A newly inked pamphlet in the city of Westcrown might have a lifecycle somewhat like this: First, of course, it is conceived in the mind of its author, then carefully written out on a fresh sheet of paper. The author then takes it to a publisher (which is to say, a 'laundry wizard') if he does not have the arcane talent himself; the publisher perhaps rewrites it in a neater hand, then sets a quill to making copies. In some cases, perhaps, a group of publishers might work together to create more copies of a given work faster. These copies make their way to criers and newsstands and cafés and notice boards and church doors. From there some number find their way into the hands of illiterate street urchins in the employ of one Jordi Oliver, Esquire, a literate street urchin* who pays a copper bit for every three pages, so long as he doesn't yet have too many of that particular issue of that particular publication. Each day at noon, Mr. Oliver takes a long walk around the city, stopping to deliver a collection of everything published in the last day to the widow in the blue house, (who pays one bit per page) the old man on old Weaver's Way, (two bits) the residence of the Duchess of Chelam, (three bits per two pages) the blind man on Ankheg street, (a whole three bits per page) and to a dozen other persons, none of whom pays more than the blind man or less than the widow. The collected money then starts to burn a hole in Jordi's pocket and is almost invariably spent lavishly and wastefully, but that is another tale for another day. Today, we follow one lucky set of pamphlets, from the house on Old Weaver's Way to one of the side gates of the palace, where the old man exchanges them for his pay of one silver per day plus expenses (four bits per page). A palace servant takes them to the Queen's secretary, who lays them all out on a large desk in one of the private offices, so that all the pages may be seen at once. Why the Queen asks for the pamphlets to be spread so, but prefers nearly every other document neatly stacked and bookmarked is a mystery he does not particularly wonder about. It is not his place to ask why the Queen does things the way she does.
Most pamphlets that make it all the way from the caffeine-addled brain of a citizen to the desk of the queen pass from there to their archival resting grounds on a shelf unremarked-upon. Read, certainly, and noted, but not responded to. Not this one, however. This one is Special.
* In spirit, at least; in actual fact he rents a room in a boarding house.
