Chapter 3 - Student and Sponsor

Zach tried and failed to stifle his yawn as he rode along in the carriage, wishing the road was smoother so that he might get a few minutes of shut-eye in. The frequent bumps were on the list of reasons he normally chose to walk to his sessions with Abby.
Sadly, his normal stroll across town had ceased to be an option when he realized how much he had overslept that morning. It annoyed him to no end, but Zach knew that he had no one to blame but himself.
Despite how exhausted he had been when he’d returned to his room the previous night, Zach had been determined to copy the notes from his journal before heading to bed. Admittedly, he might have done some cursory studies of the dagger they had found while he was at it as well. He couldn’t recall when he had finally turned into bed, but he did recall waking groggily to sunlight streaming in through his window, more than there typically was when he woke up.
What had followed had been a mad scramble to get cleaned and dressed before hustling out with his notes as well as the artifacts. Knowing he’d be late otherwise, he swallowed his anxiety and flagged down a carriage to take him across town.
Once it became clear that he wouldn’t have a chance to catch up on his sleep, Zach pulled out his journals and went over his notes, both for the day’s lesson as well as what he had written down in and after the ruins. He still hadn’t been able to determine what the ruins were originally meant to be. For all he knew, the cellar could lead to anything from a prison to a pantry. If the accounts Zach had read about dwarves were to be believed, the traps they had encountered could support either option and everything in between. It didn’t help that they had hardly found any runic texts  that might have offered some hint. The only clues he had was the dagger and the room he and Ryu had found it in.
Zach shivered at the memory of the dwarf they had found in there as well. Ruins and relics were well and good. Corpses were not what he had signed up for when he had agreed to accompany Ryu in the site.
He was pulled out of his thoughts as the carriage lurched to a stop. Looking outside, Zach saw the familiar walled estate that was his destination. Repacking his bag, he disembarked from the carriage and tossed a few copper coins to the driver as payment before walking past the gate and onto the property.
To say the Riess’ front lawn was picturesque would have been an understatement. Immaculately trimmed grass. Beautiful flowerbeds with manicured hedges. All framed by the home’s redbrick façade and cobblestone walkway cutting a path from the gate to the front door. In a city where land and space were at a premium, it was a subtle but no less effective display of the family’s wealth.
Zach bid the scenery an appreciative thought as he crossed to the front door and knocked.
A moment passed before an older gentleman dressed in servant’s attire opened the door. “Ah, master Blackwater,” the butler greeted warmly.
“Good morning, Crawley,” Zach returned, giving a polite bow to the man. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“I am sure the young mistress will be understanding,” Crawley replied with a chuckle as he led Zach inside. “Very few are ignorant of how the streets become crowded on mornings such as today.”
“That’s good,” Zach said. He didn’t have the heart to lie to the butler. Luckily, he had the good sense to not correct him either.
The two soon came to the room that housed the Riess family library. Zach imagined the space had once been a spare bedroom given its size (though who was he to judge given the size of his own room at the library) before whatever theoretical furnishings had been replaced with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves installed along one wall and a medium-sized table taking up the center of the room. The shelves were divided into three sections, presumably to give each member of the family their own space for books. Zach silently chuckled at the idea as he knew whose collection spanned almost two entire sections, forcing her parents to share what space remained.
Said bookworm was currently seated at the table, a tome open beside her as she scrawled notes on a sheet of paper. It came as little surprise that Abby failed to notice Zach enter the room. The girl more than lived up to her father’s reputation and was a fiend for work, especially when said work called for research. Given how late he was, it would have been shocking to not find her absorbed in studying before he had gotten there.
“Zach!” she exclaimed, finally looking up from her work when she heard the door click shut. She quickly began straightening up the table as well as combing her fingers through her brown curls.
“You couldn’t have waited for me?” Zach remarked, stifling a chuckle at the girl’s antics.
“You were late,” Abby answered as she composed herself. “I thought I’d spend the time waiting for you reviewing my assignments.”
“Good,” Zach said, taking his own seat at the table. “Any questions you want to ask before we begin the lesson?”
Crawley quietly left the two, familiar enough with both to know neither would notice as they quickly became absorbed in their tutoring session.
Zach helped with the issues Abby had encountered with her translation work. Her grasp of dwarven vocabulary was honestly impressive even if some of the grammatical nuances still seemed to elude her. True, he had been tutoring her in dwarven studies for close to a year now, but Zach couldn’t deny that she had well surpassed what he had accomplished when he had been her age. Granted, she was only two years his junior, but it was no less impressive.
Once they touched up her translations, they moved on to historical accounts of the dwarven kingdoms. Abby’s blue eyes brightened behind her glasses as they compared records from the Church’s archive and discoveries catalogued by the archeologists in the Scholar Guilds. Neither came near to painting a complete picture of the what the dead race had been like, but together they came closer.
Before long, their hour together had seemed to tick by in but a moment. As the tutoring came to a close, Zach pulled on his bag to move onto the other reason he had visited. He fished a set of cloth-wrapped bundles, setting them on the table along with a thin journal.
Abby eyed the pieces with renewed interest. “Are those… your friend really found ruins outside the city!?” she asked excitedly as Zach unwrapped the first bundle to reveal a small clay pot.
It wasn’t pristine, but then what artifacts were? Fortunately, the seal on the ruins had kept the accumulated dirt and dust to a thin layer that barely obscured the designs of the pottery. Runic patterns were embossed into the front face of the jug. Zach had considered taking a stab at translating the runes, but had opted to leave it as a lower priority and let Abby have first crack at it instead.
The second bundle held a similar piece of pottery, though close to half its walls as well as its handle had broken off. Zach had been worried that the pottery had gotten broken during the scuffle with the lindrake, but the lack of clay pieces in his bag told him otherwise.
Finally, Zach carefully unwrapped the last cloth to reveal the blackened dagger. Abby gazed at the weapon in fascination as Zach set it on the table, letting its edges gleam in the light while the patenaed flat seemed to absorb the light more than anything else. Seeing the blade in decent light for the first time, it was striking the affect it had.
Abby delicately picked the weapon up, a flicker of surprise briefly crossing her face as she registered its weight. “Please tell me you didn’t try and polish this to get more coin out of me,” she said flatly after a moment.
“Of course not,” Zach replied, almost offended by the comment. Even still, he couldn’t blame her for asking as he watched the blade’s edges catch the light through the window.
Abby continued to study the blade. After a moment, she picked up a spare piece of paper from the table. She made a quick swipe with the dagger, cleanly slicing through the paper without resistance. Once again, she raised an eyebrow towards Zach.
He held up his hands. “I haven’t done anything,” he promised.
“Hmm… what about these symbols?” Abby asked, changing tact. “They don’t appear dwarven.”
“None that I’m familiar with,” Zach agreed.
“What about Kyamese? The style seems closer.”
She had a point, one that Zach had failed to consider when studying the blade before. He wasn’t terribly familiar with the Elven script, but the marks on the blade did not resemble the handful that he knew. That said, he could see some comparisons between their writing and the engravings.
“Possibly,” Zach mused. “I'll see what I can find when I get back to the library.”
“Very well,” Abby said as she placed the dagger back on the table before picking up the journal. She flipped through the pages, smiling as she scanned the first few.
This was one part of his job that Zach felt particularly proud of. Most relic hunters focused on finding whatever half-tarnished jewelry or dusty piece of crockery they could find and carry back to whatever buyer they could find. Few realized the value of the ruins themselves. Their designs, layout, even the traps built into them. It was all just as valuable as whatever relics were likely to be found inside and said knowledge was easily carried home in a single journal.
“It sounds like the ruins were well fortified. Do you have any idea what the site was meant to be?”
Zach shook his head. “No clue yet,” he replied. “We haven’t found much in the way of markings that might serve as any indication yet.”
“Have you considered the arrangement of the rooms? You mention in your notes that the chamber you found the dagger and pots in was after the first set of trapdoors. That might be a clue.”
“Maybe,” Zach conceded. “Not sure if it’s enough for an answer now, though.”
"Hmm... what about the locks you found? You made a note about them as well."
"Same as the rest, I think. Aside from being dwarven made, I don't think it's enough to draw much of a conclusion about anything."
“Even if it isn’t, you more than have me interested,” Abby said with a smile.
Zach chuckled and gave an exaggerated bow. “I aim to please. Shall we discuss payment?”
Abby gladly handed him a small pouch of silver coins for the copy of his notes and unsurprisingly added a second for the dagger on top of that. She threw in a few extra coins for the intact pot after deeming its broken counterpart as not worth studying.
“Do you need to take any last notes about the dagger?” she asked as Zach began to repack his bag.
Zach shook his head. “Took plenty of notes last night along with a rubbing of the engravings,” he said.
“Okay,” Abby remarked, pulling her notebook towards herself. “I have a visit scheduled with the Scholar’s Guild…” She paused, the tip of her pen hovering over her inkwell. “Wait, was that why you so late today?”
“Maybe,” Zach admitted sheepishly. “Granted, we barely made it back in time for final bell and then we had to get his wounds looked at.”
“What!? What happened?”
“Had a run in with a lindrake on the way back from the ruins,” Zach said.
“A lindrake!? What was it doing that close to the city?”
“Beyond looking to make a snack out of me and Ryu, no clue.”
Abby rubbed her temple. Zach shared her concern. As nasty as lindrakes were, they typically had enough sense to keep a healthy distance from cities. One or two weren’t underheard of, but a pack of the beasts skulking around wasn’t to be taken lightly.
“What about your friend?”
“Nothing a few bandages and a couple days’ rest won’t cure,” Zach replied.
“Thank goodness,” Abby breathed. She gazed down at the artifacts in her hands, the enthusiasm from seconds earlier having deflated out of her. “Zach.”
Zach moved around the table and knelt next to her. “Yeah?”
Abby looked up from the table, her mouth a thin line before shaking her head. “Just… please be careful. As great as this opportunity is and I’m glad to see you be something more than my tutor, it’s not worth you getting maimed over.”
“Thanks,” Zach said. “Believe me, we know and we are careful. What happened last night was a fluke. The guards already know about it. They’ll have a hunting party out for them and Ryu and I will be back to exploring those ruins before you know it.”
“If you say so,” Abby conceded. “In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find any leads on these notes while I’m at the Scholar’s Guild. Am I correct in guessing that you’ll be doing the same at the central library?”
Zach nodded. “I’ll send you a message if I find anything,” he said.
“And I’ll do the same,” Abby smiled, her excitement returning. “Shall I have Crawley call you a carriage?”
Zach readily declined the offer. He wanted a chance to organize his thoughts and one trip in a carriage had been enough for him today.
He did not wait for Crawley to escort him out of the house. Zach knew the way well by now. With some parting pleasantries and a final wave, he departed down the street.
It was rather invigorating walking along the cobblestones instead of bumping around in another carriage. Then again, the prospect of a new research project probably had something to do with Zach’s improved mood. Abby wasn’t the only one eager to decipher the secrets of the ruins. Zach considered where best to start his search for the meanings behind the dagger’s engravings or perhaps following Abby’s suggestion about finding meaning in the layout of what they had seen of the ruins.
Zach mulled over these and other thoughts as he made his way across the city and back to the library. By the time he arrived, the library was crowded with the usual mix of acolytes and scholars milling between bookshelves, researching for whatever assignments their mentors had given them. There was a muted static in the air that always accompanied groups in the library. For Zach, it was soothing. It allowed him to tune out the world as he hunted through the various tomes.
Speaking of, he knew his first stop would be the linguistics section of books. It was admittedly not a large section of the library; there could only be so many volumes detailing dwarven runes and Kyamese script. It did, however, house treatises on the various dialects unearthed through the years. Zach could only hope that one of them matched what was on the dagger.
Zach turned the corner around a set of shelves to find the section blocked by a cart of books. The familiar elderly man beside it looked up from the stack of tomes he was placing back on the shelf.
“Ah, hello, Zachary,” Cyrus said, age adding a slight rasp in his voice. “Back from your tutoring already?”
“Yes, sir,” Zach replied awkwardly. Cyrus had been his mentor since he was a boy and could read him as easily as any book in the library. How Zach had managed to keep his and Ryu’s relic hunting a secret was nothing short of a miracle.
“And how are young Abigail’s lessons going?” Cyrus asked, taking a relaxed pose as he shelved the last book in his hands. “She is still working to enter Everset next term, no?”
“And looking to earn a spot on the school’s digs in Tanith. The way she’s going, she might end up leading it.”
Cyrus gave a chuckle at that. “I knew you two would work well together,” he remarked. “Shall I take it that she tasked you with assisting with some of her research?”
“Ye – err – yes!” Zach answered, realizing the chance he now had. “Abby came into possession of an artifact with some odd engravings on it. They didn’t appear like the normal Dwarven runes, but we thought they might be a rare dialect.”
He flipped through the pages until he came to the rubbing he took of the dagger’s blade and its engravings before showing it to Cyrus. “Any idea what these are?”
Cyrus gingerly grasped the journal as he pulled a pair of spectacles out of his robe. He hummed for a moment as he looked over the image.
“I can’t tell what it says,” he stated rather flatly. “But it’s not Dwarven, I can tell you that.”
“It’s not? Any idea what it is then?”
Cyrus rubbed his chin. “It looks like Old Imperial, though that script is far from my specialty.”
“Imperial?” Zach parroted. What was an imperial dagger doing in a Dwarven ruin?
“Yes,” Cyrus said as he peered down at the page. “Can’t say I’m surprised neither of you recognized it. It’s rare to find pieces of the old empire outside of the church. The knights are particularly protective about them. Did young Abigail say where she acquired this?”
Zach immediately shook his head. “No,” he answered. “I assumed it was loaned to her by the Scholar’s guild or one of her father’s associates.”
Cyrus huffed at his response but seemed to accept it. “Well, please tell young Abigail that church’s historians may wish to have a look at this artifact once she is finished with her examinations. Until then…” He bent down and selected a tome bound in greying leather from the bottom shelf. “This should assist you with translating the runes.”
“Thank you, sir,” Zach said sincerely as he accepted the tome.
“Any time,” Cyrus chuckled. “Now I best get back to work, something I believe is no less true for you.”
Zach nodded and went off to collect a few other books before finding a free table he could work at. Pulling out his journal and gently opening the guide on Imperial, he got to work on his research.

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Author's Note

Finally got to introduce Abby!
Working on this really got me to think more about her and how she ticks. I'm not crazy about writing rich kids being lazy spoiled brats. They have their place and may even show up down the line, but that would have made Abigail far too shallow of a character and frankly annoying to write. Making her ambitious and eager to succeed gave me plenty to work with while also throwing in some flaws that make sense with her background.
I really enjoyed writing Abigail and Zach nerding out together over their lesson and the ruins. Part of the inspiration for Vestria comes from my experience with RPGs (my original notes were derived from a D&D campaign I played back in college) and I wanted to play a bit with certain classes/architypes. Zach and Abigail stem from my notes on Scholar characters, albeit from different angles.
Cyrus is another character I'm still playing with in my notes. Vestria is the first time I'm working an in-universe religion into my work, so I'm wanting to experiement with the range of people affiliated with it.

Previous Chapter:	Chapter 2 - Healing, Hare, and Home
Next Chapter:	Chapter 4 - The Hunt