A Test of Circumstance

A response in little enough time that waiting in the hallway made any sort of sense was not what he had expected, though getting back to him faster than the typical mundane limbo of waiting to hopefully hear back from a potential employer or college was preferable. And it did match with setting up the interview itself on minimal notice.

With an answer coming in this quickly, the odds of John getting anything useful done in the meanwhile was practically 0. Going to Ashcroft to catch the afternoon classes was right out as well, since pretending to concentrate well enough for that to be worthwhile wasn’t happening either.

Judging by the fact that Qhila pulled a folding chair out of her knapsack, she was of basically the same mind. And had come prepared, which was more than could be said for John. But he did have a plastic sack with a change of clothes in his inventory, so he put that on the floor as a makeshift seat.

“What do you think they’re gonna say?”

Qhila’s gaze shifted from the door to his face. “Same thing I thought yesterday. If they turn you down, they’re either nuts or something fishy’s afoot.” For all the firmness of her declaration, she was scratching the back of her hand and her tail was swishing restlessly. After a few moments, she quietly added, “I got a bad feeling about the old guy though…”

“Dr. Serizawa? I would’ve sooner pegged Riverford as adversarial.”

She shook her head. “That’s not really what I meant. It’s just… something about Serizawa made me think of the Radiant Dawn.”

“The Radiant Dawn?” The name rang a vague bell, but he wasn't sure if he had come across it in some half-forgotten bit of fiction, or on the Librarians of Alexandria’s Abyss Wikipedia.

“The Throne Guild that ruled Japan during the Great War. They were part of the Zarusian Purge faction.” Qhila's tone was thick with a surprisingly intense disdain and resentment. Not quite on par with the venom with which she spoke Orronth’s name, but concerningly close.

“I… think I've seen the Zarusians mentioned on the Librarian website, but I haven't gotten around to reading up on it. And the only ‘Great War' I know of is that I think people called the first World War that until the second one happened.”

“The Zarusians wanted to eradicate non-humans by enslaving them and working them to death. [Father] lost an eye and half his tail escaping one of their death camps.”

For a moment, that registered to John as making the Great War fairly recent as history goes, then he remembered that kobolds could live to around 250 years old if they managed to avoid untimely deaths. With that in mind, there was something uncomfortably familiar about that description. “If you put ‘Jews’ instead of ‘non-humans’, that sounds a lot like the Nazis…”

Qhila grimly nodded. “Yes. Along with the Radiant Dawn, the Zarusian core was made up of the Purest Front, the Second Sons of Rome, and a bunch of purgist groups that [Father] called the ‘rejected crusade’. It was one of those he escaped from.”

“Definitely World War II then, from 1930-something to 45. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan versus basically everyone else.”

She scratched at the back of her hand. “I mostly only know what [Father] told me. The Skytail Keeper of Tales didn't care because the Skytails weren't involved in it at all. But… that doesn't sound quite right. It is how things turned out, but the Great War engulfed Earth’s Abyss and several Kingdoms for most of the first half of the 20th century, and Zarus’ maggots only showed up about halfway through…”

“... So you’re telling me that when the mundane World War 1 ended, the Abyss kept at it until World War 2 broke out and the whole thing just merged into one?”

“I guess I am?”

Qhila shot out of his lap, prompted by the sound of the door leading to the interview room opening. Their conversation while waiting had turned to lighter topics, and along the way she had eschewed her folding chair for a different seat.

If Dr. Breshnik noticed that Qhila made an effort to look like she hadn’t just been sitting in John’s lap, she didn’t give any indication. “Please, come inside.”

As they re-entered, John scrutinized the senior Apothecaries’ expressions, anxious to discern a hint of the verdict. However, Serizawa’s observant contemplation and Riverford’s clinical detachment remained largely inscrutable, and the Slavic healer’s demeanor had likewise been simple pleasant politeness that told him nothing.

When the trio was seated, the Asian doctor claimed the word, contrasting his previously reserved presence. “Mr. Newman. While it is clear that you still have a lot to learn, the degree of understanding that you have acquired since entering the Abyss demonstrates both the competence and intention to remedy this. This, in tandem with the potential for new perspectives on alchemy and medical transmutation that your Innate Ability thus far hints at, would make me glad to welcome you as an apprentice among our number.”

For a moment, John felt the lightning of triumphant excitement surge through him, to the point where he only barely managed to contain himself from fist pumping in celebration. Then an unexpected sense of leaden weight manifested in his stomach a fraction of a second before his conscious mind caught up to the key detail that had caused it. The Princeps Medicus had only addressed John, not Qhila.

Dr. Riverford proceeded to do just that, “However, while the potential benefits of the two of you working together is evident, and the medicine is… decent work, there is significant risk that Ms. Qhila will be unable to rise to the standards of a completed apprenticeship. There seems to be no compelling reason why Ms. Qhila should become an apprentice rather than joining our auxiliary staff as a lab assistant.”

That was… not what they had aimed for but maybe better than wholesale rejection. Whether it was a workable option heavily depended on one very critical detail. “Would we still be working as closely together as we would as apprentices to the same mentor?”

“Assignment of auxiliaries is not tied as strongly as the bonds of academic lineage.” Dr. Breshnik had a faintly apologetic undertone beneath what registered to John as a customer service smile. “The benefits of having the two of you work together would be a strong argument but…”

“Ultimately, disputes over auxiliary staff assignments are settled by seniority, absent abuses warranting censure,” Dr. Riverford seized the pause to complete her sentence. “Unless the auxiliary is owned by or indentured to a specific Apothecary. Then that line of authority takes precedence.”

“Then our answer is thanks but n-” John’s polite but firm rejection of what they were offering was cut short by Qhila putting a hand on his arm.

“We would like a few days to consider that arrangement before making a final decision.”

Making the first genuine-seeming expression so far in the form of a small smile, Dr. Riverford nodded. “Take as long as you need.”

Qhila began asking some questions about the details of an auxiliary position, but John’s attention was drawn elsewhere as Dr. Breshnik caught his gaze with her own. Her eyes glittered magenta for a moment, then he heard her voice without her mouth moving. Her tone of apologetic frustration had an ethereal, echoing quality to it that would have clued John in to this being telepathic even if he hadn’t gotten a system window labeled ‘telepathic message’ transcribing her words.

’Pardon the intrusion, but I believe you deserve the truth about Qhila’s rejection and not just Soren’s charade. Which is that he is making paper thin arguments about a risk that it would normally be entirely my discretion whether to take on or not. The reason his overreach holds weight, and the reason he makes it in the first place despite the feathers it’ll ruffle, both come down to internal politics of a sort. Soren and I are, in essence, rivals, and he’s implicitly leveraging recent events and the risk that Qhila might become a lifetime apprentice to try to keep me from gaining a Late Bloomer apprentice.

’If that hasn’t deterred you wholly from joining, I do believe I have a solution. His argument is, as stated, paper thin. If the medication she had developed was something that would elicit significant academic interest or was likely to save fully enrobed apothecaries some time spent on tasks they would consider uninteresting, too many would look at her work in detail and see that he is severely overstating the risk, forcing him to withdraw his opposition.

’Alas, there is no known demand for the medication outside of her personal use, and it does not fall within the specific academic interests represented in Springfield. But there is an opportunity to come back with research that does. Recently, a new variant of the recreational narcotic “Pink Elephant” has appeared in the Springfield nightlife. It is a question of time before we receive patients who have either been harmed by the drug itself, harmed by drug-interactions involving it, or suffered unrelated harm while the drug remains in their system.

’At that point, Apothecarial treatment standards require either knowing the formula of the new variation or a certain degree of effort towards determining it from the patient themself. Work that most of my colleagues would consider uninteresting drudgery, but which can’t be left completely unsupervised to auxiliary staff. If you reverse engineer the formula, or acquire it and append notes on possible alchemical DDIs, Soren would be forced to rescind his objection as it would otherwise antagonize every Apothecary in Springfield who might be the first to receive such a patient.’

That was… cloak and dagger-y enough that John would really prefer to have that supported with more than just her word, but also plausible enough that it was worth following up on. And worth risking that the interviewing doctors could detect Observe and be offended by its use. But while John had received that, Qhila had wrapped up the practical questions, so John just fired off the spell thrice and left the windows open to read in the hallway. Not that he got the opportunity to do so just yet, as Qhila had something to say as soon as the door closed and they were left in the relative solitude of the hallway.

“I think I know how to deal with this.” Uncomfortable reluctance and the determination to push past it shone from her face in equal measure. “If we write up a contract that I pay rent for staying at your house through… through indentured servitude for the duration of my stay.”

He could immediately see how that would work. As long as she was his indentured servant, he had final authority over her assignments as auxiliary Apothecary staff. But he also knew that she had fought very hard for a long time to win her freedom from the dragon she had been born into slavery under. That she was willing to even consider signing that freedom over to him made his chest ache and required him to, for the umpteenth time, resist the urge to kiss his loveable kobold friend and just… never stop.

Instead, he swept her up in a tight hug while the lump in his throat shrank enough to reply. “Thank you for even considering doing that for my sake. But we might have a better solution available.” He felt tension leave her body as she tilted her head quizzically, and gave her an extra squeeze before sliding the telepathic message window over to her. While she read that, he called up the Observe windows.

Aside from the mildly concerning error with Dr. Breshnik’s mentor’s name, the stuff in the information and relationship boxes all matched with the message she had sent him. Seeing the stat readings was sobering. While he had fully expected to be massively outclassed on mental stats and POW, having all three presumably heavily mentally specialized interviewers also beat his more balanced spread’s physical stats across the board, and in most cases by a lot, was a hard reminder that he was still a very small fish in a very big, very deep, and very murky ocean.

After a bit of pondering, Qhila finished reading the message. He passed her the Observe windows, but she didn’t look at them at first, evidently trusting him to check for inconsistencies with Dr. Breshnik’s story. “That sounds a lot better. But while not outright illegal in Springfield, a lot of recreational narcotics are still frowned upon by most major guilds. The people and places selling this stuff would be people and places I’ve done my best to avoid…”

“Fortunately, we don’t have to go at it alone. I know you want to keep up Marisa’s plausible deniability, but she has talked about investigating in the seedier parts of the Abyss before. Including at the Inferno, which I can’t imagine would frown on getting high. And Charlotta might have read up on who knows how many GROie investigation cases or raids with how gung ho she was about joining them.”

Qhila sighed heavily and nodded reluctantly.