oof. Someone lied on this one. Its not all gold, it's still heavy!"

Kali was staring at the relatively slender elf lift what must be an absurd amount of weight, and clucked. "Gods. How are you doing that? Even if it isn't gold, how are you able to move it?"

"I call it...24 carat magic!" She let the statue down with a thud, and a film of dust blew outwards, making Greg cough. Kali continued to stare, speechless

Greg however, wasn't silent for long. "You aren't human, Fiona. I'm convinced of it," he stated deadpan while brushing off the dust.

"Hey, I'm an elf! That's human...ish. Anyway, Greg, inventory time for our new associate Kali. Let's go over duties."

“We're indexing it,” he answered simply. “I want you to categorize it all, Kali. By weight, prospective buyers, and possible value spread. You’ll need to research the market a bit. The problem we have is the volume we have to move, and keep a roof over our heads.”

“Sheesh. I thought I had problems.” He smoothed his feather mane and frowned at the list. “Damn, this guy overvalued a lot of items to jack the tax rate, if I’m looking at these numbers correctly. How have you not challenged this yet? Even I could tell you, this isn’t worth that much.”

“We’ve been busy. And if you can find us someone who is above board in assessments that isn’t in favor of the current King, who has been…how does one put this?” Greg was searching for a term that was just nice enough to not be impolite, and Kali beat him to it.

“A giant sleazebag?” Kali finished with a roll of his eyes.

“Someone who isn’t inclined to leave us with an unfair assessment, who is licensed, and has a clean record,” Greg corrected with a tap of a pen against his arcanist pad.

Kali frowned, and then his eyes lit up. “I might know a guy. But it won’t be easy to convince him. He’s going to charge you a song to assess this much.”

“We don’t need it all assessed. Just the biggest items,” Greg redirected. He looked at the pile of smaller baubles and low-quality enchanted items. “These, for instance, wouldn’t need it. We just sell them at the market, and ticket the loss. Because we didn’t have acquisition costs, we’re fine. But that won’t hold forever. Now how would you move this, logistically?”

“Hmm. Put it in lockboxes, sort it, index it. I’ll need a couple of days, you guys left this a mess,” Kali reasoned. Fiona couldn’t help but smile.

“So you can apply yourself.”

“I can. I just need to study. The problem is, the library doesn't count for accreditation,” Kali sighed. “If I help you with this effort, are we square?”

“Consider this three months your probationary period, Kali. You’re hired,” Fiona beamed. Greg also gave the silent nod, and Bonnie, while eyeing the avian like one would view a turkey leg at a Renaissance Fair, didn’t disagree. “Be on time, call us if anything comes up, and Bonnie won’t have to resort to hexing you.”

“If he can execute as well as he’s talking, and not mouthing off? I might be disappointed at wasting such a fine hex,” Bonnie said while leaning on a statue, and firing off a grin at Kali. “I think you'll do fine.”

“Pretty sure I won’t like what happens in the next three months, if you’re crazy enough to get dragged in a mad-cap flight across downtown.” Kali snapped the notebook shut. “Just pay me a living wage, so that I can afford classes.”

“I’ll handle that assessment,” Greg jumped in. “Fiona, shall we head back? The store opening is soon.”

“Right then. Let’s get to work,” she announced with a beaming smile. She loved motivated employees.