Gathren the Green and The Invidious Murax sit at the long table that will house the Fivescore-and-Seventh Annual Working Group on Sigilic Permutation Saturation, splitting a box of donuts. The Working Group is staffed mostly with very old, very cantankerous wizards, who by all outward appearances are enacting a cold war of bureaucratic deadlock and weaponised bikeshedding with the aim of seeing each other die of old age, or possibly the world die of old age, before anything ever gets done.
Gathren’s here because xe has a deep and genuine technical interest in the subject; six years in, xe’s beginning to think xe’s made a grievous mistake. Xe’s not at all sure why Murax attends; but being the youngest two in the room by far, and almost the only ones to arrive early, they avail themselves of the few available perks.
Last year, Murax had stuffed a second entire box of donuts into a bag of holding before anyone else even made it there, and the perpetually late Six-Eyed Knurr had thrown a massive tantrum when there were none left by the time he finally arrived, with raised voices and recriminations and counter-recriminations about the catering provisions and whether the budgetary allowance for them is miserly or profligate, and Hedvilga the Ash-Marked punched her ex’s new girlfriend Caronix Brasstower in the face, and a whole twelve attendees ended up with Code of Conduct citations.
It’s been a lively year of correspondence via the mailing list since, much of it complaining about the CoC; until even those who agree with him are heartily sick of Bishnik Venom-Tongue yelling about the weak and puling verminous soft-bellied youth of today—
Murax nudges Gathren’s arm. “Hey, look.”
Over by the self-heating coffee urn, a tall and weirdly shapeless figure stoops over the stack of mugs. They’re wrapped in a long coat of battered and much-patched blue leather, thousands of runes stamped and seared neatly into it. The collar is turned up high around their neck; the sleeves droop low over their wrists. Both hands and head are obscured in cloudy drifts of white gauze, sufficiently layered as to obscure any detail of their identity beneath, as though someone dressed as a Halloween-costume ghost had thrown an oversized coat on overtop.
“Who’s that?” Gathren says.
“Chibyll,” Murax says happily. “She doesn’t usually come; too busy teaching, these days.”
“Chibyll Nineteen-Seals-of-Woe?”
“Mhm!”
Gathren selfconsciously licks frosting off xer fingers, and attempts to tidy xer hair.
“Oh, you great peacock,” Murax says, nudging xem again playfully. “You know they say she’s actually three apprentices in a trenchcoat, don’t you?”
“Three, you say,” Gathren murmurs, and makes a show of checking xer breath and straightening xer collar.
“They say,” Murax says, leaning sideways, voice lowered, “that she once walked into a lecture and surprised three young nobs joking about her taking on three apprentices at once, as it were, and on the spot polymorphed herself into a sentient coat, cursing all three to in fact be inside her at once, until such a time as she deems herself satisfied with their service.”
Gathren hums, recognising Murax’s I am going to keep this up all through the meeting to see if I can make you corpse tone. “Well,” xe says, in xer best straightfaced innocent voice, “you see, that’s a great example of the need for a robust Code of Conduct—” and nods and raises xer coffee in professional acknowledgement when the becoated figure turns to observe Murax choking with laughter on a mouthful of pastry.
