World of Warcraft®

Spriggel stepped into Derschas office, sucking on her left forefinger, much more pleased than hurt.

With this latest door lock, the head office was becoming more & more a top-notch Azerothian executivial business. Customers would be impressed.

The new lock was no fly-by night mechanism and had taken more effort than the last - an additional 7 and a half minutes and one chipped fingernail. Spriggel’s New year’s gift for Derscha would only add to the professional ambiance.

She set down 3 pots next to Derscha's desk, taking extra care with the flowering briarthorn cutting, about 6” long, in the smallest pot. She was pretty sure that in this soggy, salt-aired environment that the thorn bush “should” remain stunted.

Then she stepped back out into the hall to drag in the burlap bag (now only mostly filled) with Durotar coastal sand. The missing sand left a gritty cookie-crumb trail down the stairs, out the door, and partway down the Booty Bay dock.

Swiping whatever had been on the left far corner of Derscha’s desk over to the center of the desk & out of her way, she placed the largest pot on that corner and with Spriggel-like care, dumped sand into the pot - brushing the small pile [that didn’t make it into the pot] over to the center of the desk. She carefully set the next smaller pot into the large pot, nestling it securely in the sand and poked her finger into the large pot’s sand, making sure there was plenty of room left around the edge.

Again, with all of the care one would expect from her, Spriggel dumped more of the sand into the medium pot (again, briskly brushing any sand that missed the pots off to the other side of the desk) and then nestled the smallest pot with its blooming briarthorn into the middle pot. Again she poked her finger around the 2nd tier to be sure there was plenty of room around the edge.

Stepping back from the desk, Spriggel admired her work before ransacking the desk drawers trying to find all of Derscha’s pencils. Pens wouldn’t do, so she threw those away; all of the pencils she pushed into the sand on the two tiers, like fence posts circling the cached pots.

She pushed one of the dullest pencils into the sand several times, until the sand had ground a fine point on the pencil. “Ah good,” she said, “she’ll never have a dull pencil ever again. A do-it-yourself pencil holder & sharpener, all in one. Now no one will ever have a problem finding something to write with in here.”

Taking just a couple of seconds (and hardly any attention), Spriggel swept most all of the loose sand (if she saw it) off the desk, and shook a few of the papers out, getting “hardly” any sand in the desk drawers & mostly in the trash can.

Against the pots, she leaned a little card that simply read:

"Derscha,

Here's wishing you a cheerful start to this Happy New Year.

Spriggel Lockbolton"

She then headed out, immensely pleased at contributing to the general professional atmosphere of the AAMS head office.

**A new garish poster is displayed throught the Alliance kingdoms**

Wanted: An Engineer to build a large desk calendar roller system and an Inscriptionist to draw a large desk calendar for it.

Contact the AAMS Ironforge Branch Senior Office Manager, Spriggel Lockbolton, for details and application.

Could possibly be a good Senior Project for an apprentice in either field.

Have a Nice Day!

((OOC: Spriggel had another marvelous idea on how to improve desks in general [and some - well, ok, one - in particular] and would like to discuss details with professionals. Mayhem will insue, whether or not this ends up on or near Derscha's desk. If you are interested in joining the fun, contact Spriggel - either (1) in game or (2) here with a note left at the AAMS office.))

It had been quite a few years since Derscha had borrowed her father's lab, but fortunately, he had forgotten to leave instructions to his new assistant to not allow her unsupervised access and she still had a key. She didn't need much time, really, and the formula was one from back in her student days. Besides, she hadn't blown anything up in years. Quite possibly the same number of years since the last time she borrowed the lab.

It had taken her some time to collect the correct ingredients in the proper strength and quality, but she took pride in her special brand of Extra-Strength Prickle Powder. Virtually indistinguishable from dust, it was guaranteed to cause an uncomfortable itch. She'd even seen Forsaken bothered by the powder. (She really did still owe Arrayah an apology.)

She carefully put the bottle in her satchel to take back with her to Booty Bay. A small handful would be enough to booby trap her office. True, it meant she wouldn't be able to use her desk for a while, but she had been avoiding it, anyway, thanks to to Spriggel. And now the gnomish courier was going to have an unpleasant surprise the next time she attempted to "straighten" Derscha's desk without permission.

And really, she thought with a giggle, anyone who decided they wanted to bother her. Maybe she should have done this earlier.

With utmost disappointment, Spriggel re-to-the-9th-power-locked Derscha's office door, removing from view (temporarily) her efforts to find a "baton"-like object with which to direct the crowd of Jingle singers tonight.

She'd gone through the closet, even gone so far as to crawl into some of Derscha's deep desk drawers, desperately looking for something to use besides her gaudy jewel-encrusted fishing pole.

Her re9lock failed as she jerked, and reached back to scratch an itchy spot between her shoulder blades.

Maybe the Iron Feathers would have something . . . a long ladle, perhaps . . . Spriggel scratched her left hip, just under her belt . . . . she should *scratched under her hat* stop by and see *scratched her chin*.