Snippet #1301460

"Ze fires of knowledge..." Pierre murmured, his brow furrowing up into an unsightly bundle of wrinkles. "What could zat mean? It cannot be ze Knowledge itself; it would be kind of ridiculous for someone to need ze knowledge to learn a clue about it..." The longer Pierre stared at the small slip of paper, the more he grew frustrated. The riddle seemed to taunt him, laughing at his failed attempts to uncover its secrets.

Just as he was in the middle of concentrating, Pierre heard a rather disorienting noise accompanied by a bright flash of light, the reaction typical of clockwork alchemy. Beval, Pierre thought. Glancing over at his friend, who had sat a table or two away, the man could see that the chimera was transmuting something or other. While Pierre was a little ticked off that the alchemy had disrupted his chain of thought, he was still a bit curious about what his colleague was doing.

Without much further thought, Pierre gathered his things and began to migrate towards Beval's table. Unfortunately, Pierre had chosen the wrong moment to arrive. Just as he was about to sit down, a heavy plume of smoke shot out of the transforming mass and nailed him right in the face. After a few seconds, the geyser had receded, but Pierre's face was already covered in soot. "What ze 'ell is zat?" he asked as the transmutation finished.