Tik Tik's Taxing Adventure 8
#137 of Tik Tik's Tower
Things are getting back to normal... or are they?
This is an entry into my holiday series. What started out as a simple story got really weird because I got covid halfway through writing it. Enjoy this fever dream!
Please support me on Subscribestar
The Adventures of Tik Tik is a fantasy erotica series starring a cute kobold wizard out to make new friends! The readers fund its development. Those who support get early access to stories and rough drafts, the ability to vote and make poll options for monthly bonus stories, and able to produce and direct the plot with other top-tier supporters! Not only that but the more that I'm supported, the more of these stories
Check out more of my work through my Linktree
Posted using PostyBirb
Tik Tik groans, her eyes watery and her throat sore. She pushes herself under layers of sheets, kicking the blankets off her until she lays sprawled out on the bed, naked, staring at the ceiling.
"Urggh... what happened?" she murmurs, rubbing her eyes, watery and sticky.
She looks around and sits up quickly. She's not in the business room, and neither is she in her tower. The kobold darts around to figure out exactly where she is, only to recognize the simple hominess of an inn.
She rubs her head and stumbles out of bed, heading towards the chair and grabbing her canteen. She guzzles down water, letting some of it roll down her chin and over her scales. With a gasp, she pulls it from her lips and screws the lid back on.
She remembers it all clearly, or at least she thinks she does. It's all fading away.
The naked kobold shuffles towards the bedside table, plopping herself down and crossing a leg over the other. She picks up the papers lying there and looks over them, one by one.
Business expenses, taxes, a report on the desirable properties of the undead, the processes of lucid dreaming...
Dreams... is that all that it was? Interdimensional travel, vampiric bunnies, meeting alternative versions of herself...?
And that horrible truth that she was nothing more than a creature whose life was meaningless outside of making someone else's life more meaningful?
What could be bothering the kobold so much as to make such dreams so strangely realistic?
A knock on the door breaks her train of thought. Tik Tik heads to it, using magical gestures to remove the locks.
Her blue eye emerges from the crack, and she stares upward, only to freeze.
Standing on the other side of the door is a rabbit dressed in business attire, hands behind her back, with red eyes looking down at her.
"You caused us quite a scare, Tik Tik," Miss Harrison says.
Tik Tik opens the door, tapping a foot. "So, we jumped through the portal, and then what? Who is your boss? The CEO of that building?"
Miss Harrison frowns. "I don't know... what you're talking about?" She stops and shakes her head. "I'm just letting you know that your return is in, and we found out that we did owe you." She hands a cheque to Tik Tik.
The kobold snatches it, narrowing her eyes as she reads. "But I thought I didn't do my taxes right."
"And I thought you were too sick to see anyone." She asks this, leaning to look into the doorway. "What have you been doing all this time?"
Tik Tik looks over her shoulder, gripping the door as more and more of her life returns to her from that dream world haze. "Ah, right, I was just looking over everything, including rules for things."
"How very vague of you," Miss Harrison says. "And what have you found?"
"One," Tik Tik says, rubbing her head, "Don't jump in random portals if you don't know where they go. There are magic spells that will mess you up. How long was I out?"
"Depends on your definition," Miss Harrison says, pulling a pocketwatch from her coat. "A good 13 hours of rest in your room came after your delirium. It's not safe for the living to enter the accounting department."
"So, a treasury staffed by nothing but undead?"
"Well, I wouldn't say all of us are, but when the international treasury was founded centuries ago, we found it necessary to keep a continuity of workers there. New blood is sometimes difficult to train. Speaking of which, though, there was one individual I'd been looking for. We're supposed to begin our initiation, but I can't find him."
Tik Tik's grip tightens on the doorway.
"You wouldn't happen to know what happened to my new recruit, would you?"
Tik Tik gulps. "Uh, no, I don't think so. I just woke up, and I really must be going."
"Do you mind if I help you pack?" Miss Harrison asks, holding out a hand towards the door. "It can be quite troublesome to put all those tax documents away in a manner beneficial to you come next year."
"Next... year?"
"Oh, yes," Miss Harrison says, her crimson eyes glowing. "Tax season is a song and dance that will be with you all your life, Tik Tik. You will never escape accounting for every copper coin you scrounge up. You will always need to tell us exactly what we already know, and you will, no doubt, find yourself trying to hide from it, only for it to come looking for you again and again."
Tik Tik gulps, her scales tingling as she scratches the doorway. "Something doesn't feel right," Tik Tik says, her brows furrowing. "Wait... you're not just some tax collector; you're... you're...."
"That's right, Tik Tik," Miss Harrison says, holding her arms out to either side. "I'm financial responsibility, and I don't mean metaphorically or allegorically!"
"But if you're the embodiment of a concept, wouldn't you be a metaphor? Wouldn't you meeting me be an allegory?"
Miss Harrison huffs and says. "Just let me inside."
Tik Tik taps her nose, nods, and then slams the door. "No. Go away. You may be a living metaphor, but you're still a vampire!"