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There was nothing worse than being cooped up in close quarters for a cycle running due to inclement weather, unless it was being cooped up under the same circumstances with only an uncommonly inquisitive and talkative toddler for company. If he’d heard ’Why?” one more time Klue had thought he’d go mad. Even the criminal element that might’ve had him out and about investigating this, that or the other thing had seemed less inclined to mischief, given the wisdom even crooks recognized when wind and rain was going crosswise to the norm.
He’d built two whirligigs in the interim to keep his mind occupied, and there were the burnt remains of an experiment gone wrong in a large pot on the back of the stove. He was actually relieved when he opened his door to the old woman next door, who was as drenched as good as a drowned rat, wringing her hands and going on about the world coming to an absolute end, and as Rogator shouldn’t he be out there inquiring about it?
Yes indeed, duty called he concluded and in fact had ushered the old woman inside, pushed a cup of tea into her hands and prevailed upon her to keep an eye on Kat till he returned. They were a perfect match, the woman was nearly deaf as a doorknob and Kat could chatter to her heart’s content. The messenger sent to fetch the city’s officials on behalf of the thane had arrived just as he was leaving the cottage. He arrived on the scene after sloshing through the Sticks and onwards, dressed in brown leathers tucked into his boots, a woolen shirt and a long sword strapped low on his hip, a beaver felt flat crowned bowler pushed down over his forehead and an oilskin coat buttoned up tight to keep the rain and chilled wind at bay.
While he passed a handful of citizens running the other way, they apparently having taken the same dim view as his neighbor, the larger flow of the curious both official and commoner alike was a good enough indication of where the excitement was happening. ”Well I’ll be damned,” Klue concluded by way of his first official assessment when catching sight of the glow offshore, and before setting off in search of those other officials already present and accounted for.
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