"You can't take what you haven't the authority give." This chance was something he was going to put a strangle-hold on. No one would rip it from him lest they wanted to end up like poor Neily.

"Neither am I about to throw away what I've been granted with some nonentity's blood on my hands." A curl of his lip exposed his sharp eye-tooth, as if he had just walked out of the gates of Hell and hadn't yet shed his horns. The gall that filthy upstart had to think he had to wallow in blood just to get his way.

How Jake was so full-of-himself about that flimsy title of his was almost pathetic enough to make him feel sorry for him. Poor fellow. No lot in life but to strive for a petty banner for him to flag about. Were Gant to roll his eyes they'd have fallen out of his head from the paltriness of it all.

"So quick to unctuously--" He paused, waiting for the wooden cogs to set on fire in Jake's skull, "...That's greasily for you laic folk--to boast about the things you've done with your measly sweat and tears. I hope the little multiple-choice proficiency test you took to reclaim that moniker didn't give you a paper-cut." He derided with a tittering little snicker. He was surprised the hick still knew how to work a pencil, let alone how to fill in the blanks.