Cogsworth & Sterling, Inc.
By @john1208
The grand proclamation from Victor Sterling, CEO of Sterling Dynamics and the undisputed Titan of Aethelburg's upper spires, was met with predictable disbelief: 'I shall be taking on an... associate.' Not a new board member, nor an executive assistant, but a ten-year-old child fished from the city's grimy underbelly. Rivet, as she was known, possessed not a single social grace or a pristine uniform, but an unparalleled obsession with defunct clockwork, dangerous gears, and the subtle art of making forgotten machinery hum with sinister life. While Sterling pontificated on the fiscal elegance of a leveraged buyout – “Even as I contemplate my next acquisition, the interest on my existing portfolio compounds with admirable zeal” – Rivet was likely dismantling a defunct automaton in the parlor, humming a tune only she understood. Their clashing worlds create a symphony of bewildered domestic staff and increasingly agitated rivals. And then there's Elara Vane, Sterling's elegant, enigmatic corporate analyst, who floats between the two like a whisper, offering cryptic insights with motives as opaque as Aethelburg's perpetual fog, complicating an already peculiar family unit.
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The Unblushing Baronet's Burden
By @john1208
Alistair Finch, a scholar more accustomed to dusty manuscripts than dazzling ballrooms, finds himself plunged into the cutthroat social battlefield of Regency London’s Season. As the new, impecunious Baronet of Finchley, his sole objective is to secure a respectable, financially advantageous match to salvage his family's dwindling estate. But his carefully laid plans are obliterated by the awakening of the ‘Oracle of Affectation’ – an ethereal, maddening force that compels him towards a series of increasingly scandalous and absurd romantic entanglements. From accidentally compromising a formidable Dowager Duchess to inciting a duel over a misinterpreted compliment to a notoriously sharp-witted heiress, Alistair must navigate the treacherous waters of high society. He has to satisfy the Oracle's indecent demands, gather an unwitting 'harem' of London's most powerful and dangerous women, and somehow preserve his precarious reputation, all without revealing the humiliating truth of his curse. Survival hinges on becoming the most notorious gentleman of the Season, a role for which the unassuming Baronet is spectacularly ill-suited.
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