“Uh, hi. I’m Felix, and this is Menium. We’re here to pick up a package. Uhm, it might be in my grandma’s name—”

  Grizhnahthelix raised a hand stopping Felix mid-sentence.

  “This one is, of course, aware of every package, order and item in Kethirx’s Crafty Creations. This is the duty bestowed upon he who bears the mantle of receptionist to the customers.

  “Please, trust in Grizhnahthelix Grilgolustri to provide the illustrious customers with your package post haste.”

  With that, the little goblin hopped off his stool, gave Felix and Menium a deep bow and rushed down the stairs.

  Felix looked over at Menium.

  “Well, that was… something, I guess.” Menium chirped his agreement.

  The two waited silently for the goblinoid with the unspeakable name to return. It didn’t take long for them to hear a rushed patter of feet coming back up the stairs. Followed by a breathless Grizhnahthelix, who immediately bowed so deeply at them that his head knocked against his knees.

  “I, Grizhnahthelix Grilgolustri, the thirty-seventh. Apprentice to Kethrix, keeper of the doorway and receptionist to the customers, deeply apologise to the customers for the wait. Due to my ignorance, I have caused the customers inconvenience. I shall strive to improve my service in future.”

  “Uhm— No, that’s alright really. Please get up.”

  Grizhnahthelix straightened himself, turmoil still clearly on his face, as his face was set in a sorrowful expression. Felix even thought he saw tears in the corners of the creature’s eyes.

  “Customer— I thank you for your forgiveness. I shall engrave your magnanimity upon my heart, know that I, Grizhnahthelix Grilgolustri, shall name my thirty-ninth child, should fortune bring me so many, in your honour.”

  “Uh, no, that’s fine really. You don’t have to go that far.”

  Seeing that the goblinoid was about to burst into tears, Felix quickly changed the topic.

  “So uh— about the package?”

  “Yes, of course! Master Kethrix has requested your venerable presence in the workshop to personally deliver your package.

  Felix nodded, feeling incredibly uncomfortable with Grizhnahthelix’s attitude towards them. Menium was quietly chirping angrily that he ought to have a child named after him as well, but Felix decided to ignore his grumbling. There was no way he’d tell Grizhnahthelix what Menium was saying.

  Instead, the two followed him down the stairs into a small, shelved room with packages on them, then through a thick door into the workshop, where Grizhnahthelix rushed to open it for them.

  The workshop wasn’t large to begin with, and it was made all the more cramped by the fact that the very concept of organisation seemed to be foreign to its owner. Felix quickly scanned the room, taking it all in. The small space was fully equipped to be a smithy, a jeweller, a tailor and a cobbler, with even more tools cluttering every open space, some of them even Felix couldn’t name.

  In the middle of the room, a purplish-silver, amorphous blob of metal pulsed to a rhythm that reminded Felix of a heartbeat. Tendrils extended from the blob all across the workshop, working on several projects at once. In the mess, Felix couldn’t properly tell what any of them were doing, though he was sure that many of the creations weren’t what he’d typically think of as golems.

  None of them had even a vaguely humanoid shape. They seemed like highly specialised tools, leaving Felix unsure whether they were meant for use in the shop or for customers.

  Once they’d stepped over the threshold, Grizhnahthelix rushed past them, cleared his throat and straightened his back.

  “Announcing the presence of venerable customer Menium and venerable customer Felix.”

  A sigh was directly transmitted into their minds, followed by a smooth voice that wasn’t quite male or female.

  “I’ve told you that this is a shop, not court, you don’t need to announce our customers like they’re nobility.”

  Grizhnahthelix stayed quiet, with struggle clearly playing across his features until, with another sigh, Kethrix dismissed him.

  “It’s fine, I’ll handle these two. Please keep an eye on the shop for me.”

  Grizhnahthelix quickly agreed before rushing back up the stairs. Meanwhile, the amorphous blob of metal collapsed into the figure of a tall and slender featureless humanoid.

  “Sorry about him, he can be quite intense, but he has a good heart. You must be Felix, I’m Kethrix, the owner of this workshop.”

  Felix nodded.

  “That’s right, Uhm, speaking of intense. Is he really going to name his child after me?”

  The figure of Kethrix somehow rippled in a way that somehow suggested amusement.

  “Ha! He stuck you with one, huh? Don’t worry, what’s he up to now? Thirty-seven?”

  “I’m supposed to be thirty-ninth.”

  “Oh, I missed a couple. Don’t mind it. If he finds a mate, they’ll merge their lists, and parents and grandparents will add their own names. By the time they start naming kids, there will be hundreds of names on it. Since there’s no way to have so many kids, they’ll just take bits and pieces from each to come up with a name. That’s how you end up with something like Grizhnahthelix Grilgolustri.

  “At worst, if they don’t get around to using yours, your name will end up on his tombstone to shame him for eternity for failing to honour you.”

  Felix swallowed past a lump in his throat.

  “That… sounds even worse.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Kethrix nodded.

  “Tell me about it, I’m supposed to have six named after me. Pretty sure I’m ending up on the stone.”

  The workshop went quiet for a moment as they both reflected on the odd custom. Only for Menium to quietly start grumbling about not ending up on Grizhnahthelix’s tombstone, making Felix’s eye twitch. To make matters worse, Kethrix seemed to understand the monkey’s chirps without issue.

  Kethrix rippled in amusement again.

  “Haha, I’ll ask him to add you to the list, you’ll probably get two since he neglected to add you on his own.”

  Felix started to protest, only to be interrupted.

  “Anyway, we shouldn’t dawdle too long. You’ll need to go through a verification process before you can receive the package. Please follow me.”

  Not giving Felix a chance to argue, he led them into a smaller side room after clearing a few boxes that covered the door.

  The moment Felix stepped inside, he recognised that he’d just entered a formation, and it was one of the strangest he’d ever seen. Plants, rocks, and soil. Carved runes, carefully woven flags and metal rods hammered into the ground. The formation used elven, dwarven, human, and a few other disciplines that Felix didn’t recognise to form a cobbled-together mess that had no right to exist, let alone work.

  In the middle sat a small humanoid golem, only half Menium's size.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Privacy formation, the golem will verify your information before it delivers the message your grandmother left you. I’ll leave you to it.”

  Kethrix swiftly shut Felix and Menium in the small room. The moment the door closed, the formation sprang to life. It was charged with so much mana that it made the hairs on the nape of his neck raise. Felix and Menium only had time to share a worried glance before the golem in the middle of the formation came to life.

  It shifted to take on the appearance of his Grandma, not as he knew her when she raised them, or how she looked when she came to fetch him from the crossroad. This was his Grandma as she appeared the one time she’d shown them ‘magic’. Red hair that smouldered like logs and flowed with a life of its own. Eyes that shone like stars and heat that roiled off her, making it hard to stand near the tiny effigy.

  The voice that came from the doll was flat and emotionless, immediately jumping to question him.

  “When did you stop wetting the bed?”

  “Uhm, what?”

  The air filled with a tension that promised a fiery demise when he didn’t immediately answer the question.

  “Uhm, when I was six. Apart from that one time when Lara and I tried to see who could drink the most milk before bed when we were eight.”

  “What’s my favourite flower?”

  “…”

  The list of questions continued, half of them about embarrassing moments of his youth and the other half about his family. The questions quickly had Felix so flustered that he lost count of how many she asked.

  “What happened to the training staff I got you and Lara?”

  “James and I used them as stilts when we set up that obstacle course in the backyard. We buried them near the creek by Miss Fletcher's house to hide the evidence.”

  “Damnit! No wonder that old bat was willing to bet her prized tea set. She saw you burying them.”

  Felix stared at the little effigy.

  “Grandma?”

  She turned and glared up at him, her movements no longer stilted and robotic.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Right, sorry. I guess you confirmed it’s me, then? What’s this all about?”

  She flopped down and sat cross-legged on the ground.

  “Huh? Little Keht recognised you the moment you stepped into the store. Why else would he let you into the room? Sit down, would you, this might not be my real neck, but it still feels like it’s getting stiff staring up at you two.”

  “Right, sorry. What about the questions then?”

  He asked as he was sitting down.

  “Would you have told me about the staff otherwise?”

  Felix looked around like the room had suddenly become more interesting.

  “That’s why, take it as a small punishment for breaking them.”

  “Grandma, we were like nine.”

  She glared at him.

  “And?”

  “Never mind.”

  She gave a sharp nod.

  “So what’s this about then? Is it about Claire?”

  The little Grandma frowned.

  “How do you know about Claire?”

  Felix shook his head.

  “I don’t know much, she mentioned changing paths in her letter, then she explained nothing about it. Add in that you mentioned nothing in your letters about it and then asked me to come here with that cryptic message, and I figured the two things might be related.”

  Grandma stared at Felix in surprise.

  “You could figure that out, but couldn’t figure out that it would be dumb to let you know about this setup without verifying your identity?”

  Felix groaned.

  “Grandma!”

  “Fine, fine. You’re only half right. You know most of our family aren’t suited to be knights. Claire can only be one because her life affinity skews heavily towards personal growth. It lets her match knights in many ways, but she’s still more suited to be a magic knight. Even then, that’s not the best path for her. It was a solid start, but she’s almost exhausted what she could accomplish on that path.

  “She was bound to switch sooner or later. The situation just forced it to be sooner.”

  Felix frowned.

  “What situation?”

  Grandma let out a sigh.

  “It’s Lara. She’s gone and pissed off a Starfarer family.”

  “What?! That can’t be right.”

  Felix nearly jumped up at his Grandma’s accusation, only to be pinned in place by her stare.

  “Sit.”

  Felix lowered himself back to the floor, but he had a hard time sitting still.

  “I don’t think she did anything wrong. I don’t have the details, but it looks like her last mission had her party going to quell a cultist uprising. Instead, she helped them escape and turned on the governor who gave them the mission. At least that’s the official story.

  “From what I’ve pieced together, it looks like the governor was a spoiled kid leaning on his family’s influence to do whatever he liked. It wouldn’t be much of an issue except the little bastard’s grandfather is a Starfarer.”

  “Then a Starfarer is after Lara?” Felix asked in disbelief.

  “What? No, of course not. If that was the case, she’d be doomed. His family is. Starfarers are practically immortal. Do you have any idea how many children, let alone grandchildren, you can have if you’re immortal? Me neither, but a lot.

  “That doesn’t mean pissing off a family is anything to scoff at, and the father of the little bastard she offended has some influence.”

  “Wait, so do you think they’re framing Lara to cover for this guy?”

  “I’m not sure, but some of the people trying to find her are from the military so there might be something to it. Fortunately that girl’s a clever one, she got in touch with Claire before the bastard’s family could do anything.

  “I found out that Claire was fast-tracking her discharge, but by the time I managed to figure out what’s going on they were gone.”

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