After a hard days work outside pulling weeds I am all tired out, so we’re doing a pretty short short story this time. This week we have another one of the short stories that blend everyday work process and the fantastical. I’m not sure if I’ll add any more to this specific story but I think it would be fun to come back to this sort of fantasy world later on.
Flight Chief on Dock
There were multiple benefits to having gnomes working in the warehouse. They were diligent, detail oriented and meticulous, if a bit mean tempered. Their compact size meant that Enchanted Woods Materials Distributor could keep most of the office space and workers amenities small, clearing up more room for the warehouse storage. Add to that the fact that gnomes naturally lived underground and it meant that the warehouse could keep running even during the periodic days of darkness that came from being set in the middle of the shadow woods.
Sure, gnomes could be taciturn and a little grumpy, but so long as the break room was well stocked with snacks, and the warehouse was kept well ventilated, it wasn’t beyond the usual early morning disgruntlement. They were occasionally peculiar about their work habits, such as each of them adding a rock pendant to their reflective safety vests, or their habit of knocking their hard hats together three times before leaving the break room, but as far as cultural habits went those were hardly disruptive.
The fact they had enchanted the riding pallets jacks to fly did add a layer of complexity to Mirilis’ job, but it wasn’t beyond her capabilities. She’d organized flight teams for her home tree back during the late summer Fall-Prep Death Week – one warehouse was much easier to manage.
One of the moving dots in her live-time tracking spell of the warehouse traffic began to glow orange as it started rising. Mirilis immediately switched the communication fob attached to her vest from ‘listening’ to ‘speaking’. “Grik, your straying out of your flight window; stay between rows 37 and 43 unless you need to use an elevator corridor to get up to a higher rack. We are at 27 days without incident and we are always looking to extend that streak.”
After getting a confirmation Grik had heard her, Mirilis flicked her communication fob back to standby, watching on her tracking spell beside her until Grik returned to the proper lane. Certain no one else was going to deviate in the next few minutes she turned back to the stack of waiting Loading bills and started sorting them into the correct shipping lanes. Gathering three separate stacks in her arms she then went to grab her own hard hat, slapping it on her head and brightening her natural glow. She kept it to a degree that would make her noticeable but wouldn’t risk blinding anyone on a pallet – a trait specific to her own tribe of Shimmerwing fairies.
Flying out of the main office she hovered for a moment to get her bearings before weaving her way through the pallet traffic as she descended through the warehouse towards the shipping dock, her spell trailing after her like a large green firefly.
The warehouse had originally been a large cavern used as a tunnel hub for one of the dwarf mines, before the valuable ores ran out and the mine was abandoned. EWMD had then swooped in and bought this portion of the mine, refurbishing it into a safe warehouse for the storing and shipping of rare elements. Most of their customers were organizations run by wizards, sages, or alchemists who were well off enough that they didn’t need to go looking for their own materials and could instead pay for someone else ship them what they needed. Refurbishing the cave did make for an awkward layout. The offices with the paperwork, time cards, and billing was situated high up near the ceiling, built out from one of the higher dwarf tunnels. Based on the presence of the door to the outer forest it had likely originally lead to the dwarf settlement that had been running the mine.
The center cavern was the warehouse proper, with the dozens of shelves and storage racks housing all the different ingredients and materials. Finally there was the shipping docks and the workers break room, all the way on the opposite side of the cavern from the office. The shipping docks had been built into the three main tunnels the dwarves had made while mining. EWMD had to do some excavations in order to turn the tunnels into actual routes out of the cave, but they now had dragon steel doors that could be opened to allow shipping trucks access to the main mountain road. Each bay was currently holding one of EWMD’s specialized transportation trucks as the dock crew loaded them. Mirilis dropped down next to Belis, the largest gnome working in the warehouse and the lead for this shift.
“I’ve got the new orders ready for you,” Mirilis handed the three seperate stacks to him. “It looks like there’s going to be a late season heat wave through Alech-Hin, so I’ve marked the order for frost flowers going on the east route to get extra temp-wrap beyond our usual amount.”
She hovered as Belis quietly sorted through the different orders, seperating them into different piles that she still hadn’t worked out the logistics of in the three months she’d been here. “We’ve got an air ship that is dropping in at 1400 to get the Lasker towers order,” Mirilis glanced at the order in question, staged out of the way next to the North bay. It had been carefully wrapped and bound with enchanted chords that wouldn’t unravel until they arrived at the delivery location. “It should be the Whisker’s Air this time, not Sylphs Spring, but if it is give me a ring and I’ll come and talk with them about the order.”
She took a moment to double check the tracking spell again, making a note of which pallets were in motion and which ones were currently docked to charge. Certain that everyone was moving the way they were supposed to she minimized the spell and turned back to Belis. “Is everything going well here?”
Belis gave a short grunt that she had learned meant yes, then offered her the stack of completed orders that had been stamped received by the drivers transporting them.
She received them with a cheerful “Thanks!”
The stack was easily a foot tall and she had to split it in two in order to transport it back to the office where they would be sorted, billed and filed. With a quick wave goodbye Mirilis turned and began making her way back through the warehouse traffic, already mentally compiling a list of things she needed to complete before the end of the day.
This job certainly kept her busy, and could be a physical workout as well as a mental one as she flew throught the warehouse making sure things were running smoothly. But she was proud of her work, and keeping such a large place running could be exciting in its own way. Alighting back in the office Mirilis re-expanded the tracking spell as she settled on her desk stool, already running through what other delieveireis they would be receiving that afternoon, and how to stagger the shipments coming in and going out as she prepared to start processing the completed orders.
Time to get to work!
