Thomas Schreiber

**Thomas Schreiber** is from Berlin, Germany and part of the same group of postulants as Jess Brightwell.

## Biography

### Early Life

Thomas grew up on a farm in Berlin, Germany and wants to join the Great Library of Alexandria with a placement in engineering. His grandfather was a silver band for many years. He grew up tinkering with things and inventing toys and tools. For example, he creates letter blocks for his younger cousins to help them learn to spell.

### *Ink and Bone*

Thomas meets Jess on their way to Alexandria to become postulants. The two immediately hit it off. Thomas begins teaching Jess German.

Partway through his training, Thomas is assigned special half-day training in Artifex on top of Scholar Christopher Wolfe's lessons. He is to study the making of blueprints. He is very excited about it. When he tells Khalila Seif and Jess about his invention that "will make the Codex obsolete," Khalila becomes worried, saying it sounds like heresy. Thomas brushes aside her worries.

Thomas invents a clockwork chess-playing automaton.

Before being taken to the Iron Tower, the postulants are allowed to say good-bye to Morgan Hault. Thomas gives her a clockwork bird, saying he built it without a cage.

That night, Thomas shows Jess his invention, it's a printing press. Jess immediately realizes how dangerous this is and tells Thomas to hide and not tell anyone else about it while he goes to Wolfe. Thomas says he's only written about it in his personal journal, not knowing that the Library can access it. After telling Wolfe and Captain Santi about Thomas's invention, they rush back to Ptolemy House, but everyone is gone and there's a pool of blood in Thomas's room. Jess, Santi, and Wolfe are brought to the Serapeum where the others, except for Thomas, are waiting. Jess is brought before the Artifex Magnus. The Artifex Magnus leads Jess and the others to believe that Thomas was killed. When the rest of the postulants receive their Library contracts and assignments, Khalila asks what Thomas was going to get. Wolfe says he was going to be offered the incredibly rare contract of a lifetime appointment as a Research Scholar, which would've taken him a gold band Scholar.

### *Paper and Fire*

Thomas is not dead, but has been imprisoned by the Library. While imprisoned, Thomas continues to be outwardly cooperative and inwardly quite stubborn. He has made groundbreaking observations on engineering and clever observations about the maintenance of the automata within the prison. Thomas has been told that his friends are dead.

Jess and the others are eventually able to break Thomas out of the Library's secret dungeon underneath the Serapeum in Rome. After his imprisonment and torture, Thomas is determined to weaken the Library's hold on the world with the construction and distribution of his printing press.

### *Smoke and Iron*

Thomas, Dario, Khalila, Glain, and Santi are all prisoners on a ship bound for Alexandria from England. The ship belongs to Red Ibrahim who has switched alliances to make a deal with the Archivist.

### *Sword and Pen*

Thomas is forced to open Heron's tomb by the Archivist.

Thomas is going to replicate the Great Archives. He makes Jess Chief Printer.

## Physical Description

Thomas is a huge young man. He looks big enough to bend iron but moves very carefully. He is a blond and blue-eyed sixteen year old. He speaks English with a German accent. He has meaty hands and his arms are the size of healthy young trees. Despite his massive size, Thomas can be incredibly stealthy. He can't manage to whisper.

## Personality

Thomas is a genius for inventing and creating new automata. He is incredibly kind and caring. He is brave and dedicated to doing the right thing, even when doing so results in danger. Thomas is "too considerate by half." He is polite, shy, thoughtful, and respectful. Thomas is almost always cheerfully optimistic and full of warmth and understanding of others. He can't conceal his feelings and emotions. He's placid and kind, but can be intimidating when he wants to be. Thomas in not interested in being rich, despite the fact that he can invent things that would make him incredibly wealthy. Thomas is very naive. He's an innocent in a complicated world, and thus is vulnerable. But despite this, he can see that the system of the Library needs to change. He believes the printing press allows the Library to adapt and removes the reliance on the decreasing numbers of Obscurists. Thomas is a pure believer in the Library. Until becoming a postulant, he had never thought to question what the Library does or represents. Thomas grows from a shy young man into someone who is suffering from trauma.

## Trivia

* Thomas is a terrible shot.
* According to Thomas, Germany doesn't have many automata.
* He speaks German and English.
* He is very skrunkly aww 🥺🥺🤗🤗💞💞🫶😋😋

## Gallery

By @thelonelyrainbowenbyBy @thelonelyrainbowenby