The Scapegoat's Accidental Masterpiece
By @john1208
I was supposed to die gracefully. Blamed for my mother’s fatal glass-lung disease, my family, House Oskari, despised me while practically worshiping my flawless older brother, Pelag. So when the Emperor's notoriously bloodthirsty uncle, Lord Rostavar, fell into a death-coma, they generously volunteered me to be his curse-absorbing proxy. Standing at his deathbed, I did what any shameless survivor would do: I tried to pry the extremely valuable life-support gems off his chest. Unwittingly, dislodging them broke the curse. He woke up, laughed at my sheer audacity, and officially adopted me on the spot. Now I’m trapped in his estate, absolutely certain this is a long-term execution plot. Why else would he force-feed me ultra-rare spirit elixirs and hand me keys to the forbidden vaults? Every time I deliberately sabotage his 'traps' by hoarding junk and squandering his wealth on bizarre vitric-tuning experiments, he just claps and buys me more. With Pelag’s lifelong dream - the global Prismatic Astrolabe award - approaching, I'm about to use my stockpile of 'junk' to show my biological family exactly what a real genius looks like. But how long until the tyrant finally springs his trap?
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