I had no intention of posting any further on these matters, but my blood boils so greatly that I must.

Picture this, Sapience. The librarian of Eleusis departs the realms holding over thirty important tomes, some of which are confidential records and some are those that she was given in good faith, while she was Hierophant no less, to put in the Eleusian library. When asked for progress updates, her reasoning for the delay was that she was checking that there were no duplicated tomes. This went on for years, and surely would have been merely a day or less of work. No, for some reason this task was not priorised by her. We will not know the reasoning, nor does it matter. She didn't put the tomes in the library when she should have, and that would have prevented this situation.

The books were indeed never Danna's to gift. If members of Lady Artemis' Order have no right to the books, assume they then passed ownership to Anatral considering he was the one who saved them. When the books passed to Danna, they were not gifted to Danna, they might have been gifted to Eleusis, yes, for them to remain in the library until the end of days, but by her keeping them upon her person, this did not make them any more hers, despite the time she held onto them.

When she departed the realms, they were still Anatral's books. Anatral was distraught at the prospect of Danna having retired and the books being lost forever.

When it was discovered that the CIJ were now holding said books, what do you think would be the first thing he, or anyone, would do?

You would go to the CIJ and respectfully ask for the books to be returned, assuming they were just passed to the CIJ for safekeeping or whatnot. Danna was angry when she left. She clearly believed nobody in Eleusis deserved to have the books. People were wakeful in her final moments. I was wakeful, but instead of acting as she should have done as a representative of Eleusis until the end, she threw what can only be described as a hissy fit, and passed them over to a friend rather than a colleague.

Danna is long gone, and Danna did good things in Eleusis. Unfortunately she tarnished her own memory by this last act, and even worse, claiming that she was forever going to join Lady Artemis in an eternal hunt, while leaving her comrades seething and stung.

When asked if the books would be returned, the CIJ passed back the tomes relating to the Ambassador records, thank you, very noble, but again they never should have seen the hands of the CIJ in the first place.

At that point, do you think Anatral then said don't worry about giving back the tomes, you keep them and we'll just take copies, and they said okay, we don't need any payment, then he skipped off and donated them a handful of gold for their troubles?

You'd be a fool to believe that.

Clearly they were asked for the tomes, and clearly they said no. So if this is inaccurate, how much else is?

If I had no backbone, Rhydian, I would have baulked at the idea of conflict. I would have dropped the matter upon becoming Speaker and just let the dust settle. I would not have proposed bringing it to the public like this.

You'll know how respectful I was in my dealings with you, despite however the former Speaker dealt with matters before. Our final private correspondence was you stating that we were at an impasse. Either we had to pay the requested 2100 credits, or the matter seemingly had to be dropped.

You have the tomes and that puts you in the stronger position here. You get to choose what to do with them, whether to keep them, to sell them off - which is frankly, disgusting, or to do the right thing.

Eleusis is not in the wrong here, the CIJ is. Anybody with half a brain can see it and no, you are not amusing in the slightest.

The Speaker of Eleusis,

Blackwillow

Penned by my hand on the 4th of Sarapin, in the year 903 AF.