Part 1
Professor Victor Ashworth was an inventor. A purveyor of all things alchemical and mechanical. Natural science was his playground. His workshop, however, was little more than a hovel. It was a dark basement cluttered with half-completed projects and the faint smell of grease. But it was his to outfit as he pleased, and the professor felt at home around his copper paraphernalia.
He had absolute faith in his genius to produce revolutionary devices for domestic chores and industrial production alike, but a man of his eccentricities tended to ward away more clients than those who had an interest in the finer machinations of science in the first place. In other words, he was broke. What fickle business he did have was limited to mixing up basic salves and remedies for the local townsfolk. No one wanted to see his shoeing machine, nail clamper, or clothes presser, much less the more exciting devices like his electrostatic amplifier or prototype perpetual motion device.
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