Dr. Anna's Prescriptions

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Job Sign-Up: Page 6, Post Number 148

-Hargeon Town, Dr. Anna's Home-

Wearing her green, gold, and white outfit and carrying no weapons except for Ses Revanche in her boot, Leona had also worn her Argent Gloves in case a fight broke out during her visit to Dr. Anna or she needed to do some heavy lifting for the doctor. On her back was her backpack with the list of books on Ancient Museria she had not yet purchased tucked safely inside. It had only been two days since Leona had been to Jobaasa's Rare Tomes and purchased four books on the subject, but she felt like four old books was not nearly enough to get a good start on any serious research on Ancient Museria. After looking at Professor Rosetta's 1,200-page behemoth work titled Ancient Desierto she quickly realized that the book's title was the shortest thing about it. After spending two hours trying to get through the chapter on the founding of Museria and not getting very far, Leona swallowed her pride and decided to go get help from a professional on the subject.

Leona waved at a few people who had gathered to marvel at the sight of a Wizard Saint among them. The starstruck people waved back and quickly went on their way, leaving the blonde to concentrate on the task that had brought her to Hargeon Town. That task was to ask Dr. Anna for some recommended books on the subject of Ancient Museria.

Dr. Anna was the best resource for knowledge on ancient civilizations the Wizard Saint knew. The former was a doctor of archaeology at Crocus Magicka University and she also knew people who knew things from way before Leona's time. If the doctor could not help her directly, perhaps she could point Leona towards someone who could. Asking the older woman for help was worth a try.

Standing outside the doctor's single-story home/office, Leona gently knocked three times on the door and stepped back to wait for the door to be opened. It did not take long for the door to open and for a short brown-haired woman with glasses to answer it. She looked up into Leona's face and smiled when she recognized the blonde.

"Well, if it isn't Miss Jarnefeldt, the Wizard Saint of Courage! Do come in!" Dr. Anna bade Leona. Leona started to move towards the door but then stopped herself. What if the doctor was busy and really needed to get back to work?

"Do you have time for me to come in or are you busy with a project for the university?" Leona asked the woman before setting foot in the house. Leona did not want to take up the archaeologist's time with half-witted questions if she was busy with an important project for the university. Dr. Anna nodded.

"I decided to take a few days off from the university since I had some personal leave I needed to use or lose, so time is no object. I'm not busy with anything at the moment either, so I've got plenty of time to talk to you." Dr. Anna answered. She had indicated that she had taken some personal leave and was not busy with anything, so the blonde's guilt ebbed away.

"I'd like to ask you for some advice on something." Leona stated the purpose of her visit to the brown-haired woman. The woman looked at Leona and smiled.

"Don't just stand there like an ancient statue, Miss Jarnefeldt! Come in and tell me about it!" Dr. Anna bade her. Leona walked into the house/office and the doctor shut the door behind them so that the Wizard Saint could discuss her problem in private.

-Inside Dr. Anna's Home-

"So, what brings you to Hargeon Town?" Dr. Anna cheerfully asked Leona while walking to her office and grabbing a cold cup of coffee that had rested precariously on the one clean corner of her desk. Once she had the cup in hand she strolled back to Leona and attentively listened to the blonde.

"I'd like to ask you for some advice on something, Dr. Anna. You see, I'm trying to do some research on an ancient kingdom of Desierto named Museria. I've found four really old books at a bookstore in Capital Crocus, but I don't think that four books is nearly enough to start any serious research with." Leona started discussing her project with the doctor.

"Oh? What old books did you manage to find?" Dr. Anna asked with genuine curiosity.

"Ancient Desierto by Professor Henry Rosetta, Shifting Sands, Shifting Fortunes: The Decline Of Museria by Dr. Alan Klaus, Museria: The Kingdom Of Sand And Mystery by Professor Barnabus Klein, and Sand-Splitter: Blade Of The King by Dr. Edward Crouch." Leona answered without having to resort to her notes. Dr. Anna recognized the titles and let out a long whistle.

"Yeah, those are pretty old, especially Professor Rosetta's book. I studied under Professor Henry Rosetta about twenty years ago and he was a long-winded man. His lectures were so verbose that he could literally put students to sleep and could do the same with professors at seminars. His books are pretty lengthy even for a scholarly work and aren't written for laypeople, but if you can get through them the man knows his stuff. Every detail's been painstakingly researched, so you can rest assured that you're getting good information." Dr. Anna confirmed Leona's opinion that the books she had purchased from Jobaasa's Rare Tomes were indeed old. She had also indirectly told the blonde that while Professor Rosetta's works were lengthy and hard to read for anyone not studying the field, if a reader could get through them they were very good sources of information. That answered one of the novice scholar's questions.

"Any work by Dr. Alan Klaus is a good resource to use. He's more concise than Professor Rosetta and just as detailed. He also writes at a level that anyone can understand. If you see any more of his books, don't hesitate to get them." The doctor weighed in on the author of the second book Leona had purchased. The Wizard Saint added the name of Dr. Alan Klaus to the "Good Resources" column of her mental list of authors. Leona wondered what Dr. Anna would have to say about the work of Professor Barnabus Klein.

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"Professor Klein... well, he's more of a mixed bag. His writing style is accessible to the layperson, but he accomplishes that by sensationalizing the subject matter to make it more interesting. He also tends to get too emotionally connected to historical people and subjects; he tends to take sides instead of remaining objective and trying to look at the whole picture. I'd read any of his work with caution and think twice before using him as a resource." Dr. Anna warned Leona to read Museria: The Kingdom Of Sand And Mystery with a critical eye instead of taking it at face value as a serious scholarly resource. Leona made a note of that and asked for the doctor's judgment on Sand-Splitter: Sword Of The King.

"What about Dr. Crouch?" Leona asked the woman. Dr. Anna frowned.

"I'll be frank, Leona. My personal experiences with the man may color my viewpoint, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. You might want to take what I'm about to say with a shaker of salt." Dr. Anna warned the Wizard Saint that what she was about to say was not to be taken at face value.

"The man's hard to get along with because his people skills are lacking, to put it nicely. He's highly opinionated, he's got to always be right, and he doesn't mind insulting people if he thinks they're wrong. Most students dislike him and even some of his colleagues find him to be a chore to deal with for more than a few minutes at a time, which should tell you a lot about how poor his people skills are." Dr. Anna started telling Leona how she felt about Dr. Crouch.

"Another strike against Dr. Crouch is that he doesn't think much of females in academia. He's still sore about me finding the Lestrek temple in Forgotten Deserts and thinks I only accomplished it because I had the help of a Wizard Saint. That's technically true, but he can't take any pleasure in being right because the Wizard Saint who helped me was also female. I think that gets to him almost as much as me finding the temple." The female scholar continued her critique of the book's author.

"Why does Dr. Crouch dislike women so much?" Leona pointedly asked Dr. Anna. She had grown up in Desierto's patriarchal society, so she was no stranger to being treated as somewhat inferior to men. The standards were relaxed in Nebdoui because the high death rate and low population made holding extreme patriarchal attitudes impractical, but Nebdoui was no bastion of egalitarianism. She had gotten an unpleasant reminder of that on the night Joshua insisted that she was going to marry him whether she wanted to or not. Leona's mother was another reminder of the old ways; Sophia held firmly onto the belief that her daughter's greatest purpose in life was to return to Nebdoui, stay at home, and bear children to repopulate the village.

"Crouch is from one of the old families of Crocus Magicka University. His great-great-grandfather was a professor. So was great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father. He's stuck in the past and in the old days women didn't have much place in the university other than as secretaries. I studied at Crocus Magicka University at a time when it was just becoming acceptable for women to aspire to be professionals in a field." Dr. Anna commented with a hint of sadness. Leona could see that the academic still had unpleasant memories of having to fight constantly to be taken seriously as first a student and now as an archaeologist. Dr. Anna set those feelings aside and spoke again.

"While it may sound like I'm doing nothing but bashing the man because he's got poor people skills and is stuck in the past, I'll be the first to say that Dr. Crouch has his good points. He's a devoted scholar who always does his research and never cuts corners. He's honest to a fault, so you don't have to worry about him stabbing you in the back because he'll tell you exactly how he feels. He's hard to get along with and even harder to get to know, but if he ever takes a liking to you you'll have a friend to the end." Dr. Anna praised Dr. Crouch after laying out his flaws for the Wizard Saint. That exposition told a lot about the man, but what about his book?

"What about Dr. Crouch's book?" Leona asked to get things back on track.

"Oh, right! Well... to be honest, I haven't read Sand-Splitter: Sword Of The King. But I've read other works from the man and Dr. Crouch researches everything down to the last detail. It's safe to use him as a resource." Dr. Anna gave her opinion not on Sand-Splitter: Sword Of The King, but on the man's work in general. Leona decided to take the good doctor's word on it and make Dr. Crouch's book a priority to read and not just because it discussed the myths surrounding a historical weapon that she might have actually laid her hands upon.

"Was there anything else you needed from me?" Dr. Anna asked the Wizard Saint while calmly sipping her cold coffee. Leona could not understand how someone could willingly drink cold coffee, but then again some people probably could not understand how someone like Leona got to lead a guild with an intellectual mission. Leona could fully understand where those people were coming from, but that was a subject for another day.

"I have a list of books that I wanted to purchase so that I could do research on Museria. I know that I should develop the ability to tell good sources from bad on my own, but since I'm starting out I wanted to get your opinion on what books were good resources and which ones are best left on the shelf." Leona stated to Dr. Anna, pulling off her backpack and fishing out the list, then handing it to the doctor. The academic sipped from her cup of cold coffee and browsed over the list, frowning as she did so. That did not inspire much confidence in Leona.

"I see that you've got a lot of old books listed here. That can be something of a problem because most of these titles are forty to fifty years old. You need some modern sources to balance things out so that you get the full picture." Dr. Anna factually stated before heading to her office with the list in hand. Once inside she opened a small desk drawer and pulled out a red ink pen, then began to cross out a few titles on the list while frowning each time she did so. Again that gesture did not inspire much confidence in Leona. After a few minutes spent double-checking the list and scribbling some notes off to the side Dr. Anna scribbled something on the bottom of it and returned with it, handing it back to Leona.

"I've crossed out the names of works you should leave on the shelf and gave reasons why you shouldn't bother with them. I've also listed a few bookstores that you should go to for some more modern books." Dr. Anna announced with a smile. Leona took a look at the edited list and saw that almost half of the remaining works had been crossed out. She saw the reasons for doing so written in small, neat letters beside each title that had been crossed out.

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Leona looked down at the bottom of the list and saw a couple of place names written in red ink. One of them was the bookstore in Capital Crocus Mall named The Scholar's Resource. Another was the Crocus Magicka University library, but reading that name caused Leona to blink. She was not a student of the university, so how could she gain access to its resources without having to pull a lot of strings with the university or actually enrolling?

"I can tell what you're thinking by the look on your face, Leona. You're not a student, so you think the university library is off-limits to you. Normally it would be, but there's a legitimate way around that problem. The school has a program named Outside Scholars for people interested in using the library for research but who aren't students. In exchange for monthly donations to the university, Outside Scholars members get access to the library during school hours." Dr. Anna explained why she had listed Crocus Magicka University library as a possible resource despite such a thing not making sense at first glance. Leona now understood why the doctor had done what she did. The blonde knew that she was not university material, so joining Outside Scholars was the next-best thing and a legitimate way to gain access to the university's library for research without throwing away money and looking like an idiot for failing classes.

Leona looked away from Dr. Anna and back towards the list to see what other recommendations she had made. In addition to Jobaasa's Rare Tomes, Leona spotted a name that she had not seen in a very long time. The name was Written Antiquities, an upscale store with a retro style she had not visited since the time she went to pick up a book order on behalf of a collector of antiquities named Benjamin Rellock. Leona had not gotten to really browse the store's offerings on her first visit, but her new mission of purchasing books on the kingdom of Museria would give her plenty of reason to see what Written Antiquities had to offer.

"I recommend both The Scholar's Resource and Crocus Magicka University library for more recent books on Museria. I recommend Written Antiquities because I've found a few old and valuable works that no other place offers, but bring your wallet because those books aren't cheap. Jobaasa's Rare Tomes is another good choice, but again you'll need to bring your wallet." Dr. Anna explained the logic behind her recommendations. Leona could not help but to be amused with the university being listed; that was Dr. Anna's alma mater and she had shown more than a little favoritism in suggesting it, but if the doctor recommended something it was definitely worth checking out. Leona took the revised list and put it into her backpack.

"Thanks for your time and help, Doctor." Leona thanked the doctor for her time. She had gotten everything she needed for today and had a few good starting points from which to pick up research materials.

"It's no problem, Miss Jarnefeldt. I owe you big for finding the Lestrek temple. That find helped give my career a much-needed boost at the right time." Dr. Anna replied.

With that Leona bade the doctor farewell and left the house, leaving the doctor to enjoy her time off. The Wizard Saint was going to return to Silver Wolf Guild Hall and spend the rest of the day doing paperwork and other duties, then go to her room and plan for a trip to Capital Crocus. Some time soon she would return to Capital Crocus Mall to visit The Scholar's Resource and see what books it had to offer an amateur scholar like her.

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