This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
It's a routine recruitment day in F.I.X.F.I.C, the multiversal exception handling agency. Today, a particular sir will receive his recruitment letter, and the world will see what may come of him as an agent of Good...
From far away, the trained scriers and omen-recorders determine that he's not busy at the moment, and dispatch a messenger.
Nate (or Mud as he is tending to go by nowadays) is indeed quite free at the moment, currently seated at his living room desk, staring at a blank page that he has yet to write anything on for the last several hours.
He's been internally debating various possibilities for what to write, or really what to do to procrastinate on writing, but is sufficiently indifferent between his options that he's ended up doing nothing instead.
A tiny cobalt-blue pixie appears outside his window, holding a letter almost as big as she is. She doesn't seem to be having any trouble holding it.
She knocks on the glass, rap rap, and a little tinkle of silvery laughter filters through.
Was someone throwing pebbles at his window?
Turning to check through the gap between the living room's curtains, he rockets out of his chair upon seeing what appears to be a literal fairy, scrambling over to the window. After a moment figuring out the mechanism, he unlatches and cranks the window open.
"Hello?" He says, his uncertainty over the situation's reality tinging his voice with a questioning tone.
"Hi! Letter." The fairy's tiny voice is almost too high to understand.
She hands over the letter with both hands, and then flits back out the window.
Uh! "Thanks?"
He receives the letter, waves goodbye to the fairy, cranks the window closed, latches it, and slowly sits down on the loveseat in front of the window, staring at the letter for a long few minutes. Is it...actually addressed to him?
There is no name on the outside of the envelope, merely a seal with an image of a star.
He goes and shows it to his house-partner who confirms they aren't expecting any mail. Upon being told that he was handed it by a fairy floating outside the door, she gets a concerned look, asks whether he's feeling alright, and encourages him to make some soup and then get some rest.
He puts together a bowl of instant ramen, and while it's heating in the microwave, he finally decides to actually open the letter and give it a look.
Dear Nathan Wild
I hope this letter finds you well. We at the F.I.X.F.I.C. Agency have a job opportunity for you that we believe that you may be interested in. Contrary to what you might have expected, the multiverse is both quite real and quite accessible, with the right technology or 'magic'. Naturally, this both means that there are all the more problems to solve, and all the more options for how to solve them.
The F.I.X.F.I.C. Agency are but one amongst many groups that has access to multiversal travel and the fruits thereof. Our mission is to ensure the thriving of sapient life, with an especial focus on inserting our empowered agents into worlds undergoing great peril to 'fix' the arc of their world into something brighter and better. You in particular have been identified as likely to be especially compatible with both our empowerment methodologies and our mission.
The job is far from an easy one, but we have millennia of experience shepherding and supporting would-be heroes, and a broad selection of benefits available for those willing to undertake the task.
If you wish to speak with us in more detail about joining us, please tear the enclosed talisman, which will transport you to one of our bases, where you will be fully briefed and offered a selection of abilities and missions to undertake. Unfortunately, due to security considerations, a further explanation of those details cannot be included here, but rest assured that even if you decline, the worst that could happen would simply be that you return to your life as it was before.
If you wish to decline, simply discard or destroy the letter, and we shall trouble you no more.
Agent Asteris
F.I.X.F.I.C. Office f235bf
All preceding content is hereby certified to be true and accurate to the best of the knowledge of the F.I.X.F.I.C. organization, to be designed for honest and open communication, and to contain no geas, pact, glamour, enchantment or similar working, nor any supertechnological or esoteric enhancements to alter effective persuasiveness or the circumstances of reception, beyond your identification as an adequate potential and a discernment of minimum availability to read the contents of the letter. If you have any complaints about the manner or contents of this communication, please either discard this letter or report your concerns to Sapient Resources at your earliest convenience.
Wow.
Hm...
He stands there for a while, just considering the contents of the letter, as well as the talisman he also finds inside, before being broken from that reverie by the microwave's beep.
After he's had the ramen, he decides he should probably try and be a bit more presentable before giving this a try. It'd be awkward if he showed up to these people unwashed and in his pajamas. Worst case scenario, he shaved, showered, and got dressed for nothing.
About an hour later, he has done all those things. He's standing in the living room, dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, his boonie hat on his head and his electronics backpack on his back. The talisman is in his hands.
He takes a deep, preparatory breath, then tears.
He appears in a dark-carpeted office. An expertly trimmed bonsai tree, which looks to be some form of teak, sits on the desk, along with a red-tinted pair of monitors. Black leather chairs sit behind and before the desk. There is no apparent entrance or exit from the room, though he can see through the windows on the north side of it a large hedge maze, over which two suns hang.
A red-haired woman of remarkable beauty sits behind the desk, wearing a well-fitted business suit and tie. A silver pen juts from her pocket, and her lips seem dyed a deeper red than should be natural, though they lack the sheen of lipstick.
"Welcome to Fix-Fic Headquarters, Nathan. I'm Agent Grey and I'll be handling your interview today."
She raises an eyebrow. "I'm certain you must have questions. I will provide what answers I can within the limits of operational security."
Lack of doors is a little uncomfortable but he supposes its natural for people who can just teleport wherever. He will try and adjust.
It really is just pronounced like that, huh?
"Being honest, I'm tempted to ask what the acronym stands for, and whether it's a backronym. I think that probably the better question might be, uh...what sort of qualifications do I have that made me-- compatible with your empowerment methodologies and mission?"
He approaches the chair in front of the desk, but doesn't sit down yet.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post