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 Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 1:52 am
If Linda had been trained in languages, she might have said something like: "Its language, I think, is superficially tied to Imperial. Judging by intonation and emphasis, Kya... pronoun? Possibly possessive. Mres would be 'name' or 'name is...' Unless it... no, wait. 'Mres' could also be some conjugation of 'To be'... Sam, that's the part that gives away the sentence structure. 'Hu' is an 'or' equivalent. 'Re' is either some sort of equivalent to 'of,' though which direction the relationship runs depends on what 'Bavaun' and 'dhamas' are, or it's a conjugation of 'to be' as well, since 're' is contained in the 'mres' word from earlier. Though, 'mret' seems more likely tied to 'mres' than 're,' though they could all be conjugations of the same verb. So 'Bavaun,' 'dhamas,' 'Bres,' and 'Olfshir' are all ambiguous..."
But Linda was trained in harming people, so instead she took more steps back and leveled her left hand at one and her right at the other; the whine from the right arm was joined by one on the left as she glanced back and forth between them, her heartbeat sounding and feeling like the natural result a metal drummer with twitchy legs and two bass pedals.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 9:01 am
Sam understood what the big one said and gauged the reaction of the femme fatal by cocking his left eyebrow and moving his head up, going over it with his eyes.
The merchant turned to the quad and asked in his matching language.
"Ha problen?" Again, just terrible.
It was in that moment he realised neither of them could have babel stones, so he held one finger up to both of them while shrugging off his stockbag. Sam dug around in a side pocket and produced two little pebbles, holding them out to the newcomers with his outstretched right hand. With his left hand he prodded his ear until he found another pebble, his babel stone, and he showed it to the guests by holding it between his thumb and forefinger and gesturing to his ear, the stone, the two stones in his other hand, and their...relative spaces where ears should be.
He did this three times before just smiling and holding them out.
"Ghamin, Ghamin!"
Take, take.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 10:40 am
Fredrick heard a clopping up the road, vaguely, through his massive headache. It took a while to recognize the sound of a horse's hooves. By the time the sound registered the horse was almost standing over him - a massive shaggy legged thing with a mane and tail that nearly drug the ground. Atop it was a young knight in brightly shining armor. A bearskin wrapped round his shoulders making a sort of furry cloak, the paws clasping it together at his chest and the head biting his left shoulder for a pauldron. The knight stared down curiously at the bleeding mage then glanced back to a smaller shape behind him, perched on the horse's rump.
The smaller shape turned out to be a young . . . person. Short cropped hair, baggy clothes, and pre-adolescent youth made it difficult to tell the exact gender. A few words passed between them that Fred didn't understand then the youth swung down from the horse with a bounce and approached the mage with a wary look as the knight observed from the horse with a friendly smile.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 10:53 am
Rüd almost jumped Linda when she decided he was a threat. She was a frightened rabbit and too dangerous for her own good. But Mad Sam seemed to have a peaceful solution. Despite the cry for violence in his trembling muscles, he slowly and cautiously walked past Linda and accepted a babel stone from Sam. He put it in his ear, and looking to the vagabond trader, muttered, "Testing."
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 11:03 am
Linda saw that the stone was, quite apparently, meant to be inserted into one's ear, and made her feelings on the matter unambiguous:
"Oh HELLL no, I am not inserting a... thing... into my ear. No way. The only tech I want in my head is the kind put in by a proper surgeon."
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 11:29 am
Sam looked up to Root and spoke;
"GALAEEEEEEEENK MOSGAFTA RUBRUB RUBRUBRUB BRRRRRRRRRRR!!" At least this is what it sounded like to Rud.
What he actually said was, "Tell me if I handed you one of the broken ones."
He still had his hand out to the "Linda" and probably wasn't going to put it down til someone took the stone from it.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 11:42 am
Rüd answered Mad Sam by plucking the stone from his ear immediately and throwing it at the traveling vendor's chest- not hard, but enough to make a point. "Trying to make me deaf, you crazy b*****d?" That was the Abwehran's anger peeking out, and he knew it. He took a deep breath, which helped a little. The he sighed, glanced at his upper left hand. Rage, he mentally reminded himself, like a mantra. Rage is a weakness.
So, hoping for one last attempt at personable interaction, he claimed the second one and tried it, murmuring, "If this doesn't work, I'm going to shove it so far up your ear your brain hemorrhages."
Rage indeed.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:04 pm
Linda took a few steps back at his response. Had he said it in Imperial for her benefit? She doubted the man she was yelling at could understand either way.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:08 pm
Sam let the stone fall to the ground after it hit his chest. He let out a bigger smile, angry people didn't make Sam angry, they made him hungry.
He never understood the reason.
"I guess it was one of those, I keep those around for the guards, and I get them mixed up sometimes, they tend to back off me a bit when they think I'm just wandering around selling nonsense no one wants to buy." This came through to Rud just fine, but still sounded like gibberish to the adamant Linda.
The scraggly merchant bent to pick up the stone and put it in the other side pocket, which also held stones. Stones meant for the guards, stones meant for laughs.
He plucked out another one and held it to Linda.
"Believe me," he said, still not grasping that Linda in no way understood him, "if I were hostile to you both it wouldn't be through your ears."
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:21 pm
Finally, some sense. Rüd only smirked and snatched Linda's stone from Mad Sam. "She doesn't understand you." He moved toward the Imperial, then paused, glancing over his shoulder to the vagabond. "Are you sure this one works? If not, I won't stop her if she comes after you." Wouldn't be his place, really, to settle a dispute between two strangers.
As no doubt Mad Sam would answer in the positive, the Abwehran approached Linda and offered the babel stone with one outstretched, tattooed arm. "Here. Bugger gave me a faulty one, but this works. Not quite the idiot I thought he was." Then, almost as an after-thought: "You'll probably need it. I don't think this place recognizes your Empire for squat."
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:34 pm
"Yes, well, if everyone recognized the Eternal Empire's authority, we wouldn't have to keep bombing them," Linda replied, the noise from her left hand ceasing as she reached out and gingerly plucked the stone from his hand. She moved it toward her ear.
Stopped. Moved it toward again. Stopped. Moved it away a little. Then towards.
She wanted to understand them, but she really didn't want this thing in her ear.
"For the Empire," she managed to squeak out as she winced so hard it that it looked like her face sought to implode itself as she put it in her ear. She began shuddering violently "Oh ******** oh ******** why did I do that it feels so weird say something in another language so I can see if it's working because otherwise I want this thing out now," she ranted, her necked jacked at a strange angle, forcing her ear against the shoulder of her jet-black armor.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:41 pm
Easy enough. He spoke in Abwehran. "Kannst du mich verstehen?" If all went as it should have, Linda would hear, "Can you understand me?" At least, that's what Rüd had come to believe. His perception was that these devices were somehow universal translators. Far from it, it only knew English, Kumariel, and the Queen's Common.
Abwehran, not being on that list, slipped right through the babel stone untranslated.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:47 pm
"Nnnnnnnopenopenopenopenopenopenope," Linda 213 promptly declared while immediately taking the stone out of her ear. "Okay let's never, ever do that again," she declared, rubbing her ear tenderly and looking, in spite of being a battle-hardened soldier, like the experience had left her wanting nothing more than to crawl into a bed, declare herself a big, toasty cinnamon bun, and never go near a babel stone ever again. Not even the one she was still clutching.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:53 pm
"They don't translate everything," a boisterous voice called out to them as an armored knight rode down the hill atop of a large white horse. The youth was still on the road behind tending the bleeding mage but the knight wasn't the sort to let things go on without sticking his nose in it, that was the job of a Justiciar after all. "Just what they're set to." He seemed to speak Imperial with a slightly hickish accent but it was understandable.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 1:32 pm
Fredrick Mason
Fredrick's eyes widened at the sight of his own blood, which was dripping rapidly from his nose down his face and front. In a panic, he scrabbled through his pockets to pull out a small crumpled cloth, stained from years of use. He jammed it against his nose hoping to stem the flow of blood, however, the blood simply soaked through the cloth instead. Grimacing he pressed the cloth harder, concentrating on what was left of his magic. This was going to be messy. Releasing his nose, he wobbled for a second, before mumbling out a spell past the bloody handkerchief. “Θεραπεύστε τις μικρές πληγές “ Almost immediately, the blood flow slowed, to a trickle, but the bloody cloth was more than capable to clear that.
It was only as he looked up that he realised that there were far more people that there had been only a few minutes ago. The wild eyed man was standing some ways down the hill pestering two others: a female with what looked like some kind of armour, and a demon with four arms, that seemed to be translating for the woman. Her familier then. There was also a young boy? It was hard to tell the child's gender, but the horseman that he(?) was travelling with was downright impressive with bright armour with a bear skin cloak. Definetly a man of importance.
As the knight called out to the group in a language that Fredrick didn't understand, the young mage glanced at the boy(?) with a tired look on his face. He was dead out of magic, starting to get hungry and could do with a bath and/or a new set of clothes. And to make things worse, his migraine was getting worse now that he was out of magic. Start out small, then take over the world. First he needed someone that he could understand. “Mi capisci?”The blank look told him that no, he didn't speak Vasarian “What about this one?”
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