[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Lord Windos]

Spoiler

"That's fine.  Rain doesn't look like it's going anywhere any time soon.  3rd round of Little Cup's going to be rather wet, it seems."

Nathan indicates that Ventus should sit in the seat next to him.  He puts the journal between the two of them.

The left page of the journal has the modern alphabet listed, with the modern unown listed underneath those, followed by what old unown he could match to the more modern scripts listed underneath those.  The only letters without at least one symbol listed underneath them are C, J, P, Q, V, X, Y, and Z.  There's a notable lack of punctuation based Unown symbols written in blue ink.

Further down that page is a list of combinations of various symbols.  Notably, the symbol listed under F is here by itself, with a ? underneath it.  There's also ITE (IGHT), IU (H), SE (CE), SG (SH), K (CK), and E _ _ IU (?) [If Ventus could help Nathan figure out what that first word in EA _ _ _ Metal is, that'd be convenient.]

The page on the right is as described previously.

Nathan looks at the message Ventus just wrote down, takes a moment to compare it to his notes...fills in what he can...

_ E FOUR WINDS

"Hmmm...that first symbol...that's new.  I think it's obvious what it means in this instance, though."

Nathan adds the new symbol to his notes on the left page, then in the appropriate spots on both pages fills in a TH underneath it, completing the new message.

THE FOUR WINDS

"Ask Heart where he found this text later.  This seems somewhat significant."

Back to looking at these notes...

"Alright, first thing to learn: I can't actually read this yet, and the work's far from done.  Solomon is the only modern being that can actually read all this fluently.  His help has been instrumental in translating this."

"Everything I've got here so far, I've pulled from the untranslated messages I've encountered.  Solomon's Hidden Power can create more on the spot, which is helpful, but the messages it creates are specific to what the target of the attack was, and they don't stay affixed to the target for very long.  A lot of this is educated guesswork using the context of what you already know.  That 'F' for example, or that 'K'.  I think they're sometimes more representative of the sounds than the actual letters.  Looking at it that way, I was able to fill in either their blanks or the blanks around them easily.  The only thing I can really recommend to 'learn' it is to take careful notes on what you know already, which is what you're going to do now, then try translating messages with that and solving any incomplete parts as you go."

When Ventus is done taking careful notes on the script (PM me if you need some help with pinning down the specifics of how I took these notes, Windos.), Nathan points at BRAILLE.

"...golem in the Ruins, right?  I'm worried that whatever this golem related to Sarimanok is, it's similar in nature to the Legendary Titans.  Are you familiar with their lore?"

If Ventus has questions about the various symbols and messages, he's free to ask them before we get to BRAILLE.  Gotta fill those 3 hours somehow, yes?

The moment Nathan agrees and motions for him to sit beside him, Ventus complies instantly with one of his own notebooks and pencil in hand as if they always were their (What in....HOW in the.....?). He diligently copies down the current Modern/Common English to Old Unown that the young scholar has already translated, before moving onto creating a section for 'Symbol Grouping and Individual Symbol Alternative Meanings' and filling that in with the combinations the boy has already discovered. Then he flipped forward a couple of pages to leave space for the still in progess translation key, titled a blank page 'Old/Elder Unown Text and Their Translations' and filled that out as well. Ven had a delighted yet intense look of concentration as he painstakingly copied everything down, as if this was a challenge that he most definitely enjoyed undertaking.

When he finished his copying and Nathan translated the latest message and new symbol (Which was soon added to his own notebook) and asked him to interrogate Heart further, he sharply nodded his head in response, before responding to his comment about the translation + Solomon's aid.

"Hmm....yes, but in my opinion the translation you've completed thus far is more than serviceable in most instances. If it wasn't for the tendacy for Old Unown symbols to link up together to form individual letters and vice versa, you would be able to translate most text and figure out the rest by brute forcing it. Its a great thing I caught Solomon and Valder was able to make a King's Rock for me, or otherwise we would know naught of this valuable source of information!"

Ventus  began to look more thoughtful as the boy continued his explaination on the wise king's contributions to the ongoing translation effort, before asking them: "If the Old Unown and the messages they make that Solomon summons with Hidden Power change according to their target, could he perhaps use it on certain objects and individuals to gain some Insight into them, while also providing more material to translate? I'm willing to be a guinea big by being a target, as well as the rest of the Pokémon if that is alright with you."

As for the rest of that statement, the researcher could only nod his head in agreement, and then add in his own observations on the subject. "Indeed, I noticed the trend for the language to lean more toward a phonetic translation convention, rather than directly to Common , but I guess that is just a quirk that has to be accounted for. I'm more curious how certain letters, like T and E, L and A, and B and D , seem to be just rotated or inverted versions of one another. The fact that G and H share a symbol and the relative fluidity they are conveyed in messages is a curiosity as well, and combined with my prior statement imply that Old Unown is more nuanced and flexible than we may be aware of now. I'm also concerned if Old Unown share similarities with Egyptain Heiroglyphs and have individual or string of unique symbols represent unique things or the alike, as that would be a massive roadblock to deal with......."

Eventually, both he and Nathan got to discussing the BRAILLE message, and this is what Ventus had to say on that: "....That's what I suspected too, based on that......old man's description of his 'ally' in the ruins, and brainstorming what could possibly command those Vines. Yes, I'm familiar with the legends surround the Titans, but a refresher would be nice, and you likely have information on them that might have eluded me during my own research and self study. You are the group's resident historian and source of obscure information, after all!"