A Prompted Story by /u/prompted-writing


A group of friend accidentally stumbles into a magical world, but instead of a group of teenagers they are a group of middle-aged office workers, who are more than happy to take a brake from their boring 9-5 office life.

(reddit link)


"We're still on the clock, right?" Ashley asked, taking a hesitant step towards the edge of the rocky cliff. She didn't expect Brian to give her a straight answer. Brian subscribed to the Avoid All Responsibility school of management, with a sub-major in Maximising Distracting Small Talk All Day Long. She hadn't said it for his benefit. As long as Brian didn't outright refuse, explicitly mentioning the possibility would make Cheryl and Dale log these as billable hours on their time-sheets too, and Brian didn't have the guts to deny all three of them.

"I think that's a conversation for a later time." Brian replied, taking a hesitant tip-toeing step closer to the edge and then immediately stepping back further than he'd started.

The cliff dropped sharply beyond the edge. The fall was a long one. Sharp jagged rock outcrops eventually became a long gravelly slope that merged, perhaps a kilometer away, into dense forest that stretched to the horizon. Not exactly forest, but that was the closest concept Ashley could find as she stared down at it. The bright gold trunks, speckled with dark red dots and splotches, weren't individuals. They merged into the trunks of other neighboring trees and the separating out again before ending in a deep purple canopy. Whatever composed the canopy, too small the see from here, it certainly wasn't leaves. The purple mass swayed as one entity in the wind, while also seeming to jitter everywhere all at once.

"We're away from the office, so that's work travel hours. Full per diems, expenses---" Dale began reciting the corporate manual.

"Wow. No! We weren't instructed by the company to travel here, so it's not a client visit. It's voluntary work-related travel at best, with half per diems." Cheryl interjected, still kissing corporate ass despite everything. Ashley took a long breath while Cheryl spoke, a well practiced technique for swallowing her dislike.

"Brian told us to go into the meeting room, even though the door looked completely different. That's being sent on travel under managerial instruction for sure, Cheryl." Ashley said, turning away from the edge and heading back towards the strange wooden door in the rock face. Dale had closed it behind them and no amount of yanking had managed to reopen it.

"Hey, now listen guys, let's just relax, okay, let's just try to make the best of this." Brian said, following Ashley with evident relief. "We're all here together, let's be a team, okay. Let's think about it like a voluntary after-work team building activity, like when we went out for drinks and pizza that time".

"It's not after work though, is it?" Dale insisted.

"It's not voluntary either," Ashley said, knocking on the door and pressing her ear against it to listen for a reply, "otherwise I'd voluntarily go be on my couch right now."

"Technically," Cheryl began, but Ashley wasn't listening.

The door had barely made a sound when she tapped on it. No echo, no reverberation, just the deep, quiet thud of hardwood resting against solid stone. There was no evidence that there was any open space behind it, that it was a doorway to anything, let alone the hallway to the newly renovated media-enabled ground-floor secondary meeting room. Yet as she listened, her ear pressed to wood until it hurt, her finger in her other ear to block out Cheryl's annoying drone, Ashley was sure she could hear footsteps. Footsteps growing louder.

Ashley jumped back from the door just as it began to open. Through it, she caught a glimpse of a vast library, filled with furled scrolls rather than books. She only glimpsed it briefly, however, because the doorway was filled with the imposing form of a tall, old, bearded man. He somehow looked both ancient and bursting with health all at once. He stood tall and his eyes were clear and sharp, but the sockets around them sagged into deep valleys of wrinkled and pock-marked skin that overflowed his face. Firm muscles were visible beneath the paper-thing and sagging skin on his arms.

His voice managed to sound confident and commanding, though it croaked weakly from a throat that seemed unused to speaking. "Heroes, finally you have come, I--"

"Logging client consultation hours, starting 11:17am." Dale interjected.

"He can't be a client, the Client Intake Form hasn't been approved by Client Processing." Cheryl whined.

"He obviously wants something from us, we've traveled to see him. Actually, no, you're right, no formal intake which makes it an Urgent Client Consult, that's double time and a half if it requires working overtime." Dale said.

"Now just hang on guys, let's just have a chat with this guy, we can don't need to worry about all that stuff yet." Brain said, trying to regain control. "What's your name sir? Would you care for a glass of... well, ummm, never mind."

"Please, Heroes, I must impart to you the most dire of..." The strange man said, taking a step towards Brain.

Without hesitating, without a backward glance, Ashley stepped through the still open door and pulled it closed behind her.
--|==|-- Oof!

This is my first ever submission. Coming back a few hours later and noticing all my typos and spelling mistakes is rough!