ACC part seven -- Erin's FF and ACC Place

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Date Posted: 22:40:33 03/21/01 Wed
Author: Elric
Author Host/IP: ip181.hutchison.ks.pub-ip.psi.net / 38.27.1.181
Subject: ACC part seven

Like it says, this is part seven. I will probably introduce Phoenix, who will be renamed Cedric, in part nine. Let mne know what you think of this part if you want.

I woke as she began to stir. I was momentarily confused by the warm presence at my side, until I remembered the events of the night before.
I glanced down at her. "Good morning."
"Oh, good morning." She sat up, letting go of my hand.
I sat up next to her. "Erin, last night�"
"No� I� I don't want to talk about it right now. Maybe later."
I sighed mentally. "Alright. We'll talk about it later."
I stood and held out may hand to help her up. She took it and I helped her to her feet.
She stared down at our hands for a second, then let go suddenly. "Venric, I think I need some time alone." She didn't look at me.
"Okay. I'll see you in a little while then."
She nodded, eyes still downcast, and sat down again. I left her room, closing the door behind me, and went downstairs to see if there was anything edible in the pantry.
As I came downstairs, I noticed that the rain had stopped, though the cloudcover hadn't let up. "Looks like we're in for more rain." I said to myself.
I came to the bottom of the stairs and entered the doorway on the east, which, as I had guessed, led to the pantry. After a little searching, I found some dried meat and nuts. Darrev and Alia came downstairs after a bit. We finished eating after a while, and Erin hadn't come down yet.
"Let's wake up Erin and start looking around." Darrev said.
"I saw her before you two got up. I'm� not sure she's feeling well." I said.
"Oh. Well then, let's get started. I'll take the basement, you take the top floor, and Alia, you take the ground floor."
"Okay."
"Fine with me."
Darrev and Alia left, leaving me alone again. I sighed to myself and started upstairs.
I went to my room and began checking the walls, floor, and ceiling for anything unusual. Ultimately I found nothing.
I left the room and started across the hall one of the other bedrooms. As I reached for the doorknob, Erins' door opened and she stepped out.
"Oh, Venric." She said, closing the door and leaning up against it. "I wanted to talk to you."
I turned to face her. "Okay."
She avoided my eyes. "�I've been thinking about it, and I'm not really sure I� feel that way about you." She glanced at me, and looked away again.
"That's kinda what I figured. Hero worship."
"Yeah�" She glanced at me again. "Hero worship�"
There was an awkward moment of silence between us. Eventually I broke it.
"Well, Darrev and Alia are checking around for anything unusual, like secret doors� Um� I was� checking around up here� You� should probably get something to eat."
"Okay." She said quietly, starting for the stairs.

We regrouped in the pantry that evening.
"Anybody find anything?" I asked.
"Nothing unusual." Alia said.
"I found these scrolls." Darrev said, setting them on the table and unrolling them. They appeared to be some sort of journal or diary. It was written in a strange language, one that I recognized but couldn't immediately place.
"Can anybody read it?" I asked.
"A few words." Darrev said. "Seems to be some sort of ancient script, but I only recognize a few letters."
"I can make out a bit" Erin said.
"Really? What's it say?" Alia asked.
She read over the scrolls for a few minutes. "I'm not really sure, but it looks like directions for casting some sort of spell."
"Hm. So can you tell what kind of spell?"
"Not really, but from the context, I'd guess it's some sort of summoning spell. If it is a spell, the last line is missing."
I looked at the scrolls again. There was definitely something familiar about those letters.
"Okay," I said. "tomorrow, you two see if you can translate it. Alia and I will look around some more and see if we can find anything else that might be significant."
"These runes seem awfully familiar." Darrev said, looking at the scrolls again.
"I know. I was just thinking the same thing."
"Well, I think we should get some rest right now." Alia said. "We'll start in the morning."
"Yeah. Let's get some rest."

The next day I woke early. I sat up and stretched, feeling the vertebrae in my neck and back pop. I hadn't slept well, and my back hurt from laying on the stone floor for eight hours.
I got up, ignoring the pain in my back, and got dressed. I fastened my sword to my belt and left the room, smoothing my hair with my fingers.
I went downstairs to the pantry, getting some dried meat and nuts for my breakfast. I noticed that there were the same amounts that there had been the day before. Apparently the pantry restocked itself magically every day.
I finished eating and began looking around the main floor, searching for anything that looked out of place.
The others came one by one after a while. Darrev and Erin began working together on translating the scrolls, taking notes on some blank sheets of parchment they had found. Alia joined me in looking around for anything unusual.
My mind kept wandering back to the scrolls as I looked around the halls and rooms. I knew I had seen those runes before. I began replaying my entire life in my mind, trying to remember where, but with no success.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Erin and Darrev had only gotten part of one scroll translated.
"At this rate, it'll take months." Erin said, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her eyes.
"If I could just remember where I've seen these letters before�" Darrev said.
"I've been trying to do that all day." I sat down at the table and took a drink of the wine we had found earlier.
"Maybe two of us should take these scrolls back, while the other two stay here and keep looking around." Alia said.
I leaned back in my chair and stretched. It had been a long day. "Yeah, we should probably take these back and see what the wizards back there have to say." I finished my glass of wine. "But we should all go. If just two of us go, it's a lot more likely they won't be ready if they get attacked on the way back."
"Yeah, you're right."
"Let's stay one more day and see if we can find anything else." Erin shrugged. "Maybe we'll get lucky."
"Yeah, maybe." Darrev said.

"Damn it's depressing here." Darrev said the next day at breakfast.
"Yeah, I know, but we'll be leaving tomorrow." I said.
He grunted. "Yeah."
.He stood and left, leaving me alone. Erin was in her room, studying the scrolls, and Alia was already looking around. I leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
"Damn. I hate this place." I said out loud before I caught myself. Talking to myself was only something I did when I was stressed. I really needed to take some time off.
I sighed aloud and stood. I left the pantry and began looking around.
Eventually I came to a small room at the end of a hallway on the first floor. It held a broken, dust covered chair, and a few wooden boxes. I began checking the walls for anything unusual.
I searched for nearly half an hour, checking every brick, until I eventually found one that was loose. I hooked my fingernails into the crack around the brick and worked it out of the wall. I dropped it to the floor and looked into the hole where it had been. I removed a scrap of paper and unfolded it. There were a few words written in the same language as the scrolls Darrev had found, and below it were a few words in elvish, which I had passing familiarity with. I could make out parts of words, but I wasn't able to translate enough to make any sense. Erin seemed to know elven. I would give it to her later.

We regrouped again that evening. Alia hadn't found anything. Darrev and Erin had managed to get more of the scrolls translated, but they still hadn't finished with thew first one.
"It would be a lot easier if part of it were already translated." Darrev said, sitting down at the table.
"That reminds me, I found this earlier today." I said, taking the scrap of paper from my shirt pocket and handing it to Erin.
She looked over it for a few minutes. "These are the same letters on the scrolls. And this," She pointed to the elven runes. "Is ancient Elven."
"Can you read it?" Alia asked.
"Yeah, but not well. It's like a different dialect. I'll probably have to take a few liberties in the translation."
"So you'll be able to translate the entire thing?" I asked.
"Should be able to."
"Any idea how long it'll take?" Alia asked.
"Should go a lot faster now. Maybe a few days."
"So do we want to stay here, or are we going to go back and see what the wizards have to say?" I inquired.
"Well, if we go back, it'll take longer to translate it, but I would finish before we got there. If we stayed here, we would have it done by tomorrow."
"Okay. I vote for staying here. Maybe we won't need to go back." I said.
"Yeah, we should probably stay here." Alia put in.
Darrev sighed. "Yeah, fine with me

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