105: Language Barrier

“Nalm nu a’lon translates directly as ‘Reach me and talk’. Based on the apparent difficulty of communication with Vojemala, that leads me to believe that there are two different possibilities of what she wanted from you. Are you sure you don’t remember anything else she said?”

This was only Eris’s second time ever meeting Professor Dzhemehal, and unfortunately, that was three times too many. The pink-haired woman was pacing along one wall of the living room. How they managed to get her here on such short notice was beyond Eris’s comprehension, but there very well may have been a chance that upon learning Eris made contact with Vojemala herself, Dzhemehal got onto all fours and sprinted like a dog chasing a bone.

A funny thought, which was Eris’s only solace in this moment as she groaned into her palms.

“No.”

“No, you don’t remember, or no- you do remember other things?”

“No, I don’t remember anything else!” Eris lifted her head from her hands and snapped at the woman. She practically growled. “And asking thirty-six times won’t make me suddenly remember! After all, it’s pretty hard to perfectly recall a conversation spoken in a language you don’t understand! All I’ve got are individual words. Bits and pieces.”

Dzehemehal blinked before narrowing her eyes. “And those bits and pieces are;” the pink-haired woman cleared her throat before looking down at a little notepad in her hand. “Mo vaela nu navon. Lero, Eris, Lero. Meri. You watch me person. Courage, Eris, Courage. Peace.”

“She was telling me that I was seeing her body. That I was in her eyes. And telling me to calm down because I was panicking.”

“So you perfectly remember that part and understood it, but nothing else…” Dzhemehal clicked her tongue in disapproval. Eris’s eye twitched.

“Oh, I’m so sorry that my basic knowledge of the Ra’lan language consists of only the fundamentals. That must be so very inconvenient for you.”

“Kadell, watch your tone,” Professor Konderlacht warned from her position on the other couch. “Dzhemehal, please try to be understanding.”

The pink-haired woman turned to the superintendent. “I am understanding, and I understand that Miss Kadell’s knowledge of the Ra’lan language cannot continue to be lackluster, since it has been proven at multiple points that the knowledge will be invaluable. Even Vojemala herself seems to agree, because I believe that she was intending for Eris to learn Ra’lan properly, then return to her afterwards so that they could converse without struggle.”

“Reach me and talk.” Kull echoed the statement. Dzhemehal nodded.

“My own assumption is that the necklace is serving as some kind of bridge or rope connecting the two together, and what allowed contact in the first place, given that this has never happened before Eris received the necklace. Presumably, that means that it should be possible for Eris to make contact with Vojemala again in the future and the two may converse to share information when they understand better.”

She then turned her eyes back down to the notebook. “Mo, nu, eiranzi Oculus. Something something, azris, nu cirmol. Something something, demenal. Havajel manst, havajel mo. After that you explained your lack of understanding, she said she was Vojemala, then said ‘Reach me and talk’. Correct?”

Eris nodded. “Pretty much?”

“What does that conversation translate into, with your best assumption?” Konderlacht asked. The pink-haired professor stopped pacing, then rested one hand on her hip.

“As for translating Ra’lan, immediate and direct word-by-word translations are often the least effective way to go about things, because the entire language is almost completely built up from context clues that shape their very way of speaking. Because of that, Ra’lan is both incredibly simple to learn, but at the same time, impossibly complex and varying even from region to region.”

Eris could hear Kull attempting to bite back the groan. “Just translate the page for us, please.”

“I’m getting to that. However, the Ra’lan language operates much differently than Common because while we have a separate word for almost every single concept, a dictionary of Ra’lan would be incredibly small. There are barely a hundred actual ‘words’ in their language, consisting of nouns and adjectives. Every single idea, phrase, name, and title for anything is ultimately boiled down to a string of nouns and adjectives that best describe what they are intending. In that way, Ra’lan is not as simple as knowing the words being spoken, it is understanding the intent of the speaker. Gaining familiarity with them on a personal level so that you can best know what they mean at any given time. Half of Ra’lan is knowing the language. The other half is knowing to whom you’re speaking with, and how they tend to use descriptive words to best put their intent into verbal form.”

Gods, this was going to be another lecture. Thankfully, Eris didn’t need to voice her opinion on the matter, since the only other person in the room who had since gone unspoken let out a low curse.

“Fuuuuuuck…” Tatum groaned while sinking back into the couch beside Eris. For his part, Kull also seemed irate. Eris could see the man’s eye twitching. Konderlacht looked, as ever, stern and otherwise unfazed as she watched the encyclopedia on legs turn to address the four of them.

“Because of that, the Ra’lan language actually varies greatly from region to region. Since their entire vocabulary is built from a select few fundamentals strung together to describe a more complex idea, communities often had their own compound words formed to add to their vocabulary. Therefore, there was actually far less travel and commerce back before the Sundering, because anyone attempting to travel to a new community would effectively need to learn a different version of Ra’lan. Built from the same fundamentals and with the same end results, but with a different pathway taken that changes how it’s perceived in the entirety. Take, for instance, a fish.”

Rita held up one finger. “There is no inherent word for ‘fish’ in the Ra’lan language. So, other words would be used to come to that result. ‘Ashrei’ and ‘Ani’ for example. ‘Water’ and ‘Beast’. They would either say the fundamental words separately to describe the new concept, or for more common concepts like ‘fish’ that would thus be spoken of constantly, they simply used the fundamentals to make a new word for it. ‘Ashrei’ and ‘Ani’ would be combined into ‘Ashrani’ to thus make a specific word for ‘fish’.”

Dzhemehal smiled in the same way that anyone else would when passionately describing their interests. She was the only one in the room smiling, however.

“So now that they had a word for ‘fish’, they would then add that to their list of fundamentals and use that to make even more words. For example, a community could take ‘Ragr’, meaning ‘Anger’, and combine it with the new ‘Ashrani’ to mean ‘Angry fish’, which could possibly be used to describe a shark of some kind. And they would either keep it as ‘Ragr ashrani’, or if it was used enough to warrant condensing, would possibly turn it into something like ‘Ragshrani’ to become yet a new fundamental word for that community. A different community describing a shark, however, might not have used ‘Angry fish’ as their description for it. They might have used ‘Pain fish’, and could have combined ‘Balar’ instead of ‘Ragr’ to make their word for shark ‘Balshrani’.”

Dzhemehal clasped her fingers together, taking a breath. “And that process would be applied for every single facet of life that the fundamental words didn’t consist of. Therefore, every community would have their common words that were unchanged, such as ‘me, you fire, see, time, clean,’ and so forth, any more complex ideas formed in their own ways to make wildly different dialects of the same language that change from region to region.”

“Are any of those compound words on the paper?” Kull asked. Rita shook her head.

“No, sir.”

Kull let out a shaky breath. “Then translate that paper exactly as it is.”

Rita narrowed her eyes. “Just because there are no compound words immediately present does not mean that there wouldn’t still be influence based on the speaking patterns of a region’s inhabitants. For example, the areas around Lipodan actually separated the personal effects from ‘Lohse’, which means ‘scary’ or ‘fear’. Instead, they had a different word entirely for the descriptive aspects of ‘scary’ that would then be used for other compound words, while ‘lohse’ was left specifically for the term of being afraid, rather than causing fear itself-”

“Just translate the fucking page!!!”

The room went quiet, and everyone looked over at Tatum who had shouted. The darker girl rubbed her eyes. “There’s still a lot of other shit we’ve gotta talk about, and we don’t have time for a lecture. So spit it the fuck out, or leave if you aren’t going to be helpful.”

Dzhemehal curled her lip. “Well, that’s incredibly rude.”

“And I ‘incredibly’ don’t give a shit. Now for the love of the Seven, can you just be useful and-”

Professor Konderlacht raised her hand, silencing the Stonecutter and training serious brown eyes on the pink-haired woman. “Professor Dzhemehal, please just translate the page for us.”

Rita looked between them, huffed, then glanced down to her scrawled notes.

Me, you, worship-slash-faith Oculus. Unintelligible, future, me sorry. Unintelligible, important-slash-of importance. Need fix-slash-help, need you.”

Dzhemehal looked borderline offended as she glanced up from the page. “That is the most direct possible translation, with no intentions, assumptions, or context behind any word. I did take the liberty of adding other possible definitions of some words, if you don’t mind.”

Kull sighed. “No, that is appreciated. Thank you, Professor.”

Rita nodded, then swallowed. “Eiranzi generally means ‘Worship’, but has also been applied as ‘Faith’ itself, or even the prospect of having faith. More importantly, though, is that ‘Eiranzi’ effectively became the Ra’lan term for ‘Echoes’ in general. Therefore, that opening sentence could be interpreted to mean ‘You and I have faith in the Oculus’ or ‘You and I are Echoes of the Oculus’. Given the situation, I can assume the latter.”

She then sighed. “Now, did it seem like she said ‘Azris nu cirmol’, as in one continuous phrase, or was it just ‘Nu cirmol’ with ‘Azris’ being a different bit of a previous statement?”

Eris strained her mind, desperately trying to recall the details. “I don’t think it was together. I’m pretty sure ‘Azris’ was just part of a different sentence and I only took note because it’s the name of the necklace.”

“While also meaning ‘Future’ or even ‘Possibility’. Though in this context- or lack thereof- it is impossible to determine whether Vojemala was intending the word as future, possibility, or simply naming the necklace itself. Likely the third, since it was almost undoubtedly what allowed this connection in the first place. However, she then apologizes by saying she’s sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Tatum asked. Rita slumped her shoulders.

“That is the question. However, something is either ‘Important’ or of importance, and then that last bit; Havejel manst, havajel mo. ‘Manst’ can mean either ‘Fix’ or ‘Help’. Therefore, it’s either ‘Need fix, need you’ or ‘Need help, need you’.”

Konderlacht sighed through her nose. “Is she asking Miss Kadell to repair the Obelisk?”

“Or asking for Eris to help her in general,” Dzehemehal pursed her lips. “However, that was before it was made clear that they couldn’t really have a proper conversation with their little understanding. I would assume that Vojemala then decided things would be far easier if they could converse properly, said ‘Reach me and talk’, then ended the connection. Presumably for Eris to learn Ra’lan in the meantime so that when next they speak, intentions are understood.”

“Great, so that’s another thing I have to do.”

All eyes turned to Eris, who slumped in her seat. Eris then lifted one finger after another.

“So I have to save the world from the Hollow, but first I have to remake all of the tools in my workshop again using the tools that were made yesterday in order to get the best possible benefits. Then I have to make all of the equipment for Jaxie, Alex, Nima, Meghan and Claire before they set out for their first mission in a matter of days, and then I have to replicate the skills of whichever other people you want me to, but I also have to get the Desire to level up those skills since I can apparently do that. But then I also need that Desire to level up the skills I already have to possibly evolve them again, or just to save up to level whatever new skills I get naturally in the future which are probably going to be really powerful and will be the top priority to level up.”

Eris took a deep breath and held up her other hand to keep extending fingers. “Then I need to keep working with the researchers to understand everything about being an Artificer, but then I need to identify and possibly repair a bunch of other Artificer artifacts from before the Sundering which will open up a whole new list of things that need to happen. Then we need to figure out something to do with the Obelisk since it’s apparently a bomb that can go off at any moment and wipe the entire city off the map, but more importantly a home for what could be dozens of Echoes that could all be invaluable to our war against the Hollow, so getting them out is a high priority.”

Eris lowered her hands.

“And now I can apparently possess the body of an Artificer who’s definitely supposed to be dead but is apparently alive, and I have to have intelligent conversations with her in order to figure out what the crap is even happening, but before I can do ANY of that, now I need to become fluent in a language that apparently has no genuine structure and is built from improvisation. And all of that needs to be done as soon as possible because none of us have any idea whatsoever of what’ll happen if anything goes wrong.”

Eris buried her face in her palms. “It’s just one damned thing after another at this point. I’d love nothing more than a single day without some important new thing happening or needing to be done-”

The front door of the house slammed open suddenly, making Eris, Tatum and Professor Dzhemehal all jump in surprise. Kull and Konderlacht immediately turned to face the sudden entry. Charlotte did too- in a sudden clatter of armour that reminded Eris the woman had been sitting off at the kitchen counter so quietly that Eris forgot she was even there. The man who entered was wearing the Syndicate uniform, holding a small, glassy black stone in his fist that Eris recognized as one of the Whisperstones she was promised the day before last, after she first woke up following the escape of the Obelisk.

Eris had overestimated both the quantity of the item and how quickly it would be to procure one of her own. When they said Eris and Charlotte would both be getting one, Eris assumed they would hand a pair over right then and there. She hadn’t expected the items would take almost a week to make… each. Apparently, there were only three in the entirety of Marrix and less than fifty in the total use of the Syndicate.

One of which was now clutched in the grip of a man who looked incredibly panicked.

“Madame Konderlacht, there’s a Hollow assault on the Dural fortifications of an unprecedented scale. In the last few minutes, two hostiles have already taken root, a half dozen soldiers have been confirmed corrupted, and over a dozen others have been slain. All available Syndicate forces are being deployed west for containment.”

“Wait, what?” Tatum asked, eyes wide. Eris watched Kull tense so hard she was worried the man would snap in half, while Konderlacht’s knuckles popped in the tight fists she clenched.

“If this is a joke, I will have you court martialled and imprisoned for the rest of your life.”

The man went pale. Well… pale-er. He shook his head, terrified.

“N-no ma’am. General Trakkstedt herself sent the order. The Hollow has spread to the mainland.”