Rich sighs, staring at his paperwork, before working on it, summoning the power of an Elder Department Chief to wring some of his aides and secretaries out of the Eleventh Dimension. String theorists are the best at accomplishing nothing while claiming to accomplish something. He didn't get to his position through LAZINESS, after all.
(6)
You grab a blank sheet of paper and perform the ritual of secretary conjuring, which mostly consists of drawing a summoning circle and then filling out the relevant forms in triplicate. It was never as nice as a proper incantation in the Elder Tongue, but sometimes a horror just has to make do.
Thing is, you can actually be
fluent in the language of the old ones. You never stop making errors in paperwork, a point which is conveniently proved when several fractaline entities appear in place of your aides. Each starts filling out your paperwork at 8800 words a minute, as per the terms of their summoning, but they don’t look the least bit happy about it.
Fling the gum at his ocular organs; considering I'm an office employee with a lot of free time, I should be a Grandmaster Gum Flinger by now.
(5v1)
You peel a wad gum from the underside of your desk and hold it at the ready as Niz’thur prepares to take another pass. Just as he begins to approach, you stretch it into a film, shake it a bit, and fling it over his face. It’s not as if you have the ammo to hit all those eyes individually, but it’s a right shame for Niz’thur that they’re all clustered together.
The Devourer seems to agree, judging by all the bellowing and face-clawing he’s doing. Looks like the gum did a real number on him.
Cole waits for security to arrive, setting the giant pile of paperwork beside Aaron. He then retreats back into the cubicle block, leaving Aaron to stand there. If Aaron tries to hold me there, and I can't leave, tell security what he was trying to do.
(1)
A pair of human security guards follows you back into the block, one of them carrying the stack of paperwork. He deposits it outside your cubicle while the other follows you inside.
“Not so fast, buddy. That was an unauthorized cubicle alarm, which is in direct violation of company policy. A few of the Overlords are going to want to, ah, pay you a visit.”"Hey, no worries, I was just helping my GOOD FRIEND COLE here with penetration testing for the new intern cubicle perimeter alarm as part of my interdepartmental outreach program. Since it clearly works, haha, I'll just be heading out now so he can finish up his paperwork! Great work with the fast response times, by the way."
"Hey, don't forget your paperwork... well, he's gone. I'm sure he'll come back for it. Anyway, I'm needed in my office! I'm sure I'll see you guys around again, keeping things secure. Hey, any of you know if we still have any of those old eldritch shorthand manuals in a cupboard somewhere? Gottkrieg's Unaussprechlichster Kurrentschrift perhaps? No? Maybe I'll ask one of the secretaries or something."
(3)
An invisible tentacle prods you as you try to make an exit, handing you a thick packet labeled “template for perimeter alarm inspection reports.” It’s probably small enough to compete with your own two hands, but you can’t help but groan. It really figures that you’d accumulate more paperwork as a result of dumping existing paperwork on someone else.
"Ugh. How many times do I have to get HR to tell people NOT to print summoning circles?!"
start by shutting off the copier, unplug it from its power source if need be, and only destroy it as a last resort. Then start shredding the printed summoning circles. Burning them only makes them unstable and causes worse things to happen.
(5)
You yank the surge strip out of the wall, cutting power to the entire row of printers and copiers. It doesn’t deal with the existing cockroaches and wasps, sadly, but it does keep the machines from printing anything nastier. Preventing the nutcases in shipping from sending more circles is just a nice bonus.
Then you move on to the diagrams themselves. The entire pile is a bit much for the shredder to deal with, but you manage to get them all in there before they conjure up much else. A cloud of purple bees flies from the scraps of paper, the hand in the wall turns into plaster dust, and all is finally still.
"Oh my. It appears that the psychoanalysis machine is broken. Please excuse me for a moment so that I can call tech support to have them deal with the issue."
Call tech support (preferably out of earshot of John) and tell them about the situation.
"Well, I suppose that we will have to make do with the reserve room. Please, come with me."
Take John to our spare processing room and "process" him (have him settle in and all that first, of course).
(5)
After a brief trip outside to page tech support, you lead John into the next room down the hall. None the wiser, he simply lies down and closes his eyes as you point your coworker’s Mind-Manipulator 2000 at his forehead.
“Doc, it’s like we’re all just tiny cogs in this giant metaphysical machine. The company uses you, uses you up, and before long the repair guy-”
“Wait a second, Doc, I actually feel
a whole lot better now! Don’t think I need the rest of your hour. Whoo, see you around!”
....And he’s gone. Phew- you were beginning to think you’d actually need to
treat that guy.
Drink the beer! Refuse to observe the results! Then, Wear the gloves. And do not wear the gloves. Once I am suitably, surreally refreshed and not refreshed, check my pager for further clean up duties.
Name: Ide Alley Sum'at Pronounceable
Player: Ozarck
Appearance: portly, balding, scaly red gentleman with a bowler cap and monocle, bulbous nose surrounded by whiskers, and a double tail.
Position: Viscera cleanup detail.
Artifacts of Power:
Ru̠b̜̰b̫̗e̩̼r͎͉ g͉̬͞l͖͘o͔͔v̢͔̦̳e̜̕s̞͔ (Eldritch, mind-altering).
Schrodinger's beer.
(5)
You chug your glass of Schrodinger's beer, which is fortunately the distilled essence of quantum physics rather than a 50% chance of deadly poison. Well, technically it
was a deadly poison, but you’re in the reality-branch where it wasn’t. It’s important to be careful with semantics when you’re killing off alternate versions of yourself.
As the lucky half of the quantum pairing, you get to enjoy a nice period of relaxation with and without your g͉̬͞l͖͘o͔͔v̢͔̦̳e̜̕s̞͔. The version of yourself with gloves on somehow manages to kill the barkeep, but you have a pleasant break and nobody is any the wiser after the outcome collapses. Gotta love it when quantum phenomena work in your favor.
You can’t really wrap your head around what happened once the effect wears off, but that’s nothing surprising in these sorts of bars. You just shake off the slight quantum hangover and check your pager, which has apparently been beeping about a massacre in the Finance Department for the better part of the hour.
Why does this keep happening to me... Chase does the router and pin it down, hopefully not destroying it
(3)
You run over and slam your foot down on the router, pushing it down onto the ground. There’s a slight crunch as it lands, and some of its tentacles flail like it’s having a seizure, but whatever you did probably isn’t any worse than eldritch possession. You’d have had to take it down to the repair shop just to remove the fleshy bits.
Usurp this wing's janitor's position by stuffing him into a secluded closet.
(4v2)
You run over and grab the unsuspecting janitor, a portly man who barely seems to fit in his uniform. Pulling him over to a closet is a bit of a challenge, but he barely even puts up a fight as you grab his key ring, push him underneath the shelves, and lock him inside. The poor guy could definitely benefit from starving for a few days, so the whole thing is really all and very well.
Author
Topic: Roll to Ǫ̸̛ff͟i͢c҉̀ę̕: Paperwork in Five Dimensions (Read 8248 times)