Chapter 29) Why isn't this working? Or, This isn't what I signed up for.

Bernie and me looked down the hallway, then looked at each other.

In unspoken words, we agreed there are sometimes that the only help you can give someone is by giving them someone to yell at, and neither of us had signed up to be that someone for my boss.

“So anyways, I would suggest [ Jumping ] and [ Climbing ] before [ Swimming ] since climbing can make you sweat…”

My boss yelled some more. “None of the Portals work! These are supposed to be my Portals!”

"...Yeah. Or skip swimming if you already know how and then you should be able to unlock it as a basic skill for ten of those Life points."

Bernie began stepping backwards as he pointed past me to where Alice was stomping down the hall towards us.

“Yeah, so jump ten feet, then climb up ten feet to the alcove, jump down from there to get [ Mage Fall ]. Hi Ali...Boss.”

She smiled at me, a very wide, toothy smile with her eyes opened unnaturally wide.

“Hi ‘TEX’, Allie is fine. I know my name is kind of long and unfamiliar to you, so even though learning it would be polite, Allie is fine. I’ve had to put up with worse.”

Her smile went away as she leaned toward me, her head tilted up and then slowly twisting to the side as she looked up at me.

“Ask me what else I’ve had to put up with. ‘TEX’!”

Bernie walked backwards into the jumping room. “I think I’m going to get right on the jumping thing you two. Oh look, here’s some other stuff that should keep me busy in this other room.”

Allie’s head snapped to look at Bernie, “Yes, you do that Bernard.” Then snapped back to look at me.

"I did every quest that gave me more years to live Tex. I fought in three, count them three, different demon wars. I used up my whole life getting to level one hundred so I could become the handmaiden of my goddess, and then you know what happened Tex. Go on! Ask me Tex!"

I had drifted back so far that I had confirmed that I could not go through walls, which meant despite being a ball made out of light I must have had some physical substance. Either that of the stone of the Strata was resistance to whatever I was made of.

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Either way, I had nowhere to run to escape this conversation. "Wha… what happened?"

She stood up straight, her eyes going even wider as a slow maniacal grin stretched out across her face.

“She said…” Allie held her hand up slowly toward the sky with, one finger raised. "She said she had one little job for me to do for her before I could rise to serve in the Pavilion of Light. My goddess Bivona, who I had served and worshiped all my life, had just one thing for me to do as her new lesser goddess. Do you know what that was Tex? Can you guess?"

Ahhhhh… Sometimes I regret not using swear words. “To set up tutorial dungeons?”

She leaned forward again as I spoke, then slowly nodded before she straightened up again to stare at me, then turned to the side and began to pace.

“I set up thirty seven of these over the last… I don’t even know how many days or weeks, it’s like time doesn’t exist here. But…” She turned to point at me. “But I was doing it. Doing eight types of dungeons for the eight classes. Repeating them in a series over and over until I got a full eight hundred of them done, then I could let them run on their own.”

She stalked over to me again. "But do you know what happened then Tex? Can you guess again?"

“...someone complained.”

My Boss jerked her head up and down in a series of snapping motions that could be called a nod.

"Oh yes, they complained. 'Why did this York person have all this stuff? Why is this Matt guy shooting spells? What the hell are you doing Allysiaria? This was supposed to be a simple job for you?"

She leaned forward, setting her hands against the wall to either side of me as she leaned her whole body towards me. “And do you know the worst part of it Tex?”

“...no?”

Allysairai lifted her hands away from the wall, then slammed both of them back into it, shattering stone as she buried her fists almost to the wrist.

“I can’t think of any reason that people can’t learn other class abilities like this. People take multiple classes all the time back home. I started as a fighter myself before I switched to Acolyte."

She dropped her head. “I need more information.”

Then she turned away and began readjusting her golden toga like dress. "How do you know what's on the other side of the Portals for one, you talked about the Plane of Slaughter like you knew more about them than what my Panel said. Did you go through all of them?"

I drifted up from where I had dipped down towards the ground. “Naw, I used Focus, and the blue letters in the brackets filled me in."

Allie went still, “Tex?”

Drifting away a little so she couldn’t trap me against the wall again, I answered her. “Yes Boss.”

She slowly turned her head, and only her head toward me. “What the Hell are you talking about?”

I explained. She stared at me blankly. “You could try it out on the climbing wall.”

She could also try it out on the jumping pit, but Bernie was hiding in there. I wasn’t going to throw him under the bus since that would just get both of us run over.

Allie stared then cursed, for a good long while, using a few words and a lot of phrases that were new to me as she stood there with her fists clenched.

Abruptly turning around, she gave me a slow nod.

"I'm shutting down the entrance portals while I go get some answers. Finish up with Brenard, then go help your two friends in the city of Tesero."

Then she did the stretch up into the sky thing again and vanished.

Bernie joined me in the climbing room.

“If it’s all the same to you Tex, I would like to finish this up, spells and all, before she gets back.”

I didn't blame him, after all, it might not be her that shows up next time.

Calling your bosses out on their shenanigans or incompetence isn’t great for your job security.