>>5780053You’d only just reminded yourself how to think like an ELF, on top of thinking like a Northern human, and now she wanted you to think like some third sort of person which you weren’t even related to? But… No. ‘All things are one thing,’ as the elven mystics say—all one Tree of Life.
“That’s right!” Henzler had said, more animated and confident when speaking on this subject than you’d seen her in years now. “That IS a lot like what many Easterlings believe about the flow of lifeforce through the cosmos—they compare it to a single, big organism.”
“And the scroll?” you asked warily. “Where does that fit in?”
“Well,” Henzler had explained and returning to her scholarly lecture-voice, “we do not actually find examples of SPELLS in our available Hidden City texts, sadly. Principles of magical theory, ways to focus and channel magic which differ from ours in some ways, but not SPELLS per se.”
“Like your <Jade Aura> that you summoned up in class?” you interjected.
“Correct!” she’d said. “Yes, the <Jade Aura> can stave off curses, hexes, miasmas, and repel attempts to enter the mind. Entities of an immaterial or extradimensional nature have trouble penetrating it or remaining within it. It’s VERY useful, and we really haven’t got its equivalent in the Western tradition.”
You remembered the eyes at the window, and nodded. VERY useful.
“So… What do I do, to learn that?”
“Read,” she’s suggested, looking a little confused.
“I’m bilingual,” you’d replied sourly, “but not OMNIlingual.”
“There’s a spell for that, you know,” Henzler had said.
“Do you know it?” you’d asked.
“…No.”
“Wonderful,” you’d sighed.
“Oh! But the third book here is my translation key!” she’d said, moving it closer to you.
Your heart rose… Then fell just as quickly, and fell still further as you flipped through the book.
“There’s hardly any Common in this,” you’d said, setting ti down and staring at her.
“Well, it’s mostly for translating from Hidden Temple script to that of the Valley of the Golden River—where the Spellbook I translated the <Jade Aura> from was found,” she admits.
"And your notes…”
She nodded, confirming: “Also in Golden River script.”
“WHY?”
She looked confused at that, slowly elucidating: “Well, you lose all the nuance and meaning when you take the concepts and mystical language out of its original cultural and linguistic context, and it really compromises the mindset of—”
Uuuugh. This GIRL.
“Fine, just TEACH me,” you’d said, impatient. “Directly. Explain it as PLAINLY as you can, and show me the somatic components, and… Ugh, okay, yeah, the verbal ones, and I’ll do my best.”
