Tessa Fairwill had been promised adventure.

Not in those exact words—the Royal Bureaucracy of Eldwyn rarely used language that optimistic—but the recruitment scroll had definitely included “field work,magical engagement,” and “direct post-heroic impact.”

So yes, she had envisioned dragons. Glory. Fireballs. A tasteful amount of shouting.

Instead, on her first day, they gave her a clipboard, a reinforced quill, and a partner who smelled like burnt ink and old rules.

“I’m Grent Velthorn,” he said without looking up from his desk. “Assignment officer. Forty-seven years in the department. Welcome to the D.H.E.”

Tessa blinked. “Is that… the Department of Heroic Errors?”

“Yes. Not to be confused with the Department of Heroic Endeavours. They get the glory. We get the fallout.”

He finally looked at her. “We clean up after Chosen Ones. You’ll want gloves.”

Their first job was a smouldering tavern on the edge of Daggerford.

According to reports, the Hero of Flameheart had “radiated justice” so intensely during a celebratory toast that the ale caught fire, the ceiling exploded, and someone’s goat began speaking in rhyming couplets.

Tessa had questions.

“That’s normal,” Grent said, surveying the scorched ruins. “Righteousness is highly flammable.”

“But—he won the battle.”

Grent pulled out a form labelled 88-R: Heroic Mishap, Minor to Catastrophic, and started scribbling.

“Victory is irrelevant. What matters is the damage.”

A glowing blue cat hovered past, purring in what sounded suspiciously like Ancient Elvish.

“Residual enchantment,” Grent muttered. “Cover your nose.”

He lobbed a small iron cylinder at it. The cat popped out of existence with a polite meow-chime.

Tessa stared.

“Standard banishment capsule. You’ll learn. Rule one: never touch anything glowing. Rule two: never trust a prophecy that rhymes.”

By the end of her first week, Tessa had:

Been chased by a cursed broom,

De-sludged a singing well,

And filed seventy-three 88-Rs, four U-27s (Unauthorised Divine Interventions), and one 12-F: Unscheduled Apocalypse (Minor)

That one involved a bard who accidentally triggered the Final Lament of Tel’Ethinar at a wedding.

“They requested the song!” the bard wailed as undead doves circled overhead.

“They asked for ‘Tears of the Moon,’” Tessa corrected. “Not ‘Tears from the Moon.’”

Grent summoned a celestial cease-and-desist order and stuffed it into the bride’s bouquet.

“Always verify your song list,” he muttered.

Then came the dragon complaint.

Parcel 9B of the Greater Eldwyn Mountain Range. Smoky scroll. Furious handwriting. All caps.

“Glarazanth the Modestly Terrible,” Grent muttered. “Again.”

“Wait—he’s real?”

“Yes. Retired. Collects teapots. Last time, a Chosen One accidentally blessed his koi pond. Turned the fish into paladins. It was a whole thing.”

They found the dragon wearing a cardigan (singed) and holding a cup of tea (also singed). The remains of a mailbox smouldered nearby.

“It was custom-engraved!” Glarazanth thundered. “And then these two shiny idiots show up—one with a sword, one with a shield—screaming about destiny. They swore my mailbox!”

Tessa opened her clipboard. “We can issue a No-Questing Zone. Thirty-mile radius. And file a Hero Harassment Claim, retroactive.”

The dragon paused. “You… can do that?”

Grent handed him a complaint form. “Also recommend adding signage. Something like: ‘Not Hoarding Gold. Please Respect My Retirement.’”

Glarazanth sighed. “One of them threw a shield at my door and yelled, ‘Justice yeeted!’ What does that even mean?”

Tessa wrote down 'verbal assault' and 'poetic nonsense' under miscellaneous damage.

Weeks passed.

Tessa stopped trying to look heroic and started carrying extra ink. She learned to:

Mediate a sword union strike (they wanted polishing breaks),

Reverse a cursed town where everyone had become mildly sarcastic,

And negotiate with a divine jellyfish accidentally summoned as a house pet.

Grent never said “good job.”

But he let her handle the clipboard now. That was basically a promotion.

One evening, she found him sitting quietly at his desk, staring at a form: 9-H – Heroic Exit, Sudden or Otherwise.

The name at the top read Seren Windfall.

“Was she…?”

“My first partner.”

“What happened?”

“Prophecy misfire. Dragon class mix-up. She stayed to finish the repairs. I didn’t.”

Tessa sat beside him.

“Why keep doing it?”

Grent didn’t answer immediately.

Then: “Because someone has to. The hero slays the beast. The bard writes the song. But it’s the villagers who wake up with a hole in the road and no goats.”

He passed her the form. She filed it.

Not because it helped. But because that’s what you do.

The world ended the following Tuesday.

Briefly.

The Celestial Beacon misfired, the stars hiccupped, and a minor god woke up early thinking it was brunch.

They had four minutes to prevent planetary digestion.

Tessa stood in a summoning circle, holding a croissant.

“O Mighty One, I offer you this blessed pastry of mortal reverence, filled with cinnamon and humility.”

The god blinked. “It has raisins.”

“Raisins are symbolic.”

“Of what?”

“Patience.”

The god frowned.

Grent tossed a mug of divine espresso into the circle. “Here. Go continental.”

The god, appeased, vanished in a puff of smugness and steam.

Tessa collapsed. “Can we get a break?”

“That was the break.”

Then came the squirrels.

A courier pigeon hit the window. Hard.

Tessa peeled the scroll off its leg.

“Complaint from Whispering Acorn Grove,” she read. “Subject: Repeated Magical Misuse of Speak with Animals by local rangers.”

She flipped the scroll over. It was signed by twelve squirrels in pawprint and berry juice.

“They’ve unionised,” she said.

Grent took the scroll, scanned it, and sighed. “Oh gods. It’s the S.C.R.A.T.C.H. again.”

“The what?”

“Squirrel Collective for Rodent Advocacy, Telepathic Communication, and Hexes.”

She read the complaint aloud:

“We demand an immediate ban on unsolicited summoning, a five-nut minimum for negotiations, and recognition that the phrase ‘fluffy-wuffy squeakums’ is an offensive mistranslation of ‘vengeful storm king.’”

Grent muttered, “I am not writing an apology to a squirrel.”

“They say if you don’t, they’ll flood the ranger station with cursed pinecones.”

There was a long pause.

Then, reluctantly: “Fine. Draft something.”

Tessa grinned. “Want me to make it heartfelt?”

“Use the phrase ‘inter-species harmony’ and maybe something about ‘nut-based reparations.’”

She scribbled furiously. “Do you think they’d accept a gift basket?”

She hesitated before sealing the scroll, thinking of Seren, and wrote more carefully.

“As long as it doesn’t contain raisins. They never forget.”