The Apprentice’s Path

Chapter 1-2

I left the dreary old building behind me, without stopping to put on the coat before exiting. As I fumbled to put on a heavy coat, wrap a thick woolen scarf around my neck, and put on my oilskin fedora (very sensible, protects from the rain), and a pair of woolen gloves. One of the gloves fell down.

"Fuck."

It didn't fall into a pool, and the floor was icy. I adjusted all my clothes and put on the glove. The boulevard was empty. The trees were an amalgamation of green, yellow and reddish colors with brown hues. The usually annoyingly chirpy birds had fallen quiet, preparing to migrate, and flies and mosquitoes were busily reproducing to be reborn next year. I love autumn here in Ashford.

The trains go from the sleepy summer schedules to the usual, busier ones. The city, which empties every summer, fills up with students again. Drinking and fights return to the pubs and the night streets around the student area. Police lose the pounds they gain during the summer by having to patrol during the cold, dark nights under the rotten eggs smell of gas lamps. Criminals come back, from whatever they were doing in the summer, to scamming naïve freshers, pick-pocketing in the busy crowds, and robbing drunkards on the streets. Meat markets will soon be full of freshly killed livestock, fattened up during the summer, and students will eat a year's worth of meat in a few barbecues, to then go back to eating plates of potatoes and oatmeal. This is also the time when the scholarship loans get paid, so all debts get paid off, and everybody is the most generous.

And despite all this, I was in a terrible mood. This interview was not the first, nor the second. It was the forty-first, the last one, in the smallest, most insignificant company in this small city. And even they wouldn't hire me. I couldn't really do much about it; I had already done everything I could, and that wasn't enough.

I was in my fourth year of studies in Alchemy. Experience was going to be critical for me to get a job after I finished, and I could not get any. I also hoped to get a paid job, because otherwise I would have to resort to becoming a bouncer or a waitress. Wasting my time for three shillings an hour is not the best use of my time, considering that a proper alchemist earns at least three crowns — ten times that. The Floyd scholarship paid for tuition and the dorm — but I would have to work that back. So, if I could find a job that would not just pay for the food, but also allow me some savings — that would be nice.

So I needed a job that would provide me with some experience in practical alchemy, and some money. Maybe I could go work at the coach station? After I helped them fix a car, they were keen on hiring me. On the other hand, I escaped Crow Hill to avoid working at my father's machine and repair shop, because I wanted to do new things. I wanted to go out, and maybe have a beer, so I headed to the dorms to change.