A Jumble of Journals

by **Keene Ward** on February 16th, 2015, 7:03 pm

The sixty-sixth day of winter 514 AV

Risabel had been right; she was often right, but usually in such a way that she tended to appear wrong. In the case of the books, ledgers, tomes, and journals, she had been correct at face value. The sheer amount of nonsense scribbled down in varying degrees of illegible handwriting paired with codes (some of which Keene suspected were codes of codes, perhaps even codes of codes of codes) made even gleaning information a lengthy task. Not all the books he'd found were coded, nor were all of them in Nader, however most of them were, and nearly all were untitled - if they did have a title, it was generally a jumbled mess of letters or symbols. He had spent several bells methodically staring at the spines of the more "bookish" collections, searching for anything related to trees or furugu. He'd found two, one of which seemed to just be detailed diagrams with labels that were neither Common nor Nader. He had also found, in his lengthy time of searching, a few more books that had had some interesting drawings, as well as a book who's titled had been "Ghosts" scrawled across the top. That particular journal was the only thing in Common that wasn't coded, and he had set it aside for the time being, knowing it would require far less effort to read upon his eventual arrival at mental exhaustion.

After Risabel's dubious introduction to the library, she had allowed him to borrow some ink and a quill, with his assurance that the items would be returned to her once he was finished. Once he had settled on which books to decipher, Keene had settled down into one of the few scattered tables to do his work. Sahova's library was far different from Zeltiva's to the point where there was very little in common, even with all the books. There were golems, by they seemed similar to the followers in that they simply ignored him and when about their silent way. The automata aside, it was deserted, or at least it appeared so. The atmosphere, however, was conducive to intensive problem solving, so Keene wasn't entirely bothered by it. As he returned his focus to the journal titled "Ufiftf", which he had translated as "Furugu". It wasn't something he had done by blind luck, as the interior had plenty of drawings of leafs, nuts, and trees as well as extensive explanations to the side, all a jumble of letters. There were other words that composed the entire title, making it "Azkzgo Ufiftf Wqzhwzozgozh". As furugu had only fit in a sensible way for the first word, Keene started down at the journal he kept in his backpack, the black ink depicting what he had determined so far.

U - F ; F - U; I - R; T - G

He stared down at the title, quill gently tapping on the corner of the page, though leaving behind little mark due to its empty well. He needed small words to translate, something not quite so lengthy to fill in the rest of the title, and as he opened the journal to an arbitrary page, Keene frowned down at the tiny script. Picking out the smaller words, as well as any that read as some derivative of "ufiftf", Keene added them to his journal, adding the small amounts of translation he could where it was applicable next to them.

Ufiftfg - FURUGUg
Ufiftfh - FURUGUh
Rihg
Ufiftfermlgozh - FURUGUermlgozh
Mvmufiftfg - mvmFURUGUg
Hfgozhufiftfg - hUgozhFURUGUg
Wzvj
Wzvjzg
Wzvjzgozh
Xsz

The "g" and "h" were most certainly modifiers for "furugu", making it what Keene assumed would be "furugut" and "furugus", one being a noun and the other an adjective. However, he wasn't sure which of the two was which. Running his eyes over the other "furugu" words, he didn't find much to help him other than "g" being much more common than "h". Then, there was "wzvj", which he had specifically picked out because it was shorter. Out of his quick skim for "ufiftf", he had picked out several other forms of "wzvj", finding some ending in "-g" and "-gozh". Having a basic understanding of the Ancient Tongue and its syntax and rules, Keene glanced back at the page, scanning for instances of "-g" and "-gozh", finding it repeated off of the ends of many different words, and upon a deeper perusal, contained within some of the longer words. Frowning, Keene jotted down his thoughts onto his journal. If "-g" was "-s" to denote a verb and "-gozh" was "-tlas" to denote the future form of a verb, it gave him a few more things to fill in.

Ufiftfg - FURUGUg - FURUGUT
Ufiftfh - FURUGUh - FURUGUS
Rihg - rRST
Ufiftfermlgozh - FURUGUermlgozh - FURUGUermlTLAS
Mvmufiftfg - mvmFURUGUg - mvmFURUGUT
Hfgozhufiftfg - hUgozhFURUGUg - SUTLASFURUGUT
Wzvj
Wzvjzg - wzvjzT
Wzvjzgozh - wzvjzTLAS
Xsz

Staring down, he had "furugut", "furugus", and "sutlasfurugut". The missing letter to "rihg" was on the tip of his tongue, but he wasn't quite sure what it was, finding it much more difficult to pull his vocabulary to mind when he started down at the near translation. There was also a very good chance he had just arbitrarily assigned values to the symbols and been wrong, as everything had been based on the premise that "ufiftf" was indeed "furugu". He set the quill down, running his hands through his hair. A single thought had risen to the surface: codes were incredibly inefficient.

by **Keene Ward** on February 17th, 2015, 5:48 am

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After a few chimes, Keene had added a handful more words to his list, some of them "furugu" derivatives or associates, keeping his letters large enough to minimize the confusion of the mess of letters and words, filling in the translated letters where applicable.

Notes :

Keene stared at the jumble, analyzing the partially completed words with a heavy frown. "Furugus-alat" was something along the lines of "tree's sky", or in a less abstract sense a "tall tree" or a "heaven's leaf". He required context to truly know what the words were, but if "w" was the code for a dash... Keene let his eyes scan down the list of letters, finding the partially translated "wqzhwzozgozh" to begin with a "w", making the dash an unlikely substitute. It was possible he'd simply misread the journal, as the handwriting was small and a difficult scrawl to read with ease. Squinting down at the journal, Keene examined it, focusing on instances of "w". There were no dashes anywhere, and "sutlasfurugut" did not contain a dash. While Keene wasn't an expert on linguistics, he assumed that if a word that might have had a dash did not, it was likely the rest lacked them as well. Frowning, he looked back at "sutlasfurugut". "Long tree-ing...?" That certainly didn't sound like the proper definition, and it was a strange word to begin with. His frown deepened: if it were even the proper cipher.

If "w" was not a dash, there were only a few options for it to make logical sense, unless it was just a letter thrown in to confuse him. Keene rubbed his temples, setting the quill down before doing so and letting out a small, contained sigh. He had overestimated himself, it seemed. Taking a small break to rest his brain, Keene let his eyes idly slide over shelves and golems. The monotony of it suited his needs, and he eased back into the chair some. He kept any thoughts on the journals out of his head for the time being, letting his eyes follow the gentle whir of the golems. After awhile, he felt some of his frustrations drift off towards other, less focused anxieties, and he turned back to his work. Picking up the quill, Keene tapped it on the edge of the paper in a methodical rhythm.

There were only two word she could think of that had "ala" in them, one being "ala" and the other "dala". Having no other ideas, Keene set out switching out the "w"s for "d"s.

Notes :

Keene stared down at the nearly complete translations, plugging letters and finding he was repeating of those he'd already found. Taking up the quill, he wrote out the alphabet in a small script beneath his notes, putting next to the known letters the associated code. He'd written enough to just make things confusing as he stared down at it. Creating a "key" of sorts that he could refer to seemed to be the most logical course of action in terms of organization for the sake of progress.

Notes :

Staring down at it, Keene added a "J" for "q", completing "djasdalatlas" as nothing else would fit. His frown, which had by that point become his "Sahovan reading face", remained steady as his grey green eyes stared down at the conjoined Nader. "Self changing?" He had begun to tap the quill against the paper again, though this time it left blots behind that reminded him it was best to keeps his hand steady until it was needed to write. Sticking a finger into the spot in the journal he was deciphering to keep his place, Keene flipped it over to reinspect the spine, jotting down "Azkzgo" and "Wqzhwzozgozh" on his growing list of words. If he was working on decoding the journal, it was probably wise to figure out what the title said if he could. Starting down at the words with plenty of letters he had yet to attribute values to, Keene replaced what ones he had in his bank. While "azkzgo" became the uninformative "aAkAgL", Keene raised a brow at "wqzhwzozgozh", realizing he had already translated it into "djasdalatlas".

Staring down at "rRST", Keene ran through the relatively small vocabulary that was Nader Canoch. There was only one word that fist, similar to "ala" and "dala", Nader only had one instance of "-rst". Adding "r" next to the "I" in his cipher, Keene filled in the words the change applied to. "Irst" meant "veil" or any of its variants, all within the context of the sentence. Rubbing his eyes, Keene placed an elbow on the desk to support the weight of his head as he stared down at his work. The more he stared, the more he focused on his first column of letters. "A" through "I" on the left, with "z", "w", and "r-u" backwards. Backwards. Keene squinted his eyes, mentally filling in the rest of the cipher by shifting the coded alphabet by one. It fit. If it was correct or not, Keene had only one way to find out.

by **Keene Ward** on February 17th, 2015, 6:51 am

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By the time Keene had made his revelation, he'd been in library for a solid five bells. It had been a long time since he'd last sat for so long, and his back had found that the rigidness of his chair was something it wanted to complain about. Stretching back and twisting to either side, Keene tried to alleviate some of the pain for the time being. He had either solve the code, or he had fallen prey to frustration and ruined everything. Either way, he preferred to determine his failure or success as soon as possible, and as he leaned back into his work, he felt the soreness of his back ease some from the moment of respite. Picking up his quill, Keene filled in the remaining letters, starting from "Z" by writing in an "a" and moving up the columns, skipping those that were already filled in to complete the pattern. Once that was finished, Keene turned his attention the the words that had yet to be translated, methodically going through and adding the proper letters. He made a few mistakes of plugging in the wrong associated symbol, which he corrected by scribbling out the whole word and rewriting it. Once he was finished, he examined his work with a critical eye, checking himself to make sure the words were words.

notes :

From what he could tell, it seemed he'd managed to figure out the code. In hindsight, it was painfully simple, and Keene found that the amount of time it had taken him to figure it out had been far longer than it must have taken to conceptualize. Setting down the quill, Keene stood up, taking a few easy, meandering paces about the library as he stretched his legs and kept out of the way of the golems. When he was younger and in the midst of his tuteledge, Keene had been able to sit for bells upon bell's bells, never needing such things as stretches or breaks of physical activity. After having spent the past two seasons training and growing his abilities in a more practical manner, Keene's proclivities towards extended research in the confines of a wooden throne with quill in hand had seemed to decline to a point where his body seemed ill-tuned for it. It was surprising in its own way, though Keene didn't dwell too long on it. His brain seemed to work well enough still, and that was all that truly mattered. Swinging his arms back and fourth across his chest a few times before he settled back down, Keene stared down at the words that comprised the title.

"Zapatl Furugu Djasdalatlas". The first word was one he wasn't familiar with, but the other two seemed to read as "tree self-will-change". He was relatively certain "zapatl" had something to do with the rest of the title, but for the time being, Keene frowned down at the other two words, running through potential translations in his mind. Settling on a rough translation of the title as "Something, Becoming a Tree", whether "zaptal" was influencing the self's transformation into a tree, or if it was a simply modifier, the basics of the title made enough sense, assuming the magic of morphing allowed one to become trees. Keene frowned deeper at that thought, wondering if it were possible, or if the journal was just nonsense. Immediately after, he wondered if he had merely translated the passage wrong, to which he decided to test himself by translating some of the notations regarding the journal's neatly penned diagrams.

Pulling out a sentence, Keene spent a good fifteen or so chimes copying it down on a new page in his own journal before writing in the deciphered Nader beneath it. While he had the key to unlocking the mysteries of the "tree" journal's writing, it wasn't a quick process. Once he'd finished writing out the Nader, he stared down at the sentence, the memory of his childhoods lessons stirring a small amount of nostalgia within him that he promptly ignored. While his translation was rough, the passage read something like, "In the heavens of the tree child, paths small water-moving." Keene flicked his attention to the diagram, small tendrils running up through the sketched trunk, spreading out into the branches and leafs. He supposed that the diagram matched the gist of the passage, but he wasn't sure what it had to do with anything. Though, with his progress made, Keene's mind revisited the reason he'd come to the library in the first place.

Flipping through the pages, Keene skimmed the diagrams, looking for anything in the pictures that might help to explain how a tree could move. He stopped at a depiction of an outline of a man over laid on a tree, slim, neat arrows depicting either motion or direction. Skimming over the explanations below, Keene copied them over to his journal, each sentence taking several chimes as he moved slowly to make sure he got them correct. Several more chimes were tacked on while Keene flipped the pages of his own journal back and fourth while he deciphered the sentences. When he was finally done, he set the quill aside to stare pensively at the decoded passed, interpreting as best as he was able.

"The changing-body tree-shapes. Fast-danger for child-self, slow-danger if knowledge, most-knowledge for complete-change. Tree-self is still-standing, freedom earth-chained. Center-heart life-moving, never life-moving center-heart self-change. Tree-body self-change veil, ice-moving."

by **Keene Ward** on February 17th, 2015, 8:34 pm

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In a basic summary, it seemed that passage was both instruction and warning against a complete transformation into a tree. Whether the tree outside the Vestibule was indeed a morpher or not, the journal seemed to indicate that changing what was effectively one's "core" - curiously enough "djed" wasn't used to refer to the the "djasabase" - left the morpher as an actual tree, in all respects. Thus, whether the tree had been a person at one point or not, Keene had not felt the "abase" or the "life-beat" when he'd placed his hand upon the bark. He didn't know anything about malediction, but Risabel had seemed to think if the tree were a person, her magic would have worked. Flipping through the pages again, Keene let the thing close as he found no other diagrams that seemed to be particularly helpful. In a sense, he had accomplished the task of decrypting a wizard's old journal on tree transformations, but he didn't understand Nader intimately enough to glean anything more than the basics of what the sentences were implying. Even with the cipher, the writing itself was disjointed, following what seemed to be its own rules regarding syntax, making it all the more difficult to understand.

Setting the journal aside, Keene glanced over the others he had collected. In about three chimes he had determined that the code he'd deciphered seemed paired with the journal. Not wanting to invest another half of his day working things out, and taking note that whatever code the other two journals were in, one of them only used strange, glyph like symbols, while the other was just a bunch of dots. Instead, he picked up the Common journal he'd found as he'd skimmed through the library's collection, the title of "Ghosts" loosely scrawled in a faded etching over the leather of the slim notebook. While Wilhemina had been absent for the time being, Keene had not found their last interaction to be the most enjoyable of encounters. The more he could learn of spirits, their tendencies, and their abilities, the better off he figured he'd be. That, and if there was a way to keep her out of his body, Keene would much prefer she remain outside of him. Flipping the cover of the journal over with the smooth movement of his hand, Keene peered down at a small prologue, written in the same, loose scrawl. At first, it was difficult to make sense of it, but the words were quite certainly uncoded Common, and the more he read, the better he was at deciphering the handwriting.

I have lived a long life, something I am proud of, but like all things, I have grown weary. Those who have accompanied me on this journey that we call existence have long since left me, and all that are left to me are the few who have returned. A rusty stain blotted most of the next sentence. -en lost. I was a fool to think them anything more than- Again, more stains. Keene had to skip quite a bit to get to a point where he could read anything else on the page. -ilation of all those I have interacted with over the years. May you learn from my mistakes just as- The handwriting trailed off, a small line of ancient ink sliding off as if the man had fallen asleep - or died. Either way, Keene raised a brow in interest as he turned the page. It seemed the journal contained entries of ghosts from the man's past, a bit different than Keene had been expecting but still possessing plenty of potential.

The first few entries were of his wife and children, pointless details about the color of his "beloved's" hair, or metaphors to describe the laughter of his eldest son. Keene skipped over the seven or so pages dedicated to it, until he stopped at a sketch of a woman's face. It wasn't poorly done, but the quality wasn't nearly on par with Zeltivan and Aburan portraiture. Still, it captured a haunting likeness of a gaunt looking woman who seemed to be missing a sizable section of her scalp. To the other side of the page dedicated to the inked likeness were words, words that Keene shifted his focus to, though he found it difficult to keep himself from glancing back at the drawing intermittently.

Like a fire, she ravaged the grassy sea of the Drykas. As far as I am aware, she had been cut down by bandits. Her rage is what kept her here, it was both her anchor and her drive. By the time I arrived, the tallies of those she had lured into the grasses to be consumed by the wilds had reached horrific numbers. A curiosity, however: she never touched a single Drykas. I, in my foolish youth, thought to simply give her the Lie. She retaliated in force.
It was the first time I had ever been possessed, and the swirl of her emotions infected my own. I could see her pain, I could feel the sorrow, the anger, the hatred. Fortunately, I had my ghost beads with me, and the creation of my safe zone was enough to force her out of me.

Keene frowned down at the book, certain terms familiar in concept, while others were simply strange. "The Lie" and "ghostbeads" were both things Keene found to deviate from the natural order of Common, though the concept of a "safe zone" also read as a bit strange. The description of the possession, however, was accurate enough that Keene had little issue pegging that as one of the abilities of a ghost in terms of those who were knowledgeable about them. Skimming the rest of the passage, Keene searched for any explanations on the terms spoken of. While it took time to do so, his eyes only searched for combinations of letters foreign to him. "Soulmist", "souldarts", and "soulmist projection" popped up several times, along with those words he'd already discovered. There were, however, no definitive explanations. It seemed the journal had been written with the intent of passing it on to someone who was already versed in the ways of dealing with the spirits of the dead. He turned to other pages, glancing at the images of the man's quarries, some gruesome, some merely morose.

by **Keene Ward** on February 18th, 2015, 5:40 am

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It took him a good bell to find anything of use in the journal between his searching and his translation of the handwriting layered over passage upon passage of metaphorical literary filigree. Once he did find it, however, it was tucked away in ending pages: a list that resembled recipes he'd seen in some books when he was younger. Above it, the author had scrawled a brief explanation of his methods, which Keene set about reading, sinking slightly more into the chair to bring his nose closer to the paper.

My master taught me differently than this, but I have found this to work better given how often I am in the wilderness. Eggs are difficult to find, but I have learned that honey or dandelion roots work well enough. Mushrooms, some insects, or even a number of edible plants, when combined with the blood and egg substitute will have a similar effect. Do remember it must come from three separate sources: dandelions will only work with an insect and fungus or a nut of some sort. As for the process, it is much the same as before. I prefer keeping the solution in my mouth, as I was never fond of the more involved processes.

Keene raised an eyebrow, scanning the list below and finding the majority of things not what one might typically put in one's mouth. A number of names were crossed off with notations of "poison" or "inedible" jotted off to the sides. It left a relatively manageable list of "edible fungus" (which had a list of meaningless names, presumably of the names of fungus the author had encountered), honey, root vegetables, and a list of plants, most of which Keene was not familiar with. Opening his own journal, Keene jotted down the list, the scritch of his quill marking the quickness of his movements. With the recipe copied, Keene moved his attention down to another small notation beneath it. The handwriting, while still definitively the original author's was different, perhaps added in a good while after.

Children's blood works best. It would seem I have committed too many sins to be considered pure. Lately my soulmist has taken on a darker sheen to it. It used to be so white... Perhaps it has to do with my darker thoughts as well. Keep your focus, do not falter. It is necessary that you envision what you wish to create, or you will invariably find unsatisfactory results.

He found that bit odd, but added "pure blood" and "focus" to his list. With that done, Keene inspected the final pages of the journal, but there was no more writing save for a single word on the last page: hunted. Raising a brow at that, Keene closed the journal, setting it to the side on the small stack of the books before leaning back into his chair to stare back at his notes, his frown settled on his features in its comfortable place. It seemed he had a recipe to create something, though what it was for or what it even was, he supposed he would find out when he did it. It seemed that "soulmist" was a major component in most, if not all, of the rituals written of in the journal. He wasn't sure if honey was something he could find readily on the island, but it was possible a combination of Waat's Nest, almonds and the jerky would suffice - and his blood. The blood was an interesting - perhaps macabre - component, but if the solution created something he could use to potentially create a "safe zone", as he assumed it was something along the lines of "soul-beads" or "soul-darts", then it would be worth the minor discomfort of chewing strange things.

Standing up, Keene gathered the journals and returned them to their places. While he may not have been able to read the few labeled spines of the library's collection, he was more than able enough to remember the locations from which he'd removed the journals that sat comfortably in the crook of his arm. Slipping them back into their places with a small rush of bookish scent rushing from the displaced air, Keene, gathering up his belongings and tapping the quill against the rim of the glass container for the ink to rid the well of any residual liquid before popping the cork into it to secure the murky contents, headed out of the library. As he ascended the level to head towards Risabel's laboratory, Keene realized that while he'd gained a slightly better understanding for the ghost condition (as that was what it appeared to be), there had been little discovery in terms of the mysterious tree. It was, it seemed, a curiosity to be delved deeper into on another day. He'd spent enough time in the Gug Andjak for the time being, and he wanted to get back to the Caverns before dark, as there was still firewood that needed to be gathered.

by **Aoren** on March 24th, 2015, 3:06 pm

Keene

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Cryptography	+3 EXP
Writing	+3 EXP
Investigation	+3 EXP
Research	+2 EXP
Deduction	+1 EXP
Spritism	+2 EXP

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Cryptography: Function of a Code, To Conceal
•	Cryptography: Following A Pattern
•	Spiritism: Theory of the Lie
•	Spiritism: Theory of a Safe Zone
•	Spiritism: Steps For Creating Soulmist
•	Spiritism: Soulmist, More Potent When Pure
•	Ghosts: Can Possess A Body

Notes :

Solo A Jumble of Journals