IC Date: 09/05/2025

Names?

Numbers? Dates maybe?

The library of the Tower of the Winds, while a more than daunting task, had proven to be more than exhilarating. It was easy to lose herself among the books she knew had been Elysia’s most steadfast companions during her short life.

Tempesti could see what looked like patterns among the intricate alien script. If she had to hazard a guess she’d say they were some kind of genealogical tables. They were definitely lists. The notebook beside the heavy, gilded, leatherbound volume on the pale stone table bore countless notes, scribbles, characters clumsily copied from the texts at hand. What she really wanted was to find the construct texts she’d seen in one of Elysia’s memories. Unfortunately for her, those memories didn’t come with a card catalog or a language primer so she had little choice but to slog her way through the dense hand of some long dead scribe trying to pick her way through what little she could figure out how to interpret, snapping photos and scrawling copies of things that looked important. Or at least had enough repeated characters that she might be able to work out a pattern.

There was one name (at least she thought it was a name) she recognized from an inscription in the Tower’s crypt, beside a statue of the founder of the Spyros Dynasty slaying Basilea Sotiria. Arete Spyros. (At least she assumed it was Arete Spyros since Sotiria died childless and this name had kids). Tempesti scrawled the tentative translation into her notebook beside the number system (it seemed like a number system) she was trying to work out.

Each entry had a word at the beginning, some repeated. Titles, maybe? Probably. That would mean that the one before Arete was Basilea, at least theoretically. She huffed slightly, it would be nice if Elysia was willing to pass along some of what she actually knew instead of whatever horrors she’d experienced. Each possible title found its place in one of the probably too neat tables she’d drawn on the blank pages and surrounded with countless cramped bits of speculation. Even with Elysia’s reluctance to contribute anything of any particular use, the sense of déjà vu she experienced looking at these characters made her feel as though she was just on the edge of grasping…if not the language than maybe a few of the sounds. That was a start, right?

Tempesti stood carefully, separating herself from the low wooden bench on which she’d been perched for the better part of five hours. Its cushioned seat, though thin and threadbare, was in far better condition than she would logically have expected given its age, and of the remaining benches in the library this one definitely looked the most structurally sound. It had supported her weight well enough at least, even though she couldn’t call it the most comfortable seat she’d ever used. Stretching her arms, legs, and back she began to wander. A quick break for her body and eyes before she resumed her work. She could deal with the headache later.