Burnt Journal
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
Title: *Burnt Journal*
Author: Ziggy II
-Burnt pages-
.... and that is why in Vesper you should always stop by The Mash Hall and order a bowl of Miss Maude's stew. It must be the best stew in all of Vesper. So rich and thick, oh and the meat cooked to perfection! I'm not even sure what type of meat it is, nor do I want to know. I need to stop writing about food because it is not helping the hunger situation. So there I was fresh off delivering that staff with a belly full of stew and a pocket full of coins on my way home. Still felt a bit uneasy about how fuzzy some of the details of the delivery job I had just completed.
Those thoughts mostly faded under the jangling of the plump coin purse by the time I had returned home. First thing I did upon arriving back in Britain was to pay off my lodging, my overdue guild fees, tab at The Cat's Lair and, well, a few rounds. Maybe I was a bit tipsy or it was nice to be home with some coin left over. Either way it was a nice feeling on my way back to my shop. When I rounded the corner I did see Mr.
Buldarn waiting outside my shop's door with two of his hired underlings. Forgetting about his damnable clock after all this time I'm sure our meeting would not come out well for me, so I slipped into the side alley before they had seen me. Quietly creeping through the back window and into the couch I call bed. That bloody clock could wait til morning... so could Mr. Buttwind and his goons. If I had only known what I know now or some foresight in what paths I would take next, it may have been wiser to let the goons rough me up, take what was left of my coin, and that accursed clock back that night. No point in dwelling on what I can't change now.
To say I slept poorly that night would be an understatement. Between the whispers and the racket them goons made playing with dice, could hardly catch a wink, and yet I had the most vivid dreams, of what I can't remember at this point. They had moved on from boredom or were called back some time before dawn. I did get up at some point before noon with a pounding headache, which was not unexpected the way I carried on the night before. But yet oddly rested and invigorated? Mulling it over while having breakfast, I thought it best to fix that dumb clock and send it over to the Buldarn residence to get him off my back. Sitting down at the workbench, I began to clean the gears and replace the parts of the clock that could not be repaired. I do have to say whoever threw the goblet at this thing had one hell of an arm!
The glass on the front was almost nonexistent. The filigree was cracked and bent out of shape. Most of the innards were crushed beyond salvage. The power crystal had massive cracks emanating from an embedded gear. Upon seeing the broken power crystal I learned back in my chair, thinking to myself any repairs I did would be in vain without a new power crystal. It had been a long while since I had seen one so well crafted that small.
I began rummaging about my workshop in a fruitless effort to look for a power crystal that could fit the clock knowing full well that if I had one I would have sold it off a long time ago for rent or drinking money, but I searched just in case I missed one. Around this time I heard the whispers again. Bumping my head on the lid of a chest thinking it was those hooligans again I ducked out of line of sight from the window by the door. Slowly creeping up the stairs to a window overlooking the street below. I was a bit puzzled and relieved to see no one below. I should have known better.
I continued my search, and that is when I saw it resting on the floor at the leg of the bench. A small black shard. A chip of that staff I had unloaded in Vesper days earlier. Knowing all too well the taint Blackrock can leave behind when misused, I plucked the sliver from the floor and placed it on my workbench. I did ponder for a bit how a piece of the staff had splintered off in my shop.
It is quite a durable material and I handle it with great care. If only so my employer would not dock my pay if it was damaged upon delivery. Should have ran out my door and tossed it into the castle moat, but I paid no matter to those thoughts in the back of my head as if they were clouded. Eager to fix that clock and get Mr. Buldarn off my back for good, I went to work. A lesser known property of Blackrock is how it interacts with a current or magnetic... one could write a whole book or three on the topic, but the short of it is when power is applied correctly to it by, say, a powercrystal, even a damaged one, it is capable of holding a steady rhythm. And as anyone may guess, that is something very useful to a clock. Working all through night til next afternoon, by that next evening it was finished.
Looked good as new and kept time reasonably well too! If it was never opened no one would see my handy work, which to say at the time was a good thing. I highly doubt anyone would want a clock powered by an old broken golem power crystal and Blackrock as a permanent resident in theeir home. Quite pleased with my handy work, my first thought was to go running over to The Cat's Lair and have a celebratory drink. I grabbed my overcoat and headed for the door, stopping short of grabbing the handle. That is when I heard the whispers again. I couldn't make out words recognizable. More of a shadow's shadow or trying to make out what a stagehand is telling an actor hand to ear from the cheap seats way up in the balcony. Again I should have known better, but no, I chalked it up to the headache I had from being overworked, under sleeped, and paranoid those goons would catch me. So I paused and thought to myself for a moment, I should be smarter about this. Who's to say those goons were not waiting for me at my normal haunts? Pacing to and fro for some time til I came up with a plan.
First I would sit back at my bench and set quill to fresh parchment and write a concocted apology letter to Mr. Buldarn from a courier service explaining that the clock was mishandled and sent with a shipment to Trinsic where it was held up for all this time. Would add a few coins to the letter as an "apology" and seal it with some wax to make it look official. I then attached the letter to the clock's crate and took a nap til the dead of night then dropped it off at the Buldarn's residence. After dropping off the package, I thought it best to lay low and leave Britain for a while. With a pounding headache I couldn't shake and what gold I had left I set out to Skara Brae to see an old friend.