Aqua Regalia [Monster Progression LitRPG]

In any army base of sufficient size, there was an administrative building. And in every administrative building, invariably the only room with happy people was 'wages and compensation'.

Today, the 'wages and compensation' floor was particularly busy, packed to the brim with returning soldiers.

In one of the upper decks, Cas recognized some familiar faces who Sara frequently worked with.

"I'm surprised you're not up there"

"That's for officers," Sara explained, "I'm just a mercenary," touching her auxiliary brooch by way of explanation. "We go here," she glided suddenly towards the main floor, where the largest conglomeration of lower ranking soldiers milled about.

A wooden counter cordoned off the whole back wall. Along it sat several dozen clerical workers wearing fine garments with metallic accents.

A bright faced, young girl sat at the left edge of the counter, which formed a corner with the wall. She was remarkably beautiful, with well done hair, long eye-lashes, and a demure, knowing countenance which made her seem more interested in people than she actually was.

Naturally, she boasted the longest line in the room.

Seeing this, Cas forgot the girl and headed for the shortest line. This one at the opposite end of the counter, and manned by a craggy older man who had globs of chewing tobacco stuccoed over the space where his front teeth had once been.

"No!" Sara stopped her before she could advance more than a few steps. "What do you think you're doing?" she accused.

Cas returned a confused look. "Uhm… getting my pay?"

"They why are you going to old man Kefaw's table?" Sara looked at her with a disappointed posture.

"Because his line is the shortest?"

"Ugh!" Sara only sighed, and Cas grew annoyed.

"What is it now?"

"Look," Sara said, pointing to the corner girl's long line. "Do you see that clerk over there?"

Cas looked over to the popular girl. Currently, a Sergeant was leaning on her desk and saying something stupid. She giggled like it was the most hilarious pick-up line she'd ever heard.

"Yeah? What about her?"

"She's new to this job," Sara asserted with confidence. "I can tell by her lack of lack of patience. Most senior clerks would tear your head off for touching their desk. Incidentally," she looked Cas in the eye with some seriousness, "don't ever touch a clerk's desk without permission."

Cas nodded.

Sara continued, "but that's beside the point. I can also tell that – being new – she's the type to follow every single regulation when handing out pay."

"And that's bad because...?"

"That's bad" – Sara gestured – "because then she'd make us follow all the rules, too!"

"Then why did you stop me from going to 'old man Kefaw'. He looks like he's been here a while."

Sara merely gestured to the opposite end of the room, where the old man was looking with some displeasure at a stack of crinkled paperwork. Scowling, he slammed a thick 'denied' stamp on the face of the document.

"Your papers are crinkled," the man said with a hoarse voice. "Get new ones and try again."

Sara coughed politely. "Well, the old man is the opposite extreme. He would be willing to bend some rules just to make your life miserable."

"Noted," Cas said with wide eyes.

"Anyway, that leaves us with her," Sara pointed out an unfriendly looking girl in gothic makeup. The girl was pretty enough, though the effect was ruined by the venom in her eyes.

"Her?" Cas said, not managing to hide her doubts.

"Yes, her," Sara said. "She's just jaded enough for our purposes - here long enough not to care about most rules, but not so long to have developed a taste for human suffering. As in all things, go for the middle way. It's just like the Budda said," Sara concluded cheerily.

Cas whipped around, ear hooked by the mention of a familiar visage. "Did you just say 'Buddha'?"

If she noticed Cas's surprise, Sara didn't acknowledge it. "This way, please!" Grabbing Cas by the shoulders, shuttling her towards the unfriendly goth girl.

As they approached, the first thing Cas noticed was the woman's appearance. It was masterfully designed. Somehow, she had managed to skirt every uniform and grooming regulation in this army. Her lipstick was the darkest allowable, her powdered face paint was just a few shades short of 'mime', and she could even discern a few wounds where two snake-bite piercings had been removed.

Her work station - subject to fewer rules - was an even starker example of the aesthetic.

Lined up along the counter, tall partition walls sectioned it off so that each clerk had their own workstation. The goth girl's work station was a black hole in the middle of this lineup. Shadowy wallpaper darkened the interior walls of her reception window, decorated with edgy slogans and demotivational plaques reading: 'If I look unhappy, it's because I am,' and, 'Do I look annoyed? It's because you're annoying."

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A nameplate reading 'Zara' stood at the precipice of the counter like it was contemplating suicide.

And, yes, Cas had started Conflagrating again. Just a few minutes to raise her spirits would be fine, right? Besides, it seemed like there was a lot to learn from this interaction.

Because of this, Cas managed to sense the girl's annoyance even before she rolled her eyes.

"Read the sign," the woman tapped the wall of her counter partition, where a sign read:

Please approach individually!

"Yes, I noticed," Sara smiled politely, "however, my friend here – " she gestured to Cas " – is from another continent, you see, and she badly needs my help to navigate some of the forms."

The woman's bored impression up ticked. It seemed even her apathy couldn't bear the interest of a different continent.

"She's from a different continent?" She asked, pointing at Cas, and looking at her with renewed interest. "Like, from the other side of the world?"

"Yes!" Sara nodded eagerly, seizing on the opportunity. "And, like I said, she needs my help navigating our forms. New culture, different language -- you understand!"

A suspicious look cast in Zara's eyeshadow. "Well... if she needs help, that's what I'm here for. I'm afraid you'll have to step back," she said, shooing Sara away with a hand. "It's a privacy thing."

It was here Cas noticed – thanks to her Conflagration – that Sara was in the midst of her own Conflagration. It was something about her eyes.

Sara was quick thinking and fast talking on her slowest of days. As she was now...

"Yes, I understand it's a 'privacy thing', but my friend here would really feel more comfortable with my help. If my helping her isn't going to be possible, I'm sure I could take her to a higher office myself."

If the thought of missing out on a chance meeting with Cas bothered Zara, she didn't show it.

"Yeah, well… it's still policy, so…"

Sara only showed a little frustration. "Let's be honest. Do you honestly even give a shit about this 'policy'?"

The clerk thought about it for a moment. "Ugh… yeah, sure. Whatever." She pulled out a blank note with a hole punched through the upper left corner. "May I see your brooch, Miss Cas?" the woman asked with a practiced, though quickly disintegrating, formality.

Noticing her 'auxiliary' brooch still burning with the distinctive light of her aura, Cas took it off her chest, handing it to the woman.

Immediately, the brooch went dark.

[Auxiliary Brooch: Un-equipped.]

The brooch glowed again as the clerk took it in hand.

"Your payment will be…" she ran her aura over Cas's brooch, coordinating the motion with the pattern square in her off hand, "four silver coins. Two copper," she said at last. "I'll assume you want that in coppers?" rummaging fistfuls of bronzed coins out from a drawer.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Sara interrupted with a finger wag. "We'd like that as a bank note!"

The desk clerk's face turned the color of despair. "Mam," the woman explained, "she's only deployed with the army for four days."

"So?" Sara asked obstinately.

"She literally only has four silver to her name."

"And?"

"She doesn't even have a bank account," the clerk pressed.

"Yes," Sara agreed, "That's why I want you to make one for her."

Another sigh.

"Come now, chop chop," Sara clapped her hands in a demanding fashion. "No need to get depressed. She was a princess back home, you know. You are doing a service for royalty. You should be honored."

Roughly pulling open a nearby drawer, the girl pulled a short stack of papers without looking. Slapping a thick layer of parchment onto the partchment, she began writing – in small, neat letters – distinct paragraphs along the bottom border of the page.

Cas leant over to look. It was difficult to read upside down, but she caught a few words: princess, foreign land, no record, dark skin.

She was writing a description, Cas realized. It was the bare minimum of a description, too, with lines skipped over where her 'family name', 'lineage', and 'home nation' should have been.

What drew most of her interest was the blank space Zara had left above the paragraph. Cas noticed it because it felt warm; it was like a heat lamp pointed directly at her face. She could feel her aura resisting it.

"Please Percolate your aura, mam," the woman interjected, not pausing the flow of her continual writing. "It's necessary to finish your bank details."

Cas percolated, and the parchment flashed like a camera. On the previously blank space, a detailed, moving sketch of Cas's face appeared. It smiled and went through a variety of expressions, turning side to side as if to prove it was an accurate portrayal

Cas didn't have the time to appreciate her features. Just then, the clerk put away the parchment and pulled out the next one.

"Here," she handed a small note to Cas. Just fill out your information."

Cas ran her aura over the sheet, the pattern square embedded into the corner glowed, and an Excel sheet popped up.

Most of it was familiar. It asked for her name, place of origin, favorite pet and so on. Cas answered these in accordance with her backstory.

More interesting was the bottom of the page, where the entire, strange, alphabet of this version of English was lined out.

At the bottom a series of numbers was lined up in number format, each one associated with a symbol.

On most days, the functions there would have been Greek to her, but Cas's Conflagrated mind caught something familiar in the hieroglyphs.

Because… was that a cypher?

Looking back and forth between the table and the key, it appeared to be. Probably this world's version of a bank password.

Cas cut the Cypher key out of the bank note and pasted it in her own status sheet. The crystal in the corner of the sheet grew opaque and rock-like.

Huh… that was interesting. Cas thought, turning the pattern square in her hand, looking at the iridescent surface with interest.

The clerk was far less impressed. "There!" she said, with a smile faker than plastic. "Congratulations, you have a bank account. Now, please leave."

"Actually, one last thing," Sara interrupted. "We'd like Cas's auxiliary brooch, as well," she pointed to the glowing pendant in the girl's hand, "... as a memento."

Another sigh, and another batch of paperwork was deposited onto the desk. "That'll be four silver." The woman's voice turned into a throaty groan as she held out a hand.

"You can't make an exception?" Sara pleaded. "She is a princess."

The clerk was growing very annoyed, now. "Then she should be able to damn well afford it, shouldn't she?"

Cas was becoming embarrassed. "Sara!" she whispered intensely, "why don't we just leave? I don't even want the brooch!"

"Yes, you do!" Sara replied with her own heated whisper. "Paperwork from the imperial army is valuable. Trust me, flashing a brooch will be much easier than haggling with some petty official to get proof of residency. Things like that can eat up months!"

"Ok, fine," Cas conceded, "but why are we nickel and diming her for it? It's just four silver."

Sara looked disgusted beyond measure at such words. She took a deep breath. "Cas, 'It's just four silver' only counts as a valid argument when you have more than four silver!"

This final sliver of the conversation was loud enough to be overheard, and the clerk coughed politely to remind them of her presence.

"I'd love to skip the paperwork and give it to you for free, but…" she paused to reload her vocal fry, "this is technically imperial property, so…" she held up the brooch like a flower, "you are going to have to pay for it."

Cas did just that.

Sara's paperwork was handled in short order, and the clerk sighed a breath of relief.

However, just as they were about to leave, Sara turned around with shameless glee and asked, as if remembering something trivial: "by the way, we'd like to withdraw our funds… in coppers."

The clerk paused; an eye-twitch marred her normally placid demeanor.

It was not lost on Cas that this request was precisely what the clerk had suggested they do in the first place.