In the dungeon, down the main gallery, a right, another right, a left, and before the chamber with the spike pit that led to the cells, was the lunchroom.
Bron and Gorbo sat waiting for Rafe. They fidgeted in their chairs, which had been designed for humans, whose legs were longer and cabooses were smaller.
“This is what I’m talking about,” Gorbo said, shifting in his seat. “Of course they ignore our suggestion for mid-height stools, but because it’s better than nothing, we can’t complain to management.”
Bron sighed. Gorbo wasn’t wrong, but by Boor Above’s Gold-Plated Gold, the ornery dwarf could spend hours going on about poorly selected furniture, among other things.
It was the same conversation they’d had every week. For the fifteen minutes before the staff meeting was supposed to start, all the way through the fifteen minutes after the staff meeting was supposed to start (Rafe was always late) Gorbo made his case.
Again, he wasn’t wrong. But Bron was just trying to get through the days and the weeks of their part-time dungeon-guarding gig. All that for one gold kazoo per week – when rent was three kazoos per month. He wasn’t being paid to listen to Gorbo’s complaints – but at mandatory staff meetings, he couldn’t escape them.
“And don’t get me started on how we have to bring our own lunches now,” Gorbo said, taking a bite of his leftovers sandwich, which that day included salt offal, some kind of pepper jelly, and what smelled like old cheese – though in the sulfuric dungeon, it was hard to tell. “They can’t keep treating us like this. That’s essentially a five harmonica dock in pay per week."
Bron nodded, chewing the potato dumplings he’d brought with him. “I’ve been trying to find a cheaper place to live to make do,” he said.
“Are you looking for a roommate?” Gorbo asked.
“No, there’s already three of us in the place.” It was a lie – Bron was looking for roommates, but living with Gorbo would just turn their thirty-minute therapy sessions into take-home work.
“Damnit to Gus,” Gorbo said, brushing crumbs out of his beard.
Rafe entered the room toting his oversized valise. “Sorry I’m late, you know how it is.”
They didn’t specifically “know how it was” beyond the middle-manager Rafe always being late and never actually explaining it. The lanky human always wore a smile that suggested he had some great, exciting news to share, as if his two dwarven supervisees couldn’t wait to hear about the assignments they were about to get. He was the room-temperature coffee of supervisors: not awful, but not by much.
“Middle-manager” described him perfectly.
“Okay, we’ve got three new prisoners in the secret dungeon-below-the-dungeon. I need one of you on meal service and the other on dragon duty.”
This was a clever middle-management tactic. Ask the workers to assign themselves so that the resentment remained between them, leaving any grumblings to be sorted out at the level of the expendable pay grades: in this case, two part-time dwarven guards.
Bron sighed. “I’ll take dragon duty.”
“Great, that means Gorbo is on meal service,” Rafe said.
Gorbo nodded. “Thanks, Bron.”
It was the least Bron could do for Gorbo. He really did feel sorry for his co-worker, even if he could barely stand co-working with him. Plus, Bron had learned after the last time Gorbo took dragon duty that he preferred Hefnir’s terrifying presence to Gorbo’s lengthy, in-depth complaints about Hefnir’s terrifying presence.
It was the price of steady employment in the shadow of the Goat Hair Crisis, wherein goat hair-backed commodities tanked after the Heroes’ Guild banished all the weregoats from the Norland Peninsula.
To be fair, weregoats, like all werecreatures, did cause were-syndrome. And worse, like all goats, they were clever and nimble, and loved to bite folks who could contract were-syndrome and become goat-like were-people, climbing trees and chewing on garbage without regard. And shedding everywhere, whilst smelling like goats.
But, the cost of losing the cheapest supply of goat hair fiber was steep indeed, and left the regional economy reeling, with money and employment in as short supply as locally sourced goat hair.
“What did these prisoners do?” Gorbo asked.
Rafe cleared his throat. “You know company policy, Gorbo: at HenchCo, we take utmost care not to reveal the confidential information regarding prisoners privileged to us by our clients.”
“But we’re part of HenchCo,” Bron said.
Rafe let out a long awkward sigh as he mulled over whatever bureaucratic nonsense he was about to declare. “Actually, as part-timers, you’re both contractors for HenchCo proper, so… I can’t reveal the information you want at this time…”
Gorbo shook his head. “Okay, well, do any of them have food allergies?”
“Oh, good reminder,” Rafe said. He fished out three identical parchments from his briefcase and handed them to Gorbo. “Make sure you fill out these intake forms for each of them.”
“What?” Gorbo asked. “Didn’t the intake center already get this information?”
“Upper management has re-allocated the Intake Department’s resources after analyzing the synergies between their functions and that of our field agents such as you two. It’s way more efficient to have the guards filling out these forms.”
That meant the luminaries running HenchCo had downsized their field offices and shoved all the now-unmanned duties onto the various entry-level employees that the field offices had once supported.
Another effective dock in pay, as it were.
“Alright, I’m off to my next meeting. If anything comes up, just run a message to our secret field office in the sewers below Lohrbhnof,” Rafe said. “Don’t worry about it being mostly empty, it’s still taking messages.”
Rafe exited the room as quickly as he’d entered, before Gorbo could protest.
Or at least, before Gorbo could protest to Rafe.
“That mealy-mouthed middle-manager,” Gorbo spat. “More duties? I’ve got to go down to the secret dungeon-below-the-dungeon, speak to a bunch of unpleasant and likely smelly prisoners, and get their vitals on top of serving them meals twice a day?”
Bron calculated the likelihood that Gorbo’s newfound complaints about meal service would outweigh any he’d have about dragon duty. Likely not. “Seems like it.”
“Well, to Gus with this,” Gorbo said, throwing the parchments on the floor. “I won’t do it. Day after day, week after week, month after month, HenchCo has been putting the wood-fasteners to honest workers like you and me, and I’ve had enough.”
Gorbo hopped off his chair and began to head to the door. Part of Bron was happy and excited for him – Gorbo’s feet were finally catching up with his mouth.
And the other part of Bron, the part that realized that if Gorbo left, he’d be on dragon duty and meal service, knew better.
“Gorbo, wait,” Bron said. “Come on, I’ll help you with meal service.”
Gorbo sighed. “That’s unfair to you, Bron,” he said.
“Well, if you leave I’d have to do it all anyway, right?” Bron asked. “And it’s not like they’d give me your pay in addition.”
Gorbo gave his co-worker a sarcastic, singular “ha,” and shook his head. “If you did both jobs at the same time halfway competently, they’d probably fire half of every two-man team from here to Treetown.”
Bron picked up the parchments and looked at what information they needed to gather. At least the names had been filled out.
“Okay, so we’ve got Dagger Thomas, Orrin Applebee, and Silga Dragonslayer,” Bron listed off.
“Silga Dragonslayer?” Gorbo asked. “Let’s not mention that name around Hefnir, eh?”
Bron laughed. “I guess we shouldn’t, no.”
Dragonslayer. What a made-up name. There weren’t any dragons around to slay anymore, aside from Hefnir. And Hefnir, by his own terrifying testimony having lived since the Inception of Rhythm, when the Composers Boor Above and Gus Below struck the Opening Chords, was not the type of dragon that anyone human sized were able to slay. You don’t live to unknowable-millennia-years-old by being slayable.
“I swear to Gus, they better not be allergic to gruel,” Gorbo added. “I’m not cooking any side meals.”
“Come on, Gorbo,” Bron said. “Let’s just get it done, and maybe we can leave early for the day.”
They left the lunchroom to head over to the dungeon, so that they could open the hidden door in the back, go down the stone-wrought spiral stairs, past Hefnir’s chambers (where hopefully he was napping, as old dragons tended to do) and into the secret dungeon-below-the-dungeon to gather their prisoners’ food allergies.
Just another day in the life of a part-time dungeon guard.
