Warrior of the Void Book 1, Chapter 32

“That’ll be all here,” One of the nameless acolytes said after the last parishioner disappeared down the stairs that led into Ul’dah’s streets, “Pass your leftover loaves to Harthdin and the acolytes, they’ll handle the slum distribution. Initiates, lock the doors and go help with cleaning up. Room has to be clear of clutter for when adventurers start showing up to humiliate themselves in front of the Guildmasters.”

“Aye aye.” Muur replied with a sloppy salute as she got to work, trying to inject a bit of good humour into the room after that depressing finale.

Said humour wasn’t reflected back at her as the small crowd of religious men and women worked their tasks– well… religiously. A truly shocking turn of event she could not have seen coming. A plot twist for the ages.

When initiates and acolytes separated, two of the formed stayed in order to close the door. At least once the twelve, or so, of the latter left through the ebony gate and entered the city’s artery, carrying with them a great many loaves of bread. As for Muur, she and her fellow acolytes left the two to their duties and made for the main room, where Mamane was putting the last touches on her own cleanup of the lectern she’d used for the mass.

“Muur, Dodoco,” The elder priestess called out as soon as she saw the Au’ra, “You two are to bring the censers back into storage. The rest of you, water, rags and soap for the pews. I will inspect your works once you are finished. If they are lacking, you will be made to wax Priest Thunderous Lamb’s newly constructed furniture.”

Based on how the name seemed to inject some steel in everyone’s spine, that waxing was anything but fun, “Well,” A small, even for a lalafel, girl looked the lizard wizard up and down, “At least you’re no Harthdin.”

“Au’Ra do get quite tall. It’s just that all my height went into my tail.” Muur explained as if she was reciting an obvious fact, only a faint twitch at the corner of her lips giving her away.

“I’ll say,” The small lady commented as she waddled over to the first censer, “is it me, or is that thing as tall as you are? Oh– It’s your first time doing this right? I think I remember you from the massive explosion a few days ago?”

“Yes to all three.” The Xaela replied with a smile, following right along. 

“Right, in that case, can you make small ice crystals?” A wiggle of Muur’s pale fingers and she had a tennis ball sized mass of ice in her hand. “Nice, in that case, see this section here?” In spite of her size, she tried to point out a small alcove just below the cut in which the incense was still merrily smoking away, “You’ll want to cast an ice spell in there, create ice about the size of my fist. Dunno what sorcery these are made with, but it just kills the incense in seconds.”

“Never made anything that small, but should be doable.” The Au’Ra said as she chewed her lip pensively before nodding to herself, focusing her aether to the best of her ability. Just whisking away as small a mote as she could hold a grip onto and aspecting it to ice, before she flicked it into the alcove.

The ice turned into water with a quiet hiss, and then into steam just as quickly. The Vapor didn’t stay in the chamber though. Instead some arcane, or plain clever, engineering saw it being sucked up through hidden vents. The smoke that had been lazily drifting out of the censer’s top petered out almost immediately after, “Right, next we carry it to the storage. By the time it gets there, incense’ll be cool enough to handle,” Walking over to the contraption’s feet, Dodoco bent down to take hold of them, “Just make sure to grab it under the chamber you put the ice in, unless you fancy a burnt palm.”

“I’m fairly fire resistant, but no need to invite trouble.” Muur said as she got to work, minding her fingers.

Bringing the thing to storage was, unsurprisingly, a pain on account of their size. But once they reached the room, Dodoco had Muur stop, “See the box on the shelf there?” She asked, pointing at a soot covered box, “That’s the place where we drop all the incense of the day. Dunno what they do with it exactly, Harthdin mentioned something about recycling it I think? Was too busy matching his stupidly huge strides. Damned long legged bastard.”

“Hah!” Muur couldn’t help but bark a laugh at that, even as she dug a scooper out of the dirty box and, after taking off the top of the censer, got to work shoveling the incense in. Each scoop threw a small plume of grey soot into the air, revealing what remained of the large blue puck she’d loaded the metal fixtures with.

In the meantime, Dodoco wasn’t wasting time. The lalafel was head deep in a small cabinet, pulling out rags, cleaners and oils, “I’ll take care of cleaning this one once we’ve brought in the next. We’ll put them at the front of the pile in the back once we’re done cleaning all of them.”

“Sounds like a plan!” The Xaela chirped as she scooped out the last of the incense, closing the censer’s lid with her tail as she squared away the disposal box with her hands.

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“How did you like your first mass?” Cleanup took half an hour, all told. Most of it was spent on a censer that hadn’t been properly cleaned last time. But just as Muur was leaving for the Alchemist’ Guild, Mamane intercepted her with a simple question.

“It was… both more and less than I expected?” The lizard woman hazarded after a moment of fumbling for the right words. “The track it took was novel, but the structuring of the whole thing was very similar to a few other church services I’ve seen. Not sure how I feel about that, but the core message and the charity work I agreed with one hundred percent.”

“Is that so? I would not be surprised if our church borrowed from those you encountered on your way here. The Twins have a great many types of priests. One of them, Peddler priests are known to travel wherever commerce might be found,” The older woman explained, "Perhaps one brought back the concept of the mass as we practice it from afar? Then again, the opposite may very well be true.”

“Trade’s always got more to it than goods and coin.” Muur hummed in vague agreement, for all she seriously doubted any Peddler Priest had seen a Catholic in the whole history of the church.

“Quite!” Mamane, nodded before waving Muur off, “I'll not hold you longer than this as I believe you have certain obligations for the day. However, I do recommend that you familiarise yourself with the tomes I mentioned before, they provide plenty of examples of priestly duties, separate from the ones you've seen today.”

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“Oh, for the love of–” Getting to the Alchemists’ Guild was so very easy compared to the last time. No endless stairs, no winding paths pulling her deeper, then higher, then even deeper than before, into the earth. No, teleportation was oh so convenient! Entering the building, Muur had ‘clocked in’ so to speak by telling the clerks manning the front desk that she was here to see her teacher. Then, she'd just followed her memories, her alembic secured on her shoulders, until she reached the woman’s lab and knocked on her door… 

The short string of expletives that followed from the other side didn’t bode particularly well, “Who–” Her assigned teacher cracked open the entrance to her lab and froze, “oh. You weren’t a delusion brought about by fumes. Wonderful. Well? Come in already.” Her tone, as she pulled the door open in full and invited Muur to enter, could have stripped paint off steel if distilled into a liquid.

“Unhappily for us all, I’m sure.” Muur drawled as she obliged, not wasting any time slipping in on the off-chance that she’d get the door slammed in her face if she made the lady wait.

“Harhar. Spare me your lip.” Caustic as her words were, she did wait until Muur had entered the workshop before closing the door– and workshop was the right term, moreso than lab. Unlike the small, clean and impersonal square that Muur had used before, the room was a small and quite personal cube. In fact, one might even say it was bursting with personality.

Or at least papers, glass-blowing tools, hammers and tongs, and crates and crates of haphazard reagents. The plinth that had been in the middle of the ‘public’ lab was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a wooden desk. Blessedly, the extraction funnel meant to go above it had been extended and now snaked along the ceiling towards an area partitioned off with thick metal sheets, “As to be frank with each other. I’ve no time for an apprentice, least of all with one that does not know how to perform alchemy. I’ve orders that I am struggling to fulfil for no other reason than the client wisely deciding to move up their time table in spite of good sense. Creditors breathing down my neck for daring to own a house in this Twelve forsaken city, and my personal projects have once again had their fundings cut out after I’d bought the means to act on them, leaving me with barely a gil to my name.”

“...Fair enough.” Muur said after a long moment, before tilting her head a fraction, “What are we doing about it, then?”

Best to just keep the ball in the lady’s court rather than give her ideas by suggesting anything about Muur being effectively on her own or being dragged into doing unpaid busywork.

“Did they give you a recipe book?” Walking over to an old pile of books, the lalafel began rifling through them, “Or at least tell you to pick one up for yourself?”

“Not in the slightest.” The lizard wizard replied without missing a beat.

“The pin signalling you’re part of the guild?” The woman asked tersely, clearly at the end of her rope, “By The Builder, tell me they didn’t forget that at least?”

“Small mercies.” Muur sighed as she fished out the item in question. She still had to find the time to have a Goldsmith engrave her initials on it, but hey.

“Small mercies indeed,” Moving to another pile of books, the alchemist began taking it apart one tome at a time, “If our illustrious Guildmaster hasn’t told you, you’ll want to get it engraved with a personal seal,” Pausing for a moment, she nodded to a small coffer sealed with a bit of twine and some wax in the corner of her room, “I use mine to claim credits for my works. Plenty of bastards that’ll try to claim your work as their own otherwise.”

“Ah, a maker’s mark. The Guildmaster just told me to get my initials on it, but this is a better idea.” Muur said with a bob of her head, pondering what the hell to use as a symbol.

“That’s because for all his devotion to the craft, the man finds no joy in making any sorts of philter or concoctions,” The woman groused, before pulling one last tome from the pile and leafing through it, “Oh, he loves the art. Make no mistake, but he cares nothing for its applications, only its advancement. In any case, here.” Handing over the tome to Muur, it was open on a double page listing the steps for… Firesand?

“Not familiar with the term here. I’m guessing some kind of blasting powder?” The wizard lizard said honestly after scanning through the recipe. 

“Aye, it’s used for anything from tunnel digging to bomb making,” Climbing back on her chair, Lalalade began scribing things on an open book, “Whole damn town might as well run on the stuff. My most pressing order is a batch of twelve work kegs of the damnable stuff. I was meant to deliver them in two weeks, but the order was changed to be delivered tomorrow. And I’ve another order for high potions due that same cursed day. Take that recipe, and get to making sand, there’s more than enough reagents in the back for them. I’ll be handling the high potions.”

“On it.” Muur said as she pranced off to find herself a clear enough area to set up her alembic on and start laying out the reagents. “What’re the Guild’s regs when it comes to orders being delegated to apprentices?”

“Left to their assigned teacher’s discretion,” She answered blandly, already grabbing reagents for her own work, “And I’ve no intention of paying a layabout incapable of mixing up a dose of firesand.’

“Hah! Fair enough.” The lizard woman said, and left that be that as she focused on her work. Trying to get any concession out of her nominal mentor would be less than useless right now.