Bad days had a stink to them, or believed Matthew, and today stank worst in his last decade, he was up a whole hour before daybreak, his bunker mate was still snoring softly while he clung to his body pillow. Matthew left the room and found the mess room in the hideout, his faction had just established this place to pile up even more resources and he was sent here as part of the lookouts to find all the valuable materials in this area, it was still unclaimed land even though they had built the base and started to survey the land.
He asked for the breakfast of champions, meat, meat, and more meat, all piled up in a dish too small for the amount of food put on it. Matthew knew clearly why the small dishes, they helped reduce the amount of wastage as well as conserve a few coins for the kitchen staff to pilfer, everyone knew even the bosses did, but no one wanted to be on a feud with a chef, deadly bastards the lot of them, if they don't like you they spit in your beer, if they hate you, eating shit is not out of the question but if they really have it in for you, death will be the best possible scenario for you.
Just after finishing his breakfast and stepping out of the mess hall to take a puff of smoke, he dropped the cigarette from his lips when the announcement rang in his ear, the second time the lighter slipped from his finger and made a clanging in the silent morning, the third announcement rang as he was running to the communication room in a hurry to contact his supervisor, he was not alone, he bumped into a few of his fellow surveyors along the way, there was no need for words, from the haste they showed, there was nothing to talk about, everyone had heard the same thing.
The supervisor was shouting back at the person on the other side of the communication device "who bloody cares!" Said the supervisor while spittle hurld onto the faces of the ones who barged in first "we have had no information regarding this, why are you freaking asking me? We survey the land you listen to the bloody whispers, that was the arrangement". The shouting match lasted for a while, there was evidently more than one person contacted to the formation because a blame game took place for a long hour before the big boss himself ordered one person from every intelligence agency to go check this new place built by the arse who thought it fun to ruin the steady life of others.
Matthew could feel the stink of the day intensify when his supervisor was looking at him like a dead man walking, so without saying much he went to his room and changed his clothes and set out to the 80th floor. There was no need to hear the supervisor, that look was always there when they had to send someone behind enemy lines to scout the geographical topography, most never returned, therefore it became like a death sentence to receive such a look on such a stinky day.
He was going to the den of the enemy and ask them to grant him information as well as answer his questions, a bad idea if he ever heard one but what else could he do, he had a wife and kid he needed to provide for and these things payed most. Before leaving he did not forget to go by the vault and pick up somethings to trade with, the guys guarding the vault gave him a salute and muttered a prayer for his soul, he was grateful for them, they were grateful for his sacrifice too, so grateful in fact they didn't record what he took with him.
He arrived about an hour later, there were so many people lining up to learn about the system and to use it that he only got his chance around midday, as soon as he stepped 5to the free booth he was greeted with a smiling face "hello and welcome to lucky's trading post,how can i help you sir". It was odd, very odd, not even the guild would receive someone who looked like him enthusiastically, he was dirty, unshaven and had nothing on him that was worth much, even the storage ring he had was of low quality.
"I would like information" said Matthew, he was not sure how the receptionist would answer his queries so he did not hold much hope, to his surprise the female brought out a ring and put it on her finger, she showed him how to use it and then told him to head to the cubicle for a private room, where he can read at leisure and discover the best trading company in the 80th floor, the patience the receptionist showed, when she was explaining the interface to him, was beyond what he could believe a clerk would do, but he still followed the instructions and got into the cubicle.
A sudden change of scenery and he was in a completely sealed room with no doors or windows, the was a chair and a small tea table and nothing more. According to the instructions of the ring he sat on the chair and put his storage ring on the table, it was scanned and then there was a new screen before him labeled my items, he then immersed himself in learning the system, trying to trade, meeting interested parties, making a gold transfer, and so on and so forth.
The place was exactly what it promised to be a trading post with remarkable spell work and even better capabilities, suddenly he had an idea, there was a button named help on the main interface so he pressed it, when the small fairy hologram popped up instead of asking questions he said " i would like to meet the manager of the post". After a second another hologram of a genie showed up and greeted him like any manager would. "good day to you dear client, i am the manager of the trading post, you may refer to me as genie, how may i help you?".
"Are you kidding me?", "I most certainly am not" responded the genie "this out post is run completely by artificial intelligent constructs like myself, it is to eliminate the possibility of human error as much as possible, the only humans in this facility are those working for the bank and handle monetary transactions between accounts, other then the receptionist outside we have no humans working in this trade post".