Stacked II

[Lani Stranger]

22nd of Fall, 518AV

Three down, nine to go. Then there were seven whole books to do. It dawned on her, that this stack of work was not going to be a few days of work, but could take up a healthy chunk of the season. She ought to be grateful for it, since it gave her a list of things to do in the Enclave, and reason to keep coming. Of course if she was needed elsewhere, she would go elsewhere, and if other things were needed within the enclave, she would do them. But for now, copying was her priority. The Valintar had told her that there would be prioritized work for every person, but because she was considered unskilled labor, it was not guaranteed. Still, the Chiet had the wish that within time she could elevate to Avora, and not only get more pay, which will get her out of this place quicker, but more respect as well.

No one had a particular desk, but since this Deks held the stack of common scrolls and books, Lani thought it was safe to assume it was hers. Prepared to start again, Lani picked up the next scroll to inspect it before going to gather the supplies needed to copy it. There was the faded black ink, but no other colors, gratefully. The scroll had been ripped in a few places and was pinned back together, which made the words visible, but did not allow for the thing to roll properly, forcing it to remain folded which put creases in the ink, and was not favorable. As she skimmed the text, she realized it was an encyclopedia on agates. Boring.

Then again, she wasn’t here to learn, merely to copy. Whether she found yet another list of things to be boring or not, was not her job. It helped when she found it interesting, but in theory she was lucky enough that it was even in common. She could be dully copying words in a language she did not understand, so this was technically a benefit. Lani set the scroll down, assessing that she would need the glue powder again, fourteen sheets of paper, a black inkwell and quill, a rolling dowel, and that would be relatively simple. Long, but simple.

The mixed blood immediately set towards the back room, this time having a better idea where the things she needed were. She grabbed her inkwell and quill from yesterday, perused the drawers for the right one that held a standard sized dowel, and then snagged a leather strap for holding the scroll together. She then pulled a container of glue powder and the small clay dish for mixing it, then a brush. She set all those on the work table in the center of the room, and assessed the parchment situation. After pulling out fourteen prime pieces, she grabbed ruler and a razor, and set them on the table to begin cutting them into standard size. Again, she piled the scraps into the container made for them, and grabbed an extra sheet of paper for testing the quill on, not bothering to cut this one. The mixed blood took an extra chime making sure she could balance all of her supplies in her hands before she returned to the Enclave to begin her work.

[Lani Stranger]

After adjusting everything on the large writing desk, Lani sat down in her chair, pulling the scrap paper to her immediate right, and setting the ink well on top of it. She unclipped the sheets of the old scroll, opting to stack them on top of each other. Like the fauna scroll, this one seemed to have a set formula for the description of each Agate to be laid in. Although unlike the fauna scroll, this scroll had no pictures. For a tick Lani wondered if she should leave room for pictures and petition an artist to draw them for her, although it seemed a daunting task. She would have to find samples or other paintings of these gems, and some of them were so rare it could be an impossible task. That, and, she was a copier, not an editor.

So Lani set to work. As normal, she scrawled a note on the scratch paper to ensure her hand and quill were good.

You don’t belong here.
You belong nowhere.

The thought that popped into her mind made her very uncomfortable, and she quickly dipped the quill once more and scratched it out. Is this what was happening to her? Quett had raised her to be strong and confident, and this was not the Lani she had known herself to be, it was in fact, worrisome. Trying to ignore the weird warm up, the mixed blood picked up the first page of parchment, and held it up to the candle. She was looking for which side as recto and which side was verso so that she knew which to write on. The verso would connect better for the rolling of the scroll, and the recto would give her straight lines to write on. Setting the page down again, recto side up, she set to work on the title.

The Gemstones of Mizahar

It seemed a very egotistical title, the scroll didn’t seem large enough to encompass each and every gemstone in the world, but who was she to judge? Curiously, she flipped through the pieces of the old scroll, counting the entries. It took a few chimes, but by the time she was done she counted 139 entries. It could have been a hundred and forty, but she wasn’t sure, she didn’t care enough to recount. The last few entries seemed empty though, and so she counted those up. Forty-four of those entries were blank. They had a name, but did not possess any of the other facts that the other entries gave. Was this an incomplete work?

It made sense that the Enclave would have incomplete common works, they weren’t as necessary to the library. But the fact that this scroll was unfinished meant it never would be. Whoever had written it in common and given in to the Enclave, had no intention of returning to it, it was nearly eight years old! Was she then required to add in the blank entries if no information was available on them. Unsure of how to answer it, she stood with the old scroll that needed to be copied and wandered over to Kavisan’s desk.

[Lani Stranger]

“Excuse me, Kavisan.” She trilled in Nari, before switching to common. “I have a scroll written on the gemstones found in Mizahar, however it is unfinished. Should I still copy each blank entry for the undescribed stones, or can I condense them into a list at the bottom?” Kavisan didn’t look up from his own work, and silently produced a hand for her to place the pieces of scroll in. She did so, and he took it, flipping through the pages and assessing the last few with the numerous blank entries. He sighed, nodded, and handed it back to her. Taking it with two hands, she waited for a reply to her question.

“So, can I list them at the bottom?” She asked, in common, when he did not reply. He peered up at her through her glasses, dipping his chin down in one sharp nod.

“Thank you.” She whistled in Nari again, ducking away from him. They rarely spoke more than a few words to each other, and she could normally used Nari, but because her grasp on the language was so poor, she thought he wouldn’t mind this extended question in common, which she knew he spoke and understood just as well as she. Still, the attitude he gave her set her off, and she frowned as soon as she was out of his line of sight.

“You are welcome, girl.” He trilled back in Nari, and she sighed. She supposed he was going to treat her like that whenever she spoke common to him, which would be for a while longer because she could only learn the language so fast, no matter how much she practiced with Val. The mixed blood sta back down at her table, readjusting the sheets of parchment back into their correct order, and began to write out the small description that was featured under the title.

The following list details the various types of gemstones found in Mizahar. Each individual gem entry will contain…

She wrote with careful precision in her nicest handwriting. She was merely copying, so she wrote word for word. In the last few scrolls, which had been complete, she did not have to correct any grammar. In this scroll, however, she noticed a misspelling. Again, she questioned the integrity of it, but this was easier. Instead she simply spelled the word correctly, decided that no one would ever notice, and that it did not interrupt the purpose of the word. Moving past that small error with ease, Lani finished up the title and description of the work in just a few chimes.

[Lani Stranger]

This took up half of the page, and judging by the length of the first entry, Lani could assume she had about enough room for it, before she would have to glue on a new page. Taking a swig of her water, she laid into it, writing out the categories and their answers within the first entry, which was for a banded agate.

Agate, Banded
Description: This lovely variety of agate is easily recognized by the bands of color infusing it. It comes in every color known and the bands can be contrasting as well as matching colors.
Location: Throughout Mizahar
Availability: Common
Hardness: 6.5 - 7
Common Uses: This gemstone is fairly common throughout Mizahar. Popular in decorating and ornamentation, the banded agate is one of the most beautiful unassuming stones around.
Value: 3 SM per Carat (Rough) 6 SM per Carat (Shaped/Polished) 1.5 GM per Carat
Other Names/Nicknames: Friendstone
Special Abilities: None.

As Lani wrote it out, she found she could fit the description into the left half of the page, and leave enough room on the right half. This created a tiling effect, and created enough room that she could actually fit two into this page. Whoever the original author was, was not thinking clearly. Then again, this seemed more like a draft than a final copy. Again, Lani hesitated with the integrity of it for merely a tick before deciding that it did not disrupt the work to do so. She read the entry for the lack agate, and was confused. Was it not similar to the banded agate, except in color?

But as the mixed blood read the description, she realized that it had a different use. The entry said it was also for ornamentation, but it was used in massage and healing. The mixed blood knew little of the medicinal world, she had learned enough to handle small nicks and wounds, as a child. She didn’t know enough about the world to assume there were any sort of methods she could discount, but stones felt like they weren’t perhaps the most effective method of healing around.

[Lani Stranger]

Again, it wasn’t her job to learn here, it was her job to copy. Whether she agreed with or understood the text material or not, was unnecessary. She was lucky enough that it was in common so that she could understand it. But the more she got to copy, the more she realized the necessity of copying in one’s own language. Edits were sometimes necessary, and understanding the material for grammatical reasons was important. If she had to do the same things in Nari, with the level that she understood the language now, she would not be able to catch things like a misspelled word, and recognizing empty entries might have been more difficult.

Lani waited for the ink to dry on the first page, preparing her glue while she did so. Sifting some of the glue powder into the porcelain dish she poured a small amount of her water from her water skin onto the powder, quickly mixing it with the brush until it was the right liquid viscosity to bind the paper together. Plucking a new paper from the stack, she lined up both of the verso sides, making sure the grains allowed them to fit together perfectly. Setting the inked paper just above the new one, she dipped the brush in the glue and spread it over the bottom end of the inked paper. Making sure to lay it just where she did before, the mixed blood placed the fresh paper on the line, lining it up and then pressing it down. She used her thumb to press all of the bubbles out of the paper, and then put it aside to let it rest for a few ticks and dry.

As she did so, she read the next four entries to make sure they would all fit into the page. They all seemed relatively the same size, and she realized she would be able to fit six into the page. On the old script, three entries fit in each page before moving to the next, which left an terribly unbalanced view as the list only lined down the left side of the page. This would be easy enough. She anticipated that further down she may need to rearrange order to make sure all the entries fit, but the order clearly was no important to the information, as they were all separate entries.

Once the glue had dried, Lani flipped the page back over to begin writing again

[Lani Stranger]

Agate, Blood
Description: This stone is deep red in color with occasional splashes of varying shades of red mixed in.
Location: Throughout Mizahar
Availability: Common
Hardness: 6.5 - 7
Common Uses: Blood agates have a number of uses in the art of massage and healing. Some cultures use the blood agate in various ceremonies and rituals. It is also popular in decorating and ornamentation.
Value: 3 SM per Carat (Rough), 6 SM per Carat (Shaped/Polished), 1.5 GM per Carat (Faceted)
Other Names/Nicknames:
Special Abilities:

As she wrote about the gems, and read about them, it became more clear to her that the use of each of the gems might be niche, or belonging to a specific religion that one did not follow. There were so many Gods in the Mizahar pantheon, that she could not be expected to follow all of them. For the most part, she followed mostly the old gods, as the mage herself did not enjoy the dichotomy of good and evil that so many Mizaharians obsessed over. Still, there was the occasional new God that found their way into her prayers, like Leth and Priskil. But as far as she knew, she had never seen a blood stone used in a ritual, not that she had attended many rituals outside her own. Not dwelling too much on the entry, Lani began to move onto the next entries. Blue Lace Agates, Common Agates, Coral Agates…

The more she wrote and copied, the more she began to wonder if agate was simply another word for gem, or if it was a specific type of gem. Based on their descriptions, they seemed more like stones than the translucent shimmering gems she had associated with the word. Still, she expected whoever wrote this knew what they were talking about, and whoever sought it out for reading would have more knowledge and interest in the subject than she did. She was merely absorbing information while doing her job, but most of her focus was still on the actual work at hand, which was making sure that the work was not destroyed through her copying, and that each thing she wrote was clear and legible. It was an easy enough job, but she also recognized the importance of it. Few people thought about what work when into restoring and copying these passages that filled the library.

The process so far had taken her over a bell, simply to prepare her materials, read the text, and begin copying the first two pages. It was painstaking and detailed work, but it was very satisfying. Still, as her ebony eyes caressed the mounting stack of scrolls and books on her desk, she sighed. Today was going to be a long day. Every day was going to be a long day, until she finished this stack. And then, she would have more to do.

Word Count: 2,752

[Ssezzkero]

Observation +2, Organization +2, Planning +3, Writing +4, Copying +4, Socialization +1, Research +2, Copying: Understanding the time it takes, Chiet: Work where they are needed, Copying: Easierin a language you are fluent it, Copying: Staying true to the original work, Integrity in Copying, Agate: Banded, Banded Agate: Common, Banded Agate: Uses in massage and healing, Copying: Edits are sometimes necessary, Creating glue from powder, Agate: Blood, Blood Agate: Common, Blood Agate: Used in religious rituals, Agate: Lace Blue, Agate: Coral