Riza awoke in the same, familiar, dusty room that she had so reluctantly come to know. The bed was hard and coarse, made of stuffed straw rather than feathers or springs. The bed frame itself was old, rotten wood that creaked with any little movement, the bed resting on taut strips of fabric between the sides of the frame. Compared to a modern-day luxury, the bed was horribly sub-par, but Riza didn't care; in fact, she had come to enjoy the restful slumber such a bed gave her. Being able to sleep in relative warmth, on flat ground, and without constant threat from wildlife lent an enjoyable nature to sleeping in the bed.

The past couple of days had become a rudimentary affair; her entire days were spent indoors. In the mornings and afternoons, natural light streamed in through the rectangular windows, wooden shutters flung open by an unknown person, while candlelight illuminated her temporary holdings once darkness had set in.

Food was delivered to her periodic--lunch and dinner both some sort of stew with a handful of bread. They arrived at the same time, as far as she could tell, each day, either mysterious turning up when she was in another room or hand-delivered by the same guy as before.

She tried talking to him but nervous stutters and an almost painfully-worried expression slowed her down in her tracks. She preferred thinking about it in terms of actions she could actually partake rather than a natural result of a language barrier. The most she had gotten out of him was a name, 'Saniel'.

For the most part, he was the only human she had any contact with. Due to the location of her residence, half the windows pointed towards the massive hole in the ground, showing her a majestic and magical image but severely lacking in people. From how few people travelled near her, she guessed she wasn't in a particularly habited place of the village. Occasionally, she'd spie a head from out of the window, but she never came close to interacting with anyone apart from Saniel.

Even the woman who had initially brought her to this abode was nowhere to be seen after the first day. She had her suspicions that there were people constantly outside the place--a smattering of sounds here and there, elusive footsteps belonging to no one she could see, and ethereal murmurings she could barely even hear.

She spent her time browsing through the system, looking at different skill trees she hadn't browsed yet--there were metamagic skill trees she had somehow missed--and doing calculations of many things. Whether the calculations were important didn't matter; they helped to maintain her mental acuity and keep her occupied.

Pleasantly, well of spirit also leveled up, and she continually funneled more and more essence in her stone, grateful that she was able to keep it on her.

And then, on the auspicious fourth day, after omnipresent boredom set in once more, a new, unfamiliar figure emerged in the doorway to the building, passing the threshold of the unknown world into the known. Rather than the Saniel she was so used to seeing, this man was taller, slimmer, and wore a more elaborate cloak. Heavy yellow, almost glistening accented his hood in a complex and intricate pattern that continued down through the back of the cloak. The material his clothes were made of seemed expensive; even from a distance, the cloth was thin but visually smooth, reflecting light like the fine dunes of sand in a desert.

Even the loose bag that hung by his side, brown and marked with random discolourations, seemed far better crafted than anything on her body.

The man said some words, his voice unexpectedly high, but Riza failed to respond, her eyes narrowed in both interest and suspicion. He swung his arm to point at the chair sitting at a table, the fabric dangling down loosely. A few moments passed as Riza just stared before eventually acquiescing to the command and sat herself down in the large, uncomfortable chair. Satisfied with this outcome, the man finally took a seat himself, just like the woman did on the first day.

Once more, he spoke a few more words, all an unintelligible mess of noises of which Riza had no experience with. Some words contained sounds, phonemes, that were familiar to her, but the context combined with the accent suggested that they were entirely new formations than lexical terms that she knew--his speech a strange combination of the unknown and those of which she had a vague understanding of. She had sat down to participate in what seemed to be just another one-sided conversation.

From what he could tell, the prisoner was every bit as strange as he had been informed; her looks were uncustomary to this land--bright, white, and short--and the complete lack of responsiveness to anything he said suggested what he had heard was the truth; she had no experience with language. It was a strange situation, yes, but, amusingly, not one he hadn't encountered yet.

As his hands traced symbols in the air, a thin wisp of pinkish light following his fingertip, a scroll formed from nowhere in his vision, hidden to all eyes but his own. The scroll appeared like any other, made out of processed sheep-skin and written upon with a natural ink, but the words had no semblance of smudging nor imperfection while the scroll itself was intangible to the touch--merely a visual aid, in that sense. Upon it was a list of options, containing numerous and esoteric terms. One-by-one, he picked a term, saw the symbol which represented it, and drew that in the air before speaking the necessary phrase once again. The phrase wasn't important for getting the skill to work but it was all a part of the routine.

These were languages. Some were the ancient language his forefathers used, others a variant on the main language, such as a sociolect, while others were the elusive 'foreign' language; one used in parallel to the contemporary language that some people just happened to know. People had researched where this divergence had begun, to create two languages completely unintelligible to either speaker, but answers were varied. Some concluded they were a result of innate abilities, others said they were passed down through skills.

He didn't bother himself with the origin of what he practised; that wasn't useful and he had far better ways to spend his time.

However, a silent worry began to unfurl in his mind once he was halfway through the list; he had already gotten through the major languages and variants the vast majority of people knew and was now onto the ancient or the fake ones. As he mentally crossed each one of the list, the other party showed no semblance of reaction to what he was saying.

And then, what he dreaded occured; each and every item on the list, each and every language bestowed upon him both by the system as well as hard work in experiencing a wealth of communication, returned naught. If he wasn't told otherwise, he'd suspect the girl to be either mute or deaf, though she reportedly responded to a few words and spoke fluently in some language.

So, just what was that language? The worry quickly was overcome with a subdued sense of eagerness. An intellectual curiosity aroused itself as the prospect he realised he was facing; after decades of work as a linguistical scribe, any gaps in his knowledge were more and more likely to be a result of something humanity collectively did not know rather than an incomplete study by himself. The system conferred the collective knowledge of hundreds and hundreds of scribes to him; each and every language contained within the single skill point were what had all been categorised and learnt by his fellow scribes; for a language to evade that extensive and expansive database of knowledge, it must truly be one-of-a-kind.

And so, excitement coursing through him, he leaned forwards in his chair, resting on the edge, as he stared hard into the womans eyes. Questions bounced around in his head as to just who this person was: for one, though she seemed to be an adult, she was amongst the shortest woman he had personally known--if they weren't even near eye-level, that itself was an anomaly. To be more than a hand-span out was most often because they were a physical child rather than because of natural variation. Then, as well, there was her hair and skin--her hair a supreme lightness you'd not expect to find within thousands of strides from here and her skin, perfectly smooth and unnaturally pale showed that she was no mere farmer.

All of this, combined with the apparent knowledge of one language only, one that even the system itself didn't recognise as a part of the collection his prime skill encompassed, lent credence to a burgeoning idea in his mind; was she even Skaldian? Once the idea took root, a memory blossomed to the front of his mind, unbidden. Memories of stories he heard as a child, of a uniquely short, stout race of people who long since left the land they lived on. They were collectively known as 'Torvir' and shared the land with others of differing races. No record existed chronicling whether they actually existed, and no language they purportedly spoke was catalogued in the system, but something in his mind latched onto that idea.

Energised with the prospect, a smile drew on his face as he thought about how he could go about doing this. He only had experience with this once, but even that was prodigious amongst linguistical scribes since most languages were already recorded; even his experience wasn't with a whole other language but rather a sociolect that had emerged in recent years due to impoverished conditions in a far-flung part of the empire. A whole village conversed with curt syllables and unconventional tense, though was largely intelligible and understandable even without the skill.

This, however, was a whole other beast entirely. Of course, his training had prepared him for this moment--he had read and reread Don Kurtson's book many times in the past and extensively analysed language in preparation for this moment.

The first thing you must do is establish a connection. Hastily, he withdrew some parchment and a stylus from his bag, smoothing it out on the uneven table. With a flick of his wrist and the smallest injection of essence--the blackish light barely a whisper as it flowed from his fingertip into the stylus--the object grew heavy and hot in his hand. As he laid the tip down against the parchment and pressed, a smooth and beautiful line stained the canvas, following the stylus as he drew an elegant but short collection of symbols; his name.

He looked up, seeing the woman staring intensely at the stylus; yes, the stylus and not the parchment. Rather unusual; magical equipment was fairly normal--he even heard that she herself had some and had seen the blue light occasional pass from finger to stone, whenever her stone came into view--but literacy was a skill few still seemed to have. He could only be thankful all you had to do was write your name, a task made so much simpler by the presence of your name in the system.

He passed the parchment and stylus over to the woman, her eyes still wide in amazement or wonder. As her eyes briefly glanced down at what he had written, he spoke allowed his name, 'Belfore'. While not his birth name, the pride he exuded when he sounded out those words suggested the name surpassed any other he might've been known by.

The woman, however, gave the merest of interest in the word itself before refocusing her sight back on the stylus. She brought it up to her face, checked over the smooth, wooden surface. She looked inquisitively at the tip--how it tapered to a fine point. She stared at that end for a while, turning the stylus about and holding it up in the light to get the best image. She turned the stylus around, now checking the glass capsule firmly encrusted to the end. To his eyes, he saw swirling, black energies faintly inhabiting the glass, the fuel for the stylus itself.

Finally, she placed the stylus on the ground next to the parchment, her gaze rising to the man.

"Name?" She asked, her pronunciation distinctly similar to the accent common to the area. He replied in affirmative.

She picked up the thick stylus, her hands fumbling a bit to get a comfortable grip but once she put stylus to parchment, the way her hand flicked and swished with practised, elegant moves left no doubt in his mind that she was literate in one form or another--she wrote like she had extensive use in using a stylus before.

As soon as the stylus left the final mark in the parchment, he felt a twinge of energy enter him, a gentle connection between him and the woman in front of him.

As she passed the parchment and stylus back towards him, even her writing was smooth and graceful.

His thoughts were confirmed; she wrote with a script he had never seen before, nor had even heard about. Rather than a graceful collection of strokes, compartmentalised sections all forming one image, one meaning, she instead wrote laterally, smooth, long strokes making up her name. Compared to the elaborate and elegant script he had been taught, hers seemed primitive, in his mind.

He quickly banished the thought; premature judgement would only serve to hinder him in learning the language. He must maintain an open mind, no matter how weird it may be.

And thus began the most important of his duties.

Thankfully, the woman knew a limited selection of words already so he could faintly converse with him, urging her to write equivalent words in her language which he studied intensely. He gathered a larger and larger base of knowledge, reading each word as she wrote them. The skill worked its wonders in his mind, the random scrawlings slowly becoming to coalesce into meaningly words and, bizarrely, 'letters'--an unknown concept to him.

Strange; as he learnt more words from her, the structure of this language began to take place in his mind. The smallest meaningful symbol, the grapheme, was a letter. There were only twenty-four letters and with any combination of them, you could make any word in the language. The concept was alien and perhaps his initial evaluation of it being 'primitive' might've been correct but he quickly began to realise the intuitiveness of the system; as the sounds of the graphemes, the sounds of the syllables, began to emerge in his mind, his brain whirred with anticipation, racing to keep up with the skill. He began to fill in details himself; when the woman Riza wrote a new word, he'd guess the sounds and then have it confirmed and filled out by the system.

Soon, he moved on from rudimentary words and letters onto heavier and more intensive stuff. Grammar, tense, perspective; a whole host of details regarding languages still needed to be ironed out.

For the next few hours, as he pulled out parchment after parchment, refilling the stylus with essence as Riza watched in wonder at the simple action, his understanding and comprehension of the language grew.

And then, something clicked. A scroll appeared mid-air, unbidden, and, upon it, was the marker that he had achieved the highest possible thing he could in his field; the achievement every linguistical scribe worked towards.

You have analysed a new language!

'English' has been added to Archive of Voices

In addition to this, another scroll appeared on the opposite side of his vision, showing numerous level ups all at once!

However, none of this was the best part. In fact, the most important reward wasn't even one that was mentioned by the system--he wouldn't even be aware of it if he had not read about it before. That is, a new class had just been unlocked for him.

Any and all linguistical scribes are told of the eminent classes pertinent to their profession; they begin as a scribe and can be elevated to linguistical scribe for their second class. Analysing a variant of a language wasn't good enough to unlock any further classes, however, and so the majority of linguistical scribes remained that way for the rest of their lives; to this day, there were only a handful who had ascended beyond this simplistic, basic class.

Scribe of Voices. The class he had been aspiring to reach for years, the highest of the highs. There was no greater recognition of your skills, of your abilities, than being a scribe of voices. He had first learnt of it from his teacher, a man who had multiple variants under his belt but remained a linguistical scribe none-the-less. He had learnt of how Duke Racheford, the head scribe, had surpassed this lowly class while he was still young, and ever since then, Belfore's ambitions grew. He wanted to be like the duke, preeminent in his field and the best amongst the best.

And now, he finally had a chance! All that was left was the necessary level ups to promote his class and he would finally stand head-and-shoulders above everyone else.

As the realisation calmed down and his emotions settled, he turned his gaze back towards Riza. She was staring intently at him, unquestionable emotion behind her eyes. Perhaps he looked quite odd, euphoria overtaking him from nowhere, but he couldn't care less about it right now; he was filled with gratitude for meeting her, for helping him along his path.

Once again, he repeated what he did at the start of the session; he conjured a scroll mentally, looked down the list, and found 'English'. He traced the respective symbol in the air, the pink light dancing with a stronger glow than before, as knowledge flooded his mind. It felt like he was stretching a muscle he hadn't used in a while.

"I believe it is done," He spoke, his mouth articulating strange sounds like they were second-nature to him.

"Oh. That was... Quick," Riza replied, sounding uncertain but far more natural than he did, even with the aid of the skill.

"I-I must thank you; you've granted me something I never before would've imagined achieving otherwise," He rushed out, words sloppy but fraught with emotion, genuine gratitude lacing the syllables. "If you have any questions, anything at all, I'd be all too happy to answer."

She visibly perked up, eyes looking up to the left, to the right, as if trying to retrieve some information.

"I've got a few questions. Not that many, though." She responded, her tone happy but infused with something he couldn't quite detect. Though he could speak the language, he still seemed to lack the exposure needed to probably comprehend the nuances in intonations, expressions, and words.

"Ask away," He joyfully replied.