Malacanth for the life of him could not figure out why he had been hired for this task. That's all he could think while he stood in front of the Crocus library. He had been contacted by an apprentice of Merlin, some rich wizard with little time on their hands needed him to look into some runes she had discovered. He had been told little else but to translate them and report his findings. While not a particularly hard task, it seemed daunting nevertheless. Malacanth had no formal schooling, just learning to read and write within the last year. He had difficulties writing modern language, let alone trying to translate ancient runes. Of course, bills had to be paid, so he couldn’t let a simple matter like his own lack of schooling get in the way of a paycheck.


With a sigh, he opened the heavy oak doors and entered the ornate library of Crocus. Malacanth immediately was in awe of the aisles upon aisles of books in front of him. He wondered how on Earth Luciel expected him to find the right book. He didn’t even know where to start, it would take him ages to go through the library to find the correct book. A Librarian seemed to see his confusion, and waved him over to the front desk. The man asked “You seemed lost young man, you looking for something in particular?” Malacanth didn’t expect the man to know the exact language he needed, but he could at very least asks for books on runes. “Are there books on runic languages here?” The librarian took a moment, looking through his records, he pointed to a section near the back and said “Everything we have should be there, not very specific though, might take a while to find the right book if we have it.” Malacanth had expected as much, and knew he was in for a slog. Malacanth thanked the librarian, and went over to the section he had been pointed to. Little else could be done but to start looking through the books and hope to get lucky, so he grabbed five of them and started flipping through them. He attempted to compare the runes on the note to the books. This led to a lot of head scratching, squinting, and frustration.


The issue with runes was the intricate patterns often times looked similar, a single stroke could change the entire meaning of the word. Take into account that he could be looking at the wrong runic language, it easily became one of the more frustrating experiences he has gone through. Many close calls were had. At first he thought they were draedic runes, one sort of looked like the rune for dust in the language. Spent a good hour before realizing he had mistaken a circle for an arc in the drawing to realize he had gotten on the wrong track. This happened many times throughout the day.


After six hours, he still had nothing. The sun was starting to set, and the librarian, looking rather sorry for Malacanth, informed him they were closing in five minutes. He hadn’t even gotten through ten languages, and from what he could tell there were countless more. Malacanth nodded, and asked “Is it possible to leave these books here for me tomorrow? Haven’t got through them all.” The librarian gave a friendly smile, and told him he would. Malacanth went directly back to his inn, not looking forward to the day he had in store for himself tomorrow.


Malacanth woke up bright and early the next day. He didn’t know how long these runes would take to be translated. He made his way to the library, arriving when the librarian was opening it for the day. Malacanth gave an obligatory hi, and immediately moved to the table he had occupied yesterday. Another two hours would pass before he finally found the breakthrough he was looking for. “Ox hooves……” That's definitely what this rune is. What an odd thing to have written down. Was this a potion of some kind? Some sort of weird cultish ritual? He couldn’t think of anything that would require ox hooves, but that mattered little. All that mattered was he had finally found a translation for one of the blasted runes. He now knew the runic language he was looking for was Valan. He poured over the book, looking for the other three runes he needed. For all the time he spent trying to familiarize himself with the runic language, it turned out the next rune was in the same section. “Cabbage.” he said to himself in some disbelief. What sort of ancient writing is this. Malacanth was expecting something of more importance, a record of historical importance or some treatise on ancient magic. As far as he could tell, this was a list of food. He looked through the same section, and quickly found the third rune only twenty runes down. It was Hare meat. Malacanth felt like the situation would of been funny if he hadn’t spent over a day trying to find these four runes. He was fairly sure this was an ancient recipe for a stew. Unless the last rune was a curveball, this would mean literally nothing. He quickly scanned through the page, assuming the last rune would be in the same section as the others. Lo and behold, it was there. Potatoes was the final rune he was hired to translate.


Malacanth could do little but sigh. If his employer had hoped he would come back with a groundbreaking discovery, she would be severely disappointed. He walked over to the front desk, and offered the original runes and the piece of paper with the translations. “Tell Luciel her runes were a grocery list.” The librarian seemed disappointed upon hearing the news. Malacanth supposed he expected something of importance like he did. With a curt nod to say goodbye, Malacanth left the library. Hopefully to something more productive and worth his time.

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