THE GREAT LAMPLIGHTER COUP (There Were Supposed to Be Biscuits)

There are two versions of how Cornelia and Cornwallis came to control the Lamplighters’ Guild of Embermist Hollow.  The official version is recorded in Guild Ledger 77-B as Extraordinary Transfer of Administrative Authority During a Period of Temporary Incapacitation.  The unofficial version is considerably more accurate:
Cornelia stole the Guild.

Cornwallis insists he was not an accomplice. This is technically true. An accomplice usually knows about the crime beforehand.

A Very Respectable Institution

The Lamplighters’ Guild had been run almost exclusively by halflings for centuries. There was no rule requiring this. It simply happened, and after enough generations passed, everyone agreed this constituted tradition.  Halfling children apprenticed under parents, uncles, cousins, grandparents and occasionally people they called “uncle” despite no detectable blood relationship. Routes passed through families. Ladders were inherited. Brass lantern keys became heirlooms.  The Guild was old, respected and magnificently bureaucratic. There were regulations governing wick length, oil storage, ladder placement, replacement glass, emergency routes, inclement weather, bridge lanterns, festival lanterns and one remarkably specific regulation concerning “damage resulting from goats.”  Nobody knew what had happened.  Everyone agreed it must have been terrible.  Then Cornelia and Cornwallis joined.

Cornwallis was an ideal apprentice. He was punctual, organized and meticulous. He knew the routes, maintained his equipment and could identify six grades of lamp oil by smell.

Cornelia was a considerably less ideal apprentice. She took shortcuts, climbed fences, bribed dogs and discovered that one entire route could be shortened by crossing Mrs. Butterwick’s goat paddock. This saved twenty-three minutes but required half an apple.

The Guild refused to reimburse the apple.  Cornelia submitted the expense every week for eleven years.

Their Guildmaster, Bartholomew Tallowfoot, had served the Guild for sixty-one years and looked as though he’d personally lit the first lantern. He adored Cornwallis. He found Cornelia exhausting.
He secretly adored Cornelia too, which he regarded as a personal failing.

The Succession Crisis

Eventually Tallowfoot became too old to continue. Three senior guild members immediately began circling his chair.  Prudence Underwick had forty years of service. Merrick Candlewick controlled the Guild’s oil stores. Oswald Wickbarrow controlled the treasury and enjoyed meetings, which should have immediately disqualified him from public office.  For months, the three maneuvered for succession. Unfortunately, while everyone was deciding who should run the Guild, they gradually stopped running the Guild. Maintenance accumulated. Oil reserves declined. Routes were missed.
Then six lanterns went dark on the Emberway.  Cornelia collected the six burned-out wick assemblies, walked into a succession meeting and dumped them onto the table. Soot covered Oswald’s papers.  She informed the assembled leadership that while they were deciding who got Tallowfoot’s chair, the village was getting darker.  This was not well received.  It was, however, accurate.

Cornelia Reads the Rules

Three nights later, Cornelia found the original Guild Charter.  This was unfortunate for everyone.  Cornelia was dangerous enough when she ignored rules. Nobody had previously considered what might happen if she actually read them.  The charter was at least five centuries old and contained several offices nobody remembered, procedures nobody followed and emergency provisions apparently written during a period when Embermist Hollow suffered simultaneously from flooding, sorcery and aggressive livestock.  Cornelia discovered something interesting.
The Guildmaster did not necessarily have to be elected.  If the Guildmaster became unable to perform his duties, temporary authority passed automatically to the Keeper of Routes. The Guild had not had a Keeper of Routes for 67 years, but the office had never been abolished.  Cornelia needed someone competent, respected and sufficiently unsuspecting to occupy it.  Fortunately, she had a twin brother.

The Biscuits Incident

Two weeks later, Tallowfoot missed his evening inspection. An emergency meeting was called.  Cornelia told Cornwallis he should attend because there would be biscuits.
There were no biscuits.  Cornwallis considers this the moment the entire affair became criminal.  During the meeting, Prudence, Merrick and Oswald began another argument over succession. Cornelia waited until everyone was thoroughly irritated and then announced that the Guild was operating illegally because the office of Keeper of Routes was vacant.  This wasn’t entirely true. It was, however, close enough to true that everyone had to check.  That was Cornelia’s preferred kind of truth.  She nominated Cornwallis.
Before Cornwallis could escape, a voice from the doorway seconded the nomination.  Bartholomew Tallowfoot had arrived in his nightshirt, slippers and a blanket.
He was also eating a biscuit.  Cornwallis never forgave him for that.  Everyone liked Cornwallis, so the vote was almost embarrassingly easy. By eleven votes to four, Cornwallis became Keeper of Routes.  He had absolutely no idea why Cornelia looked so pleased.

Six minutes later, Tallowfoot resigned.  He then sat down to watch.  The old bastard knew exactly what Cornelia had done.

The Forty-Three-Minute Administration

Under the charter, authority immediately passed to the Keeper of Routes.  Thus began the distinguished administration of Guildmaster Cornwallis.
It lasted forty-three minutes.  Cornwallis spent the first several minutes attempting to refuse the position. Unfortunately, the charter contained detailed procedures governing the death, disappearance, magical transformation and apparent consumption by livestock of a Guildmaster, but nothing whatsoever about a Guildmaster simply not wanting the job.
He searched the charter desperately.

     “Article Fourteen?”

     “War,” Cornelia said.     

     “Seventeen?”

     “Flood.”

     “Twenty-three?”

     “Dragon.”

Cornwallis looked up. “Twenty-four?”

     “Dragon-related flood.”

He stared at her.

Cornelia shrugged. “Apparently it was a difficult century.”

Then Cornwallis found something.  He became very quiet.  Cornelia immediately became suspicious.

     “Cornwallis?”

He smiled.

Cornelia became considerably more suspicious.  As Acting Guildmaster, Cornwallis restored the vacant office of Deputy Keeper of Routes and appointed Cornelia to it.

     “Cornwallis.”

He ignored her.  Then he resigned as Keeper of Routes.
Cornelia stared at him.

     “You bastard.”

The room erupted.

Under the charter, the Deputy Keeper immediately became Keeper of Routes. The Keeper of Routes was Acting Guildmaster.  Cornelia had successfully engineered a takeover of the Lamplighters’ Guild and, through the treachery of her own brother, accidentally placed herself in charge of it.  Oswald demanded a magistrate. Prudence accused the twins of staging a coup. Merrick climbed onto a chair for reasons omitted from the official record.  Tallowfoot nearly choked on his biscuit.  Cornwallis sat down, folded his hands and smiled pleasantly.

     “Congratulations.”

     “You did that deliberately.”

     “Yes.”

     “You trapped me.”

     “Yes.”

     “You absolute little shit.”

The official minutes record this exchange as:
The incoming Acting Guildmaster thanked her predecessor.
Cornwallis had been Guildmaster for exactly forty-three minutes.
It remains the proudest forty-three minutes of his professional career.
He also maintains that no lantern failures occurred during his administration.

This is true.

Acting Guildmaster Cornelia

The senior members immediately demanded an election.  Cornelia consulted the charter.  An election required proper notice to the full membership. More than half the membership was currently outside lighting lanterns. Calling them back to vote would therefore require extinguishing or neglecting large portions of Embermist Hollow so the Lamplighters’ Guild could decide who should lead the Lamplighters’ Guild.  Even Prudence had difficulty arguing with that.  Cornelia adjourned the meeting and went to fix the Emberway.  The election was scheduled for the following week.  There was a storm.  It was postponed.  Then a bridge flooded.  Postponed.  

Then Cornwallis discovered the oil inventory was wrong.  Merrick abruptly decided he no longer wished to be Guildmaster.

Then Cornwallis examined the treasury.  Oswald abruptly discovered an intense desire to spend more time with his family.

That left Prudence.  Unfortunately for Prudence, by then the twins had been running the Guild for several months.  And things were getting better.

Routes had been reorganized. Oil reserves had increased. Equipment failures had fallen. Apprentices were being cross-trained. Abandoned lanterns had been restored. Cornwallis created a proper registry, while Cornelia established emergency supply caches throughout the valley.  Then, one night, for the first time anyone could remember, every public lantern in Embermist Hollow burned simultaneously.  Prudence reviewed all of this and withdrew from the election.  Her official explanation was that Cornelia was “insufferable but distressingly competent.”
Cornelia promised the Guild that a proper election would still be held.

Soon.

That was twenty-two years ago.

The Longest Temporary Administration in Guild History

Cornelia remains Acting Guildmaster.  She likes Acting because it makes twenty-two years sound temporary.  Cornwallis is officially Deputy Guildmaster, Senior Route Keeper and Registrar of Lanterns. Unofficially, Cornwallis runs the Guild.  Cornelia runs Cornwallis.  Cornwallis disputes this.  Cornelia has asked that his objection be entered into the minutes.
Together, however, the twins transformed the Lamplighters into one of the most effective organizations in Embermist Hollow.
Every evening, dozens of lamplighters spread throughout the valley. They walk the roads, cross the bridges, pass the houses, visit the farms, check the lanes and climb into the hills.

And they notice things.

A strange wagon. A broken window. A door standing open. Someone wandering where they shouldn’t. A house suddenly abandoned. A lantern deliberately extinguished. Footprints appearing beside a road.

Cornwallis records these things.  Cornelia remembers them.  This has made the Guild an extraordinarily effective information network.  Cornelia insists it is not spying.
Rennin once pointed out that one of her lamplighters had observed a clandestine meeting through a second-story window.
Cornelia explained that there had been a lantern in the room.  Cornwallis confirmed that the wick had been improperly trimmed.  The matter was therefore clearly Guild business.
Over the years, this arrangement has made Cornelia and Cornwallis indispensable to Embermist Hollow. Cornwallis knows every route, every schedule, every lamplighter, every supply cache and almost every public lantern in the valley. Cornelia knows almost everyone those routes pass, which windows ought to be illuminated at which hours, who belongs on which road and which explanations sound suspicious.

They remain infuriating.

They remain nosy.

They remain almost impossible to surprise.

And the Lamplighters’ Guild remains almost entirely halfling, just as it has been for centuries.  The only meaningful difference is that it now functions alarmingly well.
Every few years, some ambitious young lamplighter eventually discovers that Cornelia has technically never been elected and suggests that perhaps the Guild should finally hold a proper vote.
Cornwallis always listens politely.  Cornelia always agrees that this is an excellent idea.

A committee is formed.

A meeting is scheduled.

Minutes are prepared.

Someone inevitably asks Cornelia where the original charter is.

Cornelia says Cornwallis has it.

Cornwallis says Cornelia has it.

Cornelia says she gave it back.

Cornwallis says she absolutely did not.

By the time anyone finds the charter, three months have passed, the committee chairman has lost interest, somebody has been reassigned to the north route and Mrs. Butterwick’s descendants have submitted another complaint concerning apples.

The election is postponed.

Again.

Bartholomew Tallowfoot has been gone for many years now, but his old chair still sits in the Guildhall.  Cornelia refuses to use it.  She says she is only Acting Guildmaster and therefore it would be presumptuous.  Cornwallis once pointed out that she has been Acting Guildmaster longer than Tallowfoot and several earlier Guild offices combined.  Cornelia told him not to be ridiculous.
After all, the arrangement is only temporary.  And has been for twenty-two years.