A Terrible Decision, Really (James's Awakening)

It was a good day so far. Some interesting new titles were slated for release, he'd gotten some reagents in that he'd not managed to get his hands on in a while, and the mercury spiral was finally up and running. It was a small thing, but it opened up a number of possibilities for future experimentation.
Or re-opened them, he supposed. Even after this long, he still cursed the name of the idiot that destroyed the last one he had built.

As the attendant busied himself about the lab, he grabbed an old parchment and-
That wasn't his parchment.

...would it kill them to just tell him things instead of rearranging his lab? This had Felanie's name written all over it.


Disgruntled, James made his way to the main space of the Velvet Room, stopping before a desk familiar to anybody that had ever come to reside in this space. "You wanted to see me, Long Nose?"

Igor flashed one of his signature toothy and unsettling smiles at the disgruntled Velvet Attendant. The rude address failed to hassle the Master of the Velvet Room, rather he seemed faintly amused at best and apathetic at worst. Had any other Attendant been around for his apparent disrespect, he would've been soundly boxed in the ears by a certain disciplined Attendant with a whip. But there was no one but Igor thankfully. He spoke while still maintaining his smile. "It is to my attention you have formed several bonds with a number of our Guests. I am quite pleased by your Progress. Now, I have new expectations to lay on you... The only question I ask of you, do you accept this responsibility?"

He held out his hand and within a split second, a book began to materialize on his palm. It was an unremarkable blank book, but with a power that was familiar to the Attendant...

He recognised what was forming on the palm of the room's master. How could he not? It was something that resonated with all that existed here.
A compendium. He was being presented...with a compendium.

The attendant looked back at Igor, almost questioning, as if he wasn't quite sure of the reality he was presented with. "You're telling me that somehow...I've managed to bond with those people?" He sighs, pinching his nose. "What a bunch of masochists we've got this time..."

Rolling his eyes, he pushes up his glasses and lets his hand drop back to his side. "If that's how it is, then I'll get on it. I know when I have a job to do." With a smirk, he puts one hand in his labcoat, and gestures out the other toward the long-nosed being before him. "If you think it's a good idea to inflict me on the guests, then I have no intention of disappointing."

Igor chuckled as he continued to beam the strange smile at the Attendant. He gently handed over the book to the Attendant for him to take. When James finally obtained it, the familiar sensation of power would begin to rush through him. It was incomplete, yes. But it had potential to be filled. "Take care that you nurture what potential you can gather, James. For it will be the Key to your... Enlightenment."

There was a strange delight in the ownership of a compendium. The energy it held, the sensation that it could be so much more...it was a sort of transmutation he couldn't resist the promise of, a feeling of something that could be made into something pure beyond all other things.
He rolled his eyes again, but he was still smiling. "Don't you worry, Long Nose. I didn't live this long without learning to see the shape of what could be." Putting the compendium under his arm, he turns around. "I'll see about squeezing something worthwhile out of them."

He stepped away, feeling the new power at his fingertips. So little, so tiny a spark, but with such potential to swell...
The alchemist saw the heights of what could be achieved, and the thought of pushing them to those dizzying peaks was intoxicating.