• PM To Join • First Lesson

[Aeodan]

Ymiden 18 720

Aeodan stood and took count of the number of students gathering in the room before him. A twinge of panic coursed through his body, but he remained still as they filtered in, all adhering to the break schedule. His face remained passive, unimpressed by neither class size nor diversity, though it surprised him to see a fair number of humans taking the class. He shouldn't have been surprised, considering himself, but he was. He was always the anomaly, never the mean. As the final students settled into their seats, Aeodan ran a hand over his freshly-shaven face and announced himself.

"Good morning, I am Adam Barnard, and I am here to instruct you in Linguistics. The Viden Academy has always prided itself on housing the experts in the fields of the courses in which it offers, and I hope to be an asset to the university in the coming arcs. I myself obtained my Letter and Certificate in Rynmere, but for reasons that are my own, I have come to reside here in Viden. For our first lesson, I am going to introduce you to the concept of Linguistics, and provide you with an example in the real world pertaining to the topic. Shall we begin?"

His tone was confident, a confidence he'd never have had before his adventures with Thomas and the Seekers. With Edalene. But nevertheless, he maintained his composure and walked out in front of the group of students, all of whom were facing him and watching quietly. He lifted his arms and motioned to the room around him.

"Everyone communicates. Everything communicates. From the basest beast of the tundra to the most eloquent of bards, communication is the foundation of a society. Linguistics is the study of the verbal component of that communication, and it seeks to understand how and why language has developed thusly, and where it might go int he future."

He paused and let the class absorb the information. The silvery mark of Xypha shown slightly in the sunlight, and every now and then, a beam would illuminate it on his face to make it clear as day.

"Understanding the basic blocks of language can allow you to quickly learn to assess how those languages connect to the people, places and times in which they were developed and proliferated," he continued, but many of the students looked perplexed. He smiled, having said the whole sentence in Leni, and then repeated it in Common, to which the class looked relieved.

"Speaking languages is a skill in itself, but understanding how all language is connected with allow you to the opportunity to learn as many as you'd like, and use them to carry yourself to the furthest reaches of Idalos. I once traveled with a group of Rakahi sailors whose grasp of Common was, at best, fundamental. My knowledge of the roots of both languages allowed me not only to quickly learn Rakahi to communicate with them, but relate the Common to them as well. When I left the clan, they all spoke Common as well as they spoke Rakahi, though Common hardly has the same lilting melody to the words." Aeodan smiled, and the few who spoke Rakahi, even basically, knew that he was correct. Among the faces in the crowd sat Envoy, its frog-like features grotesque in juxtaposition to the students. They were blissfully unaware.

"Businessmen, traders, spies, assassins, kings and queens... They all need to know language to progress in this world. Diplomacy is a weapon from which an enemy can never strip you, and without language, there is no diplomacy. Remember that as you take this course."

Aeodan paused again, surveying the crowd. Envoy's alien grin, with a full set of human teeth, was the only expression in the classroom.

"Questions?"

!

Message from: Aeodan

To those wishing to join the class, please post below. If participating in this thread, you will be able to utilize the skill points gained to purchase a language at Aeodan's current skill level, which is Grandmaster. This means that you get a 5:1 buy. Hard to pass up for anyone potentially attempting to learn a language. I will be posting again on Thursday, July 9th. If no posts before that, I will move forward as a solo. The above skill buy reduction is based on Aeodan's Linguistics Capstone, which states "With this ability, Aeodan learns languages at twice his normal rate. By being able to relate linguistic similarities and shared characteristics, he is able to double his capacity for learning languages. Additionally, when he teaches a PC any language he is Fluent in, the PC may use his Linguistics bonus instead of their own when buying ranks for that specific language."

[Zemos]

Zemos was running late for his first class. It was to be an introduction to chemistry. One of the foundational sciences for the pursuit of toxicology. Yet he somehow found himself getting lost, and nobody would help him. He tried talking to people here or there, but none of them took him and his strange manner of speaking common seriously. They merely laughed behind their hands and scoffed. Scoffed! Zemos didn't hold it against them, though. He would come to befriend all of them in time, he was sure.

But then, he thought he found his way to the right class. He sat himself down, and took out his ratty notebook and a jagged piece of graphite that served as his study materials. Thus armed, he prepared to take notes.

Yet, when the man teaching them began to speak, something didn't register. Was he talking about toxins? Surely not, yet... Communication, this wasn't entirely alien to the way poisons and diseases were transferred. Communication could be another word for how poisons might be moved from one person to another. Yes, as he listened, he came to the conclusion that this was some higher concept that he was trying to impart to his students.

Communication was the transfer vector, and language was the poison. The egg speaks too, words of contagion, through the tongues of apes, to droplets on the air. The egg wanted to make itself heard to the class, but instead Zemos coughed, and let it lie. He maintained control for the moment, and just began taking notes. They were written in Xanthean script of course, being the language he was most comfortable with. There'd be time to improve his common tongue later.

Language = Poison/disease
Communication = Vectors of Contagion


He was excited by the prospect of learning this new methodology for transfer of toxins and disease. It seemed their teacher really knew his stuff. He began talking about 'languages' and how they traveled from place to place.

By the time he came to the anecdote about how he'd lived with a clan that dealt in a particular poison, this one being called Rakahi, Zemos was nearly jumping in his seat. He couldn't resist speaking the egg's words then, and did so with great vigor, "Yes, teacher! Tell father how you spread contagion in a village!"

Several of the other students couldn't suppress a giggle at the strange Sev'ryn, at which he blushed, and then promptly sat himself down, taking more notes. When at last the time for questions came, Zemos had but one to start with:

"Err... Teacher! What is this disease, this poison you call Rakahi? Is it very pleasant upon the nose or tongue? Is that what you mean by... 'lilting'? Sorry I common not so well."

A long peal of laughter seemed to rip through the room as nearly every student openly laughed at Zemos. He, however, laughed along, thinking perhaps this was part of the exercise. Or a demonstration of sorts. Yet at the back of his mind, he couldn't help but get the sneaking suspicion that they were exercising some form of power play. Some expression of dominance, to prove their minds worthier than his. However, it was ever Zemos' way to put the best spin on a situation, and deal with it as he would. The world was an ebbullient feast of sensation and thrill. He would thrill with it, if he could help it.

As the laughter died down, and Zemos resumed his seat, materials were passed out. Study materials. It seemed the teacher's lecture was at an end. And so Zemos was left with barely intelligible instructions on his papers. "Psst, Zemos."

Zemos recognized that voice, it was Sophie! He wheeled around to greet her with a smile, and saw her cocking her head at the side to him. She seemed somewhat bemused to see him there, which she explained in her next words, "What are you doing in here? This is a class on languages."

"Aye, yes, the most potent of poisons! Language!" Sophia's study partner snickered behind his hand, yet Sophie wasn't amused. She pushed aside, leaving room in the chair next to her for Zemos to take it.

"You're in a class that teaches you to talk in another tongue. Do you understand?" She repeated the words in Xanthean, which made Zemos blush when he heard them. So... he wasn't here to study exciting new contagions and poisons? How disappointing for him and the Egg! He was looking forward to hearing more about how the Professor poisoned a village.

So as the class wore on, Sophie taught him more about the connections and commonalities between Common tongue and Xanthean. That they were both rich in conjunctions and various phases of different words. Tense, object, subject. All of these lessons were imparted to Zemos over the course of his course crashing.

Zemos had to reflect that Sophie had an interesting way of teaching, almost intuitive in its brilliance. She seemed to understand the underlying the confusion that Zemos suffered when communicating in Common.

Slowly over the course of the next break or so, she unraveled it more or less for him, with the guidance of the teaching materials provided by the Professor.

Before long, Zemos was understanding Common much better, and had a grasp enough to learn as he exited the class. He spent the better part of the next day chatting up anyone and everyone, trying to absorb more of their strange language. For such a difficult tongue, it surely seemed as if people preferred it.



The next morning, Zemos went to consult the study notes he'd gathered from the classroom of that Professor. He also borrowed what was called a dictionary from the Grand Atheneum. From it, he began crafting flash cards to learn how to pronounc ethe words, but not only that, understand their meaning in Xantehan. Sophie helped him with the cheat sheet for this purpose, and thus he was set to start learning the language in earnest.

They started with the conjuctions. This was one of the things that native speakers of Xanthean often had trouble assimilating when learning COmmon. They would often skip them, but Sophie assured Zemos that they were of the utmost importance.

Next, they worked on the subtle ways words could change, based on a number of factros including but not limited to, possession, plurality, and tenses of past present and future.

Only when it was clear to Zemos that he had these lessons down, to the point where he could repeat them, did he continue to individual words that were common to use. He already knew his favorite words. Poison, disease, contagion, decay, pestilence. Some of these words were troubling to others, but to Zemos they were almost a prayer. They granted him calm when he mentioned them.

At any rate, Zemos breezed through his study session with Sophie, in the privacy of her student lodging. Under any other set of circumstances, the words would've been a jumble in his head. Yet somehow the study materials prepared by the professor made the process of learning a new language so much easier. That combined with the favorable company of Zemos' friend Sophie, and they had an easy time of it. Zemos learned common in almost no time afterward. There were still kinks here or there, but overall he overcame his awkward common speech.

He left Sophie where she was, and went on his way toward his own lodging wtihin the University. He thought idly of his old master, Sybil, and how they would've despised what their old servant Zemos had become. Yet he didn't care too much about that. He was eager to learn better now from Mervani, and to breeze through the Academy to higher echelons of learning.

Language, and communication, were key it seemed to transmitting information. And like any other good bug, communication was only effective as the transmission vector. Zemos would be certain that his vectors of transmission were functioning at the utmost efficiency.

He strolld into the toxicology class, confident that he'd arrived on time, despite the distraction of getting caught out of sorts learning the common language in such a short time from Sophie.

He sat at a desk, folded his hands one over the other, and waited expectantly for the lesson of Mervani to begin.

[Doran]

Zemos:

Knowledge:

Skill Knowledges
Linguistics: Common: Phrases and longer sentences are made to flow with conjunctions and similar words.
Linguistics: Common: Using past present and future tenses can inform your statements properly, to make clear when they happened.
Linguistics: Common: There are far too many words in the Common Language to keep them all straight, without a proper lesson plan.
Medicine: Poisons: The idea of a contagion or toxin that spreads through a population.
Medicine: Poisons: The figurative similarities between communication and toxic spread are enlightening, and may lead to future innovation.

Loot: 5:1 discount on languages learned with points earned from this thread.
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 5. Zemos attrracted attention!
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

- - -

Comments: It’s a bit of a pity that Aeodan only made one post. I found the way that he introduced his students to the subject of linguistics fascinating to read. In my opinion, Aeodan’s post made it clear why languages and linguistics are so important, and his Linguistics capstone seems quite useful!

I appreciate that you tried to finish the class by adding a solo-length reply to it rather than simply abandoning it, Zemos. Your post was a little under 1.500 words, but it was still a complete little story.

I was amused when Zemos ended up in the wrong glass by accident. It seems as if he learned something useful in it nevertheless though!

I found it interesting how he drew parallels between linguistics and toxicology. He didn’t seem to have any idea what kind of class he had ended up in at first, but in my opinion, he has a point, nevertheless. Sometimes, vastly different fields can have something in common!

Zemos’ interaction with the other students was very entertaining to read in my opinion. I felt a bit bad for him, I have to admit, but fortunately, he didn’t seem to mind that they were laughing at him, and in the end, Sophie was there and explained what the class was really all about!

Your knowledges were fine, with the exception of the following one that I didn’t award you:

Medicine: Poisons: Language isn't a poison, not literally anyway: I can see how the other two Medicine knowledges that you requested relate to medicine and toxicology as they are about the spread of a toxin, but this one doesn’t really have anything to do with poisons.

It won’t help Zemos when it comes to understanding the spread of a poison or poisons in general. If you worded it a bit differently, you might be able to use it for Linguistics or another speech-related skill though as it refers to the harmful effects of language. So, let me know if you’d like a replacement knowledge!

Enjoy your rewards!