It wriggled like a caffeinated eel, glowing faintly in shades of arcane irritation, and refused to stay folded. Every time Jeff tried to roll it up and put it back in his pouch, it let out an aggressive papery rasp and redrew itself with a passive-aggressive flourish.
"It just spelled 'nice try' in Elvish," Jeff muttered.
"Stop antagonizing the parchment," Tessa snapped, holding the map flat against the table with one hand and jabbing it with a quill in the other. "I’m trying to cross-reference its coordinates with the Guild’s Dungeon Registry."
"Is it... flipping you off with a contour line?" Bjorn asked, chewing what appeared to be a banana wrapped in jerky.
"If this thing doodles one more middle-finger mountain, I swear I will set it on fire and plead clerical insanity."
Elion peered over Tessa’s shoulder. "According to its current formation, the entrance lies beneath the town’s abandoned Welcome Center, right behind the statue of Mayor Crimble."
"The one with the pigeons?" Nobody asked.
"The very same."
"I don’t trust it," Chortlebane grumbled from his teapot cradle. "No map draws itself unless it wants you to find something you wish you hadn’t."
"Everything we find is something I wish I hadn’t," Tessa muttered. She pulled out Form 88-L: Voluntary Entry Into Possibly Sentient Location, and had everyone initial it. Twice.
The Welcome Center smelled like old brochures and broken civic dreams.
A quick investigation (read: Nobody kicked down a locked door) revealed a narrow staircase hidden behind a rack of faded postcards. The pigeon-covered statue of Mayor Crimble leered down as they descended.
"This seems safe," Bjorn said cheerfully.
"This smells like mildew and bad decisions," Elion countered.
Jeff sneezed as a dust-covered folder floated past. It was labeled Grand Opening Plans: 57 Years Delayed.
Tessa squinted at the walls. "Runes. Old ones. Looks like someone tried to magically reinforce the foundation using passive-aggressive enchantments."
"Are you saying the walls are judging us?" asked Bjorn.
The wall next to him flaked off some plaster and revealed the words DO BETTER in glowing script.
"Yep."
At the bottom of the staircase, the dungeon opened into a vast, dim chamber, lined with filing cabinets.
Tessa groaned. "No. No. No more forms."
"Are they empty?" Jeff asked.
Bjorn pulled one open.
It screamed.
They all screamed.
"Aah!" Bjorn yelped, slamming the drawer shut.
"Living document storage," Chortlebane muttered. "Used in ancient times for really unpleasant taxes."
"And haunting unpopular HOA meetings," Nobody added.
Tessa whipped out a pair of enchanted earplugs. "Let’s find the dungeon core and get out before the W-9 Wraiths arrive."
They moved deeper through the hallway of shrieking bureaucracy, past animated forms fluttering like bats, and shelves that tried to reassign their job titles mid-stride.
Elion paused before a set of golden double doors. "Why does that plaque say: 'Authorized Personnel Only: All Others Will Be Summoned?'"
Before anyone could stop him, Jeff knocked.
A puff of glitter and burned coffee beans exploded outward.
A voice boomed: "WELCOME TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LOST INTENTIONS! HOW CAN I WASTE YOUR TIME TODAY?"
Tessa had enough.
"I AM HERE TO FILE A COMPLAINT AGAINST ALL OF THIS!"
The doors creaked open.
Inside was a circular chamber. At its center: a glowing crystal orb suspended above a pedestal made of all the minutes lost in the meetings.
And surrounding it: a rival adventuring party in matching capes, smug expressions, and clipboard holsters.
"Excel-Axe," Tessa snarled.
Their smug team leader smirked, exuding the kind of lawful menace only achievable by someone who truly loves a form labeled in triplicate.
"Valeria. I see you’ve finally upgraded from disaster to public embarrassment."
"You stole our last side quest!" Valeria snarled.
"We efficiently preempted it."
Bjorn flexed. "You want a rematch, you data-mongering gremlins?"
The rival's wizard raised an eyebrow. "We’re here on official Guild rerouting business. Your map was unauthorized."
Tessa held up Form 99-X, now pulsing with ominous approval.
"Authorize this." Tessa snarled and hurled the form like a magical frisbee.
Mid-air, the enchanted parchment ignited with Guild-registered red fire, morphing into a spinning disc of bureaucratic fury. It slammed into the floor in front of Valeria’s feet, erupting into a localized Formstorm—a miniature tornado of legal jargon and rejection stamps that tried to staple her boots to the floor.
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The air snapped with tension. Elion’s fingers twitched toward his wand. Chortlebane whistled ominously in his teapot. Jeff discreetly removed a granola bar from his belt pouch, sensing this was going to take a while.
A standoff. Quills were drawn. Legalese crackled in the air.
The orb pulsed.
"Maybe we all just... file a collaborative report and don’t explode anything?" Jeff offered.
Nobody tossed a smoke bomb.
Valeria cursed, clipboard raised to deflect flying debris. Tessa dove for the orb, narrowly missing a flying PowerPoint blade hurled by Excel-Axe’s wizard.
The room descended into chaos.
Smoke clung to the room like an overbearing aunt with too much perfume. Tessa staggered forward, coughing, hand outstretched and searching for something non-hostile to lean against. Unfortunately, the only options were the shrieking filing cabinets or a wall embossed with the words "RESTRUCTURE THYSELF."
"Nobody!" she yelled. "Was the smoke bomb really necessary?"
Nobody reappeared dramatically from behind a spinning clipboard. "If it's not dramatic, is it even adventuring?"
Across the chaos, the Excel-Axe team was regrouping. Their team member, a smug elf named Radford, flipped open a form-protected spellbook and began chanting in HR-approved Latin.
"Bjorn! Elion! Flank left! Jeff, staple anything that moves!"
"Already stapling!" Jeff announced, wildly clicking a magically enhanced stapler. One of the rival team’s capes snagged and folded itself into a swan.
"My cloak!" yelped their archer. "It’s been origami’d!"
Meanwhile, Chortlebane had upended himself to roll across the floor like a tiny armored bowling ball, yelling insults about their rivals’ font choices.
Tessa ducked behind the orb pedestal and activated the Emergency Guild Complaint Channel, which fizzled, sparked, and spit out a partially burned memo:
URGENT RESPONSE DELAYED DUE TO COFFEE RATION STRIKE.
"Of course," she muttered.
Suddenly, the orb surged with light. Both parties froze.
"Uh," said Jeff. "That seems new."
A voice echoed through the chamber: "YOU HAVE REACHED MAXIMUM FORMAL HOSTILITY. INITIATING MEDIATED STAPLEWAR."
The walls shifted. Cubicles rose from the floor like administrative monoliths. The orb split into five smaller spheres, each marked with labels like Team Synergy and Lateral Integration.
"Oh gods," Elion groaned. "It’s triggering a team-building combat simulation."
Bjorn grinned. "Finally!" He ripped open a filing drawer and began dual-wielding redacted records.
What followed could only be described as the most aggressively bureaucratic brawl in recorded history. Papercuts flew. Labels were weaponized.
At one point, Tessa managed to lasso Radford’s leg with enchanted red tape while screaming, "YOU’LL NEVER MICROMANAGE US ALIVE!"
Bjorn collided shoulder-first with their tank—Thorn, a brick of a man shaped like a tax deduction—and the two went tumbling into a rack of sentient filing cabinets that immediately began chanting, "Form 42-B! Form 42-B!"
Papers flew. Magical quills slashed through the air like hummingbirds on espresso. One of Excel-Axe's rogues weaponized a paperclip chain, attempting to bind Elion’s arms, only for Elion to open his mouth, sing “Obsoletus!” in a perfectly smug tenor, and vaporize it in a puff of glitter and condescension.
Jeff slid under a desk, gnawed through a manifest scroll, and flung a cursed stapler into the melee. It latched onto a rival’s shoe with a metallic skreeee! of vengeance.
Valeria and Tessa squared off in the center of the smoke-filled room, firelight glinting off ink-stained armor.
"I'll have your credentials revoked!" Valeria snarled.
"I'll have your enchanted badge reassigned to a mime guild!" Tessa shot back.
The orb at the center of the room pulsed again, clearly reconsidering its contract with reality.
Valeria’s lip curled into a sneer. "You wouldn’t dare—"
Tessa raised her hand, the tip of her finger glowing a soft violet. "Oh, I absolutely would."
Before Valeria could react, Tessa muttered an incantation under her breath: "Regulatrix Non-Accessus!"
The air around Valeria shimmered. A faint crackling sound echoed as a translucent red sigil appeared above her head, glowing ominously.
“W-what did you just do?” Valeria’s voice wavered, but her pride wouldn’t let her back down.
Tessa’s lips curled into a satisfied grin. "I’ve just invoked the Regulatory Inhibition Clause. It’s a little-known spell that automatically forbids unauthorized access to Guild-mapped dungeons. That includes you—Excel-Axe, or anyone else without the proper filing permissions."
Valeria stepped back as the sigil expanded into a swirling vortex of paperwork and red tape. The letters of "ACCESS DENIED" flickered in midair, like an overworked receptionist stamping “REJECTED” over every piece of Excel-Axe’s presence.
"We're not leaving until we finish this dungeon!" Valeria snapped, her hand going to her clipboard. But as soon as she moved toward the doors, the sigil flared up, blocking her path.
"No paperwork, no entry," Tessa said with a wicked smile. "I’ve officially filed your presence as ‘unauthorized,’ and it’s only a matter of time before the Guild sends someone to collect your... fines."
"Fines?" Valeria sputtered. "We don't have time for your petty bureaucratic games, Tessa."
"Really? Because it sounds like you just filed yourself into a corner." Tessa's voice was syrupy sweet. "Now, unless you’d like a formal notice delivered to your office about unapproved dungeon access, I suggest you leave. Immediately."
The glow of the sigil intensified, and the sound of distant paper shuffling filled the air, as if an invisible force was preparing a mountain of forms just for them.
Valeria seethed, but the mounting paperwork was impossible to ignore.
"You’re lucky we don’t have a full team of legal consultants here," she snarled. "But we’ll be back."
"Of course," Tessa said with a mock salute. "And when you do, just make sure your forms are in order. Wouldn’t want to trigger another unapproved audit."
With a final frustrated growl, Valeria spun on her heel, motioning for her team to leave. The last glance she gave Tessa was full of venom.
"Get out of here, Excel-Axe," Tessa muttered, watching them retreat. "And next time, don’t forget to file your exit form."
Tessa’s guildmates stared in awe, momentarily forgetting the chaos.
“Okay,” Jeff breathed, “that was incredibly bureaucratic.”
“Utterly ruthless,” Elion added with genuine admiration.
Bjorn gave her a proud nod. “You filed them into oblivion.”
Before Tessa could bask in the praise, the glowing orb above the pedestal gave a low hum… and promptly dropped a scroll onto her head with a magical plop.
She caught it mid-fall and squinted at the seal.
"Is that... a termination letter?" she asked, her eyes widening in anticipation.
Chortlebane read over her shoulder. "To claim your title, one must find the wheels that never turn."
Bjorn wheezed. “And where, exactly, are we supposed to find this magical wagon with wheels that don’t turn?”
And for the first time that day, Tessa smiled. Beside an old cabinet stood a row of brooms. It had been a while since she last flew.
"Let’s file this under ‘victory.’"
Incident Summary:
Following unauthorized access to an unfiled dungeon beneath the Welcome Center, Team Unspecified (name in progress) engaged rival Guild unit “Excel-Axe” in a jurisdictional altercation involving enchanted forms, improvised office weaponry, and at least one animate whiteboard.
Casualties:
-
One (1) clipboard holster melted.
- Numerous forms filled out incorrectly.
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Multiple egos bruised.
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Filing cabinet #9 now self-identifies as “Steve.”
Outstanding Forms:
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Form 88-L (Voluntary Entry into Possibly Sentient Location) – Completed.
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Form 99-X (Declaration of Lawful Dumbness) – Weaponized.
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Form 42-B (Apology for Improvised Magical Assault) – Pending.
Recovered items:
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1x Scroll of Regulatory Inhibition (used to ban rival adventurers)
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1x Glowing Crystal Orb of Dubious Sentience
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3x Enchanted Brooms (flight-capable, currently passive-aggressive)
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1x Self-Aware Filing Cabinet ("Steve") – currently in HR quarantine
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12x Screaming Tax Forms (confiscated and sealed in rune-labeled folders)
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1x Promotion Scroll (unopened, buzzing ominously)
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7x Misfiled Dungeon Maps (Tessa is not happy about them)
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1x Badge of Temporary Liaison Status (sparkles when near paperwork)
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Unknown: 1x Paper Golem Toe (possibly cursed, smells like coffee)
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Recommendation:
Deploy magical HR. And snacks. Definitely more snacks.
Personal Note:
For the record, I still don’t trust any map that draws smug little arrows. Also, if anyone sees my left boot (size 9, formerly enchanted against workplace despair), please return it. Last seen somewhere near Steve. He won’t return my calls.