Marcus Chen stared at the floating form hovering three inches above his desk, its ethereal blue glow casting shadows across his cramped office cubicle. The document pulsed gently, waiting for his signature—just another soul-binding contract in the endless stream of metaphysical paperwork that kept the universe running.
"Initial here, here, and here," droned his supervisor, a translucent being whose corporeal form had long since been optimized away for efficiency. "Sign at the bottom. Standard non-disclosure about the nature of reality's backend systems."
Marcus's hand cramped as he gripped the Cosmic Quill™, its reality-ink shimmering between states of existence. Six months into his internship at the Department of Ontological Affairs, and he still wasn't used to the way the job literally bent reality around bureaucratic procedures. Every spell, every miracle, every act of magic in the world required proper documentation. Dragons needed permits to hoard gold. Even sponta