{{A request for any who wish to join this thread: I often have trouble loading/reading posting tables, so I would appreciate if people don’t use them here. Thank you!}}
As afternoon tended towards evening - earlier every day, it seemed, in the chill of Deepfrost - Jigano leaned back in his favorite chair and rubbed at his forehead to ease the tension that had been building there for the past few hours. A half dozen books lay open on the table in front of him, turned to various pages - all in a similar script that seemed part-heiroglyph, part-scribble, part-dotted accents. In the middle of them lay an herbal, open to a picture of a fiery flower with notes written in a concise hand around it - a labeling of parts? A list of their uses? - and beside that was the lorekeeper's personal notebook, a journal already more than half-full just of the notes he'd taken since arriving in Caido.
Sunlight filtered through the windows and the broken side of the great building, turning the floating dust motes to sparkling prisms hanging in the air, and the bard smiled tiredly at the beauty of the moment. There were others in the Atheneum, not many in the cold weather, but a few diehards like himself, seeking answers to questions the gods would not answer, or simply looking for a few good books to take home for Long Night. Their quiet shuffling was a soft background susurrus of comfort and familiarity. The slender lorekeeper was well-bundled in his warm cloak, with a thick scarf and patchwork gloves he'd coaxed from Rathskeller regulars in exchange for his performances there. Slowly but surely he was building a life for himself, though he still chose to live out in the woods like a wild thing.
Perhaps it said something about him that he trusted the beasts and monsters of the woods more than the humans of the Settlement.
For now, though, he sighed and stretched his arms above his head, then rose and began to walk around, working feeling back into his legs and toes after sitting too long. Maybe he needed a break... or simply another pair of eyes to help make the connections he knew were there, if he could just crack the writing system!
Zariah
As afternoon tended towards evening - earlier every day, it seemed, in the chill of Deepfrost - Jigano leaned back in his favorite chair and rubbed at his forehead to ease the tension that had been building there for the past few hours. A half dozen books lay open on the table in front of him, turned to various pages - all in a similar script that seemed part-heiroglyph, part-scribble, part-dotted accents. In the middle of them lay an herbal, open to a picture of a fiery flower with notes written in a concise hand around it - a labeling of parts? A list of their uses? - and beside that was the lorekeeper's personal notebook, a journal already more than half-full just of the notes he'd taken since arriving in Caido.
Sunlight filtered through the windows and the broken side of the great building, turning the floating dust motes to sparkling prisms hanging in the air, and the bard smiled tiredly at the beauty of the moment. There were others in the Atheneum, not many in the cold weather, but a few diehards like himself, seeking answers to questions the gods would not answer, or simply looking for a few good books to take home for Long Night. Their quiet shuffling was a soft background susurrus of comfort and familiarity. The slender lorekeeper was well-bundled in his warm cloak, with a thick scarf and patchwork gloves he'd coaxed from Rathskeller regulars in exchange for his performances there. Slowly but surely he was building a life for himself, though he still chose to live out in the woods like a wild thing.
Perhaps it said something about him that he trusted the beasts and monsters of the woods more than the humans of the Settlement.
For now, though, he sighed and stretched his arms above his head, then rose and began to walk around, working feeling back into his legs and toes after sitting too long. Maybe he needed a break... or simply another pair of eyes to help make the connections he knew were there, if he could just crack the writing system!
