37 (37) Ancient Language

"Yaaaawn!"

The time was 3 o'clock, in the afternoon. Not a single person had challenged the Boss Room of Ophid Crypt today, and upon enquiring with the Nagas and Gargoyles, only one party had even entered the dungeon - but they had left after clearing the first room of Floor Two once. This made the whole place eerily quiet and very much boring, but none of the monsters could afford to slacken in case they get ambushed.

Since there didn't seem to be any challengers today, Kraton went of to the back of the room and started melting some sheets of metal. Every so often, Lysine would hear the hammering of metal and the sizzling of molten metal, but she seemed too distracted to find out what Kraton was doing.

Lysine's thoughts were all concentrated on yesterday's find. The ancient characters that she discovered scribbled near the buried crystal block seemed familiar to her, yet sshe couldn't place where she had last seen them. She rejected her conscience which pointed to her homeland as if she had seen it there, then she would be able to read these ancient characters, but she could not.

"Hey Kraton," Lysine called Kraton over after the hammering had stopped, he soon put his forging utensils down and joined Lysine. "Can you ask your friend something for me?"

"Which friend?"

"Psychi, he's a Moon Immortal so he should know stuff. Ask him if he knows these ancient characters." Lysine passed Kraton a stone tablet which had a few characters etched into them. "They were down there, in the cave."

As if a hammer of realisation struck Kraton, he quickly summoned his Data Rock on the stone table. Staring blankly he asked, "What am I meant to ask again? Oh right, how do I ask him about the characters if I can't send it in text?"

"Idiot, just copy the characters into your memory and imprint it into the rock."

Kraton followed her instructions, and whilst holding the tablet, he sent piece of data into the rock. Slowly, the characters inscribed on the tablet started to appear on the Data Rock surface; much like an a Western person trying to write Eastern calligraphy for the first time.

Shortly after, Psychi's name became white and a response appeared under Kraton's enquiry.

"That, I believe is Ancient Giant Language. the character you sent me says: 'Rock'. Where did you find this, and are you trying to learn this? I should try and dispersuade you, there is no use at all. Even those Giants still spoke a common tongue with the elves and dwarves."

"I'm not the one asking, my Dungeon partner fo-, umm recalled seeing this before, but can't remember it exactly. I suppose she glimpsed at it at the Novice gathering a few days ago."

"Ask her how she found Zefyre, he was absolutely incredible wasn't he, the wisest of our race, the star of all the world.. cough, when did you start sharing a dungeon? You never told me such a thing, what else are you hiding from me about her, huh."

"She's a Lamia, she helped the dungeon gain an extra floor whilst I was absent" Kraton pretended not to see the implicit meanings hidden is Psychi's words.

"Lamia? Abandoned I guess, how else would you have contact with a Lamia. That would also explain why she may recall an ancient language. Lamia Packs seem to hold vast amounts of knowledge in their libraries, their knowledge of the world is passed on from all their travelling ancestors, such a shame that she was abandoned before she learnt the secrets of the world."

Lysine had been reading each of the messages that appeared, she became curious about how much Moon Immortals knew, even she didn't know that her former Pack had a library.

"Ask him to send over the data for the language dictionary if he can"

Kraton stared strangely at Lysine, "How is he going to write all that out?"

"Do it." Lysine rolled her eyes, it seemed that he knew something that Kraton didn't have the slightest clue of.

A while after Kraton sent the message, Psychi sent a word back: "Done"

"Done what? Where?" Before Kraton could press send, Lysine punched his arm, telling him just to say thanks. After that was done, she made him leave the conversation and press something near the bottom of the Data Rock. The whole surface of the rock refreshed, showing lines and lines of characters and a word or sentence next to them which Kraton could understand.

Lysine took back the tablet in Kraton's hand and compared what she had written on it with the characters displayed on the Data Rock.

"It really is the same." She sighed and leant back on her chair. "I believe, we have found an ancient tomb." She said aloud so that Kraton could hear it. Before he could ask her want she meant, he suprisingly realised what Lysine was talking about, it seemed that he had become smarter.

Kraton took the tablet again and compared the characters himself.

"Here... Rests... the ancient stone.

To break or steal... shall force the rocks to guard.

Only chosen blood shall once more waken."

He slowly translated the characters word by word, he could make partial sense from the translation but many things didn't make complete sense. Who's resting, and to steal what? There was nothing but crystals and gems in the room.

Oh.

Kraton's neck started to sweat, God he was lucky that the Gargoyles couldn't mine the crystals on the outer wall, otherwise from what the inscriptions said, it might have brought a calamity. 'Rocks to guard' would the cave collapse if anything was stolen or broken then? If the whole place collapsed, then the whole dungeon might cave in a bit, crushing him in the Boss Room. Although the Dungeon was mysterious and all, it still had to follow most laws of physics, or at least the most fundamental ones.

"Are we still going down their tonight?" He couldn't help his voice from shaking a little, from what they just learnt, there was probably a powerful spell protecting the tomb of an ancient. He hoped and prayed that Lysine would say no.

"Of course we will. Coward."