Hello readers, I wanted to write a little more and get a new chapter up as soon as possible. This one will probably be a bit shorter. I won't know until I finish. I'm having a bit of a writer's block problem at the moment. Combine that with a lot of stuff in the real world, and writing becomes very difficult very fast.
Thanks as always to FourthWallBreaker for the review, which is finally showing up in the review list along with the first two. I'm glad you may be interested in the Myst series. One thing I've noticed is that ironically enough, watching YouTube Lets Plays and actually playing the games are two of the worst possible ways to get the lore of the series. Really the best ways are wiki reading and going to a GameFAQs type site and reading notebooks from the games. That's where the most important stuff is, and if you read it online you don't have to deal with Atrus's handwriting.
Once I get around to learning to write D'ni, I'll possibly put some sort of code in the beginnings for laughs and to give interesting facts that don't actually have any relevance. Just something I may do for the heck of it.
Chapter 4: Learning the Language
Composite's POV
"So the first and most important lesson of Age Writing is that you do not create the Ages you Write. When you first Link to a new Age, the Book finds an Age on the Great Tree of Possibility that most closely matches your description. Even unstable Ages already exist before you Link to them." Yeesha told us. We were in her study, which was a lot messier than the rest of the house, with an assortment of Books, notebooks, and loose papers haphazardly scattered around several desks.
We were taking a few hours a day with Yeesha learning to write the common D'ni language before moving on to the special version used when Writing Ages. A significant amount of the rest of our time was spent teaching Yeesha about our world and technology. It had all started a few days before.
Begin Flashback
We were in Yeesha's guest chamber, simply talking about the major differences in our worlds. "…So Ages and Linking are instrumental parts of D'ni society." Yeesha finished
"Irras mentioned that you were 'The Grower,' what does that mean?" We asked.
"The Grower was a person in D'ni mythology destined to free the Bahro. The Bahro are a species of semi-metaphysical beings who lived in the D'ni caverns long before the D'ni took up residence. They have a somewhat reptilian appearance, and are capable of doing many things only they can do. They can Link at will, even between different parts of the same Age, and they have been known to affect the flow of time and even change the season of individual Ages. I only call them the Bahro because I don't know what they call themselves. In fact, the closest English translation of Bahro is 'Beast People,' Needless to say, they don't like the name, but they refuse to give me anything else to call them." Yeesha explained to us.
"But what is the Grower?" we asked.
"I'm getting to that. People call me the Grower, but the strange thing is, I'm technically not, even though I have all the abilities attributed to the Grower. I have lived much longer than a person with as little D'ni blood as I should be able to, I can Link without a book, though I can't Link from one part of an Age to another. I have also Written an Age, Relto, and Books with unique properties. Relto Books can Link from one part of the Age to another, they do follow the user, and each Relto book, I don't know how many there are, Link to nearly identical, but separate Ages." Yeesha continued on, "I first found out I had the abilities of the Grower when I traveled to the D'ni caverns, like my grandfather Ghen before me. I found a mentor in a D'ni named Calob. I believed he was the Grower until he was murdered. I tracked down his murderer and destroyed him. I don't truly recall what I did, but rest assured he no longer occupies this plane of existence."
"Well," We started, "This may be a good time to test our Copy ability,"
"Copy ability?"
"Yes, Copy ability. We discovered we have the ability to copy the forms and abilities of people we meet. There are limitations though."
"What sort of limitations?"
"Range mostly. We can't use abilities if the owner of the ability in question is too close." We told her.
"How close?"
"Not a physical distance so much as a dimensional distance. We can't use abilities of a person in a dimension they have spent extensive time in. Say if we were to find Tron, we couldn't use his abilities in our home dimension, nor a few spin-off dimensions, but we could use his abilities and form here. Not that we'd want to because the only ability he has that we don't is the ability to wield two Disks."
"What do you mean by copying forms?" Yeesha asked.
"We have to morph into a form to use its abilities. It is part of our nature as a data form, We honestly don't know how our biological components integrate into this function. We think they are stored in Hammerspace when we morph or enter a computer."
"I'll ask about Hammerspace later, so how do you copy an ability?" Yeesha inquired.
"We only need to maintain a physical contact for about a second, though we prefer two or three to ensure a better copy."
"Well, let's pass it a shot. I'm pretty sure that's how the expression goes." Yeesha said, putting her hand on the table.
"Give it a shot, actually," We said, placing our hand on Yeesha's. Strange symbols we recognized as D'ni words ran across our vision, before translating into English for us. After a second the words "Download Complete" passed across our vision. After two more, the words "Verification Complete" ran across and we took our hand off Yeesha's. Yeesha's form flickered over ours for a few seconds before we reverted to our Base form.
Yeesha's POV
"Give it a shot, actually," Composite told me, placing their hand on mine. I felt a tingling sensation start at my head and travel down my body to my feet over the course of a second, before spending two seconds going back up. Almost like a scanning beam, which it probably was in a sense. My form flickered over Composite's body for a second before they changed to their usual form.
"What was that?" I asked.
"That was us copying your abilities. We can't test them for a while though, most likely."
End Flashback
Composite's POV
"You'll need this to learn our language," Yeesha told us. She got up and carried over an extremely large book. "This is the Rehevkor, The closest English word is 'Lexicon,' but this is far more complex," she told us. "See that?" Yeesha asked, pointing to an even thicker book on her shelves, "That's a special version. It only contains symbols used in the Writing of Ages." She then opened past a few pages of the massive book that we guessed were basically front matter and stopped on a page with a series of images along a two page spread. Each image appeared to add a brush stroke to the symbol until it was completed on the bottom-right.
"We suppose each spread covers a single symbol?" We asked.
"Yes, I want you to learn each word, front to back. Concentrate on at least twenty symbols a day." Yeesha walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a blank book and an ink set. "You'll need a copy book. Okay, you'll need a lot of copy books, but this should be good for three or four days. I know you can memorize the symbols as soon as you see them," Yeesha said, noticing that we were flipping through the book, "But I want you to copy each symbol at least four times, because I want to make certain that you can write the symbols properly."
We worked on mastering D'ni symbols for the next few hours, getting thirty done to Yeesha's satisfaction. Writing them was much harder than we anticipated, and much harder than writing English. Once we had thirty symbols done, we started discussing our technology
"You mentioned Hammerspace a few times. What is it?" Yeesha asked us.
"Hammerspace is an ability that many Mobians have, but not all. It is basically a pocket dimension that Mobians can store items in." We reached behind our back and pulled our Light Cycle rod out of hammerspace. "The most notable instance is that of a female hedgehog named Amy Rose. She was the inspiration for the common name. She stores a weapon known as the Pico Pico hammer in hers. In fact, she can pull out pretty much as many as she wants." We put our Rod back in Hammerspace.
"And what was that?" Yeesha asked.
"A Light Cycle Rod," We said, pulling it back out, "We use it to summon a Light Cycle vehicle. Come on out, We'll show you."
We wandered outside and Yeesha asked,"So how do you use it?"
In response, we crouched down and activated the Rod. Our Super Light Cycle formed around us. "This is a Super Light Cycle. It was given to us by a program who later turned on us after we revealed our name. It is faster, and decelerates more while turning on the Grid than other models. It also has an open canopy, unlike most of the Cycle models in our home dimension. Camanion told us of a spin-off dimension in which Cycles are mostly open-topped like this one, but in our home this is the only open-topped model known to exist. It is also the second model in our dimension."
"Your dimension must be strange," Yeesha commented.
"Ours is as strange to you as yours is to us," We responded.
"Well, That's that. You have officially learned the written and spoken D'ni languages," Yeesha told us. She was speaking in D'ni now because we knew the language and she was more comfortable with it.
"So will you teach us to Write now?" we asked in an excited tone
"There are a few more tests you must complete," Yeesha told us, picking up a Linking Book from a shelf. This Book had gray covers with small black dots that seemed to be randomly distributed, like the small marks on the tile floors at FCon. The Book had a black spine and the word "MYST" written in gold letters. "The first test is simple: Complete the quest."
We nodded and opened the Book. The Linking Panel showed a sea of water, and then moved, almost camera-like to a view of an island with forests, a few buildings, a clock tower off the coast, a walkway leading to some sort of spacecraft, one very large tree, a hill with a gear embedded in it, and a dock with a sunken ship. The image moved to the end of the dock, and stopped.
"What have We got to lose?" We asked, and Linked.
And that's that. I hope you enjoyed. Sorry this one is so much shorter, but I'm having a bit of a writer's block problem on this chapter, but I already know exactly what I'm going to do next chapter. Plus, I do have some pretty good stuff planned for Composite's first Age. You'll never guess what. In fact, it was an idea that came up pretty much fully formed.
Oh, and to throw this out there, spending a solid weekend playing Doom 3 is a surprisingly effective cure for writer's block.
Until next time, This is SabaraOne, Logging Out!
(Insert embarrassingly stupid post-outro comment here)
