Salazar couldn't stop staring at Cegrips' report. That was it? That was all? Just a lump of theories, none of them backed by facts? A couple of samples taken, but still - after months! - not analysed?
And all that fuss about the stinger rotting after three days, although no-one knew how long ago it was cut from the kirosta. Orphie Dradius was missed for three weeks already before she - and the stinger - were found. There was no kirosta corpse nearby, just that stinger, which made it possible that she found it somewhere else, or cut it from the kirosta somewhere else. The kirosta might have been alive and then killed by her, or already dead when she found it. Actually the strange colour might have been an implication of the state of decomposition under the conditions of the kitin lair, with fungi or somesuch endemic to that place. And then - yes, of course it could be a mutation. It could have been ill. But then it also could be a new breed. There were many, many possibilities.
Anyway, that report could have been written just a few days after the discovery, after the rot set in on the stinger, the samples were taken, and the parts of the stinger prepared - and therefore useless for further study of its substance.
The whole thing was a disgrace. If Cegrips could not come up with something spectacular from the samples, this would not go down as the most shining hour for both Cegrips, nor Pyr Academy. And as far as the Rangers were concerned, they hardly learned more than they already knew.
And all that fuss about the stinger rotting after three days, although no-one knew how long ago it was cut from the kirosta. Orphie Dradius was missed for three weeks already before she - and the stinger - were found. There was no kirosta corpse nearby, just that stinger, which made it possible that she found it somewhere else, or cut it from the kirosta somewhere else. The kirosta might have been alive and then killed by her, or already dead when she found it. Actually the strange colour might have been an implication of the state of decomposition under the conditions of the kitin lair, with fungi or somesuch endemic to that place. And then - yes, of course it could be a mutation. It could have been ill. But then it also could be a new breed. There were many, many possibilities.
Anyway, that report could have been written just a few days after the discovery, after the rot set in on the stinger, the samples were taken, and the parts of the stinger prepared - and therefore useless for further study of its substance.
The whole thing was a disgrace. If Cegrips could not come up with something spectacular from the samples, this would not go down as the most shining hour for both Cegrips, nor Pyr Academy. And as far as the Rangers were concerned, they hardly learned more than they already knew.
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Salazar CaradiniFilira Matia
Royal Historian
Member of the Royal Academy of Yrkanis
First Seraph of the Order of the Argo Navis