From Ashe Vol. 10: From Ashe, #10

By Joshua Piedra

Ashe is feeling the pressure and is being pushed to the brink. Between her situation at work and worrying about whether or not her gamble with Shadow Wing will pay off, Ashe questions her future and how it will affect herself and Renji. With Renji; however, things are looking up for him as he is finding success at his new job in the form of a bowling event; however, despite being happy with the way things are going, he can sense something off with Ashe and wonders if he should confront her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joshua Piedra
• Release date: May 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224859009

Book preview

Contents

PREFACE

PAGE 64

PAGE 65

PAGE 66

PAGE 67

PAGE 68

PAGE 69

PAGE 70

STORIES FROM ASHE

AFTERWORD

PREFACE

Welcome to the tenth volume of From Ashe! That’s right, we’ve hit double digits!

This volume will be a little light on the artwork as there will only be three scenes throughout the book. The reason for that is for the first time in this series, there are zero new characters that require artwork which means you won’t find any biography pages at the end of the chapters; however, you will get another double-page spread of Nekohime doing another one of her streams, so look forward to that!

I also tried something a bit different with the cover this time around. Since this volume heavily focuses on In/Source and Dennis, I felt that he would be the perfect choice for the cover. Since he is the unholy boss of Ashe, I thought that a Sin City-inspired cover would look nice. Alex did a heck of a job with it!

I had a lot of fun with this one as not only do you get another Nekohime stream but we revisit a fun activity from all the way back in the second volume!

Enjoy the story and, as always, I’ll see you on the other side!

PAGE 64

Downward Spiral

While being a contributing member of society often comes with constraints that impede our lives by compressing our free time, it provides for us in many ways. The scale of stability provided by monetary compensation in exchange for our services ensures that we are well-fed and nourished, that we have shelter from the elements of the world, and that we are clothed and kept from vertical bars of iron for a period of time because the neighbor didn’t appreciate witnessing the magnificence of a birthday suit. 

That very same compensation allows us to build budgets and divide our monthly earnings among necessary expenses, leaving us decisions on what to do with the remainder. Some will squander it away on unimportant material possessions, some may try to unsuccessfully convert it into larger sums of money via the lottery, or some will stash it away in a savings account. There are other uses for excess cash; however, no matter what reason you choose, they are decisions that are made every day, every week, and every month of our lives.

While we are conscious of what to do with the money we earn, we don’t often wonder where it comes from. We blindly walk into our jobs and perform our functions in exchange for that money. As long as the company keeps paying out, we never question whether the company has enough to keep paying us. After all, it’s not our responsibility to manage a company’s finances… that’s up to the company’s corporate management. We just push the buttons to keep the gears in the machine turning.

For Ashe, that’s how it had been since she started working at In/Source. Every ad she designed, every eblast she sent, all were performed without ever wondering if her next paycheck would come or not. As long as she performed her tasks, she would be compensated based on the agreed hourly wage between her and the company. She never thought that one of her tasks would put her in a position to wonder about something that most never stop to think about.

She stared blankly at the data provided to her by In/Source’s Chief Financial Officer. The numbers reflected that the company was in a downward spiral and if the trend continued, there was a good possibility that she wouldn’t be getting a paycheck from Dennis Powell again. As she sat there, she wondered how it had come to this. Granted, she worked in marketing and didn’t interact much with the sales department. She wasn’t directly aware of how well the machines they advertised were selling. She simply assumed that she did her part and that whatever she did helped the sales team bring in the money.

The numbers spoke differently, though. When she looked at the Raptor, it showed a big, fat zero. Not a single new system had been sold since they had launched it. When she saw that, she glanced out the window by her desk and looked down at the production floor. She saw plenty of people assembling computers so she knew that orders were being worked on; however, when she looked back at the chart, the numbers didn’t seem to justify the level of work being performed on the floor below her.

She sat there for a couple of minutes staring off into space. She wondered if the computers being built were going to anyone or if the production team was just being given busy work. Could they just be building machines in hopes of selling them to eliminate the customer having to wait for build times? Did this mean they had a warehouse of unsold gaming PCs just waiting for a home that may never come?

When her mind fabricated these unproven scenarios, she shook her head and snapped herself out of it. She realized that she didn’t have the time to waste worrying about things as Dennis expected this revenue chart to be completed as quickly as possible. Thankfully, all of her previous practice paid off as she could create a table and plug in the numbers along the X and Y axis. From there, she just had to place the dots to match up with the information that she had been given. 

As she was placing the dots, a realization hit her. Multiple revenues were being reported which meant that a single line wouldn’t be able to represent them all. She began to wonder if she should create multiple charts or try to find a way to have multiple lines on the same graph. Knowing Dennis, he would want to keep things as simple as possible, even if it didn’t look pretty. As long as it had all of the information that he needed, then he wouldn’t truly care how it looked. With that in mind, Ashe decided to do multiple lines on the same graph but she decided to color-code them to represent each product’s independent revenue.

By the time she was done with that, she realized that while she color-coded the lines, there wasn’t a way to tell which product was which. She added a photo of each one on the left-hand side of the graph and placed a colored line underneath it to match up with the one on the graph itself. When she was done, she sat back to admire her work; however, all she saw was a multi-colored spaghetti monster up against a basic-looking graph. Her left eye twitched at the monstrosity before her and wondered if Dennis would even accept something such as this.

There was only one way to find out.

She rendered the revenue graph as a PDF and sent it over to the office printer. She made sure to print it out on tabloid-sized paper since Dennis liked to have things as big as possible. With it in hand, she walked over to Mark’s office and knocked on the door to see if it was okay to enter. 

Ah, done with the chart already?

Y-Yeah. Although…

Something wrong, Ashe?

I just didn’t know how to go about making something like this look good so… um… I guess you could say I tried my best?

Ashe handed it over to Mark. With just one look, he instantly understood where Ashe was coming from. He scratched the side of his head as if he were looking for a way to approach this with common sense and reason. Knowing that Dennis was expecting to see this as soon as possible, there wasn’t much time to think of a different way to present the information. He was just going to have to roll with it.

Oof. Yeah… that’s a lot of lines… and colors. Be that as it may, I’ll go run this by George and see what he has to say about it. We’ll also go over it to make sure everything is accurate number-wise, and we’ll go from there.

Sounds good.

Ashe went back to her seat while Mark excused himself. When she sat back down, she looked around the office to take in the sights… something that she hadn’t done since the first day she started working there. She saw Cora working on another concept for a custom-painted case and it piqued her curiosity.

Hey, Cora… what are you working on?

Nothing in particular. Just practicing.

Oh, so that’s not a design for a customer?

Nope.

Um… have you designed anything for a customer yet?

Can’t say that I have. I mean, there was that Wilfred Cunningham guy but can you really call that a customer? It ended up being a free gift for his daughter. Since then, I haven’t designed a single thing that got sold. I just sit here and practice so that I can do something to earn my paycheck.

I… I see…

Something wrong, Ashe?

No, it’s just that… no… never mind. It’s nothing.

It sure doesn’t seem like nothing.

I just had a stupid thought but, it’s nothing, really. Just ignore me.

Well… if you say so.

With that, Cora went back to work on what looked to be a pastel floral design. Ashe wondered what kind of hardcore gamer would want their PC custom-painted in pastel flowers. Under normal circumstances, she would probably think that Cora was just painting whatever she wanted to so she could look busy; however, given her knowledge, she wondered if she was trying to build up her portfolio. She spun her chair around and poked Saraya on the shoulder.

Sup, girl?

Oh, hey, Ashe.

What are you up to?

Just going over our social media KPIs. You know, checking likes, engagements, comments, all of that fun stuff. Apparently, it’s part of the weekly routine for this job.

Yeah… Kelsey never liked doing any of that stuff so she pawned it off on me, said Aubrey, chiming in. It naturally became part of my job so when Saraya took my place, I passed it off to her. Come to think of it, it sounds like I just pawned off something onto you that you’re not supposed to be doing.

Haha, it’s fine. I don’t mind doing it. Plus, it allows me to use company equipment to check out social media without getting yelled at for it. I can sneak in some personal time on there and no one will be the wiser! What’s that? Throwing up posts about my artwork? Nah, just checking out our engagements!

Just be careful. Anyone walking by can tell the difference between business and personal when it comes to social media. I mean, it’s pretty obvious.

Yeah, yeah. I’ll be careful.

So, said Ashe. Out of curiosity. What are people saying about us on social media?

Well… do you really want to know? Some of the stuff I probably shouldn’t say out loud in an office environment.

It can’t be that bad.

You say that but…

Well, now you can’t hide it from us. You’ve dangled the carrot in front of the horse. You have to let us take a bite.

Saraya sighed and opened up the company’s SocialBook profile. She went to the first post which was advertising the new Tempest system. There were only two likes on the post, yet, it had six comments. Sayara clicked on the comments section to open it up. She cleared her throat and read the first one.

Oh, look. Another overpriced piece of shit that I’m not going to buy, she recited before moving on to the next one. Why does this company still exist? There are much better options out there, she continued before a brief pause before the next comment. Dennis Powell is a blowhard that doesn’t know his ass from the hole in the ground he accidentally dug yesterday. Never buy from this idiot…. Do you want me to go on?

No, I got the picture. That’s a major oof right there.

As they were talking, Mark walked in and placed the revenue chart back down on Ashe’s desk. On there, was a crude-looking smiley face with Dennis’ signature underneath it.

You won’t believe this but Dennis approved the chart. In fact, he loves it. He wants you to print him ten copies. He immediately called the investors and scheduled a time for them to meet. Whether it was by luck or not, they had an opening and they are squeezing Dennis into the schedule. They’ll be here in about an hour. Honestly, I didn’t expect things to move this quickly but now we have little time to prepare. In addition to the revenue charts, Dennis wants other media to present to them. This means you need to put together a PresentPoint for him to show. He gave me a list of things he wants and the clock is ticking so this takes priority over everything else.

Mark handed her a list and when she looked at it, her face contorted a bit in confusion.

Um… there are quite a few here that I’m aware of but there are some that I have no clue what he’s talking about. What’s this stewed tomato video?"

Yeah… about that one. There was a point in time when Dennis tried to prove that liquid cooling was the way to go, so he put a tomato on top of a CPU and cranked the PC up to a heavy load. The CPU got so hot that it started to cook the tomato… before ultimately failing. Of course, we cut the part where the CPU overheated out of the video but, yeah… he cooked a tomato with a computer before, and it’s one of his favorites.

Wow…

Yeah, that’s most people’s reaction. I know where to find that one so don’t worry. I’ll grab it and send it over to you. Any others that you’re confused about?

Yeah, what’s this Honey, I Shrunk the PC?"

Dennis, along with the old team of engineers, found a way to build a gaming PC inside of a smaller case so they created a parody of a popular movie where they strapped a bunch of video cards and liquid cooling tubes together with duct tape and called it The Improverator. They then forced Jase to use some really cheesy CGI graphics to make it shoot a shrinking beam. Of course, Jase couldn’t get a computer to shrink so you could see a stagehand throw a smoke bomb into the scene and then when the smoke cleared, there would be a smaller PC case where the old one was. It made B movies look like Oscar nominees.

I see. There are a couple more so how about I just email you the list of what I need? I think I’ve heard enough.

That’s probably for the best. I’ll look for your email.

With that, Mark headed back to his office. Since time was of the essence, Ashe composed her email and fired it off before going through their cloud storage to find the other items that Dennis wanted. Once she had everything, she opened up PresentPoint and began to throw them in there one by one. Like the revenue chart, it didn’t look pretty; however, she got it done. With all of the videos, the file ended up being nearly 4 GB in size. She wondered how she was going to send it to Dennis.

She suddenly remembered that the company has a bunch of 8 GB flash drives that the sales team usually uses to give out to customers at trade shows. They would normally pre-load them with specification sheets, videos, and other sales information. She figured she could just meander over to that department and see if they had a blank one to spare. It was a small trek over and, sure enough, they had some. After thanking them, she hurried back to her desk and went to load the presentation on there; however, the transfer was taking forever.

The hour time limit was nearly up and the progress bar wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere. This made each second feel like an eternity, each one increasing her anxiety bit by bit. When the progress bar was finally completed, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. She unplugged the USB and darted down to Dennis’ office as fast as she could. She noticed that the sign on the outside of his door had been flipped to Do Not Disturb which told her that the meeting had already begun and she was too late.

She had two options… Turn back and get yelled at for not delivering the presentation on time or interrupt the meeting and get yelled at for doing so. It was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation but she would much rather get yelled at for interrupting a meeting than not fulfilling her job. She grabbed the handle and slowly opened the door hoping to achieve some sort of stealth; however, Dennis’ door was in serious need of some WD-40 and it made a loud creaking noise as it opened. It immediately drew everyone’s attention which was the last thing Ashe wanted.

She took a deep breath and just went for it.

Sorry to interrupt but I have the presentation you requested, Dennis.

Ah, excellent! Bring it here.

Ashe walked over and handed Dennis the USB.

Hang back a sec, Ashe. I just want to make sure I get this up and running without any problems.

Dennis plugged the USB into his computer and copied the presentation to his desktop. Like before, it took a while to transfer. Rather than wait for it, Dennis began the meeting by presenting the revenue chart to the investors. Ashe had to stand there and awkwardly stay silent as they went over things.

I had Ashe here make a graphical representation of our company’s revenue over the past several years. As you can see, she broke it down into a total revenue line as well as individual lines representing revenues from each product, all of which are color-coded. I have a copy for each of you to take a look at.

It seems you have diversified your product line in recent years without much in the way of proven success with other revenue channels. Would you care to explain your reasoning behind this?

I felt that we needed more variety. The gaming PC market is highly competitive and I know that one of the things gamers like the most are options. I wanted to provide several options to whoever may be interested in buying one of our machines. Most of that diversification happened this year with the launch of the Raptor and Tempest systems. We are fully committed to these two newest machines which is why I want to invest heavily into advertising with them to let the market know that we mean business when it comes to these high-end PCs.

Ashe glanced over and saw that the presentation was fully copied over. She took the liberty of opening it up and making sure that it launched correctly. Once it was up on his screen, she waited for an opportunity to chime in.

Dennis, the presentation is ready whenever you are.

Thank you, Ashe. I appreciate it.

You’re welcome.

Ashe quickly took her leave as she didn’t want to be in there for another second. She scurried back to her desk where she thought her heart was going to leap out of her chest. In the end, it went a lot more smoothly than she had hoped for. With that over and done with, she could concentrate on the rest of her tasks… or at least, that’s what she thought. All she could think about was the company’s financial status along with wondering how her presentation had anything to do with winning over a bunch of investors. 

Those worries carried her to lunch where she remained spaced out. Aubrey walked over and tapped her on the shoulder, grabbing her attention.

Hey, Ashe. It’s Monday and you know what that means. Want to grab some lunch over at Lucky Strike?

Sure, she said, sounding as if she were caught off-guard.

Ashe clocked out and the gang made their way over. When they arrived, fortune smiled upon them once again as their booth was available. When Ashe sat down, she looked around and took in the sight of the entire group being together which brought her both joy and sadness. She had gotten to know everyone on a deeper personal level. She knew the lives