Chapter 2

The Book Collector

There was a quiet knock on the wooden door. Viera unlocked it and peek out to see one of the inn's maid standing there. She was saying something while gesturing into the room. Viera assumed the maid was asking if she was done so that they could remove the tub. After all, they would need to clean and prepare it for the next guest that asked for it. Viera opened the door wider to allow her in. The maid collected the bath towel and the toiletries from besides the wooden bath tub.

Viera sat down at the edge of her bed, watching as the maid left and others entered the room with empty buckets. They scooped out the dirty water and carried it away until the tub was as close to empty as it could be. Nob and one other gentlemen enter the room to carry it out. The same maid from before returned, picking up the cloth on the floor. She asked her something, but Viera could only tilt her head in questioning manner. The maid pause in her talking, but smile when she caught sight of Viera's pile of dirty clothes. She pointed to them and made the motion of scrubbing with her hands, making it apparent she was asking if Viera wanted her clothes to be washed.

Viera was unsure if that service was included in her payment of the room or if she has to pay in addition. Viera plucked a coin from her purse and was about to hand it over to the maid, but the woman immediately shook her head. She made it clear that payment was unneeded. She gathered Viera's dirty clothes, bid her a farewell and left the room with the door shutting quietly behind her. Viera locked the door and sat at the small table with a window overlooking the street in front of the inn.

The sun was slowly setting, causing the room to become a bit darker now. She carefully focused on creating a small flame with her fingers using the Igni sigil to light the candles on the table. Before moving her bag onto the floor, she pulled out the parchment, inkwell and a quill that she was able to get from the merchant. She opened the inkwell and carefully dipped the quill into it, tapping the excess ink from the nub.

On the parchment she wrote down a list of simple words, like man, woman, look, come, say, yes, no, cold, hot, food, water, drink, bed, sleep, price, and so on. Just a few words to make communication much easier. Most of it was left blank, but there was plenty of space left for her to fill in the words later. Below it she also wrote what she was able to figured out from shop signs and from the few one-sided conversations she had. When she was done, she leaned back from the parchment. She tapped the quill on the inkwell's edge to remove as much as ink as possible, before resting the quill on the ink-stand and closing the inkwell.

Tomorrow she'll ask Nob for help in filling in the blanks. If not, he might know someone who might be willing to help her learn the language. Maybe a holy man that regularly holds free classes to teach the village's children how to read, write, and count? No matter where she goes she always finds at least one of them in a settlement. It makes sense. It's a good way for them to establish goodwill and connect with the common folks to the church, because the children could also be taught the doctrine.

It's a win-win situation. People would be able to keep accounts with a basic literacy, but they might also be attracted to the holy life. Unless she's extremely unfortunate to land somewhere that's atheistic. Viera shook her head, getting up from her seat. She left the parchment on the table, giving the ink plenty of time to dry. She extinguished the candles then padded over to her bed and dropped onto it with a sigh. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. She rolled onto her side to stare out of the window. The moon shone radiantly, beaming light into the room. Viera relaxed and before she knew it, she was asleep.

Viera groaned when she felt the gentle caress of morning sun on her face. She rolled away from the window and groggily opened her eyes. Before she slipped out of bed she cracked her neck and arched her back, stretching her legs out with a satisfied groan. Feeling pressure on her bladder, she retrieved the chamber pot from beneath the bed and relieved herself. Stifling a yawn down she fixed her hair and straightens out the wrinkles on her clothes. She also grabbed the end of her dark gray cloak from the bed and shook it out before slipping it on.

She snatched the dried parchment from the small table and tucked it into the book in her bag. She pull out the key to her room, locking the door behind her and descended the stairs to the dining area of the inn. Nob and some of the inn's maids were already up and bustling around the tables while pulling the chairs out. From the smell of freshly brewed coffee, eggs, sausages and bacon, they're obviously preparing for breakfast. Viera managed to grab a piece of rye bread and a bit of cheese to eat. She also took an apple for later.

Before the inn began to fill up with the locals and the rest of the inn's patrons Viera found Nob. It took a while, but Nob finally understood what she was trying to say. What probably helped him figured it out was when she had him fill in some of missing translation on her parchment. From his gesturing and talking, she guessed he would take her to someone that could help her.

When he was ready to go Viera pull up the hood of her cloak. They both left the inn, pass the busy market and ascended the slope up the cobbled street which lead deeper into the large village. After a while of walking, he stopped outside a tall stone building. It looked nearly the same as all the other buildings, but there was a distinct difference to it. Two stone steps led up to an impressive oak double-doors what were carved with an elaborately floral motif and twisted iron handles on them. The other buildings didn't contain such intricate details to them.

There wasn't a sign to give her a clue or any reachable windows for her to peek inside. Nob opened one of the massive doors and she got a whiff of books, wood and a faint scent of ink. He held it opened for her, and she offered a nod of gratitude before stepping inside. He followed behind her and headed towards the back of the room, calling out to someone from a doorway.

Rows of bookshelves filled with books covered the room. There were only two tables and only one of them was crammed with books and parchment. An elderly man popped into the room, his attention completely focused on the bulky book in his hands that he walked passed Nob. He walked to the vacant table and carefully placed the book down. He was about to sit down when Nob spoke once more. The old man jumped, obviously startled, and whirled around to face the source of voice addressing him.

He peered down at Nob. His eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation of why he's there. Nob looked apologetic as he talked and gestured to her. The old man glanced at her curiously, nodding along to whatever Nob was saying. She walked closer and pushed down the hood from her head. The elderly man's eyes widen behind the thin, square glasses perched on his nose. He turned back to Nob appearing to be more enthusiastic.

Nob turned to her and stated his name with his hand on his chest. He pointed at her and said her name. The old man caught on quickly, bowed to her and said his name, "Wilbert."

After that Nob returned to the inn to resume his duties and Wilbert began to speak to her in numerous languages. She couldn't understand any of them, but each one sounded interesting. Some of the languages were soft and elegant, almost melodious while others were somewhat harsh and fiery. Viera shook her head with each one until...

"Greetings. You understand?"

"Yes," she answered, her shoulder relaxing. "I wasn't expecting anyone to know the common speech from my...homeland."

Wilbert looked relieved for a moment, but quickly frowned and shook his head. He held up a finger and briskly walked back into the backroom. A couple of minutes later he returned with two dusty books in his hand. He blew the topmost layer of dust off from each book then wiped them down with a rag from his pocket. He walked to the table, moved his book aside and placed them down. He flipped opened the smallest book first which appeared to be a journal of some kind. He said something about it and tapped the first page with his finger.

The journal was old, maybe even older than she thought because the pages were aging to a distinctly unpleasant yellow. However, the neat handwriting spread across it in straight lines was still legible. Viera leaned over to read the large inscription at the top of the page out loud, "Journal of Seweryn Nowak, Alchemist."

The first few pages didn't interest her, all they talked about was his progress of creating an elixir that could possibly prolong life indefinitely or a cure-all. She skipped a couple of pages until she got to the interesting part. He was searching for a bioluminescent fungi, in particular Armillaria mellea, a type of mushroom that glows in the dark to use as an ingredient.

Seweryn went to the forest at night as it would've made it easier to spot them. He also decided to go out on a full moon in hopes that it wouldn't be too dark to see, but he still lost sight of the pathway. He wondered around until he found a glowing light in the distance and thought it was the mushrooms. Instead, he came across an active portal. He goes on describing it and even included a little sketch of it. It was the same one she went through.

He was about to set up a camp next to it, but heard wolves howling madly somewhere nearby. He wrote about how he should've known something was wrong when the forest suddenly fell silent. The wolves were on the hunt and must've caught his scent. He had only one option. As soon as he caught sight of their glaring eyes and sharp teeth he jumped through the portal.

From that point Viera skimmed through Seweryn's journal. It took him a while to realize he was in another world. He struggled to communicate and make a living because he was also a merchant that specialize in herbal medicine. Some of the ingredients he used for his potions and remedies were difficult to locate because they went by another name or don't seem to exist. But he did experiment with the unknown plants, creating new potions that worked just as well.

One day someone took pity on him. They taught him the language and what he needed to know. Initially, he was determined to return home, but after many attempts and many years have passed he ended up setting down. His daughter was fascinated with herbalism and explored the path of a healer, while his son was more into books. Seweryn wrote down all of his knowledge of plants, and potions, and gave it to his daughter. While he complied another book that would help anyone from his world learn the language if they find themselves in this new world too. He gave that to his son to keep safe.

At that Viera stopped to look at Wilbert. He was at the other table, cleaning and organizing books. She called out to him, pointing to the journal and back to him. "Nowak? Wilbert Nowak?"

He nodded. Viera wonder how close of a descendant to Nowak he actually is. Her knowing that information won't change anything, but she is curious to know how long ago Seweryn appeared. She shook her head, placing down the journal and picked up the larger book. She flipped it opened and read the first page. It was written in the common speech of her world. It started with an introductory chapter about the new world she's in. Each section contained an explanation of several topics like religion, languages, locations, money, culture, and whatnot.

She leafed through the pages until she found the section with the world's languages. She decided to go with Westron because it's this world's common speech. She pulled out her parchment from her book and started on learning the language. At some point in her reading Wilbert placed down an inkwell and a quill so that she could take down notes. She filled in the blanks and managed to write down a paragraph explaining her situation for Wilbert to read.

The progress of converting her language to Westron was exceedingly slow, but it was still progress, nonetheless. In response Wilbert wrote down his questions, and she would translate it to her language to read them. When she got that done, she would answer his questions and translate it again to Westron. There was a lot of backs and forth, but in the end Wilbert understood her situation.

In their exchanged Viera found out that Wilbert wasn't a scholar or a cleric. Apparently he likes reading frequently and collecting books. But that alone wouldn't be enough to support him. As a result he makes copies of the books by hand from his personal library and sells them. Every so often he teaches the children in the village how to read and write, but not for free.

He agreed to help her as long as she carried her own weight. He also arranged for her to stay in a spare room at his home, which was in fact the very place they're in. As long as she doesn't make a mess or get in the way of his work, he'll let her stay as long as she needs. And with unlimited access to his books.

She instantly agreed and in the meantime, she'll continue learning the language. And from Wilbert's expression when she pulled out her red apple; she'll eat any food away from his books. Afterward, she'll go back to the inn to pick up her stuff and her clothes from the maid. By then they should be ready and it'll be dinner time too, so she'll grab a bite to eat before coming back to Wilbert's place.

Author's Notes: That was as far as I got with the story. The idea was that Viera had three paths that she could have taken that would've led her into the main Tolkien stories. I couldn't decide which to do, so I took a break to figured it out. But I lost track of time and I hadn't touched this story since then.

Option one was that Viera could've run into Gandalf either before or after his meeting with Thorin in Bree. Gandalf would be able to immediately tell that she doesn't belong in their world just from her presence. They both would have a lot of questions for each other, but the lack of communication would make that difficult. So she would have to stick close to him, while learning the language and in doing so he would also learn about her. He would see that she's got a good heart, is very skilled and could be useful. That path would lead to the The Hobbit storyline.

Option two was that Viera could've run into Strider (Aragorn) and the hobbits at the Prancing Pony OR when they were fleeing/fighting the Ringwraiths at Weathertop. She could have been camping nearby when the group got attacked. She wouldn't be able to stand by and watch, especially when they only had one person capable of fighting. This would've led to The Fellowship of the Ring storyline. However, she wouldn't have been a tenth walker. Viera is an outsider, so her only interest would be to return home. The elves would agree to help her, while keeping an eye on her since they're a bit suspicious of the timing and where her morality/loyalties lie. But while she traveled with an escort something happens that causes her to cross paths with the fellowship again.

The third option would be her roaming around, trying to find the elves (most likely those in Rivendell since they're closer in location) or Gandalf. In this path she would have had more time to adjust to the world and pick up a little bit of the language on her own (with a little bit of help from someone). However, she keeps running into orcs and saving people from them. She's not quiet about it and that ends up attracting the attention of the rangers, elves and Sauron. The storyline for this option is a bit more relaxed and vague, because it's like a detail side-quest where I can explore the LOTR world and one of the plots. It would also be easier to conclude because the other two options would result in a very long story and nowadays such stories end up taking years to finally finish or end up discontinued which I want to avoid happening.

Obviously communication would be a problem for Viera no matter which option I pick for her. The languages in The Witcher are not at all similar to those in Tolkien's stories. So Viera would need to learn the Common Speech (Sôval Phârë) of this world, which is also known as Westron (Adûni). Unfortunately, we know very little about Westron, for the simple reason that Tolkien never worked out Westron to the same extent as Quenya and Sindarin or even Adûnaic. Which is why I had used English and avoided writing out the dialogue for it.