Storytime: To-Do.

March 12th, 2025

Fourth of Firth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping

Grad student Grombus: potion fermenting, draketooth sorting, sin smelting, star mapping, paper grading, lecturing, thesis defense

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading, lecturing, thesis research, organizing tower chores

Wizard Worble: smoking the herb of Other Worlds, pronouncing vision statements, evaluation of thesis defense

Let’s all wish Grombus the very best luck on their thesis defense today!  Wizards Worble, Wagtail, and Clive will be the adjudicating committee. 

Schleezle, please be more thorough when cleaning the litter boxes.  If Driptail’s isn’t clean she sneaks over to use Rotmuzzle’s instead, they get in fights, and then you have to sweep up afterwards anyways.  Be reasonable. 

Hopkins, you’ve made great strides since arriving here, but for the love of Brod please read the labels on the spice jars carefully. 

Wizard Worble, you’ve promised to do better, but for the spite of Hob stop leaving the herb of Other Worlds on whatever surface is nearest once you’ve imbibed it.  We almost got sent to Alcatrogs one-way last night, even if the lasagna was really nice. 

***

Fifth of Fort Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar litter boxes, sweeping

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, potion fermenting, draketooth sorting, sin smelting, star mapping

Wizard Worble: meditating upon the higher realms, divining advanced synergistic opportunities, pondering the crystal spheres

A somber and heartfelt farewell to graduate student Glimbuzzle Grombus, who did their very best with the Incantation Against Giant Bees and advanced scholarly knowledge to their last breath.  That third syllable in the eighth verse is tricky but has been confirmed as absolutely essential.  Clan Grombus will accept simple metal coins as funerary gifts, but a reminder that all surface plants (including flowers) will be treated as deadly poison. 

Morkkorr, please do the dishes.  I know the adjudicating committee eats a lot, but you’re meant to do all the dishes in the tower, not just the ones from its residents. 

Wizard Worble, I know there’s a lot of fresh correspondence on your plate right now, but please ponder more quietly after ten PM.  Some of us are trying to sleep.

***

Sixth of Strewth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, dusting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrakes, washing

Apprentice Schleezle: litter boxes, floors

Grad student Peters: scrolls, curses, whittling, chiselling, paper grading (double shift), paper grading (catchup shift), lecturing (double shift, NO OFFICE HOURS AFTER LECTURES), thesis research, organizing tower chores, potions, unpaid dentistry, forgework, astrological bullshit

Wizard Worble: requesting a replacement graduate student.

Great job everything’s fine.

Hopkins, please make more coffee for me in the evenings. 

Wizard Worble, do you have a copy of Grombus’s draketeeth filing system?  I nearly had an explosion the other day when the flints and sharps mixed improperly. 

***

Seventh of Sump Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: meals and dust

Apprentice Morkkor: garden, dishes

Apprentice Schleezle: familiars, sweep

Grad student Peters: scrolls, curses, whittling, chiselling (on hold), paper grading (double shift), paper grading (double catchup shift), lecturing (double shift, NO QUESTIONS NO OFFICE HOURS NO INTERRUPTIONS), thesis research (HAH), organizing tower chores, potions (on hold), teeth (not until I get safety data), forgework, fucking horoscopes    

Wizard Worble: requesting a replacement graduate student this goddamned second if he knows what’s good for him

Morkkor if you’re not doing anything else all day because you took all the dishes outdoors and said you don’t have to do them because they’re not in the tower anymore you can get me a rune chisel that isn’t broken before I put the old one up your fucking nose got that?

Hopkins make a fresh pot every two hours all day and leave two pots by my door before lights outs.

Vexnape got chased into my room by Driptail at five AM and I was trying to write, Schleezle you need to step the fuck up and fix whatever that is, romance novel plot or power politics or Klod knows what. 

Maybe Wizard Worble doesn’t care if he has enough grads to run his shitty tower but here’s something he’ll care about: your potion still is clogged because I haven’t had the time to clear the filter and my hands won’t stop shaking, so maybe Wizard Worble should get off his fat ass and DO HIS JOB or tenure WON’T SAVE HIM

***

Eighth of Ape Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: food books

Apprentice Morkkor: plant sink

Apprentice Schleezle: shit broom

Grad student Peters: everything everywhere all the time

Wizard Worble: jerking off fuck if I know

more coffe I can’t THINK PRORPILY

***

Ninth of Plinth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting, potion fermenting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes, sin smelting

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping, draketooth sorting

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, star mapping

Wizard Worble: scribing materials safety data sheets

Thank you everyone for volunteering to take on extra duties and for reciting the full text of Berthelby’s Seventeen Psalms of Utmost Repose over my desk last night.  It does mean you’ll all have to do your work today without sleep, but I can verify from firsthand experience that this is survivable if not pleasant. 

Schleezle, meet with me after classes and we can discuss scheduling a neutering for Driptail.  Which, I must remind you, is mandatory for a familiar living in university housing. 

A reminder to all that working without materials safety data sheets and a lack of direct academic supervision is strictly prohibited, which is why what you’re doing is just hands-on observation. 

***

Tenth of Teeth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting, potion fermenting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes, sin smelting

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping, draketooth sorting (on hold)

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, star mapping, draketooth sorting (again)

Wizard Worble: scribing materials safety data sheets (high priority), academic scrying, getting back to finding a new graduate student

Apprentice Schleezle is now formally censured by this tower for (1) attempting an unauthorized thaumaturgical procedure (familiar neutering), (2) while using unsanitary tools (obsidian draketeeth), (3) in an unsafe manner (is there even a SAFE manner??).  As such, he is under academic scrying for the next month.  Unrelatedly – Hopkins, your cooking still impresses, and I have a small challenge for you: why not make some treats for the familiars?  Something nice and fatty and rich with lots of protein. 

Wizard Worble, those sheets really are an unignorable priority.  Morkkor is wearing every piece of PPE in the forge and he still didn’t know to recite the Litany of Limpid Pools between every sixth sin-casting; he could’ve lust a limb or pride a finger loose.  If you can’t scribe an original MDS, why not crib some from the archives?  All you need to do is attribute authorial credit, that should be trivial for someone of your position.  Right?

***

Eleventh of Menace Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting, potion fermenting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes, sin smelting (on hold)

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping, draketooth sorting (on hold)

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, star mapping, draketooth sorting (again), sin smelting (again)

Wizard Worble: apparently begazing his orbs again at three in the morning with the volume on max

Morkkor, you have given an honest, earnest effort at something in this tower for the first time since you arrived at it, but for your safety and ours I’m stopping you now before you pour something down your collar by mistake and there isn’t enough of you left to fill a base sin.  You can catch up on dishes and maybe held Hopkins with the cooking; god knows she’s run off her feet by now. 

Schleezle if you appeal to the counsellor one more time asking if you’re allowed to handle familiar leavings while under academic scrying I am going to make the question itself academic by morphing you into a litter box. 

Wizard Worble.  Materials.  Safety.  Data.  Sheets.  Four words, all understandable.  You’ve had four nights to look each of them up on your orb, but apparently you can’t read, which is why I’m fine putting in text that you’re a worthless waste of a pointed hat that could’ve gone to an underqualified rabbit instead.  May you be eaten whole by the plagiarspasm as you deserve you tumescent jackalope’s asshole. 

***

Twelfth of Shelf Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking (on hold), libram dusting (on hold), potion fermenting (on hold)

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening (on hold), dishes (on hold), sin smelting (on hold)

Grad student Peters: Actually, literally, everything

Wizard Worble: publishing

Hopkins: although your work ethic and lack of complaints has been exemplary, I urge you to use your time in the infirmary to reflect upon both the intellectual benefits of proper rest and the critical importance of always reading every single label on an ingredient you use, both in and out of the kitchen.  If you’d put something stronger than manticore tears in the antipasto you could’ve suffered a lot worse than a six-hour sweat-and-vomit.  And finally: never, ever, EVER delegate tasks to another apprentice when you haven’t been asked to do so by a supervisor. 

Morkkor: Never, ever, EVER accept delegation of tasks from another apprentice when you haven’t been asked to do so by a supervisor, and if you DO end up doing that, I must emphasize – once again – the critical importance of always reading every single label on an ingredient you use, both in and out of the kitchen.  Frankly, pouring chili oil into the potions still would’ve been catastrophic even if the damned thing weren’t clogged by uncleaned grease and discard draketeeth.  Consider your burns and splinters a little added lesson from the great school of life, of which we are all perpetually undergrads.

Apprentice Sloss Schleezle has been formally discharged with academic dishonours by the launching of multiple chili-infused draketeeth directly through every square centimeter of his corpus.  We will not miss him.  Please send the Von Schleezles every lack of condolence your pen can spare. 

Wizard Worble, I’m amazed to see how fast you can produce actual work when motivated.  I won’t ask if ‘On the Unsuspected Explosive Potential of Culinary Arts Applied to Material Alchemical: the Role of the Drake’s Teeth’ credits additional contributors because I’m not an idiot. I’m going to go into grave studies and send every single ghost author of your six hundred year career after your ass, you illiterate hack. 

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