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The shower was helping a lot actually. Kieran pried his eyes open and shivered, as he preferred to keep the water bone chillingly cold, but thoughts about Twycross, the unpleasantness in the kitchen, and even the sight of Zara having a seizure seemed to swirl down the drain along with the water. The feelings of doubt and uselessness drained from him, as if he was adopting the same icy indifference of the water that was cascading down on him. And as he thought about how liberating it was, it became easier to see how Corrigan had ended up the way he did. Not that he felt like that was a particularly good thing.

The water turned off with a small screech. While part of him wouldn’t have minded soaking the day away, he had plenty of work to do. Not to mention the prospects of getting sick didn’t sound all that appealing.

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[i]THUNK[/i]

The thick book slammed closed with a note of finality, signaling the end of Kieran’s patience. For all his brilliance, Damocles’ monstrous potion was a complete mess from a technical standpoint. Its ingredients were unbearably expensive and correctly brewing it required a herculean amount of patience and attention to detail. If the need for it had been any less, the potion would have been considered by and large as an unambiguous flop. But try as he might, the werewolf had been completely unable to make much headway on improving the potion on either of those fronts. The ingredients had no simple substitutions, especially the main ingredient Aconite which would have burned through most of Kieran's pay if it wasn't for DeVito. Not to mention the brewing process itself seemed to be a hairsbreadth away from not working at all in the first place, so any changes to it almost instantly resulted in failure.

The dark haired man rubbed his temples, exasperation practically dripping from his pores. It wasn’t productive to work like this, as he was all too prone to make mistakes he would later regret. A break was likely in order, but didn’t sound particularly attractive as it had only been a few hours since the uproar that was End’s arrival, leaving Kieran not too enthused to risk running into other residents of the Dormum. But sitting here and staring down his mounting sense of ineptitude didn’t sound all that pleasant either, so with a sigh of resignation he got up from his seat and left his room, which was even more cluttered with heavy tomes than usual.

The hallways of the Dormum seemed even more uninviting than usual, which didn’t really come as a surprise considering that they had lost the few Regulators that had seemed to have made it their mission in life to liven the place up. As he walked through the quiet halls, Kieran found it difficult to miss them, because despite having worked with them for quite some time, he had never truly gotten to know any of them. His steps were heavy, as the poor sleep he had been getting the last few nights were starting to wear him down, but the exhaustion wasn’t readily apparent in his expression.

The werewolf had been intending to get a breath of fresh air outside, but as he made his way to the main entrance of the house, a loud crashing noise caught his attention. [color=slategray]”Oh what now?”[/color] he muttered, but his curiosity got the better of him so he changed his course to the map room.

The sight awaiting him was almost normal enough. Greenwood was helping the caretaker get through a scrying. Normal. At his feet though, was a young girl with gray hair. Sadly, even that wasn’t too unusual due to his line of work. The pig’s snout that had taken up residence where her nose should be though? Not normal. Not even by his awfully skewed standards.

Since Greenwood was too occupied with the caretaker, Kieran took a knee to get a closer look at the stranger, making sure she wasn’t dead or dying in their house. While her breathing seemed relatively normal, the fingers he had placed on her neck told him that her heart rate had spiked. He was about to ask the Legilimens what had happened to her, but the sight of the caretaker hobbling past him caused the words to catch in his throat. While he did his best to keep the old man supplied with potions to ease the poor creature’s pain, he had his suspicions that they didn’t actually help much. So for now, a small nod was all he had to offer him.

His attention was brought back to the present though with Greenwood’s remark. So their next case was going to be in an insane asylum. Lovely. ORO should seriously consider putting together a recruitment campaign with the slogan, “Join us to see what your nightmares look like in real life!” The werewolf was certain it would draw in a plethora of applicants.

[color=slategray]”So who’s the metamorphmagus?”[/color] he finally asked his colleague, finding it surprisingly hard not to prod the pig snout for science. [color=slategray]”And why is she sleeping in our map room?”[/color]

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[@Sailorsadie]