<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/a/aa/Susanfranklin.png/250px-Susanfranklin.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Susan Franklin<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Collegium (4)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 13th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Collegium<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Reid Lawson<br/>Susan Franklin watched from her telescope as he approached - one of the myriad smaller telescopes scattered around the fringes of the observatory, pointed in every direction, not the larger construction of glass lenses and gears that let her gaze out into the stars.  No, she watched the young ranch hand approach all the way from Soddom, trailing his way through the streets.  It had been a habit to observe him, ever since she’d seen a fistfight starring the strapping Lawson, and when she’d seen him carefully navigate some sort of dispute that didn’t end in fisticuffs, she’ hurried below to tell Oswal of the young man she was sure would make a fine addition to the Collegium’s number - even if it was just to help lift and move heavy things in her immediate vicinity.<br/><br/>“May I conduct the interview?” she beamed, hopefully, and Oswald looked over at the grandfather clock in a corner of his office.<br/><br/>“Punctual,” he noted.  “Actually, quite early.”  He rose, impressed, and shook his head.  “Ah, no, Susan.”  His girlfriend had been quite… enamored of the young ranch hand, and while he didn’t doubt he might have his uses around the Collegium, he was also quite certain Susan would be grossly underselling some of the risks involved.<br/><br/>“Well, I’ll just see him up then.”  She smiled broadly, adjusting her glasses and heading for the door, a bounce in the middle-aged woman’s step.  She wound her way down staircases and then stepped onto a lift which descended with a hiss of steam, milling her through an entry foyer and towards the steel doors which enclosed the Collegium.  A tap of buttons and a large chain began to retract and wind around a winch, drawing the steel doors upwards.<br/><br/>She stepped out onto the retracting bridge which connected the Collegium to the main mesa, and proffered a hand to shake enthusiastically.  “Mr. Lawson, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last.  Face to face, I mean.  Not - “  She blushed, even she pumped his hand up and down.  “Well, not through any other medium, at least.  It’s just very good to have you here, very excited to have you aboard, my you ARE strapping, aren’t you?  Even bigger in person!”  She reached out and squeezed his shoulder, smiling from ear to ear.  “Well, you are early, but Oswald is still taking morning tea.  Have you had anything to eat?  Would you care for some tea?”  She was already walking backwards towards the inside of the enormous metal fortress, leading the way into a foyer decorated with oil paintings and small contraptions with no discernible purpose - beyond sending one tiny sphere revolving around another, or the perpetual click-click-click of what seemed to be rows of endlessly falling sticks of ivory.  The foyer seemed to be an endless chain reaction of unclear purpose - a weight falling from an overhead tube to set off a string of silver balls rolling through an angled maze, only to drop upon a wheeled contraption that zipped along the ground and smashed into a bell, which set crystal humming in harmony - it was dizzying, and she was leading her way past it to a lift.<br/><br/>“Oh, come along!  Mind the electric coil, there, it’ll spark if you get too close.”  She waited for him to join her, and then pressed the button of the lift, a cage of wire that she tugged closed and pulled a lever.  The cage filled with the hiss of white steam, then began to ascend, clanking upwards on a metal rail like a upwardly mobile train car.  “I’m so glad you’re considering our offer!”