>>6178491Saemus' apartment is empty, so he has to be working downstairs in the Undercroft or out and about. Either way, you decide that catching him later is a good idea. You have to get in some practice. Someone's life is depending on it.
You make good time to the Undercroft elevator. You have all your credentials ready for every step of the way and waste no time. You walk into the armory and request your armor and just about one of everything; shield, jarngriepr, machete, flamberge, battleaxe, you even requisition a maul. By the time you're finished getting into your wooden plate, the weapons are all on a cart with wheels. Pulling the cart and feeling its weight brings a smile to your face. Having all the tools makes you feel a bit more secure about what's going to happen.
As you're hauling out the weapons, you look down the hall to make it over to the training room doors, and you see Saemus, similarly hauling a huge palette of thick branches and logs to the same pair of doors. He's not dressed in one of Katriina's mad experiments, so he seems particularly chipper and full of energy today.
"Hey! Giving that suit of yours a good go aroun', finally?" He whips the hair out of his face as he examines your gear. "I remember you being a fan of this kinda stuff."
You give a big grin. "Yeah! I'm glad to finally have it. Especially since it won't eat me alive." There's something odd about the branches he's hauling, but you can't pin it down immediately. "Does Ms. Jousten have you haul wood like this every day you're not deployed?"
Immediately the Irishman's temper flares up, though he's still trying to be jovial. "Nope, not at all! We all do big things here. Some real, important work..." His sentence drifts off, and he doesn't continue.
As you both reach the doors at the same time, the smell of the wood hits your nostrils. <span class="mu-i">Freshly cut.</span> Its potent scent means there's still a lot of loose particles that haven't been blown off by wind or anything. It must've been cut less than an hour ago. You've no idea how the logistics of getting the branches down here work, but this feels way too fresh to have been logged, chopped up, and then brought down here in a van and some secret cargo elevator.
Putting the peculiarity in the back of your mind, you push the door open and step into the training room.
