Quoted By:
>Zlatino
Your knuckles rapped twice on the glass table, "Zlatino. I'm taking the internship with Zlatino, sir. I didn't come all the way here to the Glitterglobe for second best. I'm in."
Opportunity. Hot girls. Success. A life unlike anything you'd ever known. That's why you were here.
"Fine. As you wish. Just don't say I didn't warn you." The Tech-Priest sighed, a hiss of escaping steam from somewhere beneath his robes. "Sign here. Miss Seflejo, the rest of the Schola paperwork is yours."
Seflejo leaned closer to you, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. "Good choice."
---
Later, once the Tech-Priest had left, you turned to Seflejo. "So, why are the students here... special?"
She hesitated, then mumbled, "The Schola is for those who would be better suited for a more... Imperial standard of success, yes? Like yourself."
Wasn't this school full of Glitterkin? Didn't your tarot say that Glitterkin were far "superior" to normal humans, or something like that? Superiority wasn't a guarantee, it seemed.
You raised an eyebrow. "Right." The word hung heavy, laced with unspoken questions.
---
The next class felt like a lobotomy with paperwork. Details of Imperial bureaucracy swam before your eyes: filing protocols for requisitioning a shoelace, triplicate reports for a missing wire – mind-numbing minutiae that gnawed at your spirit.
Dinner was a tense affair, but you snuck Jamarco a genuine smile and a whispered "Thanks" under the Drill Abbot's nose. Zlatino. Tomorrow. Intern. That's what the papers you had signed said. Excitement bubbled, chasing away the day's fatigue. Sleep was crucial, and the promise of a real start had you drifting off with a grateful grin.
---
Leaving the Schola for the first time in ages, you and Jamarco boarded a levi-bus early in the morning. Excitement crackled in the air as you donned the crimson apprentice robes he gave you - a symbol of your commitment to the Cult Mechanicus. You got an obligatory steel mask and silver bodypaint from him too, a reminder of your obscene organic mass and insufficient devotion to the Machine God (you weren't sold on the whole flesh-is-weak thing, but whatever, those were the rules of the house of the Omnissiah around here. You'd only need them there).
* Zlatino apprentice uniform acquired *
* Penitent Mask and bodypaint acquired *
