“No,” she said quickly. “You’re too hungry to keep a temptation like that near to hand.”
I rolled my eyes. Not that she was wrong, but still. “Fine. Where exactly do you propose keeping it, then?”
She looked down at herself, noting her decided lack of pockets. Save the two, of course. For a moment, she glanced up at me, as if daring me to say something. I just quirked an eyebrow.
“Very well. I’ll carry the crystals,” she said finally, her hand outstretched.
“What if we run into that barrel-golem thing again?” I argued, though that did not stop me from surrendering the bundle. “Won’t they get in the way?”
“No more than they would you,” she retorted.
Carelessly, she tossed the hunk of dried meat in with the quartz-like rods and retied it. Not that I was too worried. If anything, the jerky could use a bit of tenderizing.
“I’m too injured right now, and besides, what would I fight it with? That stick?” she asked. Sarcastically, I assumed. “That reminds me… what were you saying about it earlier? I couldn’t make it out over your chewing.”
“Oh, just that it might have been a magic wand,” I replied.
Curious—but mostly trying to think of something other than food—I went to pick it up for closer inspection. If it was a wand, it did not look anything like what I would imagine. There was nothing fancy about it, just a length of wood—a touch shy of my forearm in length—and perfectly cylindrical. More like a dowel rod than anything. It had not even been varnished.
“Well, of course it’s magical. It was in a chest wasn’t it?” she replied carelessly. “But it’s still just a stick… or wand or whatever. How am I supposed to fight with it?”
So, little miss knows-everything-about-the-Dungeon doesn’t know what a magic wand is, eh? Instead of answering, I took her hand and slapped the stick back into it. “Mia, be a dear and tell me what you can about the engraving here, please.”
“No. You have to ask nicely first,” she replied primly.
“I did ask nicely.”
“You didn’t ask at all.”
I made a face. However much Mia might claim to be some extension of my Will, the farmer of my land, or whatever that ridiculous metaphor had been, she seemed determined to remain a thorn in my side.
But maybe that was a good thing. If she was too compliant, it would probably upset me more.
“Fine.” Struggling not to roll my eyes, I rephrased. “Mia, would you be a dear and tell me what you can about this engraving? Please.”
“Mmm~ There it is! Haii love being your slut!”
Lynnria’s eyebrows knitted together. “Did she just… ask you to make that into a question?”
I did not answer immediately. My brain had decided that reality simply was not making much sense anymore, and a soft reset was required to set things right again. So I had just been staring vacantly into space. However, I did eventually manage to form my lips around the word, “Yup.”
“But why would she want to swear at you?”
“Cram it, trash-fire baby!” Mia yelled before settling herself. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my world. I’ll be but a moment.”
I nodded absently before focusing back on Lynnria.
“Uh… she’s been going through some… stuff… lately, so the swearing has… hmph…”
I shook my head, struggling for a way to clue Lynnria in without saying it out loud. Not for the first time, I wished Jax were there, if for no other reason than to just blurt it all out in as crass a manner as possible. She was good for ripping the band-aid off.
But before I could piece together something more polite, Mia had returned.
“Okay, looks like a standard keyed-phrase-activation setup, though this one is pretty simple,” she informed me.
For a moment, I heard some sounds in the background that reminded me of glass clinking together, then the hologram she sometimes used for visuals flickered on just long enough to focus on her hands. She was holding a pair of the Word-books up, though this time only bothering to point out their titles.
Generation and Dirt?
“You’ll be pleased to note, these two Words are contained within the engraving. Though, this one,“ she tapped on Generation, “has been modified by an article to change its lexical class. I can’t be more specific than that, though. You’re missing the Word that would allow you to understand it directly.”
Its lexical… class? I scratched my head. What is that? Like a part of speech? So… it’s using an article to modify… I guess, a noun into an adjective? Or a verb, maybe?
Ordinarily, the concept would have been pretty difficult to wrap my head around. It had been a long time since I had gone over any of this stuff in school, and it was hardly my area of study. However, I had recently been infused with quite the number of languages from binding Arx, so I now had enough counterexamples to be able to process it fairly well. At least in theory.
English often handles lexical transformations through the use of prefixes and suffixes—effectively altering the word itself. To use the most relevant example, the noun, Generation, could become Generational if it was an adjective or Generate as a verb. Though, using English as a baseline for understanding anything is a recipe for disaster.
English is horribly broken.
In any case, whatever this overall Language was called, it apparently used a system whereby Words could be directly modified by a separate Word—an article—to function differently as needed. It seemed a little clunky, but I had to suppose that since everyone had to collect each Word individually, a system like this would drastically reduce the number of individual Words a person would need.
Though, in thinking about it, some words existed naturally as either nouns or verbs or what-have-you. Like… what would the noun-form of ‘run’ be? I mean sure, you could refer to ‘a run’ but that really cannot be understood without the physical concept of running in play, which is itself an action.
But of course, merely by adding the article ‘a’ in front of ‘run,’ one is simultaneously given a direct example of both the concept in question and one of the myriad reasons that English is such a bitch of a language.
But I digress.
Seleroan
Hey there, gentle reader.
Enjoying the content? Well, why not drop by my Patreon? It helps me keep this show running, and allows me to afford great things like editors, cover artists, and food!
Each chapter is now being personalized with some... passable chapter-inspired AI generated art. I try. But it gives things a bit of color. And you can read ahead!
Come on down! We'd love to see you.
“No,” she said quickly. “You’re too hungry to keep a temptation like that near to hand.”
I rolled my eyes. Not that she was wrong, but still. “Fine. Where exactly do you propose keeping it, then?”
She looked down at herself, noting her decided lack of pockets. Save the two, of course. For a moment, she glanced up at me, as if daring me to say something. I just quirked an eyebrow.
“Very well. I’ll carry the crystals,” she said finally, her hand outstretched.
“What if we run into that barrel-golem thing again?” I argued, though that did not stop me from surrendering the bundle. “Won’t they get in the way?”
“No more than they would you,” she retorted.
Carelessly, she tossed the hunk of dried meat in with the quartz-like rods and retied it. Not that I was too worried. If anything, the jerky could use a bit of tenderizing.
“I’m too injured right now, and besides, what would I fight it with? That stick?” she asked. Sarcastically, I assumed. “That reminds me… what were you saying about it earlier? I couldn’t make it out over your chewing.”
“Oh, just that it might have been a magic wand,” I replied.
Curious—but mostly trying to think of something other than food—I went to pick it up for closer inspection. If it was a wand, it did not look anything like what I would imagine. There was nothing fancy about it, just a length of wood—a touch shy of my forearm in length—and perfectly cylindrical. More like a dowel rod than anything. It had not even been varnished.
“Well, of course it’s magical. It was in a chest wasn’t it?” she replied carelessly. “But it’s still just a stick… or wand or whatever. How am I supposed to fight with it?”
So, little miss knows-everything-about-the-Dungeon doesn’t know what a magic wand is, eh? Instead of answering, I took her hand and slapped the stick back into it. “Mia, be a dear and tell me what you can about the engraving here, please.”
“No. You have to ask nicely first,” she replied primly.
“I did ask nicely.”
“You didn’t ask at all.”
I made a face. However much Mia might claim to be some extension of my Will, the farmer of my land, or whatever that ridiculous metaphor had been, she seemed determined to remain a thorn in my side.
But maybe that was a good thing. If she was too compliant, it would probably upset me more.
“Fine.” Struggling not to roll my eyes, I rephrased. “Mia, would you be a dear and tell me what you can about this engraving? Please.”
“Mmm~ There it is! Haii love being your slut!”
Lynnria’s eyebrows knitted together. “Did she just… ask you to make that into a question?”
I did not answer immediately. My brain had decided that reality simply was not making much sense anymore, and a soft reset was required to set things right again. So I had just been staring vacantly into space. However, I did eventually manage to form my lips around the word, “Yup.”
“But why would she want to swear at you?”
“Cram it, trash-fire baby!” Mia yelled before settling herself. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my world. I’ll be but a moment.”
I nodded absently before focusing back on Lynnria.
“Uh… she’s been going through some… stuff… lately, so the swearing has… hmph…”
I shook my head, struggling for a way to clue Lynnria in without saying it out loud. Not for the first time, I wished Jax were there, if for no other reason than to just blurt it all out in as crass a manner as possible. She was good for ripping the band-aid off.
But before I could piece together something more polite, Mia had returned.
“Okay, looks like a standard keyed-phrase-activation setup, though this one is pretty simple,” she informed me.
For a moment, I heard some sounds in the background that reminded me of glass clinking together, then the hologram she sometimes used for visuals flickered on just long enough to focus on her hands. She was holding a pair of the Word-books up, though this time only bothering to point out their titles.
Generation and Dirt?
“You’ll be pleased to note, these two Words are contained within the engraving. Though, this one,“ she tapped on Generation, “has been modified by an article to change its lexical class. I can’t be more specific than that, though. You’re missing the Word that would allow you to understand it directly.”
Its lexical… class? I scratched my head. What is that? Like a part of speech? So… it’s using an article to modify… I guess, a noun into an adjective? Or a verb, maybe?
Ordinarily, the concept would have been pretty difficult to wrap my head around. It had been a long time since I had gone over any of this stuff in school, and it was hardly my area of study. However, I had recently been infused with quite the number of languages from binding Arx, so I now had enough counterexamples to be able to process it fairly well. At least in theory.
English often handles lexical transformations through the use of prefixes and suffixes—effectively altering the word itself. To use the most relevant example, the noun, Generation, could become Generational if it was an adjective or Generate as a verb. Though, using English as a baseline for understanding anything is a recipe for disaster.
English is horribly broken.
In any case, whatever this overall Language was called, it apparently used a system whereby Words could be directly modified by a separate Word—an article—to function differently as needed. It seemed a little clunky, but I had to suppose that since everyone had to collect each Word individually, a system like this would drastically reduce the number of individual Words a person would need.
Though, in thinking about it, some words existed naturally as either nouns or verbs or what-have-you. Like… what would the noun-form of ‘run’ be? I mean sure, you could refer to ‘a run’ but that really cannot be understood without the physical concept of running in play, which is itself an action.
But of course, merely by adding the article ‘a’ in front of ‘run,’ one is simultaneously given a direct example of both the concept in question and one of the myriad reasons that English is such a bitch of a language.
But I digress.
Seleroan
Hey there, gentle reader.
Enjoying the content? Well, why not drop by my Patreon? It helps me keep this show running, and allows me to afford great things like editors, cover artists, and food!
Each chapter is now being personalized with some... passable chapter-inspired AI generated art. I try. But it gives things a bit of color. And you can read ahead!
Come on down! We'd love to see you.
