(Protectorate Year 350)

Dear Master

Oh Master, I’m screwed. It’s over. I’m done for.

Uh, so I’m Caster Winifontierteres Fentieretinis Vinicololomastarestemos, First Daughter of Caster Pen In Bowl and Caster Auv Geri Ceneben, Born of Spawn Pit 17 on Homeship Master’s Inevitability.

A couple days ago this woman, a complete stranger, never saw her before in my short life, ran into my office. She screamed at me about how I’m a thief, and threw a file full of paperwork in my face.

Then she just… left.

So I was left thinking just how in the heck she figured it out! Was I not careful enough? Did I not cook the books enough? My warehouse has a whole system coordinated to syphon off a bit of food here and there, did somebody talk? This is awful, I have no idea where the leak is. I don’t know how to find out either.

I looked through the documents she threw at me, and there it was, clear as Master’s divinity. I don’t remember writing any of these numbers, and I feel like I would have faked the numbers better… but it’s my handwriting, and this is an official document, so I must have screwed up really bad!

As you remember from my letter last year, I only just got this job. My predecessor reached 100 years of age, so she went on a pilgrimage to some of the many holy sites around your domain. The ones left standing after the Protectorate-Empire slaughtered us, I mean. I was trained to take her place, and the Workers and Soldiers of this warehouse were very clear about what would happen to me if I didn’t continue the food-syphoning system that kept their bellies full.

…You’ll understand if I don’t want to repeat their threats. I’m sure you remember how vile they were.

Which is why this is awful! If that Caster goes to the authorities with this, then the employees will get mad at my failure and they’re gonna punish me for it!

I had to deal with this. I had to deal with this in such a way that brought no blame on me or my warehouse. I had to shift the blame to someone else.

I came up with two solutions: the teleportation spires, and the port factory. Now, despite being a Caster, I was never given a staff of my own to use your magic as that’s not relevant to my job (I’ve been taking classes after work though, and I hope to get certified soon). Ergo, sneaking into the teleportation spires and falsifying their records would probably be impossible. The port factory was the safer option, only Workers strains work there, and they’re all stupid.

I took the express tram all the way down hundreds of floors to reach the port. A massive outcropping from the ‘port’ side of the Homeship that sees hundreds or maybe thousands or possibly millions of ships come and go every single day. Aliens are quarantined to this part of the Homeship of course, but if they’re interested in exploring Master’s creation then a Seer can be brought down to escort them, and preach your word in the hopes of achieving conversion.

But as aliens don’t want our meat or veggies floating around in boxes during their long travel across space, we have to send our products to various factories for processing. The factory I traveled to put the food in an alien invention known as ‘cans’. These tin oddities keep the provisions from spoiling. Somehow. As I’m a Caster with only a novice understanding of magic, I don’t know what spell makes these cans function.

Regardless, this factory was my target. It employs hundreds of thousands of Sisters and handles such a massive load of food every day that it should be no problem to falsify their numbers to draw blame away from us.

Sneaking through one of the side doors, I crept my way down a dark alley of massive wooden crates, careful to avoid detection. My paws squeaked with every step, despite my best efforts, but I was hoping that the clanging of machinery and yelling and laughter would keep me from being discovered.

“Hey!” A Soldier yelled, spotting me instantly and running over.

My body jumped and I turned to her, ready to take a beating for trespassing.

“What are you doing out of uniform?”

“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to steal-… uniform?”

“Yeah, idiot.” She grabs one of the tassels hanging from my shoulders. “What are these robes, do you think you’re a Caster or something?”

“Uuh…” My face lit up. “Oh! Yeah, of course I’m out of uniform. I’m just a dumb, stupid, pathetic, worthless, dime a dozen, loser, low I.Q., mass produced, unspecialized Worker. Can you take me to the uniform room?”

The Soldier’s face was full of sympathy as she put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Hey, listen. You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that, okay? I know you’re not as good as a Soldier, but at least you’re not a Caster, right? I’m sure Master has great plans for you, so cheer up, okay? If you need someone to talk to then anyone of us would be more than willing to lend an ear. It was just one mistake, follow me and I’ll get you that uniform, okay?”

“U-uh… yeah, sure. Sorry.”

So she took me to a backroom and I was made to don an ugly set of overalls, and then she brought me out into the heart of the factory. It was a massive, impressive monstrosity of scaffolding. Tables suspended with straps, pully systems so cans and food can be sent up and down, chef stations so the meat and vegetables could be cooked before packaging, and Workers using their wings to flutter everywhere. I had no idea what I was looking at, it was more like a playground than an efficient workspace. This is why Workers shouldn’t be left to design their own layouts.

I was brought to a Worker on the bottom floor, she wore a gold ribbon tied around her right horn, so I knew she was the boss.

“Alright, newbie,” the Soldier said. “This is the leader of this factory, Worker Berri Lavelion Edichi. You’ll be getting your orders from her.”

My fluffy brow narrowed. The boss of the whole factory? This idiot was my target. I’d steal her files then frame her for all the crimes in the world. This was the only way to save myself from the punishment of my employees.

“Who’s this?” Berri asked.

“Employee who tried to skip out on work.” The Soldier replied.

Berri’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Unmotivated filth. What’s your name?”

I put out a hand and gave her a devilish smile, “I’m Caster Winifontierteres Fentieretinis Vinicololomastarestemos.”

“…Wow, yeah, I’m not gonna remember that.” She shook my hand regardless. “You’ll be on station 44. Open the boxes when you’re handed them. Take out the contents of the box. Fruit goes in the fruit pile, vegetables go in the vegetable pile. Take a snack every so often, but if you have no self-control you’ll be fired… We’re predictably short-staffed because very few of you people can remember that. Get to work.”

“W-wait, you just allow us to eat? From the food we’re sorting?”

“Yeah.”

I raise an eyebrow. “…Why?”

“Moving this much food around, how do you expect us to enforce a no-snacking policy?”

“Hire Soldiers to stand guard at every station?” That’s what my predecessor at the warehouse did.

The Worker crossed her arms. “Then the Soldiers would just get in on it. Should I hire Soldiers to watch those Soldiers?”

“Yes.” That’s what my predecessor at the warehouse did.

“And who would be watching those Soldiers?”

“Another Soldier, duh.” That’s what my predecessor at the warehouse did before she gave up and created the food syphoning ring. Personally, rather than cave to the theft of my employees, I would have hired a single Soldier to oversee all those Soldiers, then I personally would have overseen that top Soldier. But alas, I wasn’t in charge back then and now I have to deal with the consequences.

Berri tapped my forehead. “That’s why you get paid to work, not to think.”

My face crumbled into an intense frown. “How insulting. I’m an actual Caster, you know. My job really is to think!”

“Uh-huh, and I’m the queen of Y’Varda. Just get to work or I’ll have you thrown out.” She walked off, leaving me scowling.

Rather than comment further or call after her, I went to my station and introduced myself to my temporary coworkers before getting to work.

But this was my opportunity. Did you catch it, Master? That foolish Worker admitted that her factory steals food! What a naive woman! Not only that, but she allowed me into the base of her operation. I decided I’d take advantage of her kindness, sneak into her file room, then alter her records to prove that her factory is the one at fault for everything! Undercover agent style, like an Assassin.

I got to work immediately on such a simple task. My superior Caster intelligence allowed me to quickly recognize the classification of the food that passed through my station, and I took to the task of separating them with vigor. I started strong, going at least twice as fast as my peers… but I quickly lost steam.

Open box. Grab food. Separate. Open box. Grab food. Separate. Open box. Grab food. Separate. Open box. Grab food. Separate.

A mind-numbingly repetitious chore. I felt my brain turn to mush as I went, but the Workers had no such problem, they’re built for this kind of labor. They hummed along and subtly danced in place, I think they even enjoyed it!

“H-how long until we’re done?” I asked, my work ethic having slowed to a crawl compared to the others.

“Only about thirteen hours or so.”

“Th-thir… thirteen hours?”

“I know, right?” She said with a bright smile. “Time’s been flying by and we’ll be heading home soon. Just enjoy it while you can and come back tomorrow.”

What followed was the worst day of my relatively short life. I felt part of me die with every box opened, I slowly felt my heart break with every food item sorted. It was like… It was like my soul was trying to rip itself away from my body, like doing this kind of work was so antithetical to my very being that the entirety of my essence was screaming at me to stop.

But I couldn’t. The cost of failure was too great, I had to keep going.

My head was pounding. My ears wouldn’t stop ringing. As the hours droned on, I slowly lost vision in my right eye. I collapsed a few times, the legs in my muscles simply stopped working, and those brief few moments of trying to think up and excuse that would satisfy the Workers was the one reprieve I had from this nightmarish mundanity.

Through nothing but your divine mercy, I made it through the day. I’m sure that no matter how long I live, nothing will ever be worse than that, save for the alternative of letting my employees find out I’ve failed.

I felt like a shell of my former self, nothing but a withered husk of a Caster who only managed to trudge her way to the file room via sheer willpower. I stole the files, changed back to my clothes, then walked out the door.

“See you tomorrow, newbie!” Berri said as she stood by the door, waving me goodbye while chuckling to herself.

The file was safe in my cloak, she couldn’t tell I stole it. “Oh, yes. Don’t worry. You can bet your life on the fact you’ll see me tomorrow.”

“…Yeah!”

It took a while with the crowded tram system, but I finally made my way back up to my room and got to work falsifying their records to push all the blame onto Berri and her factory. It was fun, having to flex my brain with all the calculations in order to make everything believable. Much more intellectually stimulating than sorting work.

Then, a knock came through my door. I called out, “come in!”

The door opened upwards, and a Caster walked inside. Her shoulders back, her chest puffed out, and an angry grin on her face.

“Y-you! You heretic! You thief! Don’t think your crimes have gone unnoticed, uh…” she quickly took a notepad out of her pocket and traced the words with her finger, “Caster Winifontierteres Fentieretinis Vinicololomastarestemos!” She put the notepad away. “I’ve figured out that you’ve got quite a lot to answer for, fleabag. How dare you steal food from Master’s supply chain! That’s disgusting. That’s reprehensible. If you want leniency, you should march right to the chapel and confess your crimes right now! Yep.” Then she left. Though she came back a few seconds later and threw a folder at my face.

I was left in silence, the door automatically closed downwards after she exited.

…Who was this lady!? I’ve never seen her before either!

How did two people find out about my warehouse’s theft? This is awful. I’m screwed. Apparently, our theft is so obvious that random people keep finding out. How long until the feds catch wind of what we’re doing, and my employees punish me?

“Well…” I sighed. “Nothing for it, I already have the factory’s documents, so it should be fine.”

I opened up the new set, but something was… off.

“Why are all the numbers so different?” Every single number was off compared to the first set that was thrown at me. What’s going on? It’s my handwriting on both, they both say they’re official… what’s happening? Was I losing my mind? How could these numbers be so radically different?

The answer, Master, was simple.

One of them must have been lying.

A bold statement, I know, but here’s my thought process.

My first idea was that these were both Casters with staffs, they can use magic. Was I mind controlled to make two sets of documents? No. I’m too smart for mind control and there would be no benefit to making me do that.

My second thought was that I was somehow caught in a convergent timeline. Both sets of documents were correct because they were from two different timelines that just happened to cross at that juncture. I realized this was incorrect because that would prove the ‘infinite worlds theory’; a heretical ideology that believes in an infinite number of timelines where everything that could possibly happen has happened. This is heretical, of course, because you were born a mortal woman before ascending to godhood, therefore there must be an infinite number of timelines where you were never born and thus never became a god. Heretical.

My third theory was, I believe, the correct one. One of them was lying. I believe this to be the case because… I stole the documents of another department and was, at that very moment, falsifying them for the purpose of avoiding repercussions from my warehouse’s theft. Why wouldn’t another Slavani steal our documents and mess with them for whatever reason?

But this led to the pertinent question. Which document was fake?

One was lying, the other was telling the truth. But how did I figure out which one? I knew nothing about either Caster, not their names or where they worked. I didn’t know their motives or their methodology for finding our fraud. So who was the liar?

I racked my brain for about an hour before I realized this was an impossible question. I had no idea who was lying, so I just went and combined their numbers together, then blamed everything on the factory. Simple.

After that, I went to bed. It was a long, long, mind numbingly tedious day.

The next day, I went all the way back down to that factory, sidestepped the Soldier who tried to make me work another shift, then slammed my paw against the door of the boss’s office! The door swung open and slammed against the wall on the right, revealing a small office space with just enough room for a desk where Berri sat, two chairs in front of it, where her underling sat, and enough room for a slim Slavani to scoot between the sides of the desk and the walls.

“Hey!” I yelled, startling Berri and the underling she was talking to. I will admit, my tone was a little more venomous than I had intended, I was still mad about working the day prior. “Ha! I caught you! You liar! You cheat! Did you think you’d be able to fool a Caster like me? Laughable. You had no idea I was working under you yesterday. Watching. Biding my time. You were tricked! Hahahahaha!” I threw the folder like a frisbee and it landed perfectly on her desk. “I know what you’ve done. Master knows what you’ve done. Soon, the authorities will know what you’ve done, so make things easier on yourself and fess up now! It’ll be easier for everyone if you do. Now goodbye, scum.” I whipped around and stomped away with my head held high and a smile on my face. It felt good to get that off my chest.

I purposely kept my language vague because, I’ll admit, I would have started yelling about her making me work if I got into any specifics.

I’m still mad about that. Worst day of my life.

Anyway, problem sorted.

Bluh, the word ‘sorted’ has been ruined for me.

With that, the secret of my warehouse is safe, and my prized, custom-order artwork of Master patting my head can safely continue to hang on my wall without fear.

With love

-Caster Winifontierteres Fentieretinis Vinicololomastarestemos, First Daughter of Caster Pen In Bowl and Caster Auv Geri Ceneben, Born of Spawn Pit 17 on Homeship Master’s Inevitability.