Chapter 109: Brookwell Crossing Scandal
Mortimer Page—the most accomplished pamphleteer (journalist) of the Morning Gazette—sat across from the newest tool in his arsenal, the new typing machine, feeling at a loss for both letters and words, in a unique feeling of frustration that invaded his chest.
The middle-aged man was a veteran in many things in life—a rifleman in His Majesty’s army, a cannoneer, a medic, and then, after a close brush with death, a journalist, a novelist, and a self-proclaimed historian.
Mortimer’s life goal was to focus on the life of the regular man, the commoners, and the things unrelated to the arcane. He believed with every fibre of his being that, just as the Age of Saints came to an end, how the monsters disappeared from the modern world, and how the myths of the past were ground and shredded by the gears of the modern machine, he believed that magic has no future and knights will soon be outdated, outsmarted, and overpowered by something new.
Of course, no sane man would speak those beliefs out loud. Magic was embedded in the faith of the Seven Saints, and knights were part of the ruling class. However, this belief appeared in Mortimer’s choice of articles, as he was always uninterested in whether a new mage emerged, unlike his colleagues, and would rather focus on the affairs that are of interest in day-to-day life.
But as this typing machine entered his life when he was covering its emergence at the Moore Conglomerate Annual Party, he was pulling his hair every minute. Not only were his hands too inflexible to type for long hours, but he was also so used to the pen and paper that he almost had a brawl with the editor-in-chief, who ordered a typing machine for every employee with strict orders to "use" them.
"Finally, I rid myself of Mortimer’s senseless scribbles!" the editor-in-chief shouted as he unboxed the first machine and placed it with excitement on Mortimer’s desk with his two hands.
Since an executive order was passed down for all articles to be typed, Mortimer was agonising over the fact that he could no longer do as he liked, but even that was the least of his worries right now.
He just witnessed a career-defining moment, and with these inflexible hands, he had written all the notes that he gathered from the scene in less than an hour before the editors arrived.
Just where to begin?
The scale of destruction?
The number of police casualties?