Cassandra sat at her desk compiling a report for the directors. Using the interface made such matters simple, but it was still tedious. She wished for anything to alleviate her boredom.

When she was first offered the opportunity to join the acquisitions department, she thought it would be an adventure. Sometimes it was, but usually she found herself stuck in the office doing busy work.

She yawned and took a sip of her coffee.

The door opened and a blonde woman in a sharp pantsuit walked in. She stopped in front of the desk and bowed her head.

"Good morning, Miss Cassandra."

"Helen." Cassandra nodded at the woman, "How are things going?"

"Quite well," Helen tapped her interface, "I have a report if you'd like to hear it."

She could just have Helen send the report over the aether-net, but she welcomed the distraction from her own work. She dismissed her own interface and gestured to one of the empty seats on the other side of the desk.

"Go ahead."

"Very well," Helen sat down and started reading from her interface, "As you know, eight knights were sent to the dungeon a little over three weeks ago. Seven of them were regulars under the employ of the local king, while the eighth is part of an order that serves the gods of this world."

"Yes," Cassandra nodded, "I imagine they are all doing quite well?"

The knights were perfect candidates for the dungeon. They all possessed high combat skills and a thirst for recognition and power. Once their loyalty was won, they would be great assets in the coming fight against the gods of the world – the seven divines, as they were called.

"Oh, yes." Helen nodded excitedly, "Most of them have been gaining levels quite steadily. Many of them have started to move up the floors of the dungeon as well. They all excel in combat and have been won over by Aethertech's offerings…"

Helen frowned at her interface and looked over at Cassandra with a sheepish smile.

"With one exception."

"Explain."

"The holy knight," Helen said, "His name is Peton, and it's quite clear he intends to do harm to the dungeon."

"Preposterous." Cassandra waved her hand dismissively, "There's no way he would ever succeed in that."

"It's not impossible," Helen shook her head, "he has a blessing of some sort that wasn't granted by the dungeon. I think it's a boon from one of the divines."

Cassandra tapped her finger on the desk as she thought about that. If one of the divines had granted him a boon, it would be possible for him to do damage. Of course, it all depended on what kind of blessing it was in the first place.

Unfortunately, they had no way of discerning the blessings of gods outside the pantheon without pouring a lot of time and resources into it. An unknown boon belonging to an enemy already inside their headquarters could spell disaster.

Cassandra knew she had to tell the directors about it. That was a discussion she did not look forward to. While she enjoyed working for them, they could be difficult to deal with at times. At least they were all considered "minor gods", so their presence wasn't as terrifying and soul crushingly overwhelming as some of the Olympians. And the head director was actually a very nice man, if not a bit lecherous.

"Fine," Cassandra sighed, "I'll tell the boss about it and see what he wants to do."

"Very well," Helen looked at her interface again, "Next up are the mercenaries. Twelve of them came to the dungeon, and ten of them are still alive after two weeks."

Cassandra thought the mercenaries would have been even better employees than the knights, since it would be easier to win their loyalty. If all they cared about was wealth, there was plenty of that to be found in the dungeon.

However, their skills weren't nearly as good as the knights. While their loyalty was easy to get, their results failed to impress. She knew one of them had even forked over ten-thousand credits to change their class just because she didn't like the one granted to her. That particular mercenary had to start over at level one and still hadn't made much progress.

Helen continued, "Most of the mercenaries are around level seven or eight by now, just trailing behind the knights in terms of performance. One of them is still level four because she did a class change."

"Hopefully they up their game," Cassandra said, "they could be valuable assets if they would just try harder."

"I'm sure they will do fine, as long as no more of them die."

"Only time will tell," Cassandra leaned back in her chair and waved her hand, "who's next?"

Helen looked back at her interface and smiled, "The beggars. They are definitely the most interesting group."

"I'll say."

"Twenty-three of them were brought to the dungeon," Helen tapped her screen, "Three didn't survive more than a day, and one let his contract expire, so he was forcibly terminated."

What was surprising about the beggars is that their survival rate was nearly as good as the mercenaries. Cassandra hadn't expected any of them to survive, but they were resilient and determined.

"Ten of them have non-combat classes." Helen said, "But, of the remaining nine, they are actually doing quite well. They seem to be more willing to take chances than other employees."

"Good," Cassandra nodded, "Maybe we can use them as wildcards in the future."

"My thoughts exactly!" Helen beamed, "It will be exciting to see what comes of them if nothing else."

In this world, the only people who became beggars were the ones shunned from society for some reason. Some of them had "incurable" diseases – which were nonetheless cured by Aethertech products. Others were considered rebels or infidels, and thus could not earn a living. All of them found hope in the dungeon, and Cassandra was curious to see what would become of them.

"Lastly are the irregulars." Helen said.

"Irregulars" was a name they gave to employees who wandered into the dungeon of their own accord. They ranged from adventurers searching for treasure to spies from neighboring kingdoms and countries.

"At last count," Helen looked over her interface, "We have had sixteen irregulars enter the dungeon, of them, thirteen are still alive. One of them actually entered before the knights and has almost made it to the twenty-fourth floor!"

They would be another group to watch. While their loyalties were all over the place, they were adapting well to the dungeon and making good use of the opportunities it provided.

"Also," Helen said, "the security division has reported that a wagon train full of prisoners is on its way to the dungeon. It appears that the Canneldorth kingdom is sending everyone they don't like here."

"That will only serve us better." Cassandra said with a nod.

"Indeed." Helen looked at her interface and frowned, "I also have a report here about a security breach."

"Really?" Cassandra sat up straight, "tell me."

"Chris, the kentauros in charge of the first floor job office, sent it in this morning. I'll summarize," Helen squinted at her interface, "It appears one of the beggars, one Bazel the Beggar, asked Chris a series of questions and deduced the true nature of the dungeon. He knows that the directors are gods from another world, basically. Bazel's partner, Samara the Slayer, was also there for the discussion, so she knows as well. Chris let them go, but asked them to not share this knowledge with anyone else."

"He let them go!?" Cassandra shouted, making Helen jump in her seat.

Company regulations clearly stated that anyone who propagated a memetic security breach should be immediately quarantined. Chris should have known better, and Cassandra was furious about it.

Cassandra summoned her interface, and navigated to Chris' employee page. She docked his pay for not following regulations and signed him up for a compulsory re-education course that would focus on security regulations. He was lucky he wasn't being forcibly terminated.

"Helen," Cassandra turned to her assistant, "Send me that report immediately and tell everyone I'll be out for the rest of the day. I need to speak with the boss about this."

"It's already in your inbox." Helen said, "would you like me to send some officers to quarantine the two employees in question?"

At least Helen knows the regulations.

"Please do."

"Very well." Helen stood and bowed before walking out.

Cassandra navigated to her communications app and called the boss' office. A woman dressed in negligee answered the call with sleepy eyes and frazzled hair.

"Hello?"

"Is the boss awake?" Cassandra asked the floozy, "I have an urgent matter to discuss with him."

The woman looked around the room she was in and shrugged, "I don't see him. He might be in the gym."

"Find him." Cassandra ordered, "tell him I'll be there in five minutes."

"Fine."

The call cut out and Cassandra dismissed her interface. She leaned back in her chair and frowned at the wall.

It's far too early for them to know what our plans are! She thought. She couldn't help but wonder what Bazel planned to do with the knowledge though. It would be a delicate process to draw him to their side and buy his silence. Otherwise, he could do way more damage than some holy knight!

■■■

Bazel picked up a piece of pizza and stuffed as much of the slice in his mouth as possible. He chewed slowly while moaning in bliss.

"I still can't believe you figured all that out from a couple clues!" Samara said as she picked up another slice for herself, "And seriously, I thought Chris was going to attack us for a second there! He looked mad."

"Yeah," Bazel swallowed his pizza and took a sip of soda, "Like he said, it's not something they wanted us to know yet."

"So?" Samara leaned forward, "What are we going to do about it?"

Bazel pursed his lips and stared at the tabletop.

"I told you about my parents, right?" He looked up at Samara to see her nodding, "Well, I should probably tell you the whole story so this makes sense."

"I'm listening."

"My father," Bazel glanced up at the ceiling, "he studied the heavens. He loved going out and looking at the stars, moons and even tracking the movements of the sun. He would make maps and diagrams that explained how all celestial bodies moved, as well as how our world fit into it."

"Sounds like that's where you got your smarts from." Samara said with a smile.

"Maybe," Bazel gave a sad smile of his own, "anyway, many of the things he discovered directly opposed the traditions and stories propagated by the church. They cast him out of the city for heresy and my parents were forced to live in the woods nearby. We were really poor, and rarely ever had enough to eat."

"The church said we weren't even allowed to hunt in on the king's land, though my father did so anyway. All the while, he never stopped studying the skies and learning from them. My mom tended a small garden and gave me an education."

Bazel stopped talking and frowned while scratching at an imperfection on the table's surface. He stayed like that for a few moments before speaking again.

"I was about seven years old when the holy knights came." He stopped scratching and clenched his fist, "they barged into our little hut in the middle of the night and dragged everyone outside. Then they ransacked the place and found my father's material. Everything he had discovered over a decade of work…"

"They burned it all."

Samara started to reach across the table to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but stopped halfway and drew back. She placed her hands in her lap and waited until Bazel was ready to continue the story.

"I managed to escape the knight that was supposed to be holding me and ran into the woods." Bazel closed his eyes, "I hid in a bush and watched as they burned down our home and executed my parents. They said they were infidels and deserved worse. They didn't even burn or bury the bodies."

"I'm so sorry." Samara said quietly.

"It's not your fault," Bazel shook his head, "it was the law of the gods and the church that branded my father a criminal. It was because of the divines that his curiosity about the world was deemed heresy."

Bazel took a deep breath and continued, "I went back to the city and snuck inside on a cart. I knew I couldn't go to the church for help lest they discover who my father was. So I started begging and never stopped. The gods had no sympathy for an orphaned child and never did anything for me."

"That's why," Bazel looked up at Samara with fire in his eyes.

"I'm going to help the directors kill them."

"Kill the divines?" Samara looked around to make sure nobody had heard him say that, "Is that even possible?"

"Maybe." Bazel nodded, "At least the directors seem to think it is. If I'm right about their plans."

"Wow." Samara sat back and pinched her chin, "That's certainly an ambitious plan."

"Yes," Bazel agreed, "and most likely foolhardy as well. But my mind is made up."

"I see."

"I don't expect you to risk your own skin, Samara." He said, "I'll understand if you want nothing to do with it."

Samara shook her head, "I have no love for the gods myself."

Before Bazel could ask for an explanation, five men walked up to their table. Four of them carried spears and one had a short sword. All of them wore hard expressions like he had seen on Lysander, and all of them wore the t-shirts with the helmets on them.

"Bazel?" The man with the sword asked.

"Yes?"

"Come with us." He looked over at Samara, "You too."

The men with spears grabbed their arms and hauled them to their feet.

"Where are we going?" Bazel struggled against the grips on him.

"Unhand me!" Samara struggled more.

The man with the sword said only one word in response.

"Quiet."

Without anymore discussion, they were hauled away.