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Stephen’s morning ritual went as followed:
Wake up at 6 am because despite not living at Kamar Taj anymore and all the years of residency, he was forcibly turned into a morning person.
Put on his slippers and robe that complimented the Cloak’s colors. (If it were the exact same, it would throw a fit and if it didn’t at least somewhat match he would look ridiculous.)
Shuffle down to the kitchen where he retrieved his automatic refilling coffee mug and inhaled at least three cups of coffee before shuffling out of the kitchen. Learning to create it took lots of trial and error and a literal river of coffee. Eventually the spells were tweaked that if the mug was upside down when stored the spell would be on pause. It would only refill if the bottom of the mug had less than a centimeter of liquid in it. Stephen was proud of his making of a relic. Technically. Wong said it was a waste of magic and lazy. It wasn’t lazy spending an entire month figuring out how to create it!
Ignore Wong trying to get him to teach apprentices over in Kamar Taj. It was an ongoing battle that Stephen seemed to be winning. Today he was feeling extra exhausted and the cloak had settled on his shoulders in the kitchen sometime between his second and third cup of coffee. Wong started his lecture while Stephen flipped him off with the hand not carrying his lifeblood. Wong began to lecture harder and the cloak, the absolute saint it was, held his coffee for him as he took another long gulp as he flipped off Wong with both hands. Perfection.
Check the relic room . While the relics themselves weren’t like pets in that they had to be fed or watered, they did resemble pets in a way because they craved attention even from a sorcerer who wasn’t their chosen. Sanctum Master was typically the substitute in the meantime and he played babysitter. Honestly, it was like the difference between newborns and toddlers. The relics were newborns where they needed love, attention, and support and they were fine. Students were toddlers who if you took your eyes off them for a second, something could and would explode. Even if there was nothing that could feasibly explode.
Feed the eldritch horrors in the crypt . This one wasn’t part of the every day list but considering it was Halloween he decided to give them a treat. He had stopped at the butcher’s yesterday (read: 5 butchers) and accumulated about a hundred pounds of beef. It wasn’t the souls of innocents or the blood of their victims by any means but they didn’t have the budget or patience for that.
“Meal time!” Stephen called as he floated the pile of meat behind him past the reinforced door. Some of the shadows started to creep towards his feet but a spray bottle of holy water took care of that quickly. “Come on guys, I don’t have to do this but it’s a treat for behaving this year. Now, I want no fake accidents this year. Or real accidents.” Stephen thought to himself for a moment. “No eating people or their souls in general or you’re being sent back home where I know it is worse.”
He received many untranslatable responses in return and he left the crypt, locking the door securely behind him. The sounds of flesh being ravenously being torn apart and devoured barely made it through the door.
Work on translations . The other part of Stephen’s day was translating a number of books that had yet to be worked on. It was another trade off for not having students and if he was still doing this work, Stephen wasn’t dealing with the apprentices. It took him a few hours and the only incident was when he was muttering the translation out loud and caught himself before finishing it. If he had done that, it would have likely summoned an ancient god that would burn his eyes out and then kill and eat him. At least it only went after the summoner. Better file this as ‘world domination plots, evil sorcerers please read.’
From there, it was around noon so Stephen was ready to go about the rest of his day. Falling back into a ritual sure made the day go smoother.
Maybe he could go pester Wong about hosting a Halloween party at the Sanctum. Surely he couldn’t be too mad at him, right?