June 12th through 17th
Sunday June 12th and Monday June 13th: Friends and Fights
I ran into Erehwon, it turns out that she was one of the people who arrived in Babbage after the Mondrago incident. I told her about my intention to get a reality enforcer and she was horrified. She made me promise that I wouldn’t…at least not until she found out what happened to Mondrago so that I won’t be able to blame myself. I agreed to wait, though whatever the outcome it’s not going to affect my decision. Until then I’ll be staying in Babbage, and in Clockhaven when I think I’ve pushed my luck too far.
Nothing else happened through Monday, though I DID try to make that appointment that I had tried to make with Underby, but I hear there was cock fighting over in the Bucket which must have attracted their attention. I wasn’t about to go there to set up my appointment at the time, so I just went home.
Teusday June 14th: I finally meet Mr. Pearse, and the Maceholder makes a suggestion
I heard about a summer Bonfire party much too late to attend, I was at City Hall trying to meet with someone…anyone really.
I decided that perhaps it was time to take matters into my own hands, as usual, and I went out to look around town for the Mayor or his deputy mayor, which Lionheart reminded me was called the Maceholder in this city. I had run into Lionheart on my way out of city hall towards the port, and Hono was there as well. We talked for a little while until Mr. Pearse arrived.
I had heard a lot about Mr. Pearse, but this was my first meeting with the man. It was awkward to say the least, but maybe that was only because I had been speaking with Hono and Lionheart on a private matter just as he arrived. We didn’t say much, but I suppose it was good to meet him finally. He mentioned a party that would happen on Sunday, and I told him that we would definitely try to attend. Perhaps that meeting will go much better.
I searched for awhile, and eventually I managed to find Mr. Cleanslate outside a stall in the Portside. We chatted for awhile, and I shared with him my concern about the Mayor and his health. Mr. Cleanslate said that there was no way to really schedule an appointment with the Mayor. You walked up to him, and followed him around till he had time for you, which is what he told me to do. He also said he’d be watching Mr. Tenk’s health a bit more closely in the near future.
Wed June 15th and Thursday June 16th: Study
I spent the days searching for the mayor, and looking into my previous studies when I wasn’t. I wanted to re-familiarize myself with what I had already learned about this city and it’s inhabitants since I got here.
June 17th: Even if I get hit by lightning again, it was worth it.
I attended a pool party for a short time today, and then had to depart for other engagements. There was a brief meeting for a fund raiser and then I was left to go about my day. I was going through the city, doing what exercise I can, when I saw the mayor for the first time. I paused and I listened to him and Berithos from afar, and I was able to overhear a bit of their conversation. I got close enough to hear very well, but still kept my distance until Dr. Berithos went into the Bucket and the mayor walked past me.
What happened next was the payoff of all the reading, listening, and running around town that I have been doing for the past few months, but only as far as how enjoyable it was.
I started off by saying that I had won our bet. If Lionheart was right about how Underby had won over Maggie to his side, then this accusation would probably put him on the defensive and confuse him. He, of course, didn’t know what I was talking about since we did not have a standing bet that we had flat out agreed to.
Still, I insisted that I had won the right to gloat since I had told him he’d get sick again, which as far as I’m concerned I had, which was basically just an excuse to sit there and tell him I was right and therefore I could also be right about his illness and he should come to the hospital and get diagnosed.
He kept refering to bets as contracts, which almost confirmed something else I had been told, but rather than let him know that I knew, I said things like ”even if we didn’t have a bet, we had a dare” which I will admit was just the first thing that popped into my head. Tenk accused me of talking jiberish, which I then commented that I had just assumed he was completely fluent in.
I admit that I was feigning more ignorance to his nature than I should have and being far more annoying than I needed to be to accomplish what I actually wanted…but I was having too much fun. Besides the entire point of this exercise was to be overheard and dismissed as someone who didn’t know what was going on or what he was getting into. From what I barely overheard from inside and what Miss Maddox confirmed later, about why Mr. Underby had come outside, it was successful..for now. I may have given it away when I told Underby I knew that a deal with Tenk was binding, however.
If only my deal with Lionheart had occured before I had already told everyone that the mayor was ill and that I thought he had yellow fever, I wouldn’t have even felt it necessary to keep up the appearance and go through with a facade such as this…but now that I have done it I wouldn’t change anything about it.
The only thing that did not go according to my plan tonight, such as it was since I had done it knowing full well it was a mistake, was that Tenk actually tried to offer a deal to me. Not just a simple agreement or understanding which wouldn’t have been a problem, I hear he’s come to them with people from time to time such as with Mr. Cleanslate, but a binding deal.
This was when Underby had come outside to try to tell me to leave, saying that I might make him cross if I didn’t, but Tenk wouldn’t hear of it, and I wasn’t going to back down when I was well in control of the situation, unless Tenk wanted to resort to violence in which case I would have been in trouble, but as far as the deal itself went I was never in any danger. The deal I offered was something he would never agree to once he knew what it would entail.
My only regret is I couldn’t see the look on Tenk’s face when I would have told him what I had meant when I had said he had to come get diagnosed, which I had been about to do before he refused very abruptly. It meant we would run all the tests on him necessary till we positively diagnosed him. That meant, I would have happily informed him, we’d probably need to get a blood sample from him while searching for the diagnosis, and that we would need to keep a little extra to compare to future blood samples as his disease progressed. We would have to poke him and prod him to find his lymph nodes, and we would have to scrub his throat with a swab. And to make sure he definitely said no to this deal, I was going to insist that all the active doctors in the hospital be present including Sonnerstein.
If he did happen to say yes to all those demands anyways, despite what I know of him and have heard about him, well at that point I would have considered the price he named to be cheap comparitively, but after his rant about Sonnerstein I had no doubt in my mind he would refuse.
He turned me down too quickly though, saying that I was trying to trick him. Maybe he does know how right he was and maybe he doesn’t, considering the entire conversation was nothing but a sham. It will be a very long time before I will ever be able to tell him I suppose, and I doubt he will ever think kindly or highly of me either way.
I spoke with Miss Maddox back at the sub and then with her, Mr. Harvey, and Sonnerstein I pretty much admitted everything that I have written here. I decided that after Lionheart had already tried to bring her in there was little point in hiding what I had done today and why from her. It wasn’t anything truly important, and I didn’t want her thinking that I didn’t actually know what I was doing tonight.
Maddox told me to be careful, and was worried for a moment that Berithos would come after me if he thought that I had any chance of interfering for ”his” plans with the mayor. Maddox honestly seems to believe Berithos is just trying to kill him. I told her there was very little chance for that, of course, because the mayor had turned me down in a very public and loud way. Why would you waste your time on someone who had proven that they were ineffectual, impotent, and ignorant?
I took my leave and headed to Clockhaven for the night to rest in the Gangplank.
*Arnold stops and reads the passages for June 17th over a hundred times as he is laying on one of the couches in the Gangplank. The first few times he’s smiling because he has honestly enjoyed his day and writing about it, but eventually he knows he can’t let it be read by anyone and he shakes his head and tears it out of this journal. At first he considers burning the page in the Gangplanks fireplace, but he thinks better of this and opts instead to burn it tomorrow when not even a fragment could fall into anyone’s hands. He stayed up all night in Clockhaven and burnt the page in the stove in their sub that morning.*
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