“Hello, I’d like to purchase a spell.”

“Of course, sir. Which spell did you have in mind?”

“Just a standard Everlasting Fireball. Enterprise-grade. Now, before you ask, we’ve already set you up in our system as a vendor. We’ve done the due diligence checks, assessed for any elvish exploitation in your chain of suppliers – not to say elves are the only victims of corruption in this modern age, of course, but you know – and verified your Finance contact, Xaakasstrazi, with the Supreme Orc Bank. So we can skip all of that.”

“Xaakasstrazi? She no longer works here. She left for the Lost Continent last Tuesday. I heard they offered her a bigger hoard. Can’t really compete with Lost Continent salaries, but it is what it is.”

“I see. That’s unfortunate, but I’m glad you mentioned it. I’ll need to notify our team this afternoon, so they can have it updated hopefully within two months. They won’t accept verification from representatives other than the original assignee, you see.”

“Why not? All our communications are sent with the latest SecureSpell encryptions; they should be able to know it’s from us from our tracking and magical signatures.”

“I don’t question it, Gruk. I hope you don’t mind me calling you Gruk. I tried questioning it for three years, and all it gave me was a case of the screaming sickness and perpetual disappointment. Fortunately, the Xaakasstrazi issue shouldn’t be an obstacle to today’s purchase.”

“Right. So, standard Fireball. Where would you like it installed?”

“Under each of our smithy furnaces.”

“Multiple Fireballs, then?”

“Apologies, I should have mentioned it’s a bulk order. Yes, we’re a large chain, and we’re switching national providers. Nothing especially wrong with the last ones, but we just had a new senior manager start and you know how it is. They like to feel like they’re making a difference.”

“In fairness, we do offer a few unique features. No other spellists will let you add your personalised logos to a working’s visual effects. Very good for branding.”

“While that is a point, it’s somewhat less effective when the spell will be hidden behind three feet of industrial brickwork. So that’ll be a hundred and fifty-six Fireballs total. We have a purchase order totalling thirty thousand Sporcs already set up in the system, courtesy of Xaakasstrazi.”

“That’s great news. I’ll dispatch the installers this afternoon and SecSpell the invoice.”

“Great, great.”

“Was there something else you needed, sir?”

“Regarding the invoice.”

“Yes?”

“I should warn you in advance there’s a chance it might be delayed. Our team is very diligent in chasing these things up, you understand, and we’re absolutely above-board every step of the way. And it will be paid, eventually. But just so you’re aware of this small possibility, in the event it does happen, rest assured I shall do everything in my power to get payment to you as fast as gnomishly possible.”

“Mmm. Time management issues? We had one client send payment six hundred and twenty-five times due to being stuck in a loop unawares. Meanwhile, the Sporc Bank wasn’t, and kept right on processing the transactions until the paladins knocked on our door asking about criminal fraud. The main clue that tipped us off was the fact errors started creeping in on the client’s later payments. We think their accountants started panicking at the increasingly large fund disappearances at the start of each iteration, and it was down to stress. Still. They were nearly bankrupt by the end, and yet they still paid us on time. That’s what I call a good client.”

“No, it’s nothing like that. In any case, the business frowns on working with looponium. Too much of a safety hazard. No way to get the message out if something goes wrong, and all that. Actually, it’s nothing. Forget I said it. It’s just… no. It’s nothing.”

“If there’s an issue, perhaps our team can help?”

“Gnomon Smithies do great things, Gruk. But we do them very slowly. And not for a lack of Haste spells.”

“See, that’s where looponium would be a useful investment.”

“If only it was. It’s not a question of time, but of bureaucracy. How many steps would you say it would take to process an invoice?”

“Well, I’m more of a salesdwarf myself, but I suppose it would be three. Fire off a SecSpell to the accountant, who pays it, and Sporcs sends back confirmation.”

“I hope you continue to carry that perception to the end of your days.”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Imagine, if you will, being called up in the middle of a crisis. The inconveniently disruptive kind, say, where a customer neglected to read the guidelines and used one of your replication daggers to sharpen another replication dagger, then panicked and galloped away, leaving the problem unattended where it could grow unchecked and wipe out a small and relatively isolated kingdom.”

“That’s awfully specific for a hypothetical scenario.”

“And hypothetical it shall remain. Just in case, one of our employee benefits is free trauma counselling. Now imagine you received a call from the smithery accountants in the middle of all this asking why your vendor’s invoice hadn’t been paid.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s a valid question. Although I’m surprised they wouldn’t offer a little leeway, given the circumstances.”

“Imagine further that you had been asking the same accountants to process that exact invoice, and every other, every day for the last two months.”

“Certainly, it must be frustrating.”

“It is a war, Gruk. One which cannot be fought with weapons. We’re smiths; we don’t know how to deal with any problem that can’t be solved by sticking something sharp into something vulnerable and squishy. And on this unfamiliar and discomforting battleground, the accountants are winning.”

“Ah, the pen against the mighty sword. The elegance of arithmetic versus the brutality of physical arms.”

“You misunderstand me. It is we who wield the pen. They are in fact quite sharp, especially when smithy-made, and I have it on good authority most accountants are squishy. Xaakasstrazi, of course, being a notable outlier. Sharp also is the wit with which we point out, time and again, the accountants’ incomprehensible failures to process a single invoice in accordance with the primary aim of their employment. The letters we wrote! The restraint and professionalism with which we held our tempers! Our noble vendors, we proclaimed eagerly, must be paid! Who are we, if not proud businessgnomes, true to our promises? And yet in these cursed fields, it is a constant battle not to lose our reputation as sterling as the silver we alloy.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Neither do we, and that’s the crux of it. None of it makes any sense. There’s an invoice; you pay it. There’s an error, you find the source and correct it. These concepts are simple. But sense is the water sliding off the duck of administration; the tape so red the bird can’t breathe. Each day invoices are sent back unfulfilled, claiming it’s our problem without saying why, accompanied with demands we perform the same tasks we performed twenty times before, only for the cycle to be repeated again on the morrow, and each day after that. A looponium-less loop. A cipher without a solution. Reason cannot reach those who speak a different language, and we haven’t yet figured out their native tongue.”

“I see you feel strongly about this, sir. Forgive me for saying, but I’m amazed they’re still employed.”

“We’re a large chain. A hundred and fifty-six smithies. No doubt they’re cloistered up in one of them, but nobody can figure out which. There is an official spellweave for complaints, but the accountants run it. We assume they have a leader, but no one can find them.”

“That’s what seeking spells are for.”

“Oh, they used a custom SecSpell filter to block it. Not allowed to go through unofficial channels, where ‘unofficial’ means any form of direct contact. Only the spellweave, only one person at a time, and new people may not join the conversation. Break any of these delicate ritual steps and the weave collapses; any progress lost, and one must start over."

"That's why I got into Fireballs, personally. Solid, reliable essentials even small children can grasp. Obviously not with their fingers, but you know what I mean."

"It gets worse. Certain unspecified gestures, like blinking, create a convincing illusion of the communication being sent, while failing to conduct it in reality. I’ve compiled a list of twenty known catalysts thus far, and have managed to increase my success rate to a solid twenty percent. In fact, I’m starting to suspect the weave may have begun requiring invoices be passed back and forth a minimum of twenty-something times to maintain its stability in the mortal plane. No other explanation fits. I’ve requested confirmation from Finance, but they only ask us to submit the invoice again.”

“But why? The point of a spellweave is to resolve problems, not create more. This is clearly broken. Can no one repair it? Invest in a new model?”

“Oh, everyone says they will. In fairness, I do recall a few updates, though they each contained time magic regressing it by an extra five years each iteration. Problem is, the wizards are in-house, too. We’re not sure which one. We assume it isn’t the one with the accountants, but it still leaves a hundred and fifty-five others. They can’t be reached outside the spellweave, either. As it happened, though, I did manage to get hold of one in person once. Very nice, actually. She told me she could help after I followed procedure and submitted it to the weave.”

“And what happened?”

“I never heard about it again. The follow-up was redirected to the accountants for reasons of relevancy, who immediately cancelled it for being related to wizards. I didn’t have the fortitude to test it again. In wars of invoice attrition, those who persevere under the weight of responsibility are inevitably overrun by the freedom of those who don’t pay attention.”

“Or their replicating daggers.”

“Hypothetically so.”

“Alas, all I can offer you is reliable elemental magic with snappy branding opportunities. Which I’ll have installed this afternoon.”

“At all the smithies? I’m impressed at your expediency.”

“Some of us do read the guidelines on Gnomon replicating daggers.”

“Well, that’s something. Great things, as I said. But very slowly.”