Marisela shifted in her seat, glancing around the lecture hall and the scattering of other guild members present. Although perhaps "scattering" was too generous a word. There were only four people present, including Marisela herself. She stifled a yawn. She'd gotten up way too early to come to this lesson. But since Silver Wolf members dealt with a lot of ancient texts and manuscripts, they had all been encouraged to study one of the ancient languages. Marisela had selected Soldarian. It was one of the oldest languages, and one of the rarest. Very few scrolls had survived all these years. But it had fascinated her. Not much was known about the Soldarians, other than that they had accomplished astonishing magical feats that had not been duplicated since their civilization mysteriously crumbled so long ago. Marisela, always interested in learning more about how magic worked, was hopeful that if she could read the scrolls she might turn up some information on how they'd grown so powerful. After all, most of the scrolls were unread- it was said to be a very difficult language to learn.
"It's even harder to learn with no teacher," she muttered darkly to herself.
And indeed, she was beginning to wonder if the linguist the guild had hired to teach this lesson would ever show up. The class was supposed to have begun almost a half hour ago. The students had all been on time-in fact, early even- but the teacher was nowhere to be found.
Just as she had that thought, the door to the room burst open and a man entered, at a strange speed somewhere between walking and jogging. He was a portly man, very overweight and extremely short, dressed in a suit that looked like it was once black, but was now so faded as to be a patchy medium tone of gray. The white shirt he wore underneath was stained in various colors. He hurried toward the desk, breathing heavily, then tripped, scattering papers across the floor. Red-faced, he silently gathered them up and set them on the desk, then paused for a minute, trying to catch his breath and regain his composure.
"Right. Today you will be learning the basics of Soldarian," he finally said in a wheezy tone.
Marisela frowned. The least he could have done was apologize for his tardiness. But she forced herself to put the issue aside, rearranging the neat stack of note paper in front of her and picking up her pencil to take notes.
"The first thing we have to learn are the letters."
Marsela sighed as he began drawing and explaining the Soldarian alphabet, which consisted of complex signs that did not resemble the modern alphabet at all. And, of course, he shared the basic pronunciation of each, although he warned that they could be pronounced completely differently when combined with other letters. Some sounds corresponded to certain modern letters- those were the easiest to learn. Some sounded like a combination of different letters. And some were bizarre sounds that were nothing like any language Marisela had ever heard! To make matters worse, apparently the Soldarian alphabet had no less than 52 letters.
After spending well over an hour on just the alphabet, the linguist moved on to some basic vocabulary words, which made Marisela's head spin. He hadn't been kidding about letters being combined to form completely different sounds. Even referring to her hastily written guide on the alphabet she could barely connect the spelling to the pronunciation. All she could do was take careful notes, vowing to study them in more depth later.
Finally, after almost four hours of lecture time, the linguist called a halt to their lesson. He handed each student a thick stack of papers, practically a small book. The writing on the top sheet was positively tiny, and Marisela had no doubt that the rest of the packet would be the same.
"This is your study guide," he told them. "It has more a lot more vocabulary for you to study. Make sure you get the words down, because the next lesson will cover grammar, and how to put words together to form cohesive sentences."
Marisela groaned quietly as the linguist gathered his things and shuffled out of the room. It seemed that she had a lot of work ahead of her.
(Word Count: 733/500)
"It's even harder to learn with no teacher," she muttered darkly to herself.
And indeed, she was beginning to wonder if the linguist the guild had hired to teach this lesson would ever show up. The class was supposed to have begun almost a half hour ago. The students had all been on time-in fact, early even- but the teacher was nowhere to be found.
Just as she had that thought, the door to the room burst open and a man entered, at a strange speed somewhere between walking and jogging. He was a portly man, very overweight and extremely short, dressed in a suit that looked like it was once black, but was now so faded as to be a patchy medium tone of gray. The white shirt he wore underneath was stained in various colors. He hurried toward the desk, breathing heavily, then tripped, scattering papers across the floor. Red-faced, he silently gathered them up and set them on the desk, then paused for a minute, trying to catch his breath and regain his composure.
"Right. Today you will be learning the basics of Soldarian," he finally said in a wheezy tone.
Marisela frowned. The least he could have done was apologize for his tardiness. But she forced herself to put the issue aside, rearranging the neat stack of note paper in front of her and picking up her pencil to take notes.
"The first thing we have to learn are the letters."
Marsela sighed as he began drawing and explaining the Soldarian alphabet, which consisted of complex signs that did not resemble the modern alphabet at all. And, of course, he shared the basic pronunciation of each, although he warned that they could be pronounced completely differently when combined with other letters. Some sounds corresponded to certain modern letters- those were the easiest to learn. Some sounded like a combination of different letters. And some were bizarre sounds that were nothing like any language Marisela had ever heard! To make matters worse, apparently the Soldarian alphabet had no less than 52 letters.
After spending well over an hour on just the alphabet, the linguist moved on to some basic vocabulary words, which made Marisela's head spin. He hadn't been kidding about letters being combined to form completely different sounds. Even referring to her hastily written guide on the alphabet she could barely connect the spelling to the pronunciation. All she could do was take careful notes, vowing to study them in more depth later.
Finally, after almost four hours of lecture time, the linguist called a halt to their lesson. He handed each student a thick stack of papers, practically a small book. The writing on the top sheet was positively tiny, and Marisela had no doubt that the rest of the packet would be the same.
"This is your study guide," he told them. "It has more a lot more vocabulary for you to study. Make sure you get the words down, because the next lesson will cover grammar, and how to put words together to form cohesive sentences."
Marisela groaned quietly as the linguist gathered his things and shuffled out of the room. It seemed that she had a lot of work ahead of her.
(Word Count: 733/500)
