Sooo, uhhh. I nearly drowned in the spa today.

I’m not the most experienced with this whole ‘sleep-deprivation’ thing, and no one told me that after having only four or five hours of sleep across three days, I might slip in and out of consciousness every now and then.

I better give you the run-down.

This morning, I woke up from what was realistically closer to a nap than a sleep, hopped out of Chair-Bed — see how natural it sounds now? — and snuck off to the executive spa.

It was exceptionally lovely today, like slipping into the warm arms of a lover. I even found a little soap-nook that I hadn’t seen before, and in it lay a small, wrapped capsule of cherry and daisy flavored soap — just like at hotels.

This soap was gooood. Peeling off the cover was like unwrapping a million bucks — may I just mention that Ralph Palagroo let me do this one time, so I’m not joshing you around. Lathering it on my semi-broken body took all my boo-boos and gave them exactly what they needed.

Peace.

I said a little prayer for Rendar, just to remind him I was still here, but closing my eyes to pray was my first mistake.

The second mistake was sinking down in the spa until I was submersed to my bottom lip, like a hippo wallowing in mud.

The final mistake — the straw that broke the camel's back — was not fighting back when my head slipped forward, and I felt the warm, caressing water tickling my eyelids.

I’m getting sleepy just remembering it.

Anyhow, next thing I knew, I was swimming in the Atlantic, basking in the warm currents with a pod of dolphins that surrounded me and swept by on the waves. I swam down to see their home — they told me it was worth seeing — and before I knew it, I was getting very, very tired.

I kicked my legs — “Almost there!” they called — but I was lethargic and propelled myself only a few centimeters.

Then I looked up, and the sun was so far away, and the pressure of the water weighed down on my shoulders and my ears and I...

“HOLY MOTHER OF BbrrrRaaauuufgGgHhg—.”

Scented spa water rocketed from my nostrils and mouth like a squeezed frog.

I jumped to my feet, coughing and spluttering to clear my lungs. Wading through the belly-button-high water, I flailed out of the spa and flipped myself onto the tiles.

It had been a rough twelve hours for my spine.

On the bright side, I was well and truly awake now. I stood quietly for a moment, envisaging some poor old fart executive coming in to find me dead in his spa — “Goddamnit, now we gotta drain the water!” — then I toweled off and returned to Adam’s office like nothing happened. In the mix, I’d also dunked my clothes in the spa and done my best to sun-dry them. I was finally clear of the week’s dirt and grime, though a little damp.

###

As usual, my spare time waiting for Adam was taken up by prayer. I had to get a hold of that book that Church Man showed me so I could start praying to Melie — Rendar was cool and all, but all this Knowledge wasn’t going to help me if I couldn’t take a hit, or a thirty-five-foot fall from a mad butler’s mansion.

On the topic, Talthen piqued my interest now, too. [Blade Throw] was the extent of my exploration into Combat skills, which was a rather stale effort given my experiences in this world so far.

When Adam came in, he sniffed the air, and his face fell.

“Oh no. You didn’t, did you?”

A woman walked in behind him. She wore a cobalt blue shoal and oozed confidence — definitely an executive.

Now she sampled the air.

Sniff, sniff.

She looked at me. Stared into my very being.

“You’re the one that destroyed my carriage, right? And now this. You’re fired. Adam, see them out.”

Adam protested right away, like he knew this was coming. We love a manager who’ll fight on my behalf.

“Pen, come on Pen! He didn’t know!” Now he whispered. “He’s helping me take down Granton.”

‘Pen’ was halfway out the door. Now she stopped.

“Was that you last night?”

I glanced at Adam, who was no help.

“Errr, was what me?”

“Don’t play stupid, boy. Were you at Granton’s? Someone burnt down a quarter of his mansion.”

Burnt down a quarter of it?

You may not believe me — I haven’t given you many reasons too — but when I used [Venta], I fully intended on it just scaring off the monsters and getting me out of there alive. I suppose some of the curtains were getting a bit singed, but...

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“That was me, yeah. I’m sorry if I fucked things — sorry, messed things up. I found some important information, though.”

“Important enough to make it worth the ten thousand dura soap you just used?”

That explains the sniffing. I smelled so good she fired me. Oh, and that also explains why using it made my lumps and bumps go away — I wonder if Rendar can grant me the knowledge to make something like that?

“Err, I believe it’s just bank records, a contract he has with the Ripping Warriors, then a binder with ‘Haver-Home Legal’ on the front. It’s all in there.”

I gestured to my satchel. Adam opened it up and flicked through the bank records, checking the dates.

“They’re a few years old, and a bit spo— Hold on! Three months in a row from month three to six last year.” He looked up at me. “This is good stuff, Marcus.”

Pen didn’t look impressed just yet. I suppose it’s hard to get over the loss of a soap worth nearly a month of my praying salary.

Speaking of that, I’ve really gotta work out how Granton is going to pay me. I had hoped the Navigator would keep track, but it seems like banks are still the way to go.

Adam set down the bank records and reached for the Ripping Warriors contract. We were straying a bit too close to real work for someone as important as Pen, so she left us to trawl through the paperwork. She didn’t specifically rescind my dismissal, but she also didn’t call security to have me escorted out.

Over the next four hours, Adam and I cracked open and pored over every scrap of paper I’d plundered. A good portion of the Haver-Home Legal stuff was horseshit — Granton had a ludicrous obsession with his estate and how it might be dealt with once he was dead and gone — but we ended our first day of investigation with a burly set of accusations to level at him.

It was all quite simple, really. We’d found six more contracts that required Granton to perform more ‘extermination’ services at dungeons that the other party — usually guilds — had already looted. It turned out that Ripping Warriors were the small fry — two of the other guilds were paying him in excess of six hundred thousand dura to clean up their bosses for them.

We struck gold with the bank records, too. Four of the dollar amounts in the contracts tied to the corresponding number in the records, proving he’d performed the service and not disclosed the income in his tax return.

We tallied up our efforts and came to the final number — Two million, two hundred thousand dura.

At the Haverbark tax rate of twenty percent, Granton owed the GTA just over four hundred and forty thousand dura — I would have to pray every night for three years before I’d make that kind of cash.

I had gotten the impression that Granton was a smart man — or at least savvy in his efforts to strengthen himself — but this scheme of his was plain stupid. I couldn’t understand why he would cook up a plan to not disclose the income, but still go ahead and sign legally binding documents, then deposit the proceeds in his bank account in exactly the promised amounts.

Wild. Just do it all under the table, man. Stow the cash under the bed, voilà!

The brunt of my work was done. Fatigue hit me like a freight train now that the case would be handed off to our Litigation team. If they shat the bed on this one, they’d have to be the most useless lawyers to ever walk this planet.

Adam invited me to a noodle stall just down the road from the GTA for a celebratory late lunch / early dinner. The aroma as we slipped through the curtain in the entranceway was inviting, and the homely lady scooping broth into porcelain bowls smiled at Adam when we entered.

“Adam! I haven’t seen you in forever! C’mere, give us a hug.”

He leaned over the counter and the lady planted a smooch on his cheek, locking him in a bear hug. She looked about forty-something, perhaps a mother or aunt or some relation.

“And who have you brought with you today? He’s not as pretty as the last one, eh?”

Adam blanched for a moment, almost imperceptibly, then introduced me.

“Wilma, this is Marcus. He’s my new graduate at the GTA and you’re very correct, he does not brush up quite as well.”

I poked my tongue out and waved at Wilma. She beckoned me closer.

“Come on, ya scamp! You can’t avoid a hug if you’re gunna come in here and tuck into my noodles.”

My ‘hug’ was also delivered with a wet kiss, this one on my forehead. I was already sweaty from the steam in the stall and the anxiety of meeting someone new.

“Pleased to meet you, Wilma. I’d dress nicer, but Adam won’t pay me.”

Wilma turned with a look of shock on her face.

“Adam! How dare you! What could he have possibly done? You write him a cheque this instant for all his work.”

“He blew up Pen’s carriage and used her soap.”

“...Oh...OH and the soap too?”

Apparently, I was the only person in Haverbark who didn’t have a comprehensive understanding of what to do and not do around Pen. I suppose not blowing up people’s carriages is a no-brainer, but Wilma and Adam both spoke of Pen with steely reverence.

Another interesting tidbit for me to investigate.

Wilma urged us to sit, so we assumed seats in a prime position to see the kitchen and assembly line. The whole thing had a teppanyaki vibe, but without the big hats and talkative chef. Once Wilma started cooking in earnest, she mostly left us to our own devices.

Adam took the chance to congratulate me.

“It was brazen, and stupid, and probably could’ve turned out infinitely worse, but you did a good job.”

Okay, kind of a congratulation.

“Thanks. Does this mean I can get paid again? I’m running on fumes here.”

“Running on fumes? What does that mean?”

“Oh, sorry. I meant like, I’m poor as shit.”

That earned me a laugh. Wilma delivered an entrée of soup — delicious — and Adam slurped a spoonful while he considered.

“I would be happy to put you back on the payroll, but not because your work has been worth more than the carriage and the soap — in that sense, you’re still very far in the negative. Think of it as an investment in you, okay? I think you’ve got a lot of potential, and so does Pen. She heard from Ms. Archon — the lady whose house I took you to the other day — and she’s interested in your little affinity situation. So yeah, you can disregard that whole ‘you’re fired’ thing.”

Pretty hard to ‘disregard.’

“Alrighty then, that’s good news! And Ms. Archon, she was the old lady with the blue orb? Who is she to the GTA?”

Now came our main meal, something akin to barbecue pork noodles. Adam thanked Wilma and made a praying sign at her with his hands. It must’ve been a favorite.

“Don’t let her hear you call her ‘old’; she’d know about fifty different spells to turn you into mincemeat. But yeah, she’s kind of a friend to the GTA. Not officially on the Haverbark team anymore, but still acts as a kind of mentor if needed — she was Pen’s manager when she joined. And she’s a great healer in a pinch, which is why I took you to her.”

I’d been running into some powerful people recently, without really knowing it. It seemed everyone had some kind of specialty or niche that they were known for. I’d have to work something like that out for myself, something other than [Venta] — it was a tad too destructive for such an unpredictable spell.

We sat for a while, making small talk and enjoying the food. I found out that Adam was an only child, had two pet birds that pecked holes in his house, and he lived a few streets south of the GTA.

I struggled to answer the same questions, but I blundered my way through by saying that I didn’t have contact with my family since taking up the graduate role at the GTA, which wasn’t even a lie. Adam knew I’d been sleeping at the GTA, so my pets and accommodation didn’t come up.

As dessert came out — something I couldn’t even identify — I asked the question that had been on my mind since we’d handed off the Granton case to Litigation.

“So, what’s next?”