"Everything is identical," he murmured with growing astonishment, glasses slipping down his nose as he bent over the samples. "Same quality, same age, same processing… No variation."
The young apprentice started examining the remaining backpacks, his expression transforming from that anticipated dread to pure relief.
"There aren't 'different elemental types looking the same' here like you warned me about," he reported with a voice rising in pitch from excitement, the joy of someone discovering their first day wouldn't be the hell he'd been promised. "No different parts from different beasts, no mixed ages. Everything, absolutely everything, is first-quality weaver silk."
The three evaluators looked at each other.
Understanding passing between them. The kind of understanding that came from shared professional experience, from knowing exactly what they'd been saved from.
Then, simultaneously, they smiled.
