I guess we're just going along with it.

~Lia~

I gasp. That's Elfian. Ancient Draconic. Arcanic. Whatever you call it, it's THE language of arcane magic. Along with Supernal, the language of divine magic and the gods, it was one of the first two languages to exist. It's all but dead, spoken by only the very oldest dragons, and its written form is so complex that scholars have devoted their entire lives to learning it. It's impossible to translate it literally into any modern language, but Selena is making an admirable effort. "'The Palace of the Elves holds the Jewel of Immortality that is the top's dream.' What the heck?" She's butchering the grammar, but that can't be helped. Even being a wizard and knowing modern Draconic, a direct derivative of Elfian, I couldn't grasp a couple of those characters. How in Corellon's name did she get that, which is more complete than what I ever could have said? Elfian is entirely conceptual; there is no alphabet to speak of. We may not be getting the whole message. But at the moment, it's the best we can do.

Then my well-trained mind smells a rat. Why would there be a line in Infernal and a line in Elfian, not five paces from each other in an evil temple antechamber lost to time? Who carved these here? Was it an Arotharian priest, one of the temple's original occupants, or some Kend, or someone else altogether? Then I notice something: the Elfian words are carved atop a broken section. They were put there after the Kendric army ransacked this place! These aren't original. The Arotharian priests didn't write them. Like as not, the Kends didn't write them. So who did? They'd likely have to be an elf, or closely affiliated with elves, to be writing something about the oldest of elven legends. And they'd have to be amazingly good with languages to write anything in Elfian. Examining the stone up close, I notice several places where the chisel slipped, or made a choppier line than truly necessary. This is the stonecarving equivalent of a scrawled note; whoever made the message was in a hurry, which was obviously not the case with the Infernal text.

I turn back around to consult with the others, only to notice Thistlewater scrutinizing said Infernal (and clutching his stomach). He springs up suddenly, yelling, "Great Yondalla! I've got it!" Inexplicably, he cracks up, laughing for over half a minute straight and sending echoes all over the room. When asked to explain by a slightly-creeped-out Selena, he chuckles, "Whoever wrote this doesn't know Infernal very well. There aren't any ideograms; this is only the phonetic alphabet, which is much easier to read! And do you know what it sounds out to?" With a smug expression, he turns back to the stone and reads, "'Thou shalt find the door where arrow flies to end the traitor's life.' Hey, didn't we see something like that in one of the carvings on the wall? Two cloaked men in a forest, and a soldier loosing an arrow at them?"

If he expects an answer, he does not get one. We are all speechless.