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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