Phoenix Apprentice

It's Saturday yet again.
          
          I haven't seen the cat since I last updated all of you. It seems to have vanished. Where, I have no idea, though the Arcom is unreasonably large. So, I've just continued on with my work. Everyone I've tried talking to about it doesn't seem to have any answers about it. Judy and Jared (the janitor) are particularly dodgy. Micah seems actually interested though. She's about the only one. I don't actually see Lany and Hector much but they both brushed me off saying that a cat couldn't live in the archives. There are even mouse traps to control any possible mice issues.
          
          But I know what I saw. I'll keep investigating, though I felt a little sluggish this week. Anyway, Chapter 22 will post tonight. Judy seems to be getting more and more impatient with this serial update schedule. I try to ignore her, but it's hard when she's standing over me with a stick of butter in her hand, peeled like a banana, watching me work on the story.

THERE
          IS
          AN ANIMAL LIVING IN THE ARCHIVES!!!
          Okay, so I'm back at the Arcom this week, right. And I saw. A cat. Well, it was very brief, and it ran away. I have NO IDEA how it's surviving here, though, because we don't usually get mice, and no one is feeding it or taking care of it. And it somehow manages to leave inky footprints everywhere, despite that there are no places where it could get ink on its paws. BUT I WAS RIGHT. Everyone told me I was crazy for seeing the cat footprints, Jared (the janitor) most of all (even though he's the one cleaning them up). I've now made it my soul mission to get a picture of the cat. But I also have to pretend like I'm still working. Judy has me in the children's stories section lately while she fixes up the fanfic archive herself. I guess that burst water pipe must have been pretty bad if I've been three weeks out of work and they haven't fixed it. But I also found out from Lany that Judy is a notorious procrastinator.
          
          I'm really starting to wonder about this place and what we actually do. Because I feel like I'm doing nothing all day sometimes. They do encourage me to write, even on the job, so I've been doing a lot of that (when I'm not being distracted by the mysterious cat) but other than that I often feel like I'm just twiddling my thumbs. That first week with the fanfic archive was pretty intense, but ever since I started talking about that cat it feels like Judy has scaled back my work, and I'm getting weird looks from my other coworkers.
          
          I hope they don't know that I lied on my resume to get in here. (I don't actually have a library and information sciences degree).
          
          Also, Chapter 21 will post today, following the rest of the story in The Starlit Forest. Next week is Part Four, where our characters continue to grapple with their faith and continue trying to help Silvia, still in the captivity of Hazel Shepherd. WILL SHE BE FREED?! I know the answer, so I don't know why I'm asking all of you. 
          
          Thanks everyone!

Chapter 20 is put up. After chapter 21 we'll be on Part Four out of seven.
          
          I feel a lot better than last week! Getting ready to return to work at Arcom. It's going to be straight desk work for a while though. I still can barely make my way around the block. But I'm hoping I left an impression enough on my coworkers and my boss that I'll have been missed. Judy doesn't really seem the sentimental type, but Micah does, maybe that's why they always have her working in the fiction romance section. And as for my investigations into the strange things happening there, I'll continue doing so as soon as I go back on Monday.

Chapter 19 has been put up! 
          
          I'm still trying to get better. I saw a doctor yesterday who said my lungs are sounding good. The main point of concern is now malnutrition. I lost a lot of weight really fast, and I was already barely above underweight. I've had issues putting on weight and keeping it my whole life, but for a while my diet and exercise habits aligned so that I was healthy for several years. Now I'm not again. My BMI is too low by two points. So it's not the end of the world, but the suddenness of the weight loss is causing my body to freak out a little bit. I wore a sweater outside when it was 70 degrees because staying warm is a chore lately, and I'm really, really weak (loss of all my hard-earned cross country skiing muscles ). 
          
          Still haven't been able to go back to work, so sorry I haven't had any updates from the Arcom. Hopefully I'll get back into it soon. They've been surprisingly understanding.

Hello everyone,
          I put up chapter 17 last night and chapter 18 today. Hopefully we'll be back on a regular update schedule from now on. Being sick with norovirus and pneumonia at the same time for the last two weeks really wrecked me. I've never been so sick in my life, not even with COVID. I've missed two weeks of work and I don't anticipate a speedy return. I can barely keep myself awake during the day, my muscles have slightly atrophied from how long I laid in bed, and my lung capacity is greatly reduced. But I'm at least well enough again to keep working on writing. Mostly I'm just really, really tired of bedrotting and want to get back to my usual routines.
          
          Anyway, that's what's going on. I've never had pneumonia before so this has been quite a venture. Especially since I'm normally extremely athletic and go exercising at thousands of feet above sea level (cross country skiing and hiking). To have my lungs so thrashed like this where I can hardly walk around the block is really upsetting. But hopefully my athleticism will pull me back to normal.

Chapter 15 is up. More time with Talael. Hope y'all had a good week. I have no updates on the job, but last night my D&D party nearly killed the BBEG. They just made a few mistakes that allowed him to get away. Bad news for them! It was pretty gratifying for me as the DM to watch them cut it so close. What an intense session.

Chapter 14 will post today and we'll go back a little bit to what Emily has been up to!

Chapter 13 will post later today!
          
          Another job update for y'all. Something else weird I've noticed about the Arcom--sometimes I find inky cat footprints on the ground. Only in certain sections. Not in any of the public spaces, but in the employee spaces they're sometimes all over the place. Jared (who is the janitor) just kind of cleans them up without saying much about them. I mean, it would feel more normal if there was a cat who lived here. There is no cat. There are no signs of cats ever having been here, either. No hair, no flecks of litter, no cat food. I can't imagine they'd really want a cat in an archival space that's supposed to stay relatively clean. (I say relatively because this place seems to be falling apart--last week a water pipe broke and flooded out the entire fanfic section, undoing all my previous work to organize them. Sigh.) 
          
          But, yeah, again, it's probably more hazing. The weird thing is they also made me watch a training video that expressly forbade bullying, hazing, harassment, and other things like that. And, despite this place having opened in 2005, the video looked like it was out of the 1980s--and it was specifically filmed for the Arcom, at the Arcom! Did they really go through all the effort to film it like a cheesy 1980s training video? I guess that is pretty funny. Anyway, more updates in the future.

Chapter 12 will post soon. I was busy this morning so couldn't get to it until now!
          
          Things still going strangely with my strange new job, as they ever are. At least Judy has laid off the dairy this week and has been in a better mood. I feel bad for Jared (he's the janitor).

Chapter 11 will post tonight. Part 3 begins next week, and we'll see a slight shift in perspective as we visit with another character for a while!