Bert: Difference between revisions

He loved the access to the libraries and facilities and made the usual friends (mostly other fucked up arcane and crafting nerds, a few Magicians "Physical Kids"-style friendships if nothing else) and rivals (rich assholes, etc). For his senior project (~1 ya) Bert wrote a paper disputing part of paper written a few years earlier by the current Royal Magus, [[Elodie Monceau]] (class of ???? 10-50 ya). Bert wrote the Royal Magus directly, arguing against her theoretical methods with examples from those papers which Bert personally translated and attempted to model with some over-leveled scrolls purchased from his old contacts at Hadrian's Quill. Bert's small-scale project model favored the Hakani results rather than the Magus's predictions but proved to be a bit unstable and led to some minor structural damage in a university lab. The experiment and results were way out in the weeds, major Arcana nerd shit but led to some degree of notoriety and after a brief correspondence a direct presentation before the Magus and several high level professors led to a job offer upon graduation.  

Bert is seconded out to to the Royal Vaults division of the Department of the Chamberlain. His new job is the cataloging and testing a backlog of poorly documented magical items that have piled up over the years in the royal vaults. Chamberlain Edmond Élysée makes it immediately clear he does not want to be bothered unless Bert and his associates have thoroughly exhausted all debates first. Bert works directly in this job with a newly ordained cleric, Alain Vaugirard, 6th son of a cousin to the current Hadriarch. Alain was another Arcana nerd a couple years behind Bert in the College d'Argent Plume but on the Cleric path and like Bert is on a secondment from the Church to the Chamberlain Vault Division to thoroughly examine, magically vet, and test these objects and determine if they are safe to leave in royal hands or should be transferred to either the Magus's or Hadriarch's vaults instead. Bert and Alain both know their jobs are to keep the best objects for their respective Departments and thoroughly document everything they aren't able to keep or is claimed by the Chamberlain for the royal vault. They have frequent loud yelling matches but also count on each other to carefully monitor arcane tests and react with casting Remove Curse, Healing Word, etc when needed in the testing process. Like opposing lawyers or politicians their disagreements are mostly in who benefits while maintaining a day to day agreeable working environment. After they have concluded their study of an object they report to the Keeper of the Vaults and she makes the final determination about where a given item should be stored long term, and only in the case of extended arguments is the Chamberlain directly involved. Most of the work could be done much quicker but both Bert from the Magus and Alain from the Hadriarch have been specifically told to take their time and thoroughly test and document every step and both have done so without formal agreement with each other leading to days to weeks of study for every object they have studied and very slow progress. Bert often works on personal projects using the equipment they have setup in the small basement rooms near the actual vaults that they have been provided as testing areas, and it is not unusual for Bert to spend the night in one of the "labs" after working late into the night.  

 

As the vaults and lower levels of the palace would be locked down and Bert was explicitly told to leave his work for a while, he went to a few of his old haunts near the University. On a whim he purchased mushrooms from a halfling band at his favorite University bar then proceeded to have a very bad night. Freaking out during a show let to hours? of running around and hiding in soiled alleys. Bert has clear memories of a thunderstorm (though official reports list no rain or thunder that evening), at one point in his visions he was able to catch lightning bolts and refocus their energy. Most of the things he saw he is willing to admit were drug-induced hallucinations, but he is currently somewhat obsessed with trying to setup a situation where he can be hit with lightning.