The hardest part of being the realm’s premier Curse Breaker wasn’t the chanting or the salt circles; it was remembering which side of the street he’d hexed on Tuesday.

Arthur sat at his oak desk, staring with glazed eyes at the pile of parchment scrolls that constituted his inbox. He took a sip of a tepid brew—peppermint and nettle tea, strictly non-alcoholic—and sighed a heavy, professional sigh. Being the only Curse Breaker in the shire was a thankless task, especially since the elders of Autumnridge had decided to make cost-saving cuts to his department by reducing his retainer by forty percent to practically nothing.

He had responded, to his way of thinking, quite naturally, by deploying a minor patch to the local reality. Across the village of Autumnridge, every left boot had shrunk by exactly half a size. It wasn’t enough to devastate the economy, but it was certainly enough to drive a steady stream of “Priority One” complaints to his door. He rubbed his temples. The locals were lovely people, but when it came to magical infrastructure, they were utterly clueless. They seemed to think protection circles were decorative, rather than a fundamental security requirement.

“Another one,” he muttered, unrolling a scroll. Farmer Ted’s sheep are bleating in iambic pentameter. He marked it as ‘Pending’ and reached for a fresh quill.

The door to the tower didn’t just open; it surrendered. Dame Grizelda marched in, her face already colouring from pink to crimson.

“Arthur! My chimney!” she yelled, smashing a hand onto his desk. “It’s called me a ‘hollow-headed turnip’ three times this morning, and it’s currently criticising my choice of hearth-rug.”

Arthur pushed up his spectacles and looked Grizelda over with a practised, weary eye. “I assume you’ve at least kept up with the physical security? Tell me, Grizelda, do you have Windows yet?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, her chest expanding with a bit of local pride. “My husband finally upgraded to that stained-glass version you recommended last season. The one with the four segments.”

Arthur nodded calmly, picturing the colourful panes he’d consulted on—specifically arranged in a grid of yellow, blue, green, and red. “A wise choice. That specific configuration acts as a visual cache for the household’s light levels. Very modern.”

“It’s lovely,” she admitted, “though the red pane does get a bit warm in the afternoons.”

“That’s just the system tasks running, nothing to worry about,” Arthur answered smoothly. In truth, he’d recommended the design because it made it significantly easier for him to ‘remote in’ with a scrying spell whenever he needed to check if her chimney was ripe for another hex. “But even the most colourful Windows can’t protect you from a backdoor exploit if you haven’t updated your Hearth-Guard.”

Arthur looked back at his ledger. “Shall we try again? Good morning, Grizelda. Have you lodged a formal complaint through the proper channels? No? Right. Let’s look at your account.” He made a show of leafing through a thick book. “Ah, I see the problem. You’re running on the legacy version of my ‘Hearth-Guard’ ward. You haven’t renewed your Security Subscription since Michaelmas.”

“Subscriptions? It’s a fireplace, you thief!”

“It’s an entry point for phantom vulnerabilities, Grizelda,” Arthur replied, his voice saturated with the practised patience of a man who had explained the same thing a thousand times. “Did you install the latest protection circle around the mantelpiece? No? Well, there’s your exploit. The local gargoyles have found a backdoor into your masonry. It’s a classic script-kiddie hex. I can come and look, but it’ll be a premium call-out fee.”

Grizelda grumbled, but eventually produced a heavy purse of coins.

When they arrived at the cottage, Arthur prepared for a standard “Vocal Ventriloquism” extraction. He had cast the hex himself, so he knew exactly where the magical ‘code’ was hidden in the soot. He began a theatrical display of waving a sprig of dried rosemary and chanting nonsensical Latin-sounding phrases. It was all “System Restore” theatre; usually, a simple snap of his fingers under the guise of a dramatic sneeze did the trick.

However, as he reached into the flue to “pull out the darkness,” his fingers skimmed against something chilly and oily. A screech resounded through the pipe, followed by a string of insults that were far more creative—and much more demonic—than the ones he had suggested.

“Oh, bugger,” he muttered under his breath.

He’d over-provisioned the curse. By leaving the “Vocal” channel open without a firewall, he had mistakenly created a vacuum. A minor imp, looking for a high-speed connection into the physical realm, had started downloading itself directly into Grizelda’s masonry. This wasn’t a minor bug; it was a Critical System Failure.

The chimney began to bulge. Bricks moaned as the imp tried to buffer its way into the room.

“Is it supposed to flash?” Grizelda asked, looking at the red pane in her new window.

“That’s just… the toxins leaving the system!” Arthur shouted, breaking into a genuine, frantic sweat. He ditched the rosemary and pulled out a heavy-duty iron salt-shaker. This required a hard reboot. He began a rapid-fire banishment sequence, his voice shedding its bored drawl and taking on a sharp, commanding edge. The imp shrieked as the salt hit the soot, the magical feedback delivering a jolt up Arthur’s arm that made his teeth throb.

With a final, violent thump, the chimney settled. The peaceful sound of a normal fire replaced the insulting voices.

Arthur rested against the mantel, wiping soot and cold sweat from his brow. He quickly rearranged his face into an expression of mild annoyance.

“There,” he panted, straightening his robes. “As I suspected. A deep-tissue spectral infestation. You’re lucky I was on-site; that could have corrupted your entire flooring. Because of the intricacy and the… er… unexpected hardware complications, I’m afraid I’ll have to charge you double for emergency out-of-hours labour.”

“Double?” Grizelda gasped. “But you’re already here!”

“Specialist tools, Grizelda. Salt doesn’t grow on trees, you know.” Arthur went on to complain that the “four-pane interface” is becoming obsolete and that next year, Grizelda would need to upgrade to “Windows 11-Century,” which requires more “Memory” (in the form of expensive enchanted crystals).

An hour later, Arthur was back in his office, the extra gold clinking pleasantly in his pocket. He picked up his quill and opened a fresh sheet of parchment. He felt marginally better now, the adrenaline having cleared the morning fog. He looked out the window at the village green, where several locals were hobbling about in their ill-fitting left boots.

“Right,” he spoke quietly, a small, weary smile spreading on his lips. “Let’s look at the next update. I think it’s time the local horses learned how to walk in reverse. That should generate at least a dozen high-priority tickets by Tuesday.”

He dipped his quill in the ink and began to write. After all, in a world full of magic and idiots, job security wasn’t merely a goal—it was a lifestyle.

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