A puppet among researchers

'Hat guy' 1

Everyone was staring.

So freaking typical

The light of Kshahrewar just walked up and gave him a job offer. Does he have any idea what he thinks he's doing? The Puppet known as 'hat guy' (not his idea) was bewildered at the stupidity of Kaveh, a well known scholar! The fool! 'Hat guy' was barely even a student at the Akademiya, there were plenty of scholars that were over him by experience, by rank, by basically everything needed for this project.

And oh the project... renovating the ley line disruption devices to be more 'environment friendly'!

If he were human he would've gagged at the passionate words written about the safety of animals.

If people would just stop staring, usually he would sneak his way to the sanctuary of Surasthana to report the happenings of the day to the Lesser lord. But with everyone staring...

"Don't you people have better things to do than gock at me?" He asked and just like that they pretended that they weren't.

Even though they have technically stopped he didn't risk going straight to the Sanctuary less someone saw him going there. Too much riding on no one finding out that the Dendro Acheron backed him (not that the people didn't like her, just with people still being a little uncomfortable when she's around both her and the puppet agreed to keep their collaboration a secret) so he decided a walk through the Grand Bazaar.

It feels like forever ago when he was selling food at that stall.

"Hey kiddo!" You've got to be kidding me.

He was too close to pretend not to hear the merchant who was now walking up to him.

Of course he had just got off work!

"Hey....." damn he forgot his name!

What's his name? He should know that.

And now he's staring. Did he ask me something?

"Uhhhh.." was all "hat guy" had said.

"Still spacey are you? HA. Some things don't change I guess!" The merchant said.

"Ummm oh of course!" Better for him to think I'm spacey than not paying attention on purpose.

"Well it was nice seeing you kiddo!" The merchant as he walked away.

"Hat guy" sighed.

That could've been worse

Hopefully no one from the akademiya saw that.

~

"Welcome home!" Kusanali said as he walked in. "Did you run into any trouble?"

"Depending on your definition." 'Hat guy' said as he handed the file to her.

"What's this?" She asked.

"The light of the Kshahrewar gave that to me, he's an idiot!" He answered

Kusanali looked over the file as 'hat guy' got to his 'room'

You could barely call it a room.

It was a bed with a bunch of stuff thrown around that was in the only spot of the Sanctuary of Surasthana that was out of view unless you were looking.

He sat on his bed and got started on his assignments that may or may not be due in the next 48 hours. He wasn't sure which ones were due when. It blurred together. School had never been a priority for him. But Kusanali finds it important so he'd do whatever that stupid akademiya threw at him.

After a while Kusanali came down and handed him back the file.

"Well?" He asked. He had a pretty good idea what she was gonna say. He was hoping he was wrong.

"It's an interesting project, I can't wait to see what you'll bring to the table." Kusanali said. Typical

"You can't be serious, I know little to nothing about ley lines!" He stated.

"That is not entirely true and you know it." She said, giving him a knowing look. "You can not deny that you understand how the ley lines work!"

"There's a difference between knowing how they work and knowing how they are made." He said.

"The fact that you know that proves my point." She said,

'Hat guy' sighed. "You're gonna make me do this no matter what you say, aren't you?"

"Yup!" Was all she said before climbing back up to her part of the camber.