The door held stiff as Mr. Ortemyre shoved against it. The damp air had swelled the old wood to the point of sealing the door firmly in place. The man turned his shoulder to it and inhaled, but paused before following through with his intended action. He let out a guttural disapproval with his breath. He faced the door and knocked loudly. He was not left waiting in the rain for very long. The door pulled open easily for Elliot. The large employee nodded with his usual optimistic grin at the smaller man in the rain, beckoning him inside.
Ortemyre could see that the barkeeper had already been at work, his enchantments surrounding the simple-minded man in an aura of subtle enhancements. The corner of Ortemyre’s mouth twitched as he inspected the complexity of the magical work using his own vision augment. There had been a lot he could ignore about this place, but this was something he couldn’t excuse. He stepped in closer toward Elliot, finally out of the rain.
The big man crowded nearer causing Ortemyre to fight back his natural instinct which told him to react. He knew this fellow held no intentional threat to him. The auras passed close, clipping Ortemyre’s face, blurring his vision, and swirling within his sight even as he closed his eyes. Elliot closed the door while Ortemyre focused on his balance. Ortemyre gave a miserable chuckle at the irony of how badly his perk had hindered him in recent months. Still, it had allowed him to give accurate reports about magical registrations and confirm the honesty of how much power the registered casters claimed. His peers struggled to keep up with his pace. This kept his overseers impressed enough to permit his continued employ.
Ortemyre opened his eyes to look at the saturated setting of the room. The barkeep had not just been working on his solitary staff member. The furniture had been given a physically invisible buffer between their legs and the floor, preventing contact and wear. He wondered if they moved easier as well. Other detailed enhancements were throughout the room also. He then spotted Elliot, who had gone to the end of the bar and knelt down to pet a… dog. Ortemyre looked at the creature. It had bright markings that seemed to bind it together, while others guided motion and posture. The animal’s hide draped across a supporting frame of some sort, but it was not aligned properly. The beast’s head was cocked to the side and its tongue hung from its jowls, not in a canine panting, but in a simple lack of muscle control. Its head turned at an awkward angle and faced him. The tail flopped from side to side in an exact motion at a steady, repetitious pace.
Ortemyre’s jaw tensed. This was too much. He checked his belt, ensuring he had what he needed should there prove to be resistance.
“Barkeep,” Ortemyre whispered as a quiet summons. Without delay, the barkeeper appeared facing his customer. He was as unchanged as normal. The perfect image of how he always wished to present himself. Ortemyre acknowledged him with a stiff nod but pointed at Elliot and his… pet.
“What is the meaning of this magical work,” Ortemyre said. His tone was low and serious, more so than normal, more so than he preferred to use in this establishment.
The barkeeper turned to regard his worker with the dog. “Oh, the animal has been brought in. It was a stray which had taken a liking to Elliot. This morning it followed him here but was struck by a carriage at the end of the alley. Elliot was most persistent that I help restore the creature however I could. So out of favor for him, I did.”
“That isn’t a healed dog barkeeper.”
“No, no it isn’t,” said the small barkeeper.
“You raised it,…didn’t you?” Ortemyre said, attempting to keep much of the accusatory tone out of his voice, a tone which had become so common in similar conversations he had throughout his average workday. His hand gripped a handle at his back.
The barkeeper turned back to look at Ortemyre.
“I recycled it for him. It is not a creature of threat, more of an animated object. It is enough to ease Elliot’s guilt of what happened.”
There was a moment during which only Elliot could be heard joyfully interacting with the dog. He sat on the floor beside the creature, waving a hand in front of it to which its attention followed with a brief delay.
“Do you have issue with this Mr. Ortemyre?” the barkeeper asked, his voice plain.
They both watched Elliot from across the room, as the steady, continual, tempo of the dog’s tail persisted.