Oriana's day off was over, and now she was back to the daily grind. Sort of.
Back to her Michelle persona, she headed into the Merchants Guild.
Considering the amount of carnage that had occurred here, it was incredible seeing how quickly they had managed to fix things.
Sure, you could still see some of the damage, cracks in the marble floor, dents in the wall and one of the tunnels was still being filled, but everything else almost looked pristine.
It did annoy her a bit, but she didn't do this to destroy buildings and leave them in rubble. No, as long as the message got across and people remembered what had happened, that was enough for her.
"Okay, back to accounting, and to see if there is any way I can make some changes to the upcoming Ball."
Heading through the atrium, Oriana noticed that the number of Peacekeepers standing around had increased. It made sense. This allowed them to show everyone that they were in control, plus there was every chance that the troublemaker, herself, would do something again and that they could catch her.
Currently, she had no plans to unleash anything else from the warehouse. Not that she could anyway, as she was back in the atrium backrooms for the time being.
This meant things would be a little tamer today. It might even be her last day in this place, depending on how things go.
She could still see some more of the aftermath of the incident as she walked through the clerk's areas. They were struggling to find the documents merchants were referring to, having to apologise profusely for it.
There were also a few merchants complaining about the changes she had made before, to which the clerks could now only respond by saying, "You will receive compensation."
---
In the accounting area, she made her way over to Bethany, who had beckoned her over.
"Okay. With everything that has gone on, there is a lot of paperwork to get through. So, just do what you did before, and if there is anything that doesn't make sense, let me know."
"Sure…oh, I heard that there is to be a Ball up in the castle soon. Are we going to get a lot of trade deals related to that soon?" Michelle asked, trying to make it sound like idle curiosity.
"Yes, we already have. Oh, saying that, would you be fine to organise them?"
"Really. I'm only a trainee. These are very important documents. Are you sure I should be handling them?"
"Well. I'm giving it to you because it's sort of grunt work. It's not like you need to do much with them. As long as you don't destroy them, you should be fine. You're not actually approving them or anything. All it is is that a senior accountant is coming in later today. You just need to gather them, sort them into categories, such as food, drink, decorations, things like that, and put them in that room over there." Bethany said, pointing to the opposite side of the room.
"…Okay, if you are sure."
After that, she headed to her desk and got to work. She went through things like normal, to keep her cover.
She was sitting there, about to go through her own paperwork, but all she could feel was a little stunned. Her plan to mess with the Ball had just sort of… fallen into her lap.
She felt both elated and a little disappointed by it at the same time. She didn't have to work too hard to make it a reality. At least she would still have to work hard to get everything together and make the changes without being found out.
Getting back to it, she went through several documents, reviewing and filling them out as normal. After that, she started flipping through the documents, trying to find those related to the upcoming Ball.
It took some time to flip through the sheer number of documents, but in the end, she managed to find two of them.
Two was a good number. One to ruin and another to keep the same to reduce any heat on her.
"Let's see, what do we have here. One is referring to the…Ice Sculpture. Wow, rich people. And the other concerns the lighting. Boring."
Ice Sculpture it was then.
Now, the original request was for an ice sculpture of one of the heroes. A Lady Greenthorn.
Funny name, since it sounded like a name for a forest fae. But it seemed this hero was an elf, quite a young one at that and came from a family of farmers. Hence the name Greenthorn.
She grew up on the farm, discovered she was quite proficient in magic, attended a magical academy to train, and then met the other heroes.
That was all she managed to get from one of the other accountants here, and from what she could recall. She should probably stop by the library again to learn a little more about this city and the heroes.
She had visited it on occasion when she first arrived in the city, learning about the city's customs and culture, wanting to ensure she could ingratiate herself with everyone.
Oh well, that was for future Oriana to deal with.
For the sculpture itself, the request seemed to be asking for a bog-standard heroic pose, showing her holding up her magic staff. It was done so in some tedious metaphorical statement, but that is what it boiled down to. Boring.
How could she change this up for the Ball? Sure, she could think of any number of silly things the sculpture could be changed to. The question was whether they would create an incredibly ridiculous sculpture… of a hero. Surely, that was a quick way to put yourself out of the business. And so, because of that, it needed to be a fun change, but not so insane that it gets questioned.
Wracking her brain to find the sweet spot took a good amount of time, and then she had to pick between several options.
"Which one, which one?"
Then she had a light bulb moment. Or a magic bulb moment, to be more exact, as she came up with a good idea.
Putting illusion to paper, she took it in hand, and then headed around to the other desks.
---
"Oh, you again. What do you want?"
"Err, Bethany asked me to collect documents related to the ball. Do you have any?"
The rude man, Phillip, didn't even look at her as he pointed to a pile on the edge of his desk. That was it. He was really starting to annoy Oriana.
Not wanting to leave it just like that, she realised there was something she could ask.
"I heard you were ill yesterday. How are you feeling?"
"Huh, oh…it, it was nothing. I'm fine now," he had turned to actually respond to Michelle on that, but once he started, he turned back, a hint of embarrassment on his face.
She didn't get much, but she did know she would keep that bottle. She was sure to find plenty of other uses for it in the future.
From there, she headed to the other accountants' desks and asked for their documents. Some had them ready, but others did not. For them, she asked if they could bring them all to her desk once they had found them all.
Through the rest of the workday, Oriana spent time getting her usual documents done, adjusting a few things for her own pleasure, while waiting for the rest of the accountants to come over.
At one point, a man walked into the accounting room and headed over to Bethany.
The man looked very familiar to Oriana. It took a while to realise, but she found that it was the man who had talked back to the Peacekeeper during the ant incident.
It was clear he had a lot of pull, as Bethany was giving him her full attention. But, before long, he left the room. What he was there for, Oriana did not know.
Whatever the case, once he had left, the last accountant in the room turned up at her desk to hand over the remaining forms. With that, she had the full amount and then headed to the room Bethany had pointed to.
Inside, it was bare. A simple desk and a simple chair. That was it.
So, without any further ado, Oriana got to work organising and reviewing the documents to see what she could adjust to make the ball more interesting.
She had the Ice sculpture set, but there were plenty of other things that could be changed.
One was the banners. They contained the heraldry of the Royal family, on various colours of fabric. But wouldn't it be more interesting if, in place of the heraldry of this Kingdom, they had images of ducks, in a variety of poses?
Why not.
Then there were requests for paintings. It seems they were looking for pictures of the castle, landscapes, and idyllic scenes. Presumably, the Royal family would already have pictures of the Princess, so these were just to supplement them.
While these would probably do a nice job, showing off the kingdom to any of the dignitaries from the other kingdoms, surely they would prefer something else.
"In place of locations, maybe I could replace them with pictures of someone."
She laughed to herself at who she had chosen. Even more so when she realised that depending on how they are laid out on the walls of the castle, it might even lead to problematic assumptions.
Having gone through the decorations and put them to the side, she was just about to move on to food when the door opened.
"What are you doing?"