Lark still shadowed her as she made her way towards the goblin den. She had hopes that he would get bored with her and move on. He did not.

  All the reading she had done of the goblin’s den did not prepare her for what was right in front of her eyes. Everywhere she looked, she saw a crime committed against the goblins. They have no other choice but to call this squalor home. These goblins are the responsibility of RADAWC, and they have been failed.

  They were dressed in nothing more than tattered rags that are nearly transparent with how worn they are in spots. Every goblin was a yellow-green hue, suggesting they were sick. Their skin was tight enough to highlight every dip and bulge of their bones. Some looked so frail that one touch would cause their bodies to crumble. Many were covered in scars from battle, both in the form of marred flesh and wounds improperly healed.

  Where is the glory or honour in cutting down sickly creatures? Is this what it means to become a hero?

  The hovel is just as sickening to see as the goblins themselves. Their den is a cold, dark, dank cave, with a vicious waterfall cutting through it. The waterfall is fed by the collection of streams and the river that flows all around the small town. The water is not safe for consumption by most living things, goblins included.

  The walls were too moist and cold to sustain growth of most fungi or mosses native to the area. Without anything to dine upon, creatures don’t call this cave home. The combination of cold and moist made this cave barren of life that she would expect to find.

  How did this quest get approved in the first place? Even someone as infamous as Vlahd in the storymancer circles would still need approval, especially if what they say is true about his Vampyre’s Curse quest.

  Where is Vlahd in all of this?

  To quell Lark's complaints and likely his required notes on his report, she wrote everything she saw on blank paper she keeps on her clipboard. She made note of everything for her official report.

  She will not leave these goblins to waste away in this squalor while waiting on the slow speed of bureaucracy to remedy every insult they are enduring. She just needed to make her adjustments to the den without Lark knowing what she was doing. Rizae may be useful here.

  “Shank, may I ask you about the last adventurers who entered your den? Were they the same ones who perished?” Keylynn asked after completing her initial assessment. If she can trust anyone to know anything about these dead adventurers, it will be those that faced them.

  The goblin elder nodded from atop his seat of cloth scraps that wafted the aroma of mildew. “Ay, they came through here. Like the others since this infernal quest started—too soon if you ask this old goblin—they sliced and diced with little care for anything but murder and carnage. They care not for the state they found us in, as is expected of adventurers of late. They care only for themselves and the tales that will be spun about them.”

  Her eyebrow raised at the mention of the quest starting too soon. That is new. Was this quest not supposed to start when it did? If so, that could explain everything that is going on, well, except for Vlahd.

  “I got the names of them that were slain and the healers’ report.” Shank added, handing over a dirt-smeared paper to her. She clipped it to her clipboard. She noted each goblin had a cause of death prescribed to them.

  “Thank you kindly. What can you tell me about the party class designation spread?” She asked, looking through the causes of death quickly. Unfortunately, most adventurers functioned relatively similarly at lower levels. Party class designations could help fill in some blanks as to how the Day Eyes perished.

  Keylynn stole a glance at Lark while the goblins muttered to themselves. Lark at the very least removed his darkened glasses as he looked around the cave, making notes of his own. He wrote incredibly straight across the small page of his top spiral-bound notebook, suggesting he follows the human methods of notation. He, like many with mixed parentage, likely chose which world he would belong in.

  A goblin wearing nothing more than a translucent loincloth that left nothing to the imagination cleared his throat. “Tall, broody, dressed like that one,” he pointed towards Lark. “But wore armour. Big sword.”

  Shank nodded in agreement. “Martial class for that one, can't say more.”

  A vibrant yellow goblin hobbled forward using a makeshift crutch. “A small angry one, tosses stones when their aim fails. Tossed their bow at one point, then started stabbing with arrows.”

  “A mobile martial class, most likely.” Shank concluded with a nod to the yellow goblin.

  So far she wasn’t hearing anything out of the ordinary with the adventuring party. It sounds like they have one who focuses on bigger hits with their large weapon while they have one who can do damage at a distance, giving them more mobility.

  “There was the humanoid snake, forest green with diamonds of red. Blood-red eyes thirsting for murder and death. Angry magic.” A goblin clad in a threadbare robe that once used to be black but is now sun-bleached explained keeping their focus trained on the ground. Several goblins around her also looked down, while others took a few steps back.

  “Spellcaster, no healing. Insulting remarks, but I do not think they are a performer.” Shank explained solemnly. What did this snake do to these goblins? “They travelled with a fierce beast, a fell tiger, with fur black as death and eyes. I do not know if that was a pet or a party member.” Shank added.

  If their beast was just a beast, then Keylynn could see some problems with their party composition. However, if the beast is a party member, then they have a druid. A druid is a wildly versatile member of any adventuring group. If they had a druid, then their party composition on paper suggests they shouldn’t have had any problems in this quest. That is if the quest was functioning as it should.

  “How would you describe their party as a whole?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Shank thought for a minute before answering, “When one zigged, the other zagged. Messy.” He shook his head. If they were truly a mess, then they would have been flagged for assessment.

  “Was an assessment request filed?” She asked with a frown. If one wasn’t filed, then that would put fault squarely on the quest line and the storymancer.

  Shank shrugged. “As if they would tell me if it was.”

  She made a note of that and glanced up at Lark. He was watching her curiously. Moss balls—he was supposed to be focused on something else. She had to switch the topic to HR

  “May I do an assessment of your living conditions and file it when I file my assessment of this quest?” She asked, hoping for a yes. She can use it as an excuse to slightly change the environment while she waits for the assessment to be filed and processed. She hoped Lark would rapidly lose interest with an overzealous HR representative doing their job.

  “Do as you please. It won’t make a lick of difference anyways,” Shank grumbled and stood up from his seat. A goblin handed him a cane, and he limped off slowly.

  Keylynn took that as her permission. First, she will need some help. She pulled out her jar filled with dirt and various detritus that she kept for these situations, ones where she needs more help. She uncorked her jar and knelt so she could empty the contents on the ground. Resting her hand on the pile, she closed her eyes and focused on summoning her dear friend Rizae.

  Rizae was first summoned when Keylynn was a small child and has retained her small stature, standing slightly shorter than Riv. Her bottom hyphae were thickened into a fungal version of a foot with a varying number of toes; usually she had four. Her upper hyphae were formed in a similar way, with two branches of hyphae on either side of her body, each ending in four fungoid fingers. Her mushroom cap coloration and shape varied with every summon. This time her mushroom cap was ashen grey and resembled a morel-shaped cap. Two eyespots developed on the stalk of the mushroom, followed by a slit that formed into her mouth.

  “It’s a pleasure as always, Rizae. Our mission is to adjust this cave to help the goblins while they await their assessment to be processed, all without Lark noticing,” she explained in a whisper in elven. She hoped Lark didn’t understand, but one can never be too careful when breaking the rules.

  Rizae’s hyphal fingers wrapped around Keylynn’s. “I do love your plots. Not to worry, you do the work, I do the sneaking.” She whispered back in the same tongue.

  “What is that?” Lark asked, gesturing towards Rizae with confusion painted on his face. She couldn’t blame him; she is an unusual summon. Most summons are animals such as cats or dogs. Most druids manifest woodland creatures like squirrels or deer. Keylynn chose to make herself a friend she understood, a child-sized mushroom.

  Keylynn stood beside her short summon. “This is Rizae, my summon. I know she is rather different; however, when I first summoned her, she was what I needed most.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Why is she here?” He asked, his bored tone of voice returning.

  “To assist me in my assessment of the goblin den, it is not my primary objective here, so I cannot use too much time to conduct it, but I cannot leave them in this state,” Keylynn explained, hoping this will be enough to appease him.

  “I’m going to note this in my audit,” he stated, denoting nothing in his tone of voice.

  She walked with Rizae towards the pool of cold turbulent water. The rushing waterfall that feeds into the pool is a concern. “This is the only source of water,” she explained louder than necessary in the universal tongue, more for Lark than for anyone else.

  Rizae nodded and knelt to let her finger hyphae touch the water. “There were small tasty things in the water that could feed one of your more cold-resistant colonies,” she said in the elvish tongue. Summoned creatures always know at least one way to communicate with the one who summoned them.

  Keylynn made notes on her clipboard, some official and some not, while waiting for Lark to grow bored of her. To her credit, it didn’t take him very long to wander around the den. She reached her hand into her bag. She focused her thoughts on finding the perfect aquatic fungus. She keeps most of her colonies in small glass terrariums that she made to ensure each one has the best possible environment. Her frog spawn mould is the perfect colony to help the goblins, as it is filled with nutrients, it tastes similar to algae, and it is rather robust.

  She explained the situation to her frog spawn mould while filling them with a spark of her magic, encouraging them to grow. When her Frog Spawn mould was eager to see its new home, she gently set the jar in Rizae’s waiting tendrils. “Be gentle, Rizae. Is there any way we can reduce the water flow from the waterfall?”

  “I don’t think so, not without your shadow seeing anyways, unless you have mastered control over rock…” Rizae trailed off, gesturing a tendril towards the waterfall. “If so, maybe you can widen the hole. The bigger the hole, the more water that can come, and the gentler the flow.”

  Keylynn chewed on her lip thoughtfully. The logic makes sense. When there’s a leak, the water always flows out with greater force from a smaller hole than a larger one. However, that is noisy, and Lark will notice that. Not to mention that she hasn’t mastered her control over rock yet. She could summon dirt into there, but that would make mud.

  While Rizae helped the frog spawn mould into its new home, she walked over to assess the walls. They were moist, which meant she had a good chance of compelling something to grow there. Her biggest concern is the cold. When fungi are cold, they can become sluggish, reserving all their energy for survival, not for thriving. She needs something that can thrive here, grow rapidly enough to help the goblins, and withstand their feasting upon it.

  She ran her hand across the wall, thinking a winter lichen could thrive here. They do not need much light. Goblins are well known for tending to all things that grow in their dens, so when they see the lichen growing, they should tend to it.

  She cast a look over her shoulder to see that Lark still hadn’t returned. Good, it’s harder to summon lichens to grow with an audience. She reached into her bag, pulling out one of her jars of lichen. For them, she has to store them in the special jars that Barnibus made for her. The jar's magic ensures that the contents don't experience time in the same way as they would outside of the jar.

  Gently opening the jar, she trickled down the hyphae of her magic, waking them up. With her magic, she explained both the environment she found for them and the goblins in need. She asked if they would agree to flourish here. Lichens are fickle, if they have no wish to, they will not live. When they asked about sustenance, she blushed faintly. She forgot to check the wall for tiny creatures that her eyes cannot see but her hyphae can feel.

  She pressed one of her mycelium-lined hands against the wall and eased her hyphae out to taste the water of the wall. Her magic flowed gently over the surface as if it were a fungus reaching out with hyphae. A smile came to her lips, and she told the lichen all about the many tasty morsels that grow and live upon the walls.

  With Rizae’s help, Keylynn spread the lichen all over a wall, all the while she encouraged and fueled the lichen’s growth with her magic. It took them longer than she would have liked to get the job done, but once it was, they had a wall filled with rapidly growing lichen. Within a day the wall should be covered or nearly covered, and the goblins can take it from there.

  “Rizae, can you ensure the goblins know of both the frog spawn mould and the lichen? I have to move on to the HR office with Lark,” Keylynn asked, looking down at her oldest friend. She would prefer to stay, but she didn’t want to risk Lark learning the truth.

  “I will, and I will meet you in the office later,” Rizae answered before padding deeper into the cave.

  Keylynn sucked in a big breath and slowly let it out. Lark doesn’t know, and he will not know. She will take him to the HR office if he is still shadowing her to show him the hidden glory of HR: paperwork. She plans to read through every single relevant file there is, including looking for the assessment report that the deceased party needed.