Skara Braens

Part 10

Part 9 Vote Tallies:

Vote 1:

Option A: 0
Option B: 1
Option C: 2

The psionic's name is EP-149

Vote 2:

Option A: 3
Option B: 0
Option C: 0

Onward!

You spend the majority of the day wandering around the prison.  There are some three hundred cell - a hundred each on the the top three floors, with a kitchen and dining room, laundry and shower facilities on the bottom floor.  The emptiness of the place is by far stranger than all the gleaming metal surfaces.  It feels almost as if the spirits of the prisoners should be wandering around, but there is nothing.  No sounds, no energies, nothing.  The place is too sterile by far.

"I would prefer the company of ghosts," you muse aloud.  At least in Maeshowe, the stones carried their memories.  You realise now that there is an absence of energies that you weren't even aware you could sense the stones' secrets.

The library - at least you assume it's the library, since it is the only room you don't really recognise having a use other than having shelves full of strange blocks of thin sheets bound together somehow.  These, at least, provide relief from the shiny sterility of the rest of the prison, even if they seem bizarre and wondrous to you.  The library is carpeted, though from the heavy sound when your foot struck the carpet, there is probably a floor of steel beneath the brown and blue carpeting.  The shelves are metal, but the blocks of sheets... those are magnificent.  They are not cold and empty, but alive things.  They smell comforting and feel good and heavy in the hand.  Many have covers torn off completely or so battered that you can no longer make out what is on them.

The blocks are strange things, you decide.  They are made of thin sheets of something like unnaturally flexible tree bark or perhaps skin shaved so thin it can serve no other purpose than to have something scrawled on them.  You spend a lot of time investigating a single book, noting that the individual pages seem to have been glued together along the back, some of them stitched in addition to glued.

You realise, as you flip through the pages of the block you're holding, that you have no idea how to read.  The markings tattooed on these pages make absolutely no sense to you.  Despite this, their weight and smell and warmth are comforting.  Like stone, they have memories.  They remember the men who held them, who wept over them, who held them close to their breasts as if these blocks were their only friends.

The one you hold currently feels sad.  It is lonely.  You decide to bring it into your cell with you.  Perhaps, if you stare at it long enough, you might discern some of its secrets, and it will not be so lonely.

A loud buzz signals the opening of the doors on the top floor.  Turning away from the door of the dining room, you race up the stairs, eager for company.

EP-149 stands at the entrance to the prison, another of those metal food trays in his hands.

"Hello," he greets with a mild smile.

"Hello, EP-149," you reply.  The name feels odd on your tongue.  What sort of name was EP-149 anyway?  "I am glad to see you.  It is very quiet here.  I think I might go mad."

Frowning, the psionic nods.  "Yes.  We forget how social humans are.  I will see what I can do for you with the commander of the station.  Alas, the man is not the most empathetic of creatures I've ever seen.  He might not understand the very basic need for company.  In the meantime, I have brought you dinner."

"I appreciate it.  Will you stay?"

"Of course.  I imagine you have a number of questions.  Please know that I cannot answer them all, of course.  Some things are very secret.  But I shall do my best."

Smiling, you take the tray from EP-149 and walk to the stairs.  You sit on the second stair down and place the tray on your lap.  The psionic joins you, sitting on the top step.

"This place is eerie, isn't it?  Sterile, like.  I don't like it."

You nod.  "I was thinking the same.  But there is a room... I'm assuming it's what you called the library, since I was able to identify the other rooms.  I have questions.  First of all, what is this?"

You hold up the book.

"That's a book."

"What's it for?"

"You read it."  The psionic cocks his head at you when he realises that you don't actually understand.  "It contains stories.  Some of them have picture."

You brighten at that.  "Pictures!  But pictures are just an aid.  It is people who tell stories."

EP-149 stares at you.  "I mean, yes.  People told these stories, too.  They just did it by writing their words, rather than speaking them."

Your blank stare draws a frown from the psionic.  "Do you not read?" he asks.

"Read?  I mean, no.  Or yes, but not these markings.  Or... actually I don't know."

"Open the book."

"To any particular place?"

"No.  Just open it."

You do so and stare down at the symbols tattooed thereon.  They are grouped together in chains of symbols of varying length, each chain spaced out from the other to distinguish themselves from the other chains.  There appears to be no pattern to the spacing or chains.

"Can you not read that?"

"No.  I mean, these symbols must have meaning, but I cannot discern what they are."

"Let me try to explain.  Each individual symbol is a letter.  It is ascribed a sound used in language.  These strings of letters each form a word in our language."

"That makes absolutely no sense.  Why not just draw what you mean?"

"Writing words permits us to be more specific," the psionic explained.  "It might be difficult for a viewer of a picture of a mountain, for example, to understand that they are seeing a mountain instead of merely a hill, or perhaps the outside of a barrow or other man-made structure rather than a natural one.  There are different words to describe different things that might look the same if drawn."

"That... makes more sense."

"So, this is a letter?"  You point to something on the page.

"Yes, that is the letter 'a'."

"Is this also a word, then, since it is sitting out on its own?"

"Yes!  Very good.  The letter 'a' on its own like that denotes that the word coming after it is in the singular, which is to say, there is only one of it.  A fork, in this case."

"Ah," you stare down at the page.  Now you know how to read one symbol.

"Reading is a very valuable skill indeed.  I can teach you, if you like."

You turn to face the psionic and ponder.  So you:

a) Kindly decline the offer.  You'd rather the psionic work at getting you out of this prison as soon as possible and reading stories is not your focus at present.
b) Accept the offer.  If ever you get out of here, you may need this skill.  Even if you don't ever get out, you're really curious about what's in these 'books.'
c) Decline the offer, but request that the psionic visit you regardless.  You still have many questions you wish to ask him.

Voting ends 25th August 2016 at midnight!  Good luck Adventurers!