Language!

Uta's traveller's wagon is parked somewhere in Shibuya. It's a large wooden affair, a reconverted barrel, arranged two flat ends vertical, one of them being front and one at the back; all the trappings like wheels, windows, a driver box, a metal hook to hang a lantern from... the works! The little hinged ladder at the back has been rolled down, and the door at the top of it is left open, a signal that anyone is welcome to come in, as the wooden sign next to it announces: "Uta Furore's Mobile Clinic, Wandering Doujou, Traveling Circus, and Itinerant Concert Hall and Culture Center," with a smaller "Professional services! Reasonable prices! Totally legit! Inquire within" carved below.

Uta is 'sitting' inside, in the seiza position, consulting books and taking notes while hunched over her 'desk', which is pretty much a wooden plank on hinges, kept horizontal by a couple of chains that connect to the curving... 'wall-ceiling'. Hard to tell when your wagon is round.

    The lizardman of the Moon Tree Guild had been made aware of the pressence of the Mistress of Lore's arrival for a little bit, in fact the moment he was informed he watched the wagon. Slowly Rizadoman got closer and closer to the wagon as if expecting something to interupt him, or the wagon to flee like scared prey or something to happen but no as he approaches closer and closer the wagon stays where it was intended. So finally Rizadoman is hovering and pacing outside, many times he almost even steps on to the wagon before immediately turning and awkwardly pacing off and back again.

     Finally the large lizard steps into Uta's office, taking off his headress and holding it in his hands and hunching a little to not putting any horn holes into the wagon roof. There is an awkward moment of standing before Rizadoman takes a breath and begins to speak, "Hello, I do not think we have been formally introduced. I am Rizadoman of the Moon Tree guild, and am I correct to assume you are Uta Furore, the Mistress of Lore, the Nurse of Chaos, the Dancing Warrior with Fists of Lightning, and She Who Sings with Slimes?" Where all those titles came from who is to say, but this was how Rizadoman has come to know of Uta. Some sort of legend of Yamato.

Uta looks up from her desk. "Oh. Oh. Uta Furore. That would be me," she says, and stands up as much as the wagon allows. And bows. "Uta Furore indeed. I do so many things I lost track, so I probably did all the things you said." A short pause. "I definitely sing with the Slimes. Too bad they don't sing back. But one day, one day..." Fist clenched in determination, her eyes aflame with burning passion, projected towards the future.

"...Sorry, I got distracted!", she says, shaking her head. "It is a honor to meet such a remarkable Adventurer," Uta says. She's not sure what Rizadoman is remarkable for, but there's something in the way he carries himself that makes it a pretty safe bet that he's remarkable. Bluff time!

"Is there anything I can do for you? Medical assistance? Punch something? Improvise a little song and dance with my slimes?"

    Bluff check: Success

     Rizadoman smiles at the mention of being a remarkable Adventurer, but honor dictates he doesn't show to much pride in that. There is always someone out there more remarkable. Finally though they get to why Rizadoman has come here today. Taking a moment he looks over at the entrance to the wagon to make sure no one is there before he speaks up, "What do you know about Werefangs?"

     The question is left hanging in the air while Rizadoman decides to do his best to make himself comfy and sits on the floor of the wagon, traditional Seiza position, before finally explaining, "That is to say I have heard that at some point you were trying to research the origin of Werefangs and while I am not a Werefang myself there are many who believe we Lizard people and Werefangs have a similar origin point, so as I am trying to find more about my own race I was hoping you would know something about Werefangs."

Uta kneels down. Mindfully sets one foot over the other, and places her hands in front of herself. "I am afraid I know... very little besides what is generally known in Lore. I have heard rumors of a small number of Were Fangs without tattoos in the Tower of Aincrad. I have noticed that feeding Were Fang samples to slimes directs them to turn into the monster form only. And... I should double check my notes to confirm it also applies to Were Fangs, but the Lore of the Palace Lands does not place the same racial stigmas on at least Spriggans and Cait Sith. I -think- Were Fang are in the list. Oh, and they do not seem to be aware of, or perhaps acknowledge, their origin in Yamato." Silence while she looks down a moment, before looking up again. "That said, I am willing to help with any research you might want me to carry out."

    Rizaoman's tail thumps against the wagon as the lizard face looks at the floor , his hand coming up cup his chin as he thinks. "Hmm this is most unfortunate. " Taking another long moment he nods his head slowly. "Well then I suppose there is nothing to do in that aspect to say the least. It is what it is and I will have to look for a lead eventually. Perhaps one of the friendlier palace landers could help me at least by telling me their lore."

     Shaking his head he files that away to track down one of the palace landers to ask. There is a different question to ask though since he has the Mistress of Lore presence, "Setting aside the Werefang lore, what do you know about languages? Particularly the language of the landers?"

"Something else I know little about," Uta admits. "Modern Landers all seem to speak the same language, here and in the Palace Lands. Their songs are in the Language of the Alv, which we have made some progress in cracking. Not much in the way of actual meaning, we have only one word there, but we are collecting a handful of correspondences between their written language and their spoken form, so much that we can get the Chaos Gates to at least power up, only to die immediately after." Some thought. "I have encountered Ancient Gnomish in my research. We welcome people to our open disclosure research group." A pause. Rubbing of chin. "The translation system seems to be a product of the Alv, something related to the Babel Tower in the Palace Lands, and the Babylon Signal. Remember that disruption on April, 11, of our first year here? Someone named Ovan seems to have been pulling shenanigans in the Babel Tower in the Palace Lands. I can relate more if needed." She sucks in her lower lip, as if embarrassed, or apologetic, about not knowing more, then pops it out. "That is all I can think of at the moment. For more advanced topics on Language, you might perhaps refer to June. She is the resident expert on the subject. She developed a system for Ofuda-style language based spellcasting."

    Taking a moment, Rizadoman processes it all, "Ancient Gnomish you say?" Finally he opens his menu, which compared to others looks very, well fumbly. As if Rizadoman rarely ever does it. Finally he gets to what he is looking for, "Sorry I should have this written down but I have this sorta divine providence handed down by the goddesses, 'Discover the legacy left behind by those who came before you'. I was given this after I finished my work on divine beings. In terms of the written language those who came before you would be the one to have crafter the language. As you mention the translation system of the Alves makes it hard, but if you try hard enough you can get behind the system and hear the words." Taking another moment he nods his head, "The fact that there is ancient gnomish makes me wonder what other languages are out there. Are they all derivatives of each other, and thus is the root language the Alves. In the past life before my reincarnation there was a language like that in one land, it was the root language of several romantic languages. I wonder if its all the same here. Do the lander spriggans speak the same language as the lander imps for example?" Taking another moment he shakes his head, "Sorry I am taking your time speculating. I appreciate the information you have given me on both topics. Now I suppose I have to ask what is it I owe you?"

"There are interesting hints at a possible link between the Alv and the Gnomes at some point. For instance, in the Church of Kallamore, there are statues of winged creatures, Alvs. Some of them were made by Alvs, some by Gnomes." As she says this, she gestures in the general direction of what she believes to be the Palace Lands. She's far, far off the mark. "Oh, if you are interested in researching this subject... the Hunters' Guild offers a quest around ancient Gnomish ruins. It involves some sort of machine. And slimes." No, she's not beaming. You are beaming. "There are some unknown writings there. Doesn't seem like Alv, I hypothesize it must be some sort of old Gnomish alphabet, but haven't had time to look into it."

A genuine smile and a bit of laughter is what Uta gives in response to the last question. "I do not charge for Lore exchanges. I am always glad to help people find out more about this world. But that said-" She taps her chin and looks away. "I would be really glad if you reported back in case you found anything out. Like you, I'd love to know this sort of thing..."

    Rizadoman nods his head and takes a moment to think before he pulls out a small jar, that almost looks like an ink well and a paper scrap. Taking a moment to set down the ink well, he uncaps it and instead of ink it's now showing as a more fine powder of charcoal. He dips a claw into the powder and then sets it on the paper. Taking a moment he begins to attempt to draw a chess piece on the paper. It is obviously very horrible and has about detail as a stick figure would for a humanoid, but its an attempt and maybe by writing the word chesspiece under it someone would know what is meant. Finally he hands it to the Spriggan, " This is the piece that broke quarantine a year ago. " It would appear Rizadoman was seeking to pay for lore anyways.

Uta blinks. "It... did? Uh. Interesting." She turns the piece left and right, as if to study it better in all its details (yes, yes, that; she is totally not trying to figure out which side is up or how it matches the caption. She's got Etiquette, she knows how to do this).

"I am most grateful for this," she begins. "It seems like this might tie into the story of the Twilight Dragon, and how Camelot and Cu Chulainn tried to take over during the Apocalypse, but the Bandit King used the Fifth Shard of Twilight to seal the Ezzo Empire in an attempt to cut off the invaders' control through FRELLIA. All caps. It must be very important," Uta says, with a nod. "I just need to figure out what most of those people and things are. Up to now I've been told something about FRELLIA, aka the Crest Gun, and Cu Chulainn, aka The Hound, aka the Beast."

    Rizadoman shakes his head, "No no, you misunderstood. This is not the piece from that time of starting the quarantine with the Bandit King. " Taking a moment again to look behind and around and then leans in closely. "This is the piece that the two Machina on Tsushima Shrine used to break Quarantine, quell the leviathans, and allow us to travel to the palace lands. They currently still hold that piece as far as I know as I suspect the Bandit King holds his. " The lizardman leans back and adds, " Chess is a game of many pieces, and some pieces do some things and others do others, while the King is the most important the Queen is the most powerful. It may be in everyones best interest to track where each piece is. " Rizadoman nods his head as he wonders how costly this blab will be, but it seemed like high value knowledge for the now.

"Oh, yes, that. With Jazz and all. They sung the Earth Song over there, right?" It seems like Uta was at least vaguely aware of at least part of the Lore. "I wonder how Spahtjahr is doing," Uta wonders, once again looking up and tapping her lips. "Haven't seen her in a while. I hope she's well..."

She shakes her head. "Anyway, thanks for your shared information! That is very good to know. Hope we will meet again for exchanging lore," she offers with a bow.

    Rizadoman nods , "Yes if I am to find anything then I will let you know." Rising from his feet he exits the wagon leaving Uta to go back to working on getting slimes to sing.