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Wriothesley had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’d never been one to take handouts either, though whether that was pride or the itching feeling that there was a catch to the gifts was anyone’s guess. However, he was the first one to say if something was excessive. He knew what was excessive. And this… this was excessive.
There was another knock at his door, and as it swung open yet another inmate presented him a wrapped package. Wriothesley thanked him for it, waiting until he left the room to sigh heavily. Someone—and he didn’t want to name names, at least not yet—had seemingly mentioned that the Duke of Meropide had a passion for tea. It wasn’t a lie, of course. It was rare to see Wriothesley without a cup of tea, whether he was doing paperwork or wondering what on earth to do with yet another minor disagreement between the residents of the Fortress that had been escalated up to him for no conceivable reason. He’d consumed a lot of it when he was working on building the large ship that had saved the many citizens of Fontaine when the nation flooded, actually, which led him back to the problem at hand.
He’d saved a lot of people that day, and naturally they’d be grateful for that help. But there were only so many unique gifts one could give a man before the options were exhausted.
Which meant that Wriothesley had received exactly 271 crates of tea up to this point, and that number was rapidly skyrocketing with every passing minute. Doing the math, he already had enough tea to last him 20 times his natural lifespan if he drank six large cups every day. Doing even more math, if the boxes kept coming in at the same rate they had been, the Fortress of Meropide would be filled with crates of tea within the next three months and he’d be swallowed up along with all the rest of the people. In the back of his mind, he blithely thought it might’ve been better if he’d had all this tea before the flood had happened—at least he would’ve had enough water to make it all in that case.
But, as it stood, there was no flood to brew his millenia-lasting stockpile of tea. Which meant that somehow, some way, he would have to do his least favourite task…
Inventory management. The very thought made him shudder.
Another knock at his door reminded him the deliveries were still rolling in, and he groaned. Fine, he’d procrastinate some paperwork in the name of saving everyone from being crushed by tea. He picked up the cup of tea he already had, hurrying to finish it. It’d be better to try and start whittling down on his supply before things built up too much, so there was no time to waste on enjoying it. Besides, from the sounds of footsteps outside his door… there’d be many more chances to savour his drink.
His first stop, and the most obvious choice, was the storage area behind the Coupon Cafeteria. Of course, that meant dragging a not insignificant amount of boxes out of his office and through a small door. It was better than nothing, though, and so he’d bravely waded out and into the bustling walkways of the Fortress. Already, there were more deliveries coming down the path towards him and he could do little more than sigh and gesture for the men to begin following him. The Coupon Cafeteria was mercifully nearby, and Wolsey straightened the moment he saw Wriothesley approaching.
“How nice to see you, Your Grace!” Wolsey feigned his best casual nod. Wriothesley smiled politely, looking over the crowd of prisoners that were dutifully trying not to stare too openly. “Can I help you with something?”
“Do you have any room in your kitchen storage?” Wriothesley gestured limply to the boxes. Wolsey gave him a confused look. “I’ve received… a surplus of tea.”
“Oh, well– I’m sure we could make some room!” Wolsey laughed nervously and Wriothesley fought back a sigh. This was not the sort of thing he wanted people to jump at to make him happy. Before he could protest, though, Wolsey was already running back to the kitchen and flinging the door open, and Wriothesley could do nothing more but pick up a crate of tea and follow him through the doorway.
It had been a while since he’d been in the kitchen––the last time he’d stepped foot into the area, it was during a remodel he’d ordered at the start of his tenure as warden, which had vastly improved the quality of the food at the cost of some interesting pantries being installed. It was harder than he thought to get any amount of storage into the kitchen when he couldn’t do anything to move the walls, but he’d done his best. There were cabinets stretching horizontally by the ceiling, doors in subtle places that opened to strangely shaped rooms filled with shelves of dry food, and a few large fridges standing defiantly against an outer wall. He hadn’t been able to move those, given that their cooling was done entirely by intricately-made pipes that fed cold seawater through hidden coils, and so they stared him down as if daring him to try even now. It made him smile, though he hid it as he heard a metal bowl hit the counter. The kitchen staff were shuffling food around, grumbling at each other over the best way to stack the sacks of rice and cans of coffee. He shifted the crate to his hip, reaching out to help, only to have his hand gently swatted away.
“Sorry, Your Grace,” Cuistot said. “We just know the system better than you do, you know?”
Well, it wasn’t as if he could argue with that. He let the cooks bicker back and forth with Wolsey and idly looked around, figuring another cup of tea wouldn’t hurt. It took less effort than he would’ve thought to open the crate, and he made a note to alert the cooks of that before they put this particular box away as he pulled out a random teabag.
It took until he was halfway through his new cup for the Wolsey and Cuistot to give up on their reorganization, looking mildly dishevelled as they slumped down in front of him. They’d managed to find places for about 40 of the crates, but that wasn’t nearly enough. If Wriothesley looked out of the swinging kitchen door, he could see more crates stacked up by his office. He frowned.
“The abandoned production zone recently got reopened, didn’t it?” Wolsey said. “Something about that Traveller person. No one is going down there anyways, why don’t you put things down there?”
“...it could work.” Wriothesley considered. “Though I’m not sure it’s entirely safe down there.”
“It was closed for a reason, you know…” Cuistot elbowed Wolsey, who scowled.
“He’s the Duke! The Duke does what the Duke wants!”
“Don’t fight,” Wriothesley cautioned. “Not outside of the Pankration Ring, and definitely not in front of me.” The two men nodded quickly and he chuckled. “I’ll just have to go check it out myself, won’t I?”
“If you have the time, of course.” Wolsey said. “Aren’t you busy?”
“Well, inventory management is part of the job.” He shrugged. “Thank you for your help, gentlemen. I’ll be off now.”
“Good luck!” Cuistot called after him as he left. Wriothesley rolled his shoulders back, considering his options as he walked. If this didn’t work out, where else could he put things? There was, of course, the area beneath his office where the ship had been built. Then again, just because the flood was dealt with didn’t mean there wasn’t more dangerous seawater behind the gates. Tea made with Primordial Seawater might have an interesting taste, but he wasn’t sure if he would be up for trying it just yet. On top of that, there were rumours that Sinthe was made from the very same seawater, and knowing the prison, he was nearly certain one inmate had tried to smuggle some into the prison under his nose at some point. Archons forbid if one of the prisoners had tried to make it. Wriothesley could only dream of the potential of fumes or latent explosions if the distillation had gone wrong in any way.
Then again, the Traveller had been down there to clear the area not too long ago, and the abandoned production zone might’ve been his only chance to save his precious tea before he’d have to seriously consider throwing crates into the ocean.
Hm. Potential fumes, or the threat of losing that one good tea blend and getting chewed out for polluting the waters…
He punched the button for the elevator without a second thought.
The ride down wasn’t nearly shaky enough to shake loose Wriothesley’s doubts about this plan. The travel up and down this unmaintained elevator would be a pain, depending on how fast he went through his tea supply––which then brought him back to his growing amount of individual tea bags and how they would outlive both him and the many wardens that would come after he was gone. How many people would be burdened with the responsibility of his gifts?
The thought plagued him even as he stepped into the neglected space before him. As a child, he’d never received many gifts, and now as an adult he had more than he knew what to do with. Somewhere there should’ve been a middle ground, and yet here he was saddled with an extreme. While he considered himself good at problem solving, this was a bit much.
On top of that, the further he walked into the old production zone, the more damp it became. His heavy coat was sticking to his shoulders, and he was almost tempted to unbutton his shirt to give his skin a breather. The smell of rotting wood hung heavy in the air, and in his mind’s eye he could see what the tea crates would become in no time at all. Around the corner, an ominous green glow hung in the air, and Wriothesley could feel energy cracking in the air. He rounded the bend to see towering pillars of Arkhium looming before him, as ominous as they were impressive.
Wriothesley was no scientist, but he’d heard enough from the researchers imprisoned here to know that Arkhium was a dangerous substance. He wasn’t superstitious either, but the multiple failed tests with the substance––and the explosion at the Fontaine Research Institute––gave him some reason to believe the stories about it bringing disaster if someone got too close. Heck, even now he was feeling an ominous sinking feeling as he stood in this old mine. The unearthly glow, combined with the patrolling security measures left over from when the area was operational, made it feel like he really shouldn’t be disturbing this place any more than he already had. Still, he mustered the courage to take a look around since he’d come all the way down to investigate. It would be best to figure out if there was anything living down here sooner rather than later.
The discarded shards of ore crunched under his feet as he walked around, nearly losing himself in the maze of Arkhium pillars around him. There would be space for storage down here, if he made some changes, but that would take more time than he had. He knew that even as he did this, more crates were building up above his head, the citizens of Fontaine showing their appreciation to the Duke in the only way they knew how. Maybe if he was less reclusive, there would be a party thrown in his honour. Maybe if he was known to come up to the surface regularly, he could have a dinner or a festival or watch an opera about his heroic deeds. But that wasn’t the type of person Wriothesley was, and everyone around him knew it.
So, as he made his way back through the Arkhium maze, he accepted that being showered with crates upon crates of the same gift was what he’d signed up for by trying to be a normal man and not a hero. The downfalls of being kind-hearted, he supposed.
By the time he’d gotten back to his office––and the elevator ride was not a short one by any means––even more had been delivered to him. By his count, the tally was now well past 350 crates in total, and the number was becoming daunting at this point. In his mind’s eye, he could see Neuvillette blinking incredulously at the amount of tea he’d inadvertently saddled Wriothesley with. He could hear Sigewinne exclaiming in utter disbelief at the stacks upon stacks of boxes, her high-pitched voice carrying through the hallway.
“I told two people! Two Melusines! But there’s- there’s just so much!” She sounded so confused that he couldn’t help but laugh to himself. It was funny, in a ridiculous way, how two people who just wanted the best for him could make such a frustrating problem. Still, he appreciated them both more than he could say. An abundance of tea could be forgiven in the name of friendship, after all.
The tea, however, was unforgiving in its amount, and he still hadn’t found anything to do about it. The kitchen was overstocked, the Fortress wasn’t made for storing this many things, and the work he was supposed to have been doing today was piling up on his desk and mocking him. Every prisoner that passed him stared at his ever-growing stack of problems, and he could do nothing more than sigh. Fine. If he didn’t have the space to store it all, he supposed he’d just get rid of it. Throwing it out into the sea wasn’t an option, so he’d just have to go with the next best thing.
Alvard was all too happy to see him, greeting him happily. His face transformed into confusion, then amusement, and then a smile yet again as Wriothesley explained his plan. Alvard would get some easy inventory, and Wriothesley would get some of those crates off of his hands. Another trip down to the Coupon Cafeteria was met with more flustered panic from Wolsey, but both he and Bran agreed to serve tea alongside the regular free meals at the cafeteria for as long as supplies would last. The hardest part had to be the moving and reorganizing that came after his agreements were set, but a few extra coupons encouraged enough prisoners to lend their help that soon enough, the towers of crates that surrounded Wriothesley’s office began to dwindle. He would still have more than plenty of crates inside of the office, of course, and he had no doubt that more deliveries were bound to be made in the coming weeks––but for now, this was a solution.
By the time he’d finally sat down behind his desk once more, several hours had passed and he was holding his fifth cup of tea for the day after being heavily cautioned by Sigewinne about the effects of too much caffeine on his health. He thought he deserved this, though. The day had been long enough, the crates had been heavy, and the knowledge that he was now a national hero was certainly a lot to take in. Now, though, the most pressing task of the day was done. He’d be able to move freely in and out of his office without worries of being crushed to death by falling boxes, and he could rest easy.
Now, if only he could figure out what to do with all the thank-you notes that had come with all those crates.