Getting Lena established within the library didnt quite go as expected. The original plan was to set her up in the basement, but upon seeing its darkness a 2nd time, and being reminded of the greyness of her shop, Egil instead had the clockworks expand into the nearby university area, and placed her tools in an atrium.
The atrium would mean sun from the glass rooftop by day, and glowing orbs by night. Not a bad setup. The sudden concern was security. The clockworks could patrol the grounds, but they were shit fighters. It was really a trade-off at the moment: have Motoko patrol the grounds, or have her listen in on developments at the capitol.
The *real* bottom line was the team was going to get harder to conceal. Walking out onto the rooftop, next to the atrium glass panels, Egil looked at the glow of the distant capitol. Still no patrols from the occupiers... yet.
Next priority, we need demons actually built for fighting.
Egil took the steps back down, to the workshop, now illuminated by the light orbs. The surrounding plants and gardens did a lot to give a more welcoming atmosphere.
He announced himself by knocking on Lena's shop door. She looked back at him, tears running down her face.
"Everything ok?"
"Yeah." She gave a slight laugh, wiping her face with her arm. "I was just noticing how much different this is compared to the old shop... and how much I wanted to work on things that affected world events."
"Really?"
"I grew up reading about legendary weapon smiths... and then saw what it means to be on the losing side... its probably not the healthiest fascination."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Just the stupid gang wars. I thought I could do more good to supply the city with better devices, but they blocked me at every attempt. No matter how good I got, they would always turn me away."
"Yeah... Im familiar." Egil said bitterly. This was mostly the core of Egil's complaint about the nobles. The problem wasn't that they existed. The problem was they locked everyone else out. If you didn't have family within the ranks of a particular institution, the door was essentially locked.
"Were you ever part of the summoners guild?"
"Well... there's one thing I can say about getting in: there's always someone who wants you out."
"How did you do it? Get in, I mean."
He gave a slight laugh, thinking back to the first time. The merchant who realized he employed a summoner. The black cloaks who didn't want a summoner-backed merchant operating independently.
"I learned to disregard the taboos, and explored all the tools around me. My admission into my first guild was a combination of me being too..." He never did come up with a good word to describe it. "...unchained, to reliably execute; and too dangerous to them, to ignore."
"What do you mean 'reliably execute?'" Lena's tone got a bit darker.
"Soul tethering. Its a chaos magic trick..."
The girl shot up from her chair and took a step back. "That magic is banned."
An emotional reaction. Egil realized he needed to maintain control over the interaction, shifting over to his colder persona. "Do you know why its banned?" He asked.
The official messaging on the matter was pretty vague.
"The stories..." She responded sharply.
Summoners had a bad reputation, for having relationships with demons. Chaos mages had a worse reputation for 'being demons.' Egil's memory flashed to the grimoire... the book that essentially destroyed his life... no, it was the people who destroyed his life. The book rebuilt it.
