Ves'ra left the mages guild happy, she'd be able to work on her ignorance soon enough. Learning new stuff was always fun to do. She had about three hundred silver left if she discounted the money she'd need to complete her lessons and live in the inn while doing so.

That meant she had enough to try lots of human food! She didn't hope for too much - humans ate too much plants and way too little fresh meat. She would give them the benefit of the doubt though, it was obvious humans had more success than her village, so perhaps they had actual food somewhere too.

As Ves'ra entered the mages guild thinking of the library on the next morning she had to admit she was disappointed. She didn't find anything that sold fresh meat - and even some of the meat was tainted with plants.

Well, at least she wouldn't have to worry about her money running out - what she ate was easy to come by and quite cheap.

The library was huge - or looked huge until she started circling energy through her head again. It was still full of thousands of books even after that, but it wasn't nearly as impressive as the endless rows of books, going on forever and high up in the sky.

The walls where she came out were full of doors - she'd probably use one of these rooms for learning. Ves'ra's musing was stopped by an old human soon after.

“You're Ves'ra?”

“Yes.”

“Good, good. Follow me, we can start right away.” He said with a strange grin while wringing his hands.

Once they entered one of the rooms and sat down she waited for the man to speak up.

“So, what can you tell me about you? Where are you from? How long did you take do get here? Do you have any previous knowledge?” He asked, surprising her. She narrowed her eyes, what were the chances to meet a human that didn't want his money first? Not high she decided.

“Don't you want your pay first?” She asked. The human somehow seemed unhappy, even though it didn't enter his voice.

“Oh, silly me, I was so excited about teaching a kobold I forgot about it. You have the money here?”

“I do.” With that she took the money she fetched out of the merchant's guild the day before. She really wasn't happy about things, the human clearly wanted something from her - she'd have to be careful of him.

“Very good, that's enough for a week, you'll have to pay more if you want more after that.

Now, returning to my earlier questions?”

“I know your language, but have no experience with reading.” The human waited for a bit before continuing, obviously waiting for her to answer his other questions. She decided not to notice, that was definitely the easiest.

“Well, let's start then. Common is the easiest language there is, made to be learnt quickly and by everyone, so reading and writing is easier than in most other languages …” After the man droned on about the history of the language they were speaking for the next hour Ves'ra had enough.

“I want to learn how to read, not how the language came to be.” She interrupted him.

“Sorry about that my dear, I just love the topic and can lose myself. Just interrupt me if I go off target again. So the written language is made out of …”

The remaining three hours were actually useful, and she was confident she'd be able to learn how to read in two weeks. She wouldn't be fast by any standards, but that was secondary and would happen in time.

---

Vamir waited for the teacher with expectant eyes. He was sure he'd be able to put up a quest to find the stupid kobold's village today and have someone take care of her after.

“So how'd it go? Where can I find that village?” He asked.

“That savage has no clue how things work! Why did you ask me to teach it?”

“I asked something.”

“I have no clue. I asked it what you wanted but it isn't smart enough to remember my questions. I didn't even ask for pay like you asked me to, but it paid me anyways. Now I have to teach it for a week, do you know how disgusting that is you fucking twig?”

“No need to get personal. There is something in it for you too, get over it. You still have a week to find out, if you don't you won't get anything.”

He really hoped the racist idiot would just do his job. That man was the worst teacher in the guild - he talked about everything but what he was told to teach. In the worst case he'd have to knock the beast out and torture the information out of her.

Over the next week Vamir became more and frustrated, the idiot wasn't able to get any information, apparently the kobold didn't get even the most simple of social clues. He decided he'd have to take drastic measures - he didn't know if the kobold would ever return to the city - and even if it did, he wouldn't know about it.

He would follow it back towards its inn this evening and use some of his less legal contacts to bring it in.