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Abbey House | 8:52 PM | First Day
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yeah," she said, "but that was kind of assuming you wouldn''t stumble right into a perfect opportunity right afterwards."
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angry with you, I''m just..." She hesitated, biting her lip. "Confused. Worried."
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years, just because it''s a little awkward."
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thousand times more frantic and miserable than it needs to be."
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asked them about the situation, that''s like saying we have plenty of time to cross a lake when we don''t even have a boat."
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lot more questions."
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me see him, and I had a myriad of reasonable explanations for why I''d want to without even having to touch on anything complicated. For her, it could come across terribly.
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appearing intelligent. And has some reason to want to."
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wildly optimistic. You could blame it on a lot of things, like the fact that the guest house''s kitchen was much smaller and difficult to work in compared to the one in the main building, or that the pantry it had was so under-stocked that a conjuration incantation had to be dug out of some dark corner just to supply the meat. Or you could (probably most accurately) blame the fact that there was no chef.
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traditional Rhunbardic cuisine, and less charitably as an assemblage of ingredients roasted without much skill or creativity, with a great deal of fat layered on to compensate for these deficiencies. Roasted quail with bacon wrappings. Crudely spiced potatoes, some of which had been mashed. Parsnips, carrots and broccoli. Lots of gravy.
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had reappeared at some point, but gone straight to his room with the intent of eating alone) plus Mehit, Neferuaten, Linos, and even Sacnicte and Yantho, since it was decided it would be unreasonable for them to prepare their own meals at such a late hour - though Linos told us that it was commonplace for the ''stewards of the sanctuary'' to eat alongside the order''s upper ranks anyway, to foster a sense of solidarity within the organization. (Whatever that meant.)
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complicated, though. Laced with intermittent mischief and somberness.
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table, and had to drag one in from a bedroom and stick it on the end.
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That was surprisingly rude. The boy glared at her in response.
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I haven''t had any formal training, but I have a decent amount of experience. Really, I''m better suited as an assistant, but I can manage. He paused for a moment, before adding: Though, what happened to the pantry means we have less ingredient diversity than I''m used to, so it might not be up to everyone''s standards.
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That is very kind of you to offer, but that doesn''t seem appropriate. You are a guest, and have other obligations.
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any trouble at all," she said, with a smile. "It''ll be in the evening, so it should be well after our presentations are done, I presume?" She left the question open, her eyes turning to some of the authority figures in the room.
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yes," he said, seeming to enjoy this reaction. "but I want to hear it first hand."
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villain," Linos protested, though his smile made it clear he wasn''t truly offended. "They don''t have to answer. And besides, this whole, uh--" He spun his finger in a circle. "This whole event isn''t just about them giving us a lecture. It''s supposed to be a chance for us to meet some of the brightest people in the new generation! I don''t want some pre-prepared line like we''ll get at the event. I''m curious."
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Well," Kamrusepa said, eagerly. "Personally, I think I was drawn to it because of a period of illness I had as a child. I was stuck in bed for a few weeks, wasting away, and it got me thinking about the human condition for the first time. About how much we exist at the whims of our fragile biology, even to this day, and how much we stood to gain by changing that."
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matter what I caught? It''s irrelevant to the explanation." She hesitated. "I caught the Umbrican Flu. Type of gastroenteritis, nasty thing. They only developed a treatment for it a decade ago."
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that close," Ran said, slicing a parsnip down the center. "Don''t get the wrong idea."
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