06:30 – Early Arrival
The first staff trickle into the Archives Division through a freight lift marked “Restricted Access – Staff Only.”
Dr. Lina Qureshi, a folklore analyst, is already on her third coffee, scanning transcripts from a 19th-century diary recovered from a marshland cottage that burned mysteriously last week.

07:00 – Artifact Report
Arthur “Artie” Blaine, Custodian of Containment, logs an incident overnight: a mirror in Vault C-7 started showing reflections of people not present in the room. Magical wards held, but the object will need re-binding.
He jots a note for the rune team and sends a quiet email flagged as “Non-urgent but Watchlisted.”

08:00 – Briefing Room 3C
Morning operations briefing for field agents. Attendees include:
Agent Poppy Linwood, a fae-rescue specialist with a background in MI5 and a weird sensitivity to fae glamour.
Kofi Mensah, communications analyst, running over flagged anomalies in phone calls from a psychiatric ward in Margate.
Dr. Sian Hargrave, psychologist, reporting a sharp rise in patients describing “the sound of wings in the walls.”

08:45 – Comms & Liaison
Tess Doyle, NHS liaison officer, sits in a small, cluttered office following up on a flagged referral: a child admitted after vanishing on a school trip, found speaking backwards and terrified of shadows.
She books an appointment with a disguised Institute therapist at a nearby NHS facility.

09:00 – Research Wing
Archivist Elias Trent, hunched and murmuring to himself, delicately pages through a folio from 1732 referencing “The Hollow Men of Hoo.” His notes include hand-drawn fae runes and newspaper clippings.
He hasn’t left the building in 11 days and may be slightly fae-touched himself. No one asks.

11:15 – Psychological Services
Dr. Rowena Bell, senior therapist, meets with a junior agent showing early signs of “fae exposure fatigue”—loss of time, sleepwalking, compulsive drawing of spiral motifs.
Prescribes a week in the Rochester manor house to rest and recalibrate.

12:30 – Canteen (Floor -4)
A handful of agents and analysts share sandwiches in silence. A junior researcher is gently interrogated by Poppy about his “unexplained lights over Deal” report.
The vending machine has been broken since 2004. A teacup occasionally refills itself.

14:00 – Emergency Deployment
An urgent red notice from the Kent coast: a fishing trawler found with the entire crew missing and one man comatose, his hands transformed into webbed claws.
A team is deployed. Communications are patched through Kofi’s secure channel. The Rochester manor house is activated as a field base.

15:30 – Artifact Lab
Lucille “Lou” Hart, fae object specialist, is working on disassembling a musical box recovered from an abandoned caravan. It sings when opened—and something in the Vaults sings back.

17:00 – Debrief and Daily Summary
Debriefing in Briefing Room 2A.
Reports are logged; Kofi updates the fae activity map.
Anomalies are flagged for the midnight watch.

19:00 – Quiet Hours Begin
Most staff leave. A skeleton crew remains: security, containment wardens, and the ever-present Elias.
The lights in Archive Wing E flicker. It’s not the electrics. It never is.