Not such a good actress after all

For very obvious reasons I’ve been in a great mood all week, after all it’s not an everyday occurrence – not even for me – that a great scheme works out just as planned, without anyone knowing that I was the brain behind all of it.
Well, at least that’s what I thought until Cromvik visited me in the HoK yesterday afternoon. He came over to me with a huge smile on his face and an enormous box of pralines in his hand. He put them down on my desk and evoked a privacy shield around us.
I raised my eyebrows in confusion. “What’s going on?”
“Officially? Nothing,” was the cryptic answer.
“Care to elaborate?” I asked when he didn’t immediately go on. He really ought to know that I can get a liiitle bit impatient if I want to know something.
His smile evolved into a full grin. “Well, it isn’t much, really. I just wanted to give you these as a little thank you.”
Ok, now that announcement made me a little wary. He wouldn’t be talking about the whole new-dean-thing? “Whatever for?” I gave myself nonchalant. “I mean, honestly, if this is about the research I helped you with the other day, I have to say, I was only doing my job, as usual.”
“Oh, come on,” he answered. “You know full well what I am talking about. I wouldn’t put up a privacy shield if I were here just to thank you for doing your job.”
“I really have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” I tried once more, although, in retrospect, I can’t tell you why I even bothered. Wishful thinking, probably.
Cromvik sat down in the visitor’s chair. “Alright. If you need me to spell it out… When you had that little “episode” – “ (I swear I could almost see the air-quotes around that word) “- in the level-4-room, that already stroke me as odd. Then, you go on a five week long vacation trip to the human dimension and come back just after a new dean was announced. It just reeks of an alibi. Now, I’m not saying I am mad at you for what you did – I never liked Jarix, and I’m sure if he hadn’t so “conveniently” been discovered doing his secretary, it would have been him that the dean gave his position to.”
I tried very hard to keep my face completely blank and spoke in my haughtiest voice, “First of all, Ishta-urges are nothing to joke about. You don’t have them, so you can’t possibly know what they do to one’s psyche. Plus, as you said yourself, I was on vacation off-dimension – I’ve got the pictures to prove it – and everyone knows it is impossible to work magic in Imprana from somewhere else. So, how could I possibly be responsible for anything that happened here while I was gone?”
He leaned back, quiet for a while, and when he answered it was with a tone that seemed a little disappointed to me. “I see. You don’t want to tell me. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, after all we aren’t exactly best buddies. I would have loved to know how you did it, though. Must have been one great scheme, that.”
Before I could say anything – not that I actually knew what to say to that – he got up and lowered the privacy shield. “You are one fascinating imp.”
With that he turned around and left, leaving me… well, stumped. What am I to make of this?

Major schemer at work

It might have not gone unnoticed that I haven’t been writing for quite some time. Now you might have wondered or even been worried what could possibly have happened to me that was keeping me from venting my emotions in this blog. Well, what can I say, sometimes I can be a teensy bit lazy, plus I’ve been taking a leave of absence from my job for the last few weeks. There have been a number of reasons for that, just one of them being that I wanted to not be around when a certain plan of mine caused visible results. Not that I had reason to hide my involvement in said plan - can you see me looking all innocent right now? - but honestly someone had to do something about the whole new-head-of-university thing. Best someone with important information on the topic. But more about that later.
Let’s start at the beginning. Seven weeks ago I found out that our current dean wanted to step down and appoint profassur Jarix as his successor. (How did I find out? Looky here) This didn’t sit well with me. Honest as I am, I am the first to admit that I don’t like Jarix. He is a conniving little suck-up. While I could live with that, he is also incompetent and that I really can’t condone in a dean of the University. Maintaining my House of Knowledge takes a great amount of funding and that funding has to come from the University. So, I need a dean that is intelligent and capable enough to procure sufficient funding for the University and its most important institution. I gave this dilemma quite some thought and came up with the perfect candidate.
I know what you’re thinking, but no, it’s not Cromvik. While he is the one profassur I actually like, that is the very reason why I don’t want to have him be the dean. See, I want a dean who can procure the necessary funding for my HoK and who will be susceptible to my demands, but I sure don’t want a dean who actually comes to my HoK, talks to me about my decisions and – gasp – wants to give an honest opinion. In short, Cromvik being dean would ruin our friendship, and that I don’t want.
My candidate is profassur Naremc. He’s decisive, persuasive and good at what he does. Plus, he is open to suggestions but would never even dream about checking up on anyone. He just assumes everyone does what he thinks is best. Fine by me – I’ll just do what I think he thinks is best :-) if you get my drift.
Now, how to get the dean to change his mind? Difficult question, that. The key is obviously to discredit Jarix while building up the dean’s opinion of Naremc. So, I thought to myself, what does the dean value? Well, family is most certainly one of the top five, as is punctuality, decisiveness, patience (he hates people who get impatient when he rambles on and on without actually saying anything) and, oh yeah, sucking up to the boss.
Naremc has punctuality and decisiveness down pat. He has a long-time girlfriend wich should be close enough. What he has a problem with is sucking up to the dean and especially patience. Not exactly something I could easily change, but where there is a will, there is a way, I always say.
Jarix on the other hand is good at all five points, especially at sucking up to the dean. He and his wife have been married for a few years already (though he’s cheating on her – with his secretary! How very unimaginative!).
So much for the background information, now what to do about it? Without being associated with anything that happens, mind you. Meaning, I had to find a plan I could set into motion and then leave, so when all played out, I wasn’t there. But that meant also, formulating a plan that I wouldn’t have to oversee. And there are always unforeseeable things. A foolproof plan, that’s what I needed. Not the easiest thing to get, but then I can be very stubborn and very determined if I want something.
What followed were two weeks of intensive scheming. In the end it all came down do a relatively simple plan.
Step 1: I set a magic-trigger on one of the shelves in my HoK. When triggered it would send a meeting request to the dean as well as Naremc with an urgent request to meet at the same day at exactly 3pm. This would ensure the dean saw Naremc’s punctuality in contrast to Jarix’s no-show because of
Step 2: On another shelve I set a magic-trigger that would create a notice send to Jarix’s secretary asking her to come into his office for a little make-out-session.
Step 3: I stole the answer letter (granting a sizeable amount of money) to one of Naremc’s project proposals out of the mail room, to be put back on the day of the emergency meeting. Thereby ensuring that Naremc would be in a good mood when meeting with the dean which would give him a lot more patience with the dean’s ramblings.
Step 4: I asked the dean to come down to my HoK to discuss some “important shelving issue” in the room for level four stones. While in there I “accidentally” lost control over my Ishta-urges, having a strong episode, and thereby proved that I needed a five-week long sabbatical to get myself under control again. Just enough time for a nice holiday off-dimension – because everyone knows you can’t do magic in Imprana when you’re not there. Here, the only hitch in my plan happened. The dean brought Cromvik to the meeting for his expert opinion and when I had my “episode” it was Cromvik who caught me before I could fall and carried me out of the room. Now, I’m in no way saying it’s a bad thing being carried around by the handsome Cromvik, but the guy knows me quite well and so I was a little nervous about whether he would believe my little act. He didn’t say anything, though, so I guess I really am an awesome actress :-)
Two weeks later, from out of the human plane, the Black Forrest in Germany to be exact, I then connected to Asmodeus and, in his body, brought back the stolen letter to the mail room and walked over the trigger set up in step 1. Then, at almost 3 o’clock, I set off the second trigger. Afterwards, all I had to do was wait and enjoy my vacation.
When I came back this week and got told the shocking news that Jarix had been caught in flagrante delicto with his secretary and that the dean had chosen a thrilled Naremc as his successor when announcing that he would step down at the end of the year, I acted super-surprised and hid my satisfied grin until no one was looking.