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!!0ZviLFh59My 01/29/12(Sun)20:17 No.17726754 File1327886227.jpg-(88 KB, 690x714, hipster beretta.jpg)
>>17726583
You eye the huge, ancient, leatherbound book as the watchmaker lets it slam into the table.
"Is... is that a..." you stammer apprehensively.
"Oooooh yes many powerful spells in this tome, ALAKAZAM!" the watchmaker exclaims, flipping the book open dramatically. You flinch backwards, expecting all sorts of spectacular things, but see only pictures. The old man favors you with a jaundiced eye, and begins paging through the old photo album.
"Here." He taps one photo with a wizened old finger. "Conrad Brandt. This is I. Before the Great War." You examine a picture of a young man, younger then you are now, standing next to an ancient tractor, the kind that were little more then self-propelled generators. "My family's first machine. I fell in love with it, and they said it loved me. 'Conrad, Conrad,' they'd call, 'Come chase the devil out of the tractor!'" He chuckles a little, then turns the page. There you see the young watchmaker, looking smug in a shiny new uniform jacket, a K-98 Mauser cradled in his arm. "I refused the helmet for the picture," he says. "Fhaking spike. Vhat for? Stick your apple on it, save it for later?" He humphs, and turns the page, tapping another picture for your perusal. You see the young Conrad wielding a heavy wrench, chasing another young German man.
"Things were so different back then. A farm with a tractor was a rich farm. All the soldiers, so many came straight out of the farm fields. Did not know an engine from their own ass. I did. The aviators stole me from the field artillery so fast I thought I was being kidnapped."
"Who's that guy you're chasing?" you ask.
"That would be Immelman," he says. "He blamed my machine gun - mine! - for costing him his first kill. I told him, 'Conrad shall claim his first kill immediately,' and Immelman, he runs like the hounds of hell were after him." The watchmaker gives you a serious look. "They were." |