Dr. Roundbottom: Scientist & Philosopher: The Arrival of Professor Welterschmidt

The Arrival of Professor Welterschmidt

My paper was rather poorly received last week by the Adventurer’s Club. To be blunt, I was laughed from the podium, despite the considerable evidence I presented. I fear it will be some time before I am invited back. Bah. They are close-minded fools, more interested in a rush of adrenalin than actual science.

Yesterday, my close friend Finneas Welterschmidt arrived by train at King Victor Station. I penned a hasty letter requesting his assistance with the Bird Queen matter, and for once, he found himself available. Unfortunately, the time of his arrival had slipped my mind as I was absorbed in listening to the last Field Sounds recording, seeking for the noble fey messages. Still no luck. I hope to speak with the Tinkerer Periat this week to learn if we might transform the recording in some way to hear hidden sounds. Mostly, however, Miss Watkins will be leading the research into this matter. I have my hands full with the coming war between the boggarts and birds.

I arrived at the train station nearly an hour after I should have. Dr. Welterschmidt fixed me with a fierce germanic glare upon my sheepish arrival. Shimmering like a mirage in the desert behind him stood a faceless entity dressed in common laborer’s clothes. The figure was insubstantial, much like the steam wraith, and my heart raced at the sight of it, fearing that the wraith had escaped. But no–it seemed that the spirit was carrying Professor Welterschmidt’s luggage. Astonishingly, few of the other travellers passing down the steps from the station noticed this. I took a quick photonic capture to study later, and hurried to greet my friend.

“You can apologize most effectively with a round of drinks,” the Professor said. “Did you know that they do not serve alcoholic beverages on the trains into your city?”

I admitted that I did not. He seemed to take great offense at the fact. ” Unbelievable! You Englunders are so…”

“Don’t say puritanical,” I interrupted. “And don’t say ‘you Englunders’ like I’m one of them. You know I am not.”

He sighed. “True, true. But I am parched. We must make haste to the nearest tavern and you can tell me of your troubles while I wash away the taste of the travel.”

I indicated to the spirit wavering behind him. “Er, would it be more appropriate to take your luggage to your lodgings first? They seem heavy as always.”

Welterschmidt laughed. “My manservant does not get tired, at least not in the physical sense. He has enough ectoplasmic energies to carry my luggage from here to Timbukk, should I wish it.”

“Are the faculty and students accustomed to the sight of your manservant at the University then?”

“Quite. Why do you think I took my position there, instead of here in the city? And no, not just for the wealth of local breweries catering to the students. Prauygis University is the most haunted in the four worlds! One does not bat an eye at such things there. A student in my 302 lecture is a lost soul, actually. Much more actualized than this poor fellow.”

“Actualized? Is this why he has no face?”

He nodded. We began to walk away from the station. I had passed a tavern nearby on several ocassions, and even though I never have the time of coin to enter such places, I had made note of its location. Professor Welterschmidt has always done much of his thinking with a pint of stout in his hands since we were students together.

“Indeed. Spirits are merely echos in the ectoplasmic frequencies of the aether. This poor echo has little mind of its own, little motivation other than to work. I provide it that opportunity. With time, its actualization requirements will be satisifed and it will fade into the background energies. Anyway, you may note that most ‘proper’ people pay him no mind. Transparent and faceless he may be, but he is still dressed a low class laborer, which might as well make him invisible in these streets. ”

“Ah, well then. You’re a lucky devil to have secured free servitude,” I said wistfully.

Welterschmidt shrugged. “You can always have another golem built, or one of those dreadful automatons I read about in the paper several weeks past.”

“Neither of which are precisely free, although they do not require regular pay, true,” I said. We arrived at the tavern, indiciated as such by the sign overhead picturing a cracked mug sloshing brown fluid over the lip.

“The Spilled Drink,” Welterschmidt said with a sigh of satisfaction. “A name that does not bode well for the quality of service, but it will do.”

Inside, the tavern was nearly empty. We took a seat at a table in the back. Welterschmidt’s manservant put down the Professor’s luggage and went to the bar to retrieve drinks. With his salary from teaching, Welterschmidt could afford to buy the drinks. I had offered him a byline on any research written on the subject of the Queen, so it was the least he could do.

Drinks in hand, I related to the Professor the details of the events leading up to the declaration of war. I described the attacks that have been reported by you, dear readers, and the most troubling tale of a child general marching with a boggart army in the south, told by Mr. Wiggins. He seemed skeptical at that tale, but he accepted at face value my description of the boggarts and their society. He was most interested in my description of the Bird Queen.

“A most unsual entity,” he said. “I would like very much to see it with my own eyes, and to examine it with a few of my instruments. You say there is none of the transparency as evidenced by my servant here?”

I shook my head. “None. She seemed as real and solid as you and I.”

“So what do we know about this totem that the boggarts want so badly, what of what value does it serve to the birds and their Queen?” he asked.

I told him what little I knew. “As to what purpose it serves the birds, I do not know. I have a plot involving creating a duplicate of the totem and staging a situation in which the boggarts could “recover” it. This would settle the matter of honor, and the Queen would not press the issue if the boggarts cease in their aggressions, I believe.”

“Creating a counterfeit totem will be more difficult than you might suspect,” the Professor said thoughtfully.
“Resonant energies will broadcast out from such an object, and the boggarts would be sensitive to them. A physical replica would not suffice.”

“This is why I have asked in your assistance,” I admitted. “I know little of the supernatural, nor do I care to make it a subject of my expertise.”

Welterschmidt most unkindly laughed at this. “You’re still not over the Incident then?”

“No.” I had nothing more to say on the matter. The conversation turned to mundane matters of lodging. I won’t relate such uninteresting matters here.

In the coming days, Welterschmidt and I must secure a second audience with the Bird Queen and gain access to the disputed totem. After a thorough examination, we will manufacture a counterfeit object and allow it to fall into boggart hands. And so we will bring this matter to a close. With Autumn arriving so quickly, the boggarts will become more desperate, as the weight of the cold forces them into hibernation as it does so many of the faery species in the Park. If we were to wait out the clock, so to speak, I would simply be forced to deal with the matter again in the spring. I have much research to look forward to then, and playing peacekeeper of the Park has drained me of my time and energy.

Professor Welterschmidt has kindly offered to answer your questions regardin the super-natural sciences this week. As always, I welcome your counsel, but please feel free to direct missives to the Professor as well. Over the coming days, we will solve this matter once and for all, I believe. Between you, Professor Welterschmidt, and myself, I believe we have some of the finest minds in the field dedicated to the problem.

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A Scholarly Discussion

Dr. Ventius

October 6th, 2008 at
9:49 am

You have not made an easy path for yourself, Doctor! I suppose that you could use Ewywyn’s Harmonic Involver to replicate the totem, but that works somewhat randomly. I would estimate that you would need at least 30 perfect copies of the totem, and even then, you might not be sure which one is correct. Though blood magics are distasteful, they do have an interesting alternative in this situation. By dousing the totem with just a small amount of fresh Boggart blood while under a new moon, it may align toward their individual aura. The problem with that is, of course, dealing with the boggarts wondering why you are bleeding them on their totem.

My question to the Professor is this: What do you make of the Bird Queen emulating humanity? This is clearly something new. Even Tennysen (Who we all know never actually researched a thing for himself) reports her being ‘clothed in cloake of feather bright’. This affection for human-style garb is quite… disturbing. Has she entered a Magpie stage? Have the swarm of humanity upset the etherical realm enough that the spirits are following us now? Or, like women everywhere, has she taken it into her head to emulate fashion, albet in a warped, nonhuman manner?

I must remain Nemo

October 7th, 2008 at
1:33 am

Professor Welterschmidt, I am intrigued by your statement that spirits are echoes in the ectoplasmic frequencies of the aether. This being an unfamiliar study for me, I am wondering what might produce such echoes? Might a disturbance in our world, echo in one of the others similarly? Might such an echo manifest in our own? Might your manservant have a physical analog as a laborer in one of the other four worlds? The implications of your statement are rather astonishing, yet conceivable, to one who has made the realm of subliminal matter and the attendant energies a specialty.

D. del Alba

October 7th, 2008 at
3:16 pm

Professor Welterschmidt, greetings! I believe I attended a lecture of yours some years ago, though the memory is as hazy as your spirit servant’s face. You would not have remembered me regardless, as I would have been hiding in the back or perhaps on the balcony of an adjacent attic. Memory, why must you flee me so quickly?

I am eager for your expert advice on a matter, though. In my land we have the duende, much like the fairies of Doctor Roundbottom’s Park. They are of many distinct species, but that is probably a discussion to save for the doctor, when he has more time. One species, however, known as the Older Duende (or perhaps Greater Duende, if you wish to translate it as such), seem to lie on the border between the doctor’s expertise and your own. For years they’ve been assumed to be simply a highly elusive species of fairy, but a recent theory holds that this assumption is wrong. Rather, it is argued, they are spirits, manifesting from the aether briefly. And so, attempts to understand their culture, evolution and ecological niche are misguided and doomed.

I confess that I side more with the traditional view on this matter, but I’m curious how you would go about testing such a hypothesis, as well as any anecdotes of similar spirits you may have encountered. These duende rarely show themselves, and reliable study of them has rarely extended beyond a minute or two; in fact, a researcher might be considered lucky to glimpse them for a few seconds more than once a year. Any advice you have on resolving this matter is greatly appreciated.

Professor Welterschmidt

October 7th, 2008 at
3:48 pm

Guten Tag!

Dr. Ventius– ah yes, that is the question is it not? I think we presume too much in calling the Bird Queen a spirit. Her nature has not been proven to me in any manner. The stories described her as a sort of endowed human with powers of communication. Which is of course ridiculous on the face of it, but we have evidence that she exists so we must consider the possibility. Perhaps, as you say, she is merely a woman emulating fashion.

Now, if the Bird Queen is some form of aetheric manifestation, as I do suspect, then her form could be such as it is for any number of reasons, not excluding your magpie hypothesis. Non-native manifestions sometimes take on local characteristics in an attempt to communicate, as my last paper documented .

Nemo– Why must you remain Nemo? Are the laws such where you live that you cannot change your name should you wish? I dwell in an enlightened society where one’s name is as fluid as the waters of the Danur River that runs through our country. Ah, but I ramble. To your question:

The most common creation of an aetheric manifestation of the ectoplasmic form is a profound and deep emotion. It is a common mistaken belief that spirits are formed only in the death of their imprint creators, but this is not true. Any sort of emotion can linger in the aetheric fields for decades. The science behind the power and strength of such echos is poorly understood and the subject of my latest grant proposal of course. Regarding your question of the echoes between the four known worlds, yes! I believe this is very possible and in fact have some preliminary evidence to confirm this suspicion. You are a very clever person… if you are ever at the University, look me up. We could speak more on this over a pint.

Mr. Alba,

Glad to hear that you remember me, even if I cannot remember you. I hope it was a good lecture, if not memorable.

Ahhh, the duende. Many of my elder colleagues have gone off their nut attempting to decipher that particular subject. It just so happens that I have a theory on this matter, relating to some of the comments shared with Nemo above.

I am working with a tinkerer in the engineering department to build an aetheric stabilizer. I believe that it could be deployed as a kind of cage in the vicinity of a duende, freezing their vibrations in a matrix of slow aether. Thus you could prevent the fade effect that is so troublesome to serious research into their natures.

They are most certainly some sort of aetheric entity, that much I can say. They are not the common emotional echo spirit such as is my manservant documented here by my good friend Julius.

Wunderbar! Julius had wrote to me of the wonderful correspondence he has been sharing via his machine. I simply must collect one of these of my own!

And don’t tell Dr. Roundbottom this, but I wouldn’t mind collecting a lass like Miss Watkins for myself as well, ha ha!

Julius T. Roundbottom

October 7th, 2008 at
3:58 pm

Ahem. Finneas, I may be busy but I am certainly not going to leave you alone with these good people. God only knows what mischief you’ll be up to with them if I don’t keep an eye on you.

And keep your hands off Miss Watkins or I will have to call you out as a scoundrel.

Dr. Ventius, thank you so much for your advice regarding the Harmonizer. I’ll be sure to investigate that option along with others.

Professor Jarvis Atwater

October 8th, 2008 at
10:37 am

It is wonderful to hear you have gathered such a knowledgeable person as Prof. Welterschmidt into this scheme of yours. I have often wondered why our small college at the edge of the City has a small, almost non-existent, population of aetheric manifestations. Even here in the Department of Sciolistic Vernacular there is little emotion. The campus is full of students who cannot qualify for the University on either financial or academic accounts, this leads to a strange fog-like stupor on campus.

Anyone who has worked with my famulus understands the prospective joy of a speechless manifestation. I envy you, as always, on your successful academic career and now you have a servant of such magnitude! I will always admit to a bit on envy towards those deserving of a University appointment, and this news has made me a bit greener.

One question: Where did you find this manifestation and bind it? If I must leave the college for such an adventure, I shall!

Dr. Roundbottom, I apologize for not having a chance to examine your field recordings yet. I have asked for a similar devices for my own research and have been denied–again–by the half-penny pinching council. The device that allows us to access the ACI network is an early model, and I suspect it was a student project left behindd after her graduation. It cannot, currentlly, play the field recordings with anything close to accuracy.

Dimbain H. Wiggins

October 9th, 2008 at
11:19 am

Dear Sirs,

So you be knowin, Mam’s mother resides in our attic. She’s been dead going on twelve years now. Mam doesn’t be a knowin, cus Mam and her Ma never did gets along, so I figure it best to not be a tellin her. The kidlings knows, but they never did be a knowing their Gram when she was among the livin, so I tells them she’s just a big windy-up doll you can’t be a touchin. Seems your own after-lifers can hold things, but Mam’s Ma can’t, as things pass right through her, which is a shame, as she was one fine cook and I’d love to sneak her down to the kitchen. So, there must be more than one type of ethereal being?

Now, while I do be recognizing it as Mam’s Ma, I admits that applying the science is a problem, as she does not have features in her facial region for recognizabling, nor a body for which to check for the skin marks, nor does she tell us as such. Mostly I assumes it be her from the flowered house dress and smell of lavender and vanilla.

Now, I always was a liking the old woman, and at times I goes up them there stairs and has long talks. Of course, she never does say anything back. I’d like to ask her why she remains. I’d like to ask her for her Apple Brown Betty recipe, which is to die for, if you do excuse my choice of wordings. If you gentlemens of the sciences evers does figure a way to talk with the here-between, I’d be appreciatin diagrams of the apparatus.

This here Adventurizing Club does sound like a hoot. Maybes one day I will get a wild hair and wander up to the city to visitize. Perhaps Mr. Welterschmidt would like to try some of our local hooch? I be hearing it resemblizes a Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier, but with a hint of chicory and crawdad.

No word yet from Dimbain the second, or on Senator Kelliwammer’s unnecessary rescue efforts.

Good day, Sirs,

Dimbain H. Wiggins

Professor Welterschmidt

October 11th, 2008 at
10:53 am

Where did you find this manifestation and bind it? If I must leave the college for such an adventure, I shall!

A very good question, Professor Atwater. I bound the spirit through a standard legal contract of employ, of course, combined with a Solomon’s Circle. For such a weak echo, it proved to be a very effect means. As far as providing ectoplasmic injection into the corpus, I use a patent-pending device of my own creation to give the corporeal form such solidity.

I found the spirit wandering the halls outside my office at the University. If one seeks a spirit, that is the place to look. However, not all the spirits at the University are as innocuous as my manservant…

Professor Welterschmidt

October 11th, 2008 at
10:56 am

Mr. Dimbain,

I am afraid I have some difficulty with your patois. This language is not my native tongue, so dialects such as yours give me great difficulty. I will attempt to answer your questions as best I can.

There are many different types of spirits, although yours sounds no different than the manner of spirit of my manservant. The difference is that I used very aetheralchemical means to solidify my manservant to make him useful in the corporeal world. It is possible that in the very near future you will be able to purchase a device to do that with your own spirit. Unfortunately, speech is a barrier that I am still working on. Some spirits do speak, but rarely in an understandable manner. I am not certain that anyone will want to comprehend what these echoes have to say, however… they are bound to be as repetitious in speech as they are in action, being primarily echoes as they are.

I must remain Nemo

October 16th, 2008 at
2:01 am

Professor, thank you for your kind invitation. Assuredly, if I am able to visit your esteemed establishment, I shall pay you a visit.

As to why I remain Nemo, it must suffice at the moment that your revelations of aetheric echoes and their stabilization are rather of interest to me. I beg you to recall the meaning of Nemo in the language of the imperial philosophers!