After leaving a tiny droplet of mana to guide their way back, Grandma and Tanner slipped into the library during a lull in the flow of students. They ducked past shelves of books and rows of study carrels, sneaking farther into the back where fewer people roamed. Along the way, Grandma snagged a couple of coarse pencils and several scraps of paper.
“What do you plan to do with those?” Tanner asked, glancing back at Grandma’s pilfering.
“Maybe if we find a simple enough book, I can take some notes and work out how to read.” Grandma plucked a book off a shelf and flipped through its pages. It seemed like a very serious treatise on something, but Grandma couldn’t read it at all, so she slid it back into place. “If we could find some kind of picture book or dictionary or even a map, that would be helpful.”
They wandered through the shelves, farther and farther away from the servant’s door, until there were no more students or staff nearby. The books grew slimmer and slimmer, with more and more illustrations.
“I think we’re going the right way,” Grandma muttered. “Let’s go a little further in.”
They rounded a corner and came to what looked like a children’s play area, with tiny toddler sized chairs and soft cushions strewn about the ground. Around the area were an array of picture books. This didn’t seem to be the library’s usual target audience, and the offerings were quite sparse. Perhaps some of the staff or students brought their younger children or siblings along sometimes? Whatever the reason, Grandma was thrilled with the discovery.
“Normally I would never steal from a library, but I don’t want to be caught here copying a whole book. I’ll bring it back next week so let’s find a good alphabet book.” Grandma started flipping through the books.
Tanner did too, halfheartedly glancing through the brightly colored pages to try and help, but not knowing what any of the writing meant, he didn’t feel confident in his ability to choose an appropriate book.
Eventually, Grandma settled on one book that had illustrations of a number of common objects, with one large symbol on each page, and more writing around the margins. “This looks like it’ll be a good start,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before we’re caught.”
Navigating back to the servant door was a challenge. Grandma sent her mana out to make sure they didn’t run into anyone, but there were so many students around now that they had to hide between the shelves for long stretches, hoping that no one stumbled upon them while browsing for books. After far too much stress, several retreats, and much too long spent hiding, they finally reached the door and ducked back to the safety of the servants’ halls.
Energized by their success, Mina and Tanner ran all the way back to their room at the inn and slammed the door, before collapsing to the floor in a fit of gasps and giggles. “What do you plan to do with that now, Grandma?” Tanner asked, looking just above Mina’s head.
Mina let Grandma take control again, and Grandma said, “Now I work out whether my hunch was right or wrong. Give me some time.”
Grandma pulled out the book, the scraps of paper, and the pencil she had filched. She took notes, copying each of the large symbols onto the scrap sheet, then scribbling a different symbol underneath each one. Once she was done with that, she pulled out a clean sheet of paper and started copying the more complex writing on each page. Muttering to herself, Grandma alternated between staring at the children’s book and staring at her notes, then gave a great cry of triumph.
“Hah! It was just a substitution cipher!” Grandma leaped to her feet and waved her notes in the air. “That feels like cheating, but whatever, I’m not going to complain about life being easier than I expected.”
Tanner stared at Grandma. “What?”
“I know how to read now,” Grandma answered smugly.
“Just like that?” The boy narrowed his eyes in deep skepticism.
“Yep. Just like that.” Grandma slapped her notes back down on the table. “Want me to teach you?” [You too, Mina. If you want. I think it’ll be really handy for the future.]
[Yes please!] Mina jittered excitedly in Grandma’s mind.
The children spent a frustrating rest of the day poring over Grandma’s notes. “Reading and writing are ways to use drawings to indicate meaning,” Grandma began. “Each of the symbols indicate a sound, and when we put together the sounds, they make words. Take this symbol here. This makes the ‘a’ sound. In this drawing, we see an apple, and it’s written using this ‘a’ symbol, as well as other symbols that make the ‘p’ and ‘l’ sounds.”
Grandma’s lesson on literacy was hard for the children to start with. She tasked them with copying five symbols she called “vowels”, and taught them the sounds they represented. The children did their best to diligently practice their writing and reading, but they were unused to this kind of study, and quickly grew tired.
[It’s all right. It’s time for a break anyway. Let’s go get dinner.]
After that, they fell into a new routine. When they returned home from working in the school’s kitchens, Grandma would think up new lessons to torture – that is, teach – the children. Tanner and Mina struggled in their own ways, but both progressed quickly under Grandma’s tutelage.
[You’re so good at reading and writing, Grandma,] Mina sighed, envious and exhausted.
[Where I come from, learning to read and write was expected of everyone. I’ve had decades of practice.] Grandma comforted Mina. [It’s always hard when you learn something new. Take your time, and be kind to yourself. You’re doing amazing, sweetie.]
[Have you taught people to read and write before?] Mina inquired.
[Well, I didn’t raise a bunch of kids and grandkids for nothing, you know,] Grandma laughed.
They spent a few months focused on learning reading and writing, during which time Grandma returned the first library book and pilfered many more. She created slips of paper with each letter on it, so that the children could make words from them like puzzles. They read books together, taking turns sounding out the words. Even Grandma struggled in the beginning, because she still had to memorize the substitution cipher.
“The quick brown fox,” Tanner read hesitantly, “jumps over the lazy dog.”
“Very good!” Grandma clapped enthusiastically, celebrating Tanner’s successful reading of this tricky sentence. “This sentence is special, because it uses every single letter in the alphabet!”
Tanner grinned up at Grandma. “I can’t believe we get to learn to read! This would have never happened at that Duke’s place.”
[I know I complain about the work, but I really am happy too.] Mina added shyly.
[I know, dear heart. I’m happy too!]
Now that Grandma was confident in her recognition of this world’s writing, she pulled out the book they had found in the big tree dungeon. “You kids practice. I’m going to work on this book.” She slipped into the golem and looked through its hazy quartz eyes. The view wasn’t great, and the details were blurry, but she could just about make out the letters if she brought the golem’s face close to the pages.
The book discussed the creation of magically animated creatures. The giant spore shooting mushrooms were one such creation. The creator, presumably the original owner of the bones in Grandma’s golem, detailed methods for inscribing information about the golem onto the mana stone at the core of a golem. Storing the information in the core, the author wrote, meant that it would retain its shape and function even without regular maintenance, especially if one included a function to periodically renew the mana reserves in the core.
There were detailed instructions on mana renewal and data inscription, but the wording was so esoteric that Grandma had trouble understanding it. [So basically I have to jam it into the stone, right?]
“Hm? Jam what where?” Mina’s head popped up from where she had been hunched over a book.
[Oh, I’m reading this book from the tree dungeon, and it’s about golems. Supposedly there’s a way to keep the golem from turning into a lump of mud every time I leave.]
Mina related Grandma’s words to Tanner, and both children grinned. “Wow, you can read a complicated book like that already?” Tanner walked over and peered down at the tome. “The pictures are really pretty, but the words are so small.”
“Even Grandma is having a hard time with it,” Mina said, patting Tanner’s shoulder comfortingly. “At least, that’s what she says. Something about the words being hard and different.”
[Still, I get the idea of it, and I’d like to try something.] Grandma focused on the golem, its shape, its size, the smoothness of its skin, and imagined gathering all that information and engraving it onto the core at the heart of the golem.
“Whoa!” Tanner and Mina fell back with a cry of surprise at the sudden burst of light. “What did you do?”
[An experiment.] Grandma sat the golem on the floor and flowed back into Mina. [Let’s see if it worked.]
Mina watched the golem. Without Grandma controlling its body, the golem slumped to one side and slowly oozed to the floor, but it looked like a person doing so, instead of a pile of mud. The shape held, even without Grandma inside. “Wow!” Mina clapped her hands, impressed.
[Hopefully that makes walking around easier. I’ve been getting out of practice lately. Maybe on our next off day, we could buy some golem clothes and a big hat, maybe even a veil, so that I can walk around the city with you.]
Mina grinned from ear to ear. “I’d love that, Grandma.”
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