Chapter 9: Chapter 9 A Series of fortunate Events Persist

  After waking up Judith and the Baudelaires hold a discussion about their next location which is Prufrock Preparatory School. Should the children infiltrate the school by enrolling or just do a quick tour. Judith, "I'm confident that you children will be able to get more info. by attending than just a quick tour unlike the last location, this appears to be a place of learning and will yield more fruit through longer observation. Remember that each of these targets will have different meanings, the last one was a combination of former H.Q. and a rogue former member." The children agreed and they proceeded to head to there. On the way there they picked up Dr. Georgina Orwell who would be infiltrating the school as a teacher. While the children and Orwell were at the school Judge Strauss would be able to continue some of the work she had to do back at the city. Specifically some cases needed her attention, the Baudelaire accounts needed to be double-checked, and she would be checking in on the next target on the list which is located on  667 Dark Avenue in the city. Judith figured that she could handle the next adventure, while the children did the school one. Especially now that the story disruptions were spreading.

  Once they arrived they beheld the school, it's outside entrance is made up of several buildings that resemble tombstones and sits on a brown lawn. A stone archway at the school's entrance is inscribed with the motto "Memento Mori", which is Latin for "Remember You Will Die." Dr. Orwell remarks, "How grim I expect this job will be quite dreary, luckily I get paid by you and these guys yay me! I will of course as a teacher help you children, but remember I won't be able to show favoritism. Let's step lively now I hear the Vice-Principle is quite a bore." Judge Strauss, "I agree that this place is gloomy, but I heard in previous years that it was a training ground for V.F.D. potential recruits. Now after I get the paperwork signed remember you can always contact me by phone. Otherwise I will be back to pick you up at the end of the quarter and depending on what you find out we'll see if you want to continue your time here. Here's hoping that the things wrap-up by the time I get back so we can move onto the next target. It's unfortunate I can't just go to the next one on my own, but as a High Court Judge I still have the occasional case I must be in court for. Remember children, this includes you Dr. Orwell, please be safe in your sleuthing." As she said the last part she hugged all of them.

  Nero's office is located inside the Administrative building and the school contains at least two classrooms for the different studies. Vice Principal Nero greets them in a cordial manner seeing the dollar signs that the Baudelaires will bring the school. Judge Strauss explains to Vice Principal Nero that depending on the treatment of the children she would consider investing in this school. "Incidentally where's the principal, I was under the impression I would be meeting them." The VP replied, "The Principal is out getting the funding needed for building improvement. The money from tuition alone isn't enough to pay for it." Judge Strauss replied, "We'll see, ultimately it's the children's choice on where their inheritance is invested. I must be off, Goodbye children, Dr. Orwell." With one more embrace she was off to complete her tasks.

  Once Judge Strauss left Vice Principal Nero's demeanor changes from cordial to rude, turning to the children he immediately explains the rules of the school, the punishments for breaking them, and the mandatory attendance to his recitals. He turns to Dr. Orwell and tells her the teaching position she is filling will be Social Studies, that the previous teacher had to be let go due to protests of her teaching material, and that paydays were every other week starting next week. He then sent the children to the dormitories, explaining since Sunny was too young to learn and will have serve as the school's secretary, and when not doing that she would be sharing a dorm room with her siblings. He congratulates the Buadelaires that in order to have the privilege to live in the dormitory, a student must have a permission slip signed by a parent or guardian. Otherwise he would have had to install them in the orphans shack.

  They are led on a small tour of the school where they are introduced to their other teachers. Ms. Tench the Prufrock Preparatory School gym teacher, Mrs. Bass was the math teacher, Mr. Remora was the Language Arts. The children are shown that near the campus is a large sports field where the school holds pep rallies and are told a good deal of their grades will depend on how well they do in P.E. Then they are shown the school library which looked like a pleasant place with comfortable chairs and huge wooden bookshelves. There are brass lamps shaped like different fish and bright blue curtains that give off a serene ocean vibe. Finally they are taken to the dormitory, which is a gray building that is entirely made of stone and shaped like a big toe. Inside is a huge living room with a brick fireplace, a game room, and a large lending library. Every student has his or her own room with a bowl of fresh fruit delivered every Wednesday. Being tired the Baudelaires head off to bed, before that they are reminded to make it to their classes that start the next day. The children spend a little time making plans then proceed to go to sleep.

  The next day starts out excruciatingly dull, being well rested the children head of to their separate locations. Violet's teacher is Mr. Remora, while messily eating bananas taught language arts, but every single class covered monotonous stories that he told about his life and testing his students on the details based on the notes they took. Klaus' teacher is Mrs. Bass, taught the metric system, but the class mainly involved measuring random objects and their memorization skills would be tested. When they both took Dr. Orwell's class she began with her favorite line about catching more flies with honey and assigned the homework of finding civilizations that thrived using this method. Ms. Tench's classes involve running laps, pushups, sit-ups, ending in a round of tag, she explains that equipment is only for the school sports teams, and that the season is over right now, anyone who's interested to join will need to apply next quarter. Sunny spends the day doing secretarial tasks, since she's so young the tasks prove difficult, Nero making rude remarks at the lack of progress in his tasks.

  The children feeling exhausted head off to the cafeteria to get lunch before heading to the dorms. There they see a girl making fun of twin children for living in the orphan shack. The Baudelaires step in and interrupt asking about what was wrong about living in the shack. The turns introduces herself as Carmelita Spats and that the 2 she was making fun of were cakesniffer orphans who lived in the terrible shack so deserved to be made fun of. Having said her fill, she left without letting the Baudelaires introduce themselves. The other twin children invited the Baudelaires to eat with them introducing themselves as Isadore and Duncan Quagmire, who had lost their parent's and triplet brother Quigley in a fire and that they were heirs to the Quagmire sapphire fortune. Upon hearing this the Baudelaires share their experiences and become fast friends with the two triplets. One of the biggest questions the Baudelaires had for the two triplets is, who was their guardian. The twins reveal that Mr. Poe, the person in charge of their inheritance had currently placed them under Esme Squalor, who as their guardian had sent them to this terrible school until they came to their majority. Upon hearing who was in charge of the Quagmires, the children share a glance and then turn to the twins and share their experiences with the inept Mr. Poe and the fact that the two triplets had rights under the child protective laws. They even offer to share their guardian Judge Strauss whom had saved them from the abuse of Count Olaf who could probably save them from this Esme Squalor.

  To talk further the Baudelaires offered to hang out with the Quagmires in the shack. The two agree, on the way out they see that the iron-masked cafeteria ladies had been staring at them the whole time. The children shudder at the creepiness and ask why the two cafeteria women are wearing masks, the response was a terse "safety." The children leave hurriedly and once inside the shack the children see bales of hay that serve as beds, tiny crabs scurry around the floor, the wallpaper is horrible, with hearts arranged in an unappealing pattern, and orange fungus oozes from the ceiling. Upon seeing this Klaus explains that the fungus can be gotten rid of with some salt, once they hear this a plan is made to sneak some salt from the cafeteria later. First though the Baudelaires ask Isadora and Duncan what they know of V.F.D. Upon hearing that the twin triplets explain that their parents may have mentioned it once or twice. Hearing that Violet explains how their parents were part of the fire fighting side of V.F.D. and may have been killed by the fire-starters and that it sounded that the same had happened to the Quagmire's. In fact they had been sent here by their guardian to find out why this place was on the list Mr. Poe had for locations to put the Baudelaires in the case something happened to their previous guardians. This school is their 5th location to check, in fact Esme and Jerome Squalor were to be their 6th after this and that the Judge would be there in a bit. In fact they would be giving her a call if the Quagmires wanted.

  Once the children came to an agreement after sharing all they currently knew they contacted Judge Strauss. Upon hearing the news she agreed to take over guardianship of the Quagmires and would remove Mr. Poe and the Squalor's from the two triplets lives, she just had one more case to close. Judge Strauss said, "Hearing that the school is run terribly is a shame, since that stunts children's growth potential. Once I finish my work and the necessary paperwork I will be there immediately to take you away from there. I love you children and will include whomever you want  into the family, until then beware and be careful." She didn't mention that her last case was the arraignment of Count Olaf since any news about him would bring further negativity to the children's lives. Once more Mr. Poe's actions are hurting children perhaps it's time to change who is in charge of that company.

  The very next day in the courtroom Judge Strauss is presiding and sees that Count Olaf isn't there. Upon asking it's revealed that he is still in the hospital in a coma due to being struck by lightning. Judge Strauss then makes the announcement that she will be recusing herself from the case because of her relationship with people related to the case, but let it be noted that the crimes committed by Count Olaf warrant the strictest response from the Judicial system and hopefully it is done. Afterwards she makes her way to Mulctuary Money Management proceeds to buy controlling shares and then assigns Mr. Poe back to his previous position as a financial banker. Then she assigns a couple of her contacts to clean house since obviously there is some corruption involved. She proceeds to make plans to meet the Squalor's planning on gaining the Quagmire children's guardianship to free them from being taken advantage of. It takes a few days of research to find out that Esme had been draining the Quagmire's accounts into her own flagging accounts. Apparently in her quest to be fashionable her spending habits were eating into her vast fortune. Even as the City's sixth most important financial advisor her income could no longer keep up with her expenses.

  In response Judge Strauss froze all Esme's accounts and withdrew the drained funds back to the Quagmires accounts, and she then filed the necessary paperwork to begin the change of guardianship. To gather what info on V.F.D. that Esme and Jerome Squalor had, Judge Strauss made her way to their residence. Located in 667 Dark Avenue, a very  "in" high-rise apartment building in the city. Dark Avenue is located in a highly fashionable district, and as a result, both the building and the street it overlooks are constantly redecorated to suit any ongoing trend. Before she enters the 66 story building, she asks the doorman which floor the Squalors are on. She's told the top floor and that the elevator is currently out of service and will be repaired at some point. Chuckling that she would get to stretch her legs Judge Strauss heads up at an amazing clip once past the doorman's eyesight. On the 66th floor she meets Jerome Squalor who offers her aqueous martinis, which is water in a fancy glass with an olive. He seemed like a nice enough fellow if a very wimpy individual reminding her of Charles

  Judge Strauss wastes no time in revealing to Jerome that Esme had been draining the accounts of the Quagmire orphans inheritance, and requested his signature to divest the Squalors' rights as Guardians to the children. Jerome expresses surprise, as while he had wanted children to take care of, Esme his wife had expressed no interest before. In fact he had no idea that they had been in guardianship of the Quagmires. Hearing this Judge Strauss expressed condolences to the shock of Esme's trickery, she then informed him that he would still have to sign the paperwork since his signature appeared to be on the guardianship papers. He signed sadly, then Esme breezed in, in her pinstriped shirt exclaiming about her fashionably "in" day. When confronted with the news that she had been found out she accused Jerome of being boring and unfashionable, she was leaving him and taking the money with her. Judge Strauss had already setup an arrest for committing fraud for Esme, so as she made her way out she was arrested. Judge Strauss turned to Jerome and apologized for causing his loss in marriage, he replied, "I knew who she was, but I thought I could save her from it. Guess not, next relationship I'll find someone who can be with me for me. Thank you for showing me that I hadn't succeeded in saving her. Now I bid you good day." Judge Strauss wasn't able to get any info. about V.F.D., but had been able to get guardianship of the Quagmire orphans, so she headed to the school to pick them up.

  While Judge Strauss had been working on the Guardianship, the Baudelaires and Quagmires had been attending classes and sharing their interests. It turned out that Isadora loved poetry, sonnets the most, so often she would make a sonnet about whatever situation they were in. Duncan loved all things about reporters and could often be seen taking notes on any major seeming events on his notebooks. The P.E. classes from Ms. Tench were tolerable sometimes even fun, Dr. Orwell's classes really got the children thinking about how being nice doesn't necessarily mean good. The rest of the classes were boring and pointless, but were still better than the 6-hour violin recitals held by the Vice Principal. They were so bad the Baudelaires had gone to Dr. Orwell to convince her to use her hypnotism to get him to stop. It was revealed that she had already tried and failed, apparently all she had been able to do is improve his treatment of Sunny, because he strongly believed he had talent and was gifting the school with his music. Carmelita Spats spent her time tormenting the orphans and the only one who even came close to disciplining her was Dr. Orwell who hadn't been impressed by her poor workmanship. Once the children heard that the Judge was coming to take them away they made plans to leave.

  Once it became clear that they were leaving the 2 masked cafeteria ladies grabbed the 2 Quagmires and booked it. It turned out they were the white-faced women from Count Olaf's troupe! All the working out helped though and the Badelaires almost caught up with them, but as Klaus reached out one of them turned and bit his hand. They got into their car and began to drive away. The white-faced women didn't get very far when a boulder rolled into the car causing it to stop. Judge Strauss came down the hill and assisted in the apprehension of the white-faced women freeing the Quagmires from captivity. The police arrived and took the attempted kidnappers away. Judge Strauss greeted the children and Dr. Orwell explaining that she had legal action in the process to help improve the school. She met up with Vice Principal Nero and explained that she would be taking the orphans from the school and that any Baudelaire funding that had been considered would be delayed till the faculty could be retrained on the new children laws. On the other hand she would see about shaking the government's tail to get money flowing for the building renovations.

  Judge Strauss thanked Dr. Orwell and asked if she wanted to continue teaching or move back to the safe location. Dr. Orwell immediately turned in her resignation and left claiming that although it had been an interesting experience, she didn't intend to make a profession of it. Judith turned to the children hugged them and said, "Let's go to the safe-house and give a proper welcome to the family to Isadora and Duncan." The children agreed and once they arrived the spent the time unpacking the Quagmires' meager possessions and proceeded to show them all that had been gathered on V.F.D. Once they had shared it, it was time for bed.

[Ding for indirectly preventing the death of Ms. Tench knowledge of P.E. instruction gained creating skill Teaching I, +3 Karma, For assisting in redirecting the Quagmire's destinies to align with the Baudelaires gain insight into Sapphires, creating skill Gem Craft I, +20 Karma. For influencing the financial community increase Mathematics skill, +20 Karma]

'Status'

User 01010111

Race: Eukaryomorphic Human (Human with many animal and insect, and some plant traits)

You are reading story Karma Corpse System Omniversal at novel35.com

Age 61 Level 39 (exp 12300/39000)

Condition: Normal

Stats

Strength 38H>39H

Dexterity 60H

Constitution 80H

Intelligence 60H>61H

Wisdom 56H>57H

Charisma 21H>22H

Skills

Acting H, Basic Languages D+, Body Language E, Camouflage F, Car Mechanics H, Cleaning G, Cold Resistance F+, Cooking G, Digging F, Dive D, Driving G, Enhanced Hearing D, Enhanced Smell C, Enhanced Swimming C, Enhanced Touch F, Enhanced Vision E, Fist Fighting F, Heat Resistance G, Herpetology G, Hypnotism H, Night Vision H, Maintenance G+, Mathematics G+, Marine Martial Arts H, Medicine H+,  Parallel Thinking G+, Shooting H, Surgery H, Volleyball G, Woodcraft I, New Skills (Gem Craft I, Teaching I)

Perks

Entomorph: (Fall Armyworm), Fungalmorph: (Mushroom), Jurisprudence, Lachrymose Leech, Plantamorph: (Elm, Evergreen) Pupa, Stoic, Uncommon Physical Growth, Zoomorph: (Anchovy, Bass, Blue Wildebeest, Camel, Carp, Chicken, Crow, Cow, Crab, Deer, Eel, Goat, Goose, Hare, Horse, Impala, Kangaroo, Llama, Lobster, Mackerel, Mole, Mouse, Mussel, Octopus, Oyster, Pig, Pigeon, Possom, Prawn, Rabbit, Raccoon, Rat, Reindeer, Salmon, Sardine, Seagull, Sheep, Shrimp, Squid, Trout, Tuna, Turkey, Vole, Zebra), World Compass

Corpse Absorption Progress

Ant (.07827), Aphid (.00203), Bedbug (.00072), Bee (.00502), Centipede (.00009), Cockroach (.00697), Dandelion (.00026), Earwigs (.00081), Flea (.00043), Fly (.11806), Ivy (.068), Jellyfish (.00011), Lice (.00052), Mosquito (.07889), Moth (.00163), Pill Bug (.00184), Slug (.000498), Spider (.00054), Wasp (.03207), Worm (.00061)

Abilities:Tutorial Pocket. Sealed (Diagnose H+, Flight G, Ink Squirt, Photosynthesis.)

Achievements: Family Man, For The Family!, Globetrotter, Survivor

Karma: 249 Total Positive

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