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Wy
For all her language skills, this was one she barely understood, and her research wouldn't go quickly. She might work her way through dozens of texts before finding a single useful tidbit. She put that first stack aside and paged deeper into the sheaf.
She had no idea what she was looking for, only that she sought an undead, aware and sentient enough to desire the folios—recent ones—and that it could read the Begaine syllabary. And it could drain life without leaving a mark.
Wy
The most expedient way to pinpoint a motive would've been through the translation project. Such thoughts—wishes—wouldn't help her now. She didn't even know where the original texts were being kept, let alone where translated portions were being worked on.
Normally translation was done aboveground on the main hall's third floor, close to the offices of the premins. But they and the domins feared anyone outside the project's staff finding out too much. The original texts themselves would be hidden somewhere very secure.
And Premin Sykion and Domin High-Tower would never let her near them.
No, trying to uncover the undead in question was the best she could do for now—better than doing nothing at all.
The next bundle of pages was written in Heiltak, a common enough alphabet used in pre-Numanese languages.
Wy
She barely comprehended a third of what she could actually read, and less than half of one journal page was covered in jotted notes. Not much of it related directly to what she sought. Most were odd terms unco
Yâksasath—a type of "demon," from Sumanese superstitious references compiled by an earlier scholar. It wasn't even a Sumanese word as far as she could work out. These creatures mimicked the form of a person their victim would recognize and trust.
Had Jeremy and Elias been tricked by someone they thought they recognized?
No, more likely that myth was a variation on the ghül, supposedly «living» demons. Banished from their mythological underworld, they were thought to range the barren mountains. Ghül had to eat their victims while still alive in order to be nourished.
Wy
She reached the last stack in the second sheaf, and it was written in Dwarvish. Wy
Hassäg'kreigi.
Wy
Stonewalkers.
She jerked the quill back to her journal—and heard something rattle on the tabletop.
Wy
Wy
If she blemished even one sheet, Domin Tärpodious might drop dead in his tracks—but not before he took her with him. She slowly released the bottle and carefully lifted her ink-spattered hand away. Ripping a blank page from the journal, she did her best to clean her thumb. Wy
There was only one brief mention in a passage about the death of a dwarven female, a thänæ of unknown skills named Tunbûllé—Wave-Striker. That was an odd name, considering dwarves didn't like traveling by sea. Wave-Striker had been «honored» and "taken into stone" by the Hassäg'kreigi, the Stonewalkers.
Wy
The two vanishing dwarves were dressed like no others she'd ever seen. It seemed very unlikely that they were masons or sculptors, who carved likenesses of their people's «honored» dead. Nothing more in the text helped her, so she took notes for later use and turned to the book selected along with the two wood-sandwiched sheaves.
Wy
Gydes Färleôvan—Tales of Misbelief—was a collection of folktales traced from the various peoples who predated the nations of the Numan Lands. She turned the pages, trying to catch and decipher strange terms.
…pochel… mischievous nature guardians, prone to pranks upon farmers…
…géasbäna… frail little «demons» who stole people's life essences, turning them into will-less slaves…
…wihte… creatures or beings created rather than naturally birthed…
Wy
Her cold lamp crystal had waned to half strength. How long had she been down here? She took the crystal out, rubbed it back to brilliance, and replaced it.
Wy
…that blâch-cheargéa gripped the young minstrel by the throat…
Wy
Try as he might, the minstrel's fists passed through his tormentor as through smoke. He turned pale and dangled dead before the entire village in the grip of Âthkyensmyotnes…
Wy
Two words in the short tale were unclear, and not part of the narrative's dialect. Blâch-cheargéa meant something like "black terror-spirit," but how could a spirit be black, let alone hold up a man in its grip? And the other term didn't make sense.
Âthkyen was a compound word no longer used in Numanese, one that she'd read in accounts of the pre-nation clans that had inhabited this land. It meant ruler by divine or i
The elven root word smiot'an referred to "spirit," as in that of a person and not the element. The Lhoin'na, the elves of her continent, were the longest-standing culture here—long enough that some of their root words, classified by the guild under the grouping of New Elvish, had been absorbed and transformed in human tongues as pure nouns.
She pulled the book closer, rushing through the text in search of more, but the tale was only half a page long.
A black terror-ghost… sovereign of spirits?
It could touch—physically touch. This had to be another superstition. Even if this tale was an account of a true undead, it wouldn't be the first bit of nonsense concerning such.