Delivering Value

"... There, armed with holy blades honed by rage,"

The whip cracked, the slave screamed.

"we may, through Might in everlasting battle, earn our place at Your side;"

The whip cracked, the slave screamed.

"Our skulls the foundation of your throne, our eyes fixed upon the river aeternal."

The whip cracked, the slave screamed.

But this time the scream was accompanied by everyone else in the room intoning "Our eyes fixed upon the river aeternal". Once said, people opened their eyes and conversational hubbub commenced, as Eanāṣir locked the whip back into its holster. The now profusely bleeding slave was released from her manacles and sent hobbling to her seat in the corner; ready to take minutes.

Eanāṣir smiled and clasped his hands together to indicate the meeting proper could begin.

"Welcome to the first all-hands meeting of the last half-quarter! Now, just because our performance indicators last half-quarter were through the roof" -- here Eanāṣir gave an indulgent smile, and waited for whoops to die down -- "doesn't mean Khorne expects any less from us now. So today I'll outline my strategic vision to enhance how we leverage our synergies!"

A junior lay-brethren, only just appointed to this wing of the Office of Ceremonial Calculation, raised their hand. Eanāṣir nodded at them encouragingly;

"Thank you, honoured administrative-branch-divisional liege, eighth-order," the newbie said, clearly keen to make a good impression on their first day, "may I be so bold as to ask wh... well, what exactly is it we do? When I was given my transfer papers I was told only that this is an esteemed, performance maximising, branch of the Office, which was proven by many graphs. But nobody told me what we would actually be doing."

There were wry smiles around the table; even the minute-taking-slave (who had been on the verge of passing out from blood loss) chuckled, wincing from the pain when this caused her back to shift position. Eanāṣir, laughing himself, called for quiet:

"That's a great question and one we get a lot, -- Nanni, is it? Yes, Nanni, good -- and I'm happy to tell you! Because, Nanni, here in the Ceremonial Office Propaganda Production & Error Reduction branch, we're tasked with delivering value to stake holders. Did you know that the average Pactsman misses vital arteries in 63% of ritual impalings? That amounts to three hundred ninety billion -- yes, billion! -- gallons of blood unspilled throughout the Empire across a five year period."

Nanni looked genuinely shocked "I had no idea! Is there anything we can do about this!?"

"I'm so glad you asked," Eanāṣir replied, switching on the holo-projector to display a poster of a scowling pactsman holding a ritual stake, "because with the new informational campaign we're rolling out this half-quarter,"

But the meeting had to be temporarily adjourned while someone found the smelling salts. They'd circle back to Nanni's question; the damned minute-keeping slave had collapsed again, and they needed her to record that quorum had been reached.