what in the longdark spitting-pit is that
This was a bad idea this was a bad idea this was a bad idea.
Holly runs as fast as she can but the demon's faster. She has no idea where Lightning's gotten to; maybe he found a tree to climb. She on the other hand has been diverted into a treeless hill and she's careening down a slope, trying very hard not to trip.
And the demon's gaining on her.
She's never seen anything like it and neither has Crystal; maybe Book knows what it is but Book's asleep. It's mostly mouth - it looks like a cross between a floorlength mirror of a mouth and a snake to propel the mouth along.
And Holly's not fast enough.
The mouth catches her.
But it doesn't hurt.
Where are we?
----
with Minus (kappa)
with Mark (kappa)
with Max (Benedict)
in Terraria (kappa)
with Emma (Marri)
with Erin (Rockeye)
Holly runs as fast as she can but the demon's faster. She has no idea where Lightning's gotten to; maybe he found a tree to climb. She on the other hand has been diverted into a treeless hill and she's careening down a slope, trying very hard not to trip.
And the demon's gaining on her.
She's never seen anything like it and neither has Crystal; maybe Book knows what it is but Book's asleep. It's mostly mouth - it looks like a cross between a floorlength mirror of a mouth and a snake to propel the mouth along.
And Holly's not fast enough.
The mouth catches her.
But it doesn't hurt.
Where are we?
----
with Minus (kappa)
with Mark (kappa)
with Max (Benedict)
in Terraria (kappa)
with Emma (Marri)
with Erin (Rockeye)
no subject
Trevor snorts, but isn't quite disbelieving. "Structure, grammar, what do you know about that? We need more to go on."
Max furrows his brow. "I'm not... I know some vocabulary, the language's name is Nloggy, mweelsrow's the magic, the world she's from might be named Kweengow, or that might be a region in it... she knows 'word' and 'means', though, so if you can teach her an English word, you can just ask her what the Nloggy equivalent is."
no subject
"Yes?" says, presumably, Sohng.
Victoria mimes writing.
Sohng pulls out her notes and Victoria grins. "Oh, good, she's literate, maybe we can get her to write us the alphabet, Trevor." She motions towards the notes, and Sohng hesitantly hands them over; Victoria gets a fresh sheet of paper and starts writing down one of each symbol, one to a line, while Sohng looks on in puzzlement.
no subject
Max looks with confusion at the symbols. He hadn't looked too closely at her writing before, and isn't sure how this is a useful starting point, but... they're the experts. He sits down in a nearby folding chair.
no subject
Sohng studies the list of letters, then takes a new sheet of paper and writes two columns of sixteen letters instead.
"Oh, I wonder if they're - not capitals, probably, but some kind of character transformation - Sohng?" Victoria points at the top left letter. "What's that?"
"Pek."
"That?" The other letter on the same line.
"Pek."
And the next row is ti, and so on. Victoria writes downs IPA renderings of these names.
no subject
Max tries out the sound in his mouth- it's like how that one girl from high school, the exchange student, pronounced H.
Trevor shoots him a dirty look, as if Max were intruding on his personal space.
"Am I doing it wrong?"
"...No."
no subject
no subject
no subject
Sohng writes it out. Victoria peers at it. "Six letters, third and fourth the same. And it looks like the letters probably are at least mostly named after sounds that appear in them - I'm not sure why the 'cow' letter sounds like - Sohng, say 'Nloggy'?"
"Nlaaki," obliges Sohng.
"So I'm not sure why the 'cow' letter is turning into a hard G, but apparently it really is, that wasn't a mishearing on your part..."
no subject
"Yes," Trevor responds, "English double vowel syntax does not apply to every language in existence. I'm glad you're paying attention."
"You don't have to-"
"The real question is, does it extend past two? More vowels, you hold the sound longer? How do we check that?"
no subject
"Yes," agrees Sohng.
Victoria draws another. "Two saa, yes?"
"Yes."
And a third: "Three saa -"
"No."
"So, two lengths. At least for saa."
no subject
"Yeah. That'll help," Trevor comments. And then "...that'll help, actually. Yeah." Trevor begins jotting down a copy of the alphabet for his reference, and marks down "ruum <-> and".
no subject
no subject
Some time passes.
"So... you've got the alphabet down, right? What's your plan, now? Where do you go from here? Do you have an agenda besides curiosity?"
Trevor boggles. "Agenda... curi- the pursuit of knowledge isn't-"
Max backs up. "Whoa! No, that's- of course- I mean, do you want to document her whole language, or just learn to talk to her? What do you mean to do tomorrow, or the day after?"
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Well, no, he reasons, he couldn't have known any better than her what kind of people to call, so if she did miss anything he wouldn't have figured that out by asking.
...he could have known, though. If that were something he'd decided to learn about earlier. Not having known something he needed to know doesn't sit right with Max.
no subject
no subject
Max thinks for a moment. Trevor, meanwhile, nervously mutters something about tenses and specifiers, and goes to grab a book from a shelf.
"I didn't... I didn't call the residence people, no. I can't really pay for university housing on a teacher's salary..."
Trevor scoffs. "What, are you serious? She's magic, just go win the Randi Prize or whatever. You mean to tell me you can't think of a way to make money off a wizard?"
"...the Randy what?"
no subject
Sohng, meanwhile, has figured out that these new people want to learn Nlaaki, and starts helpfully writing out a glossary with various numbers of dots and simple drawings.
no subject
Max is not a cartoon character, and so his eyes do not literally transform into dollar signs, but they are making a good effort. He opens his laptop bag- he's going to see how expidiently these million dollars can be arranged.
Trevor leans over and watches as Sohng compiles her glossary, consulting his transcribed alphabet. He attempts to pronounce some of the phrases near the dots.
no subject
"Base eight!" realizes Victoria after Sohng has written fourteen lines.
no subject
Max, meanwhile, has discovered that applicants must be at least 18 years of age, and that there is an application process of unspecified duration. He frowns. It's still worth doing, but it won't solve the immediate problem of not having a place to put her tonight.
...he's not going to have to let an insomniac little girl have the run of his apartment at night, is he?
no subject
no subject
He shoots off an email to Liu- asking if there are any expensive materials in their budget that they could directly obtain funds by having multiplied or whatever for free.
And he asks the two linguists "Do either of you have space at home to keep her for the night?"
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)