The Dark Lord's Risk Assessor

Part 1 - A New Client

Janet Higgins breezed into the office of Duffleooffer & Co Risk Assessors bright and early on Monday morning. She headed to her desk in the corner away from the windows. After all, windows weren't a necessity when work required a lot of inspections outdoors and Janet was always first to volunteer for the most difficult assignments. On the wall behind her hung a framed letter from a client, addressed to her boss, calling her 'a fully-qualified psychopath'. Janet had been pleased that the client had recognized that she was fully-qualified and kept the letter as a reminder.

Janet set her bag down on the desk, turned on the computer and headed to the kitchen to make her cup of tea. On the way, she nodded to the hallway portrait of Albert P. Duffleooffer, the founder of the company and the holder of the record for most deficiencies issued to a client on a single assignment. No other risk assessor in the country had ever matched his total, although Janet held grand aspirations to match Mr Duffleooffer. Back at her desk, Janet scrolled through the company's open tasks while her co-workers filed in.

"Good morning. What a gorgeous day," she greeted them cheerfully. Her co-workers grunted and glanced suspiciously at the gloomy weather outside the window.

The majority of Janet's co-worker were not only terrible morning people, but also males. In fact, many clients were surprised to see a female risk assessor show up at their businesses, but as Janet explained it, her role was to tell men what they were doing wrong and give them a list of things to fix. Janet felt that females were uniquely suited to the role. She was so successful with her role that she'd never felt the need to find a husband. After all, what was the use of a husband other than someone for her to point out mistakes to and give to-do lists, and Janet got plenty of that at work. She was more than happy to come home to her two cats and no husband.

Janet looked over the week's tasks, but there was nothing particularly exciting or difficult. She had finally settled on a task that would likely require a Prohibition Notice, when her boss Mr Rickmore called her into his office. Janet grabbed her ever present notepad and pen, and took the seat opposite Mr Rickmore's desk.

"Good morning, Mr Rickmore. Did you have a great weekend?" Janet beamed at him.

"Humph." He looked her up and down to see she was already dressed for assignment in her durable work trousers, high-vis shirt and steel-capped boots. "I've received an unusual request by a potential new client. The job will likely be difficult, with many obstacles."

"That sounds excellent. Where is it and are they ready to start today?" Janet hovered her pen over the notepad.

"The person who contacted me is the new advisor to the Dark Lord of the Mortiferous Mountains to the east of Fantasyland." He paused to let that sink in.

"I do enjoy a good mountain hike," Janet replied cheerily.

"Apparently the last five advisors all died of unexpected and gruesome deaths."

"Nothing is unexpected if a proper risk assessment has been completed," Janet said. 'One fatality is one too many. This sounds like an emergency. I'll pack immediately."

Mr Rickmore passed over a pack of information, including directions and an overview of the reported issues as reported by the new advisor.

"Be careful. This operator could be very dangerous."

"I'm always careful, Mr Rickmore." Janet took the package and headed back to her desk.

She pulled out her inspection backpack and made sure it is sufficiently stocked with spare work clothes, deficiency lists, Prohibition and Improvement Notices, pens, laptop, torch, tape measures, one of those little hammers used to tap on things, and an assortment of other implements she had found useful over the years.

By the time Janet had made sure she had everything she might need for an extended initial consultation of a high risk operator, the administration officer appeared with travel arrangements. Janet accepted the documents from Miranda, said a hearty goodbye to her co-workers which was mostly ignored, shouldered her backpack and left to catch the train to Fantasyland.