Location: Wizard Tower 21st Floor
Atkin had been up for a couple of hours now. He had been long adjusted to waking up early in the morning to take care of household chores, and even though those weren't usually such an issue nowadays in the Wizard Tower, his internal clock was set, and to change it he'd have to put in significant effort. Since Arya woke up later/took longer to get dressed, he liked to spend this time doing independent study. Arya often didn't go into as much detail as he'd like on certain point, so this free time at the beginning of the day was a good time to look into those things, while he didn't have any other duties to attend to.
However, the noise downstairs was enough to clue him in that Arya was now out and about. She'd need him to make the tea. He'd been doing it every morning these past couple of months, what with everyone getting sick (himself included). First time around she thought he'd not be able to make it was well as her little Charm could. Hah, well he showed her. It was his first time trying it, but it was a pretty damn good cuppa if he could say so himself. Atkin closed the book he'd been reading and left the room, taking care to step over Chloe who was sleeping in the middle of the floor.
Briskly, but gently (if he went too fast it made his head ache something awful) he made his way down the stairway to see Arya sitting in her purple armchair looking right as rain. No wonder, having no clue how to deal with the Sicknesse other than not using Magyk. It wasn't too big a deal for him, he'd spent his entire life not using the stuff, but every day seemed to be torture for her, as far as he could tell. The stress of it all was probably getting to her. Casually his eyes scanned the kitchen and saw the kettle heating up for tea.
"Oh, are you making the tea?" he asked as he finished descending the stairs. As soon as his feet left the stairway, he felt something pass between his legs. Mere seconds later, the cause of the sensation made herself known by bounding up from the floor to a chair to the table and up onto the counter top. It was his other kitten Azula. The blue eyed cat looked at him for a moment and meowed before running off to some corner and blending away into the shadows. He wasn't sure what to make of that one.
Location: Manuscriptorium
The Manuscriptorium bustled on as it always did, clerks sat copying the work of writers of present and past, ensuring their work lived on into the future. Others studied the notes of wizards and physiks, making sure to follow the written word to the last letter as they mixed together magykal potions for later use, sale and distribution across the city, country and to other lands in trade. These were more popular as of late, especially those with medical uses. On the other hand, those clerks who tended to spend their time toiling away writing down the Charms and incantations of wizards found themselves performing other tasks. Demand for those particular services had taken a significant decline.
This morning, there was a tenseness in the air among all the staff. Even the customers who came and went could feel it. People stood up straighter, there was a rigidness in their posture, a strain to their expressions. They were all watching out for something. Like someone had said that there was a wolf loose somewhere in the building, but nobody knew where. But for those who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it became very obvious why the staff were as on edge as they were.
The Chief Hermetic Clerk slowly walked through the halls of the Manuscriptorium performing the Quarterly Inspection. Followed only by his second in command, Murphy Amundsen, the masked man stood tall as he traversed the building. Amundsen was a willow tree of a man, his dour face pale and lined like bark. The Chief rarely spoke, preferring to allow the Senior Inspection Clerk do most of the interactions with the staff. Murphy would go from station to station, asking what each clerk was doing, how their progress was, if they'd had any issues with their work up until this point and similar such questions. Afterwards, he'd use his spidery fingers to record some notes of what he had seen.
The Chief Hermetic Scribe on the other hand would simply watch his employees, and see how they reacted to both his presence and Amundsen's. They all knew he could fire them with but a word, and they carried themselves generally with the appropriate amount of fear and reverence. Occasionally he would look over the shoulder of one of the clerks. Even more occasionally, he would offer some form of correction.
"Fire. Not Fyre. It's an archaic spelling." or
"You're stirring too slowly. The potion will take too long to react at this rate." He never raised his voice above a low level, but every time he spoke, everyone stopped to see if judgment had been cast. So far, it seemed nothing had managed to arouse his ire. The coming weeks would show Amundsen's reports on how to improve, but for now they had remained clear of any dramatic restructuring of labor that poor performing sections tended to suffer. When he had his fill of one area, the Chief Hermetic Scribe would leave, not waiting for the Senior Inspection Clerk to finish. He had managed to cover about a quarter of the operation so far, the next stop was the storage where they kept all the texts that were borrowed and preserved.
Blaze Gamma
Knight 7
