66

After much pleasant sputtering and a few more attempts to put you off, Timshel finally consents to hand you the contract; for so it is, 'welcome letter' fiction notwithstanding. Your eyes widen as you explore its provisions.

"Any and all works devised by company members are to list you as sole author and the realizer of any profits from their publication or distribution by the Bardbrood, or any other performing society?"

"Oh, is that still in there?" he says, furrowing his brow and giving a shrug. "I've a chum who's a barrister who added this and that. I assure you it's all very uninteresting."

He holds out the cake of daub to you, his palm stained black by the stuff. There are smudged thumbprints next to the names of each other company member at the bottom of the scroll; it's impossible to know whose thumbs they are, of course. Why in the world is this important to Timshel? And is what's being potentially signed away—the recognition and spoils from anything you might create for a group like the Bardbrood—important to you?