<b><span style="text-decoration: underline">The Gymnasium</span></b><br/><br/>Heinrich looked up from a particularly interesting article on the applications of the internal combustion engine in airship design and watched the newcomers. His forehead furrowed as the scene played out. The built creatures were unusual to regular Reik elves, let alone outsiders unused to the inner workings of elven society. To production of the healing fluid didn’t much come as a surprise to him, nor the inherent submissive desire to assist that came with Hermesia. Had he not once, with the Paracelsi’s explicit permission, hollowed her out and worn her as a skin suit to save himself from a rather unpleasant demise? Anything for the Reik, a dangerous, if satisfactory attitude. Regardless, he remained thankful. Continued existence had a habit of imposing sentiment.<br/><br/>The Instructor sniffed and his moustache bobbed. He checked his timepiece and mental subtracted a few minutes from the hands displayed there. Clockwork was all well and good, but it did tend to run a little fast. It was still too early to go find some nourishing ‘food’ in the canteen and truth be told, he wasn’t too keen on leaving one of the Reik’s living pieces of property alone with the undead creature.<br/><br/>Instead he looked around his domain with a satisfied smile upon his face. The equipment, for want of a better term, worked. More important to him however was the rack of weapons with carefully dulled edges that bestrode an entire wall. There were some examples of Reik melee weaponry there, but most were captured examples wielded by the myriad enemies of the expansionist elves. Heinrich liked his students to receive a very thorough education. The drill instructors were more than capable of teaching young conscripts how to bayonet someone, or go through the different steps that swordplay involved. None of that mattered much when you were in the melee however. Weapons break and that meant you needed to know how to use your woes weapons against them.<br/><br/>Spears, maces and bows. Elaborate fighting daggers and rapiers. Bizarre, intricate devices of death that had no comparable name in in Teutari sat in dust free rows. Heinrich knew and cherished them all. More importantly he was beyond proficient in their application on the field of battle. He may have looked like a pompous arse, but personal style didn’t stop an elf from knowing exactly how to disembowel someone with a Haithian falx or drop them at thirty paces with an Ixan throwing axe.<br/><br/>Heinrich returned his attention to the odd couple.<br/><br/><b>‘I hope you’re treating our guest kindly, Paracelsi. I’d hate to have to report that one of Rittmeister Emlin’s pets has been misbehaving. Or has been damaged for that matter.’</b><br/><br/><br/><b><span style="text-decoration: underline">The Library</span></b><br/><br/>To say that Anina was seething with rage might have possibly been the understatement of the year. The rational, right thinking part of her brain was throwing a tantrum and tossing pots and pans around, but her base functions were singing a more pliant tune. She moved without intent and obeyed the dirty, heathen commands of the creature. The gall of the creature, the desecration of her books, it was all a bit. Much.<br/><br/>She knew that she was bleeding, but couldn’t find the impetus to reach for a handkerchief. Even when the ghastly creature used her shirt as a mop and her inner thoughts screamed bloody murder the librarian found she couldn’t muster an iota of independence. The precious pages, ancient and beyond compare were being ruined by the impudent wretch and she still couldn’t do a damned thing about it.<br/><br/>When Grobk released her and she slumped into a chair the look on Anina’s pretty face could only have been described as genocidal. A glimmer of resistance flared and her face broadened into a demented little grin. Magisters were all the same, she realised with the sluggish thoughts of someone not in tune with their own brain any longer. They craved power at self-destructive cost. At least within the Reik they were tamed and pointed at the enemy, not allowed to run free and rampant.<br/><br/>‘Translate this. Or find me the right texts so that I might do it myself.’<br/><br/>Then followed the expected threat of violence.<br/><br/>‘Go, or I’ll feast on your brain for the information myself.’<br/><br/>Anina’s lips began to squirm and work themselves. Words came hard at first, but then as she found her motivation, they oozed out and dripped with contemptuous venom. There was a demented look in the librarian’s eyes as she fought compulsion with the steely iron will one developed in the ruthless pursuit of late book return fees. If she was going to be spoken to in such a manner, all her energy was going to be funneled into what remaining bile she could spew back.<br/><br/><span style="color: #ff0080">‘I can’t translate that, no one speaks Ancient Teutari anymore, I can barely speak old Teutari. Now you take a look around the place. Take a good, long, hard look at what you see here. The entire run of Baron von Hardtbrandt’s Adventures, all ninety five terribly written pages of daring do and military tosh. Every single issue of <i>Die Soldat</i> magazine and <i>Ersaunliche Technologie.</i> Reams of simply awful romantic fiction. My Little Wolfentreuen…<br/>
<br/>
This is a soldier’s library. Do you think that whoever stocked this place through for an instant that people coming here would have an interest in dead languages? Of course they bloody didn’t. This place is stocked to the rafters with easily digestible trash useful for people who spend their lives shooting other people. If you want to get your libido sated, hells, there’s even an erotic fiction section tucked away near the back.’</span><br/><br/>Anina licked her dry lips and made a face. Her nose had become a steady drip.<br/><br/><span style="color: #ff0080">‘As for my brain, then yes, by all means…eat me like the savage you are. I’m sure that will be fun to explain to the Rittmeister why there’s a corpse in the library. I’ve done my service to the Reik, I’m not afraid to die for it. Are you?’</span><br/><br/>The librarian slithered into her chair like a deflated balloon. Whatever vim she had possessed while ranting back at Grobk seemed to have been robbed of her. Her mouth went slack and a small amount of drool appeared at one corner. The bleeding ceased however and her eyes returned to their dazed and confused sunken appearance. Perhaps there was a glimmer or resistance there, it was hard to tell behind the glazed stare.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>