Coye 5.4 (Patreon)

Chapter 4 - Dorothy’s Week 2 - An Unforgettable Luncheon

There was never a dull moment when you were running an Adventurer's Guild, but afternoons were the closest thing Dorothy had to a moment of peace most days. By that time, everyone was usually out on quests and the bulk of her work consisted of easy-going paperwork or helping clients register their quests, provided there were any to attend to. Before she got started on her mountains of paperwork, Dorothy was taking a brief moment to enjoy lunch. She needed it after how stressful the morning had been.

Dorothy couldn't believe she had sent Coye and Marlie on the same quest. Of all her adventurers, she couldn't think of a more unlikely pair. At least Marlie wasn't that bad of a person compared to two-thirds of her friend group. Even if they did run into each other, Dorothy doubted she would give the boy any trouble. Not that she was worried about him, no. Coye could take care of himself, and so could Dorothy.

Her gaze turned to the Lindwurm scale Coye gifted her, which now sat at the corner of her desk, a nervous smile forming on her lips as she did.

Then, Dorothy pushed the thought of him from her mind and focused on her chief concern- gulping down that thick, meaty double-decker sandwich stuffed with layers of lunchmeat, cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise which she hungered for so mightily. She was taking lunch in her office that afternoon. Even if Dorothy wanted to eat in the cafeteria, which she rarely did, Britni was day drinking at the Guild's bar. That girl was mean enough when she was sober, but inebriated? No way would Dorothy risk her fragile mental state by going anywhere near that emotionally volatile drunkard.

At least this snack would help take her mind off of things, Dorothy hoped. Aside from the sandwich, there was a steaming bowl of orange, zesty dipping sauce with sauce enough to double dip, and a plate of potato crisps. To bring it all together, a glass of overly sweet lemonade so sugary that one would think the beverage's yellow color was the only thing the lemons contributed. It wasn't a healthy meal, she wasn't kidding herself, but that was why she wanted it so bad. Dorothy told herself she deserved this, and she wasn't wrong.

The Guild Mistress let out a long and contented sigh as she scooped up the sandwich, dipped it gratuitously in the accompanying sauce, and brought it closer to her lips. Saliva pooled in her mouth, and Dorothy achieved a zen-like empty-headedness resembling, if not happiness, the closest thing to it she'd known in some time.

A silver-haired man wearing a red, two-piece suit and a wide-brimmed red hat opened and slammed Dorothy's door with a wave of the ornate, orbed staff he wielded in his right hand. The sudden explosive crash sound startled Dorothy, causing her to yelp and drop her prized sandwich on the dirty wooden floor beside her office, which was littered with scraps of paper, dust, and the stains of long-dried spilled ink.

Dorothy might've cried over her lost companion if he didn't immediately start yelling at her.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but the two of us need to have a talk," the man informed her in a voice both prissy and demanding.

This intruder on Dorothy's quiet afternoon lunch was a Gold-ranked adventurer named Blanche. He was a Red Mage, a rare spellcaster blessed with the versatility required to use both black and white magic simultaneously. Like many others blessed with that same gift, Blanche held himself in sky-high regard and made no secret that he thought he was better than most other people.

"Blanche," Dorothy uttered the name like she was forced by knifepoint to do so. "I... yes, if you couldn't tell, I am a little busy." She was tempted to roll over and get this over with, but a little bit of sass managed to work its way out instead.

He walked forward, raising a sharp eyebrow and wrinkling his nose at the smell of her dipping sauce. "Your gluttonous overindulgence can wait," Blanche uttered with barely disguised disgust. "My concerns are much more important than stuffing your gullet like a lumbering Pigman."

Dorothy would've been hurt and offended if she wasn't so used to this kind of treatment from adventurers like Blanche. Gold-rankers such as himself were the worst of them. That was when they started getting high and mighty, often forgetting who helped them to that point. And to think that Blanche wasn't even the most difficult Gold-ranked adventurer she oversaw...

"What is it?" She asked, defeated. "Tell me what's more important than my lunch break, Blanche. I'm waiting."

"Well, wait no longer," he fished his black leather gloved hand into his suit's pocket, producing a cracked crystal orb no larger than his fist.

Gods fucking damn it. Dorothy understood where this was going and was not too pleased to see him sit the sphere upon her cluttered desk.

"That troubled expression you're wearing tells me I don't need to remind you what you're looking at, I see."

"Yes," Dorothy composed herself as best she could and started running through all the arguments she would need to use in the coming discussion. "That's the catalyst you ordered from Adventurer's First, the one I handed you a couple of days ago."

"Ah, that is where you're wrong. It was the catalyst I ordered from Adventurer's First. Now, it's a useless piece of shit."

"Did you overcharge it?" She forced herself to ask despite knowing the answer.

"Of course not!" Blanche roared in offense, disturbed that Dorothy would even imply such ineptitude on his part. "I've been casting spells since I was a toddler. Do you really think I possess such poor control over my mana that I would overcharge a catalyst?"

"N-No, of course not," Dorothy forced herself not to sigh. "I wasn't trying to imply anything. It's just that, well, we talked about this, and I told you this would happen if-"

"Don't try and flip this around so that it's my fault! I had some of my friends outside the Guild inspect this little trinket, and do you happen to know what they told me? Go on, guess."

"I-"

"They told me the same thing- each and every last one of them- that this catalyst was a mummer's farce hardly worth 100G, let alone the 100,000G I paid you for it!" Blanche slammed his fist down on Dorothy's desk, rattling some papers and almost knocking off a few books sitting on the edge.

The more shit he spewed and the more disrespect he showed her made Dorothy approach the limits of her ability to remain professional. She told herself repeatedly she could handle this- that it was okay, nothing worth getting upset over. There was still time to talk it out and avoid the worst possible scenario.

"Let's be reasonable here and go over the facts," Dorothy sighed. "You asked me if the catalog had any better catalysts than what you could find on the streets. I told you there was one such model. That it had a very high mana capacity making it a huge value for the price, but it had a reputation for being faulty at best and absorbing mana at a deceptively quick rate. I even said you'd be better off getting a standard catalyst from a magic shop somewhere, but you insisted on this one. On top of all the warnings I gave you about not overcharging it, I recommended the warranty just in case something like this-"

"So you think it's okay to sell faulty products just because you offer a warranty on them?" Blanche laughed, ignoring the vast majority of Dorothy's well-reasoned argument. "Because that's all I'm hearing."

Blinking rapidly, Dorothy's temples throbbed, and she took a deep breath before coldly reciting the facts in a similar matter. "You asked me for a powerful catalyst. I told you about one and explained why it wasn't the best choice. You bought it anyway, turning down the warranty I suggested. Now you're here interrupting my lunch, yelling at me over something I went so far out of my way to warn you about in advance! Blanche, I don't know what you expect me to do. I did my job. I wasn't trying to screw you over with faulty products or warranties. I literally just gave you the thing you asked for!"

"Yeah, right," Blanche scoffed. "If you expect me to believe this wasn't intentional, you've mistaken me for a simpleton. Everyone knows the only thing you care about is turning a profit. If you really cared about your adventurers, you would start by helping me get a full refund."

No. It couldn't come to that. Dorothy fiddled with the rim of her glasses and tried to still her racing heart. Not only would this reflect horribly on her sales quota, but it would also be against the rules. All sales are final. Blanche could sling as many accusations as he wanted about her not caring- she wouldn't grovel or try and placate him. He was in the wrong, and Dorothy wouldn't budge on that.

On top of everything else, the Guild needed their share of the gold from that purchase. 100,000G was a lot of coin, even after cutting out the Association's portion and Dorothy's sales commission. She didn't have that kind of money to spare just lying around.

"I'm sorry, but this is out of my hands," Dorothy lowered her head. He continued to stare at her with his contemptible expression until she offered the only countermeasure she could. "The absolute best I could do is maybe fudge some paperwork and make it look like you signed up for the warranty, but I would need you to actually pay the 20,000G for that." Forgetting to submit a warranty would definitely look bad on her record, but it was better than continuing this conversation.

It wasn't good enough for Blanche. "Are you so out of your mind to think I would fork over even a single additional golden coin until this problem is solved? Absolutely not. Full. Refund."

"I. Can't!" Dorothy stressed, trying her hardest to sound authoritative and commanding. It didn't work. An angry mouse was still a mouse, an authoritative squeak still a squeak.

"No? Well, fine. You've forced my hand. I didn't want to resort to this because far be it from me to kick a dog when they're down, but so be it." The mage leaned over the desk, narrowing his eyes as his hands clutched the edges. If Dorothy was trying to screw him over, which he wrongly believed to genuinely be the case, then he would do the same. "Until this little problem of mine goes away, I won't be taking another quest."

"What?!" Dorothy stood up from her desk in such a rush that it knocked over her dipping sauce, the contents of the bowl spilling onto a half-finished wad of paperwork she now needed to re-do as well as an imported scroll from Ikkuni detailing the strange and fantastical spirits which plagued that Realm's many isles. Neither of those mattered to her in comparison to Blanche's power move.

"You heard me. You'll lose a lot more than 100,000G or whatever your share was the longer you take to appease me."

"You can't-"

"No? I'm fairly sure I can. It's not as if it's against the rules for an adventurer to take an extended hiatus. The only one with anything to lose here is you."

Dorothy held her tongue and hated the truth of his words with all her heart. The Cransmere Adventurer's Guild had only ten Gold-ranked adventurers in total. Even when there was a quiet period with a lack of quests on the board like the last few days, there was typically never enough manpower to meet the high demand this region saw for putting down monsters which made Lycanbeasts and Lindwurms look like poodles and garter snakes.

Such high demand meant that Dorothy often had to placate the few Gold-rankers she did have out of fear they would migrate to more Guilds like Perlshaw or Imperalis. There were thirty Gold-rankers when she first got her promotion three years ago, and they've been drifting off one by one ever since. She couldn't afford to lose more than she already had- the fact that Blanche knew this and was willing to manipulate it for his own benefit greatly distressed her almost as much as the fact that she would now have to find a way to refund him.

Maybe she could sell a couple of her rarest RealMonster cards to an avid collector, Dorothy considered with great pain. Or some of her books, or anything, really, so long as she didn't have to dip into the Guild's balance. There was always the option of asking Baron Brimley's steward or another of the local Lords for a short-term loan if she didn't mind indebting herself to the nobility and setting herself up for future exploitation...

"Well?" Blanche asked impatiently, caring little if at all for the stress his selfishness inflicted.

"I'll see what I can do." Dorothy whimpered weakly and stared at her desk in total defeat, unable to continue meeting his gaze.

"Excellent," smiling in smug satisfaction, Blanche turned to the door and left his broken catalyst on Dorothy's desk. "How fortunate it is that you finally see things my way. Do try and figure it out relatively soon, yes? I need to go shopping for a replacement."

She said nothing as he walked away, but Dorothy's eyes caught the crystal sphere before he was gone. Then, she glared directly at his head. Blanche was a mage- a physically average human just like herself. He probably wouldn't see it coming if she picked the catalyst up, hurled it, and broke the stupid thing into tiny pieces on the back of his skull. Maybe it would even knock him out, and he'd forget the aggravated assault?

Her hand extended toward the catalyst, every breath she took weighing heavily on her soul. She'd almost grasped it when she wizened up and realized it'd be more foolish than gratifying. If she wouldn't even risk her career to find love in the workplace, there was no way the Guild Mistress would attack one of her employees.

Dorothy resigned to watch Blanche go, the door soon shutting behind him.

In Blanche's absence, Dorothy was met by her favorite companion- the stupid little voice in the back of her head that told her everything she ever did was wrong. She wrestled with these inner doubts, wondering if there was a way she could have been more stern with Blanche. Giving in was the wrong move, but there didn't seem to be any other she could've made. It's not like she had any dirt on him that would've compelled him to work.

Why did no one ever believe she was trying to look out for them? He laughed when she implied that. Yes, she could be stuffy with the rules, and sometimes she pushed a sales pitch to the point of being annoying, but she had to act within the framework of the Association. Things were expected of her, and there were quotas to fill. But that didn't mean she didn't care.

Maybe I shouldn't? Dorothy wondered.

Of all things, it was the smell of dipping sauce that snapped her out of her darker thoughts. She looked down at the mess, noticing the damage it did to her expensive scroll. That was fine. She didn't deserve nice things, anyway, and it's not like she would've had time to read about those fascinating Yokai in the first place.

The pool of sauce was starting to drip on the ground, drawing her attention to the sandwich Dorothy had all but forgotten about. The least that asshole could've done was to use his magic to clean the mess or conjure her up a new damn sandwich. She sighed and picked it up from the ground, staring at the dirty food like it was a curiosity she couldn't be bothered to care for.

She pressed it into the dipping sauce, lifted it to her lips, and took a bite. It didn't taste like much of anything at all.