The three Rs (solo)

[Lyam]

Spring 34th, 512 av Lyam entered in the library in silence, trying not to disturb already working students. He gazed at the librarian who winked at him in return and designed a little desk at the opposite side. He moved his thumbs up to indicate everything was already prepared, and Lyam nodded with a gentle smile. This librarian was really obliging. He sat on the bank before the desk and looked at the material that was waiting for him; three books, some parchments and a feather with a bottle of ink. Everything he needed. He opened the first book without reading the title and made a wry face: it was the arithmetic book. Anyway, one could never do everything he’d like to, so Lyam continued from where he stopped the former day. While trying to solve an equation that every normal human would have found easy, the young Kelvic smiled. He had already done more progress than he had expected, and had already gone further than most Kelvic. He did not know why, but he had the patience to learn and to work hard to study. And now, after more than thirty afternoons or evenings spent in the library, he was proud to say that he finally had learned to read. Of course, he went at a snail’s pace, but it did not matter. He knew he would progress, and he was able enough to understand what he read and so learn other things thanks to books. Arithmetic was the latest example. If he had the choice, he would have stopped immediately to learn how to subtract or multiply, but Nadya had been very clear about that; if he wanted to continue to work with her, he should learn to serve the customers all alone, what included money stuffs. And if he knew how to pay – what meant actually how to add numbers – he was really bad in giving back some money or in saying how much three same bottles cost. So, he learned. An old Nuit has 10 Gold Mizas on his pockets. He wants to buy some food for his guests that are terribly hungry. He goes on a first shop that proposes a deal of 2.5GM for the all meal. The second shop sells his meat 104CM, his vegetables 53CM, his wine cup 850CM and his potatoes 40CM. Knowing that he has 4 guests and that every guest will eat one piece of meat, ¾ of a vegetable portion, 3/2 of a potatoes portion, and 1L of wine (1L=5cups), where should our old Nuit go? Lyam began to think and think again, drew some numbers on the parchment by hazard, and finally stroke it all. “Oh gods,” Lyam whispered “He would have better to cook himself, that’s it.” And he closed the book.

[Lyam]

With a little sigh, Lyam opened the next book and immediately recognized the gold title: grammar. He growled a bit but looked for the last page he had worked on and continued to do the exercises. He had already learned by heart what nouns, verbs and so on and so forth were, what allowed him to understand the following instructions: I- Underline the nouns in the following sentences. 1.John told the soldier about the missing swords. 2.Night sank upon the dusky beach and on the purple sea. 3.Above the altar in the chapel Mary saw a beautiful picture. He found it childish so went on. II- Underline the pronouns in the following sentences. 1.I saw him with her. 2.Mary says she found it. 3.Have you seen them today? 4.They left us at the university of Zeltiva. It was a bit more difficult and he blocked on the second sentence during a long time. Finally, he turned the page to find the solution and hit his forehead with his palm when I read the answer. Then he told himself that knowing all of that was not so crucial to know how to write or read. But the librarian said it was better to do all the exercises to really perform, so he would. III- Underline the verbs in the following sentences. Conjugate in past perfect. 1.He sleeps soundly like a Kelvic bear. 2.We fought a good fight against that glassbeak. 3.He talked for two hours. 4.He became an official soon after the valterian's fall. 5.He walked, ran, and jumped to the park. The first part was easy, but then Lyam had to write and it was far more difficult. First because his wrist was not confident at all and he shivered like a leaf in fall. Then because he had lots of orthographical problems. He knew the past form of each verbs, of course, but writing them was a real challenge. He already knew the first, having done it the former day, so he wrote each letter with application H-A-D S-L-E-P-T. The second was easy too, because the answer was partly in the question, and so was the third. But the fourth, he did no longer know whether BECOME needed a final E or not. He spent few minutes to wonder and wonder and finally gave up and looked at the answer. “Ttttt…” he suddenly heard on his back “You’re cheating boy.” Lyam blushed when he saw the librarian gazing over his shoulder. The man just smiled and went back to his occupation, but it was enough for Lyam to concentrate more. He finished the present page of exercises and began the next one before being fed up. Another hour had been spent, and he still had to do some calligraphy to improve his way of writing.

[Lyam]

Lyam took a little pause and walked between the huge shelves, taking sometimes one book to skim through it before putting it back. He showed no interest to most of them, until a purple covered book really caught his attention. He did not lost any time to read the title but rather opened it in the middle and opened big eyes while seeing a wonderful hand-made picture of a pirate boat, where the all boat composition was explained. Secret : Lyam took the book under his arm and brought it back to his desk, decided to borrow it. It was hard to forget the sailing book for a moment to work calligraphy, but Lyam made a new effort and concentrate to reproduce carefully every single line of the double page he had chosen. He dunked his feather on the ink and began to draw the words with application, letter after letter. He did not try to understand what he was writing though. It took him a bit less than an hour but the result was for once not so bad. Still, he had not solved his biggest problem yet: writing straight in line. He smiled while looking at his parchment that looked like anything but a well-written page. There were ink spot everywhere but each letter and word was recognizable, so he decided to be proud of this working afternoon. Lyam went towards the librarian, gave him back the material while thanking him before asking whether he could borrow the sailing book. “Of course, Lyam. No problem.” the librarian answered “Bring it back in two weeks, ok?” “I will, thank you.” Lyam went out of the library with a huge smile, impatient to read more about his new book.

[Cascade]

Adventurer's Loot Lyam's Loot : Lyam Skill XP Reward Calligraphy +1 Mathematics +1 Sailing +1 Writing +1 Lore: The Art Of Solving Math Problems Getting Caught Cheating This was a very amusing thread to read. I think you did a great job in showing Lyam's difficulties in studying. Keep it up! As a note, I didn't give you points for intelligence since its definition in the lore page is different from your understanding. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me!