“Name?”

  “Nathan Lee.”

  “Reason for visit?”

  “We’re looking for a key or something?”

  The brick hemmed and hawed, then telekinetically moved a stack of papers around, revealing a sheet. Whatever was written on it seemed to be satisfactory, because it nodded to itself—Nathan didn’t even know bricks could nod—and then looked back over at Nathan.

  “You’re gonna want to take a left and head over to the Department of Acquisitions. Go ahead and ask for Nyartholep the Destroyer. They should be able to give you a hand.”

  Nathan mouthed the name to himself and stepped to the side. Emi walked up, graceful as always. The brick was asking the reason for visit.

  Nathan looked around himself, questioning his sanity. He knew that bureaucracy was a surprisingly popular thing across the universe, given how he’d encountered it with the mushroom people. But this was definitely taking it a bit too far.

  As far as he could tell, they weren’t actually doing anything. The papers were just incomprehensible scribbles. And anyway, what did bricks even need to produce? What—were they farming? Were they running a trade empire? From a dungeon on the Sixth Circle?

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get an appointment," the brick said.

  “What?” Emi’s voice was completely puzzled. “But Nathan didn’t have an appointment.”

  “He came during office hours. I’m afraid you arrived thirty seconds too late.”

  It was the most fascinating thing. Nathan could feel himself losing brain cells just by listening to this bizarre individual.

  Didn't Nathan have an expert in contract law? What was his name again? Burrow? Briefcase?

  He slapped his fist into his open palm. “Burrau, that was his name.”

  Nathan held out his hand and attempted to summon his Soulbound Town.

  Nothing happened.

  He frowned and tried again.

  Still nothing.

  “Sir, if you’re trying to summon a portal,” one of the bricks said, “the right to create portals in this dungeon was taken away after an event two hours ago where a highly important cultural artifact was destroyed due to someone’s reckless usage of dimensional magic.”

  “Wow, who would do such a thing?” Nathan said.

  “Indeed. The Loop is one of the oldest artifacts in the multiverse. Created just after the beginning of everything. Its value cannot be measured in any type of currency.”

  Nathan nodded up and down, his neck as stiff as a board. “You’re so right.”

  Emi rapped on the desk. “Excuse me, but we’re still not done here.”

  The brick turned, its rough stone grinding against the wooden seat. It was on.

  “I’m afraid that we are. Unless you have an appointment, I can’t permit you access.”

  Mara waltzed up to the desk and grinned. “And what if I were to ignore your permission?”

  “I would have to file a section 37–B.”

  “How long would that take?”

  “Around three hours.”

  “Are security guards going to come and get us or something after that?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. First, my request would have to be approved by my manager. Then my manager’s manager would have to approve it. Then it would get sent over to the Department of Security, where they’re going to debate over my request for about a day. And then—”

  “Right, thanks for the information. Good luck.”

  Mara waltzed over to Emi and threw her arm around her shoulder. “I’ve met these types before. Trust me, I think we’re going to be able to do whatever we want here short of blowing the whole place to smithereens.”

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Please don’t tell me that’s what you were thinking of doing.”

  She widened her eyes to make herself look like some sort of innocent, naive Disney princess.

  “Me?” she said. “You think that I would ever even think of doing such a thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “In this case, you’re absolutely right.” She reached into her inventory and brought out a set of car keys. “I really wanted to take this thing for a spin—”

  “Yeah, don’t do that.”

  She pouted and put the keys back. “Fine.”

  Chad brought his camera closer. “No, ignore him. Definitely do that.”

  Bjorn rested his hand on Chad’s shoulder. “You really shouldn’t encourage her.”

  “Let’s just go check out that Department of Acquisitions or whatever,” Nathan said.

  The group set off in the direction of the “left,” whatever that even meant. Nathan was really hoping it meant their left and not the brick’s left, because otherwise they were about to thirty minutes for no particular reason.

  On second thought, that was a great thing, and Nathan was now hoping the exact opposite of what he’d just been hoping.

  The funny thing about the space they were currently in was that there were basically zero identifying markers whatsoever. It was just desk after desk after desk in every direction as far as the eye could see. Nathan wasn’t even sure he would be able to find his way back if it came down to that.

  A grunt broke him out of his haze. There was a brick moving massive cardboard boxes and trying to arrange them into what looked to be a stack.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Nathan walked on over and picked up one of the boxes. He set it down on the stack the brick had been trying to telekinetically create.

  The brick broke out of its concentration and dropped one of the boxes.

  “Thanks for the help, sir. Technically, though, helping me with this is a violation of section 59–C–1.2.”

  “Oh.” Nathan found himself unable to particularly care about this fact. “We’re looking for the Department of Acquisitions?”

  “Is that so? Then you’re in the right place.”

  Nathan’s eyes widened. “Really? That was fast—”

  “You should take about five thousand steps over there, and you’ll eventually find the director.”

  Chad took that moment to walk over and make an X shape with his arms.

  “Nathan, if we do another walking scene, half of the stream is going to boycott.”

  “We can’t have that, can we?” Nathan muttered. He raised his voice and went back to speaking to the brick. “Can you help us out? Maybe we don’t need to see the director. Maybe we can just talk with you.”

  “It would depend on the problem. I’m just an intern.”

  Nathan figured that honesty was probably the best policy here.

  “We’re looking for the Key of Unnecessary Bullshit?”

  The intern jumped into the air. “Oh, that’s easy. You don’t even need the director for that.”

  “Awesome. Where do we get started?”

  “It’s pretty basic,” the intern said. “First, you’re going to need to fill out form Q-31. That’s the form for quest progression. After that you’re going to need to request a nonprofessional professional map. Then you need to sign a waiver releasing us from all liabilities in case you get killed on the way there.”

  “Nonprofessional professional map?” Nathan said.

  “We have twenty-seven different options for maps of the dungeon. The nonprofessional professional map is for professionals who want to act like they’re not professional.”

  “I kind of want to hear about these other twenty-six options?” Mara said.

  “That was a joke. She was joking.”

  “The only part that we actually need is the map, though,” Chad said, raising his hand. “Like, the rest of it isn’t strictly necessary.”

  “What are you talking about? Filling out the forms is absolutely necessary.”

  Nathan had never thought he’d see the day where he’d find somebody more banal about procedures than the mushroom people.

  I need to make sure that these people and Burrau never meet.

  The brick telekinetically floated a stack of papers over to Nathan. “Please start signing here.”

  The stack of papers was a quarter of Nathan’s entire length from head to toe. Each sheet of paper was covered in page after page of legalese.

  Nathan was halfway tempted to grab Burrau and get his help, but he was worried what the consequences of that would be. Knowing Nathan’s luck, Burrau would succeed and get the key in the next ten minutes, which obviously wasn’t Nathan’s objective.

  So, with a resigned sigh, Nathan pulled up a chair opposite the intern and took the first sheet of paper off the top.

  Nathan's eyes were bleeding.

  At least, that was what it felt like. All of the words seemed to meld together in front of him into a soup of letters and language. Nathan was on the verge of throwing the remaining stack onto the ground and calling it a day.

  He stared over at the stack. He had barely made a dent—maybe one twentieth of the total amount of paper. And he had been there for what, two hours?

  It was perfect.

  Absolutely perfect.

  All he had to do was keep this up and then the rest of humanity would funnel into the soulbound towns.

  His eyes flickered shut and he forced them back open through sheer force of will.

  Stay awake! You’ve got to stay awake!

  He had never thought he would find an activity that hurt more than being pressurized in the deep sea. He was wrong.

  “Hey, Nathan, are you almost done?” Chad put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Everyone’s getting really bored. Mara’s trying to convince Emi to use Bjorn as target practice, and I think Emi is about to give in.”

  “Am I almost done?”

  Nathan gestured at the massive stack of papers. “What do you think?”

  “Wait, I thought that was the ones you already finished.”

  “No.”

  On the outside, Chad’s expression did not change. The slightest twitch of his fingers betrayed his true thoughts.

  “Nathan, we’re going to be here for the next week at this pace,” he said.

  “I’m aware.”

  Just because it was part of Nathan’s plan didn't mean he was happy about it, either.

  “There’s got to be a way to speed this up.” Chad rubbed the temples of his forehead. “Like, maybe talking to that director guy would make it faster?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” the brick said.

  Chad looked over at the brick. “Why not? Aren't you just an intern?”

  “The director would ask you to fill out twice as many forms. I’m giving you the speedy version. As for your second question…” The brick’s voice dropped. “I’ve been an intern for the last ten years. Trust me, I know how this all works.”

  “This place doesn’t really have good job advancement prospects, does it?” Chad said.

  “I know one guy who managed to move up from being an intern,” the brick said. “It only took one hundred fifty years. I’m on track to beat him by fifteen years, so it’s not all bad.”

  Chad gave Nathan a look. Nathan shrugged in return.

  His hand twitched and a rush of pain ran up his arm. He brought his other hand over and massaged the sore body parts.

  “I’m getting cramps,” Nathan said. “I’m getting cramps from paperwork. This is insane. How do you get anything done?”

  The brick shook from side to side like it was trying to shake its head.

  “I think there’s something you’re misunderstanding,” the brick said. “You’re assuming we’re trying to get things done. In reality, the work itself is the point. We fill out the paperwork and accomplish nothing, and that’s exactly how we like it.”

  “What a productive organization.”

  “Most organizations are like this. Just a bunch of people trying to look busy and not get fired.”

  Nathan resolved to check his Coulbound Town and make sure that people were actually doing things in the assigned jobs he had given them. It had been a hot minute since he had been there, so he probably needed to go back anyway.

  The conversation died off and Nathan found himself looking at the stack of papers with a new understanding.

  “I can take the ones that you’ve already finished and start processing them,” the intern said.

  Nathan shrugged, not bothering to look up at the brick. “Go ahead.”

  The brick took the small stack of completed papers and started scanning through them one by one. Then it dropped the stack of papers onto a box labeled “Out.”

  Two floating bricks seemed to materialize out of nowhere and stopped in front of the intern’s table. The two floating bricks levitated the stack of completed papers toward them and then disappeared.

  Nathan watched their backs as they disappeared into the distance. “That’s normal, right?”

  “Yeah, don’t worry about it. They’re going to move your request up the chain for normal processing.”

  Less than five minutes later, a brick floated toward Nathan, the same stack he had seen five minutes ago floating next to it.

  Nathan frowned. There was something off about the situation.

  “Sir?” the intern said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just needed to confirm an answer,” the second brick said, its voice gruff and strained.

  It turned toward Nathan. If it had eyes, Nathan was sure it would be glaring directly at him.

  “Did you really write this down?” it asked.

  “Write what down?”

  The brick floated a sheet from the top over in front of Nathan’s face.

  The top had the name of the form listed out.

  Reason for request:

  Below that was Nathan’s messy handwriting.

  to not find the key.

  Nathan took the paper out of the air and brought it closer to his eyes. He wasn't sure what the brick’s problem was. As far as he could tell, he had written everything appropriately, in line with the rules and stipulations listed at the top of the page. There should have been no issues.

  “Yeah, that was me,” Nathan said. “What about it?”

  Nathan had briefly considered lying, but ultimately decided that the truth would come out eventually. There was no real reason to hide.

  “Excellent,” the senior brick said. “You’re approved.”

  A new piece of paper materialized directly in front of Nathan and fluttered onto the top of the desk.

  Nathan's heart sank.

  Chad reached out and took the piece of paper in his hand before Nathan had a chance to react. He read it over and his eyes shot wide.

  “Nathan, this is the map!” Chad said. “How did you do that?”

  “I have no idea,” Nathan said.

  Chad slapped him on the back. “Good job. With this, we seriously cut down on the amount of time we’ll have to spend here.”

  “Yep. You’re exactly right, Chad.”

  In Nathan’s defense, how was he supposed to know that giving a negative answer would be the right one?

  Nathan took the piece of paper and searched it from top to bottom.

  He bit his bottom lip when he finished reading.

  The map…

  Was really good.