Misbehaving

It was busy at the Lamp's bar tonight. Perhaps a little bit too busy for mr. Maulus, who ran amok. Spilling his food, and running about kicking some glasses, and pecking at poor Luna's feet. Our directrix appears to be not keen at all on furriers. Strange, I thought she loved all animals, but furriers clearly are an exception. Perhaps a furrier trauma in the past?

It came to a point that Gaun and I had to keep mr. Maulus in a box for a little while. A spatious one, certainly, but I did feel somewhat bad about it. Next, I worried about all the stuff that mr. Maulus had been munching, picking off food from guests of the bar. 

Gaun told me that furriers cannot cope well with with capsaicin, the compound that makes chili pepper hot. I think it is a trait I share with furriers; and now I do know why chili laced chocolate was bad. Perhaps Rebechia's blood sausage contained some chili? One cannot be sure without proper chemical analysis, but mr. Maulus was acting a bit strange in his box.

I took him back to my quarters, and to my relief he returned to his old self almost as soon as he was released from that box. In retribution for being locked up, he destroyed another pair of sandals. But at least that tells me he is feeling all right.

Hospital visit

As lady Agatha's surgery has been delayed a bit, I brought mr. Maulus over for a visit. It is clear they miss each other very much. Lady Agatha has knitted a sweater for him, in joyful yoiul red, and with little reindeer antlers, so he will be able to celebrate the new year in style. I received instructions for the festive meal, including mr. Maulus' favorite champagne.

The advertisement campaign came up during casual conversation, and lady Agatha suggested to run an in-station advertisement campaign. 

Some time ago, we did try sending uplifting messages to display in the stations, but as far as I know, it has not been accepted for cluster-wide broadcast. I still have one of the versions on my datapad - low resolution and without sound. It was not really geared to be a recruitment holoreel (that is the kind of advert that they do air), rather it was meant to spread scripture. Perhaps that is why it was not selected for airing. Perhaps we can revisit the idea.

Advertising

To participate in the pious pod program and steer capsuleers towards service for the empire, LUMEN has put out in-space advertisements. I helped, taking charge of some of the targeted locations.

The idea is to put out a secure contained that displays a message. A short message only, one does not read a whole wall of text while warping gate to gate. It has to be catchy. I am no marketeer, but I do not think our messages "LUMEN recruits" + a galnet address quite make the cut. And "Save your soul and enroll!" sounds too aggressive. 

Mr. Firth suggested "Death to the enemies of the empire" + a galnet address that actually installs an MIO trojan. One should always be careful what to click on. I explained him that LUMEN prefers a gentler approach, the carrot rather than the stick, so to say. He was not impressed.

In Hedion, secure cans cannot be littered in space. A fine measure, there is already too much junk we leave about in orbit of planets or jump gates. So, advertising requires a mobile depot. This is a small base of operations in space, allowing to refit your ship, and keep a stock of goods and ammunition. Overkill to be used for an advertisement board if you ask me, but on the other hand we can use it to hand out fee copies of Pax Amarria to those who stop by.

Genolution livers

There have been some delays for lady Agatha Adelath's operation. She is getting several new organs, all top-of-the-line, with which she can face her fourth century of life as if it is the first. 

Now she has had second thoughts about a Genolution liver that was to be implanted. In itself, it is a very nice piece of bio-engineering, hand crafted and grown from individually selected stem cells by expert artisans. It has very good natural resists for fatty food. It has been upgraded with an energized membrane for improved alcohol resistance. It can easily passive tank three gin-tonic damage per hour. In addition, there is an active ancillary hepatic repair module with nanite biopaste. So, even the most serious Yoiul dinner attack should be no problem.

The problem is that it is a smart liver.

Such health monitoring smart organs are quite a fad nowadays. It connects to her datapad for readings, and you can fine tune all sorts of metabolic processes and it helps you keep track of your diet. 

But cookies are a major concern. Not the buttery one, but the sort of spyware that big corporations like Further Foodstuffs or Nurtura or Quafe leaves on your electronic devices. In your liver these allow to track your eating and drinking habits with much more accuracy, generating much more detailed data. These can then be used to create and advertise very personalized food, more irresistible to you than a hard drug. The data is also sold to any medical provider so they can more accurately limit your health plan coverage and determine an appropriate price. 

Lady Agatha, like many people of a certain age, does not want her liver to be remotely accessible. She fears it could be hacked, compromising both her privacy and her bowel movements. 

However, Genolution no longer makes livers that are not connecting to galnet, so it is not simple to accomodate lady Agatha's requirements. You could shield it from galnet, and try to use your liver offline. But livers nowadays automatically download updates, and that is a feature difficult to turn off: it will start complaining daily if it cannot update properly. They say they have found a workaround, but it will take some time.

The Pious Pod Program

A little while ago, an influential opinion piece appeared in Faith and Law, the quarterly glossy journal of the Theology Council. It was written by deacon Azir, who has been the spokesperson of the Theology Council on many occasions. In his letter, he denounced the fact that the Empire pours a disproportional amount of resources in educating and training new capsuleers, notably in Sehmy, Emrayur and Chaven. They get training and free ships, but statistics show that very few remain diligent in their duties to the Empire afterwards. The lure of wealth and power corrupt capsuleers all too easily, and they seek fortune in criminality with the likes of the Deathless. This, they can do with minimal punishment: diminished standings were lambasted as a joke. The piece ended with "Should we really keep investing in our own future enemies?"

It sparked a lot of debate in the Theology Council, ending in a compromise between pro- and anti-capsuleer factions. The Supreme Sobor of Theology decided that the Empire can keep training capsuleers without implementing measures to reduce their freedom afterwards, but in its ruling it also stressed that more should be done to keep Amarr trained capsuleers from going astray. The news of this ruling was followed by a harsh sermon by archbishop Drusius Qosh, speaking at the council's headquarters in Avair, exhorting all faithful capsuleers and capsuleer organisations to do their part in reclaiming those capsuleers that fell prey to the demons of greed, power, and heresy.

In a measure towards implementing the Theology Council's recommendation, the Ministry of Internal Order launched the "Pious Pod Program", a communication campaign to reclaim wayward capsuleers for the good cause.

Today, that news trickled down to the captain's desk of the Indagatrix, as mr. Ivan Firth handed me the leaflet of the program and asked how I plan to contribute.

The wait

No news yet from lady Agatha, she is in the hospital that she hired for the surgery. One of the floors has been transformed into her personal suite. They are waiting till to the medicines needed to prepare for her surgery do their thing. I have been burning a candle regularly at the chapel for her well-being.

Meanwhile mr. Maulus has been integrating well into our little Societas family. All in all it has been a few very uneventful days with only a few minor concerns. I need to buy new sandals. And for some reason Mr. Maulus is fond of guarding the origami arts and crafts section of the library, customers have been complaining about being chased away by him. Mittens enjoys the show, looking at it from a high perch on top of the do-it-yourself home repairs bookshelf.

Unfounded worries

I have been worried about nothing.

I thought it might be a problem to have mr. Maulus as a guest. Not because of assassins, that is nothing we cannot handle. But, I was worried about the reaction of my cat Mittens. Would she allow an intruder in her domain? Share food? And would mr. Maulus feel at home, or would he try to escape through the cat-flap in the door? Should I lock the cat-flap?

It turned out to be no problem, they hit it off right away. They even share the red blanket - the one that I am not allowed to use when Mittens decides to install herself on it for a nap. 

Hopefully they will not synergize on mischief.

Contacting the expert

The myriad of Jove factions are confusing me. I want to learn more about the Lost and Found Section, that retrieved artifacts deemed too dangerous for primitive civilizations that would stumble upon left-behind technology. Perhaps there was also another agency, that distributed technology, like they gave pod technology to the Caldari? How would that work?

There is very little information to be found, even on which faction of the Jove would take an interest in other civilizations' advances. So, I decided to contact the leading expert on the Jove, Uriel Anteovnuecci.

I wonder if he will have time to answer my missive. Perhaps a visit to the library, to sign copies of his work on Jove history? With the détente between the Empire and the Federation this should be no problem. And he is a member of the Arataka Research Corporation, to which I also contributed. 

We will see...  

A guest

Lady Agatha is convinced that there has already been an attempt to kill her pet furrier mister Maulus. 

"Attempted furricide", she calls it. 

Someone fed him chocolate laced with ginger, which made him vomit on a fifteen-centuries-old heirloom Kadorian pillow. This has given relief to mr. Maulus who now appears to be fine, according to the small army of veterinarians and regular doctors that Lady Agatha had summoned.

She now fears more for mr. Maulus's life than for her own.

She has half asked, half commanded me to take care of mister Maulus while she is in surgery and recovery afterwards. I seem to be the only person besides her that mister Maulus does not spontaneously maul. But the most important reason why I should be doing this is that she believes mr. Maulus will be safe in Gottin's Lamp, given its renowned top security measures. 

I am glad I have not told her about the contortionist killer janitor that got in through the ducts, or about that time a Sedevacantist was pinned to the altar with a knife, or the theft of ms. Griffiths's bath water, or the deadly toy attack, or the thing in the pool. And that's just last year. Well, perhaps a bit longer, but you get the point.

Anyway, it seems we will have a guest for a little while. 

PS. I forgot to ask whether it is the chocolate or the ginger that has to be avoided. I never had to take care of a furrier before. Luna will know, she loves animals.

The Heir

They should have seen it coming, the heir-hopefuls to lady Agatha's fortune.

She has named mister Maulus, her pet furrier, as the sole heir to her entire fortune should she come to pass. 

Furriers cannot manage wealth, but there is a way to make it work, by setting up a corporation for the special purpose of making mister Maulus's life comfortable and tending to his every wish. That corporation -run independently of the family- has been set up and has been made inheritor.

A furrier cannot be a Holder (at least not after the mad Emperor's decrees were revoked), so that title will go to her preferred great-great-granddaughter Irene Adelath. Needless to say, the rest of the family was furious. They pleaded and threatened, some tried to bargain to keep at least the race horses or the collection of old-timer three-masted sailing boats (including slave crews) of the late lord-consort. She did not budge. Maulus gets it all. He likes sailing, according to lady Agatha.

I was very much embarassed that the Societas and, indirectly, me are also part of the will - we will inherit the library of lady Agatha's late husband should the worst happen to her. According to lady Agatha, mister Maulus does not like reading stuffy books, and for chewing he prefers the latest fashion magazines. Nobody else in the family seemed to care about these books.

There will be tension over Youil dinner in House Adelath this year.

Salt, smoke and alcohol

Good news: lady Agatha is not terminally ill. But, she has to undergo surgery. Nothing very serious, they are replacing a few internal organs that were failing. However, for a frail lady of three centuries old, even standard procedures of surgery are never without risk, and will require a long period of revalidation. So, it is a wise choice to get the prayer of the sick. In addition, I also took confession. 

She does not use a standard confessional, but uses her Holder's prerogative to do this in the comfortable setting of her living room while having her afternoon tea and pastries. And gin. 

The latter may have contributed to the deterioration of her liver, according to her doctors. But she brushes away the doctor's concerns. According to lady Agatha, the best way to conserve food, or indeed anything organic, for a long period of time is either salting it, smoking it, or preserving it in alcohol. Why modern medicine advises her against salt, smoking, and alcohol is beyond her comprehension.   

She did not only complain about her doctors, but also about her grandchildren (her children and her husband passed away already). According to her, they are eagerly awaiting her death, in order to inherit the vast fortune of House Adelath and the Holder title. 

Now that she has to get surgery, the "vultures are circling closer", as she puts it. So, she has altered her will, and wants me as a witness tomorrow when the notary from the Amarr Civil Service administration comes to officialize the changes.

An urgent request

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this year's Saint Razhden's Day celebrations. I have received an urgent summons from lady Agatha Adelath, requesting that I administer her the prayer and anointment of the sick. This is a rite, not that common any more nowadays, that gives grace for the state into which one enters through sickness or injury, and asks God for strength and endurance of the ordeal of illness or infirmity.

The message was delivered by a courier, hand written on white silk paper with gold ink. The courier did not know what illness struck lady Agatha. Of course I am now very worried that she may be terminally ill. I grew fond of the old lady who was my travel companion during the cruise to Mezagorm...