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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 16:26:17 GMT -5
"Hmph...reduced to a mere encyclopedia..." Smoltz murmured to himself as he brought out another set of dish wear. As he turned to Zurg's latest agent, he put on his best face and set the table for two.
"Well! Seems you are more than just a little green behind the horns." He said, returning towards the little pantry his money could afford. He brought out a rather dry looking loaf and took out a spread of jam; the language no doubt something Red could not read.
"I assume you're from some backwaters location? That's how Zurg gets most of his agents from; or rather, did." Smoltz added. "His last one, Agent Darkmatter, was a real keeper." He said sarcastically, placing the bunzel loaf and jam before the red man.
He hoped this particular agent had some manners, at least. How Zurg managed to handle them all was beyond Smoltz's patience range.
"Where do you want to start on that list of yours." He spoke, sitting down momentarily.
The tea would be ready in a few minutes.
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Post by Blacksteel on Oct 31, 2009 16:35:34 GMT -5
"You could say that."
Hellboy took the proffered jam and bread. At least this was something he was familiar with. His eyes trailed over the incomprehensible script as he spread a generous portion of jam onto a slice of bread.
"I understand the language perfectly fine, but I can't for the life of me read it. Let's start with that."
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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 16:36:50 GMT -5
"Very well, language it is."
Smoltz listened to how the agent could not read while he could understand through sound and he came to a final conclusion.
"You must be familiar with the voiced recognition of Galactic Basic. It's common in backwater locals as well." He stated expertly. "Do you have a sample of your alphabet at hand?"
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Post by Blacksteel on Oct 31, 2009 16:39:12 GMT -5
"I can write it down for you, if that's what you mean," he said, taking a bite from the bread. It was tough to chew and slightly bitter, kind of like peasant's bread, but the jam at least broke the monotone with its fruity sweetness.
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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 16:40:50 GMT -5
"Well then what are you waiting for?" Smoltz spoke, tapping his fingers and thumbs as he jiggled his legs anxiously. "Write it."
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Post by Blacksteel on Oct 31, 2009 16:46:06 GMT -5
Hellboy fixed him with a flat gaze before getting up from his seat. Spotting a pile of papers in a corner, he snatched the topmost one up. It had some sort of writing on one side, but since the guy didn't even have the grace to give him paper, Hellboy would make use of this even if it might turn out to be Smoltz's birth certificate. Rummaging around the chaos on the coffee table, he located a pen then came back to sit down at kitchen table, scribbling down the English alphabet in block capitals.
"Here," he said, pushing the paper towards him.
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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 16:53:15 GMT -5
Nice. The agent chose to write on his Master Thesis back in his college days....
The memory aside, Smoltz witnessed as the red minion scribbled something in all capitals and took the paper automatically when it slid his way.
Hmmm...where had he seen these characters before?
"One moment." Smoltz got up from his seat and went into the back room; books barely distinguished since it was so dark back there. The alien made a few sounds as he dug around and he reappeared shortly with several tomes within his hands.
"These are books, and if you know anything about this galaxy, you would know that books are quite rare." He stated, opening one up. Dust flew forth from the yellow pages but he paid no mind as he put on a pair of half-moon reading glasses.
"Now, the alphabet you seem to be familiar with is actually a dead written language; it died after the convergence of the Galactic Alliance, which was eons ago." Of course he was exaggerating the eons part but it was so long ago, no one even bothered to write it. "Due to numerous alien species surfacing, Galactic Basic took it in favour and became the staple. What you're writing is what the original inhabitants of an unknown world called 'English'."
He flipped a few pages of the book carefully, making noises and grunts as he made mental notes.
"It also happens to be fairly similar to Galactic Basic which is....odd...." He frowned, bringing his head closer towards a page for better clarification.
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Post by Blacksteel on Oct 31, 2009 17:02:59 GMT -5
Hellboy didn't nod or shake his head at the statement, merely filed it into the back of his mind for future reference. Books were rare and apparently e-books were the rave. Or so he hoped. Knowing progress, they might have something even better than the slowly emerging e-books back in his days.
"Well, you said this Galactic Basic used English as a basis. English used Latin as a basis. And Latin used the Greek and Phoenecian languages as a basis." Hellboy shrugged expansively. "Everyone steals from someone else."
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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 17:08:53 GMT -5
"I didn't say it used anything. I said it was similar, which comes at no surprise since most languages in the same solar system are similar regardless." Smoltz corrected, holding up a finger as he continued reading. "And those languages you have mentioned haven't been used in over a thousand years, but hey, who's counting. Now if you can just wait...a...minute...."
He began to scribe the alphabet the agent had written upon the piece of paper into Galactic Basic and tried his hand at translation. He didn't spend over twenty years in graduate school for nothing! He took a few more minutes to double-check his findings and when he was pleased, he showed the paper to the agent.
"Viola! Your alphabet translated in Galactic Basic!" He grinned, both sets of teeth gleaming. "Now, you may notice that some letters aren't quite matches so I took the liberty to add a few other languages into the mix in order to fill in the gaps, but the bulk of it should be the same for you. Although....one letter was harder than the rest...."
He pointed to the letter 'Z' which came out as 'X' in one language, some lopsided scribble in the next, and even a dot for Raenok.
"Z is always the hardest letter to translate; mainly because not every language uses it."
He was about to continue on about the letter when his tea kettle began to whistle and whine.
"Oh! Pardon me." Smoltz excused himself and took off his glasses as he made his way to the stove.
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Post by Blacksteel on Oct 31, 2009 17:35:32 GMT -5
"Didja take linguistics for being so picky or what," Hellboy mumbled under his breath.
But he took the paper from him and examined the Galactic Basic Smoltz had scribbled underneath the English. It wasn't that bad, actually. Some letters had been switched around, others were similar to other Cyrillic languages he was familiar with, and though others were completely new, with some practice he'd probably get the hang of it.
Now, how to store it into his PDA...? Ah, there it was. He slid the paper into the PDA and it immediately sucked it up and processed the information. Then the page popped back out, and the alphabet was immediately stored into its memory. Suddenly, everything on the PDA made sense, albeit with some misspellings. At least he could understand it now. He'd have to study it more in his spare time, but for now, it was the best he could do.
He wondered fleetingly why everyone made such a big deal out of the letter Z. Maybe it was like that kids' series back in his time with the evil magician whose name couldn't be spoken. Like the letter Z was a taboo, a letter associated with malevolence, with evil, with... Zurg...
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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 17:40:18 GMT -5
"Actually, I took Linguistics along with twenty other subjects at the same time." Smoltz informed as he approached the table with the piping hot tea kettle. "I was....the highest in my class, if you must know." He muttered, thinking he had fallen far from grace from all those years ago.
"Tea?" He offered, setting the kettle down and taking off his oven mitts. "You should try it. It's all the way from Rhizome." Smoltz added, sliding his books carefully onto another table not far from them.
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Post by Blacksteel on Oct 31, 2009 17:44:03 GMT -5
"Howdja get from being the top of your class to this sorry state?"
Hellboy nodded and pushed his empty teacup to Smoltz. "That'll probably be our next subject. All the different planets and races hereabouts."
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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 17:46:23 GMT -5
"Oh through a series of poor investments and faulty judges of character..." He sighed, pouring the tea kettle carefully into the agent's cup. "I thought my big chance was with Zurg--you know, the man has great benefits--but when I got caught, it was the end for me and, well, things have never been the same since."
He finished his life story, finding it dreadfully depressing, and tried to focus on what the agent wanted to know.
"Ahhhh, planets and races." His second mouth smiled while his first remained talking. "Where do you want to begin? There's so much out there!"
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Post by Blacksteel on Oct 31, 2009 18:00:34 GMT -5
"Mmmm... so Zurg didn't bail you out?" he asked curiously, taking a sip from the tea. He made a face at it and pushed it aside to take another bite from the bread. It tasted like chamomile and he just hated chamomile.
"Well... how about the basics? Like, the most common races."
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Post by eez on Oct 31, 2009 18:06:34 GMT -5
"No, he did." Smoltz interjected, noticing the agent grimace at the tea. It must be because it was all natural, just as everything from Rhizome was all natural. "He bailed me out once but that wasn't exactly good enough to clear my name, you see. I mean, think of it." He paused, taking a sip. "The most evil force known to the galaxy just bailed you out of jail. Not exactly something you'd want to brag about."
The alien took another swallow of the brown drink and let out a content sigh.
Always hit the spot.
"Most common race?" He let out a snicker and politely covered his lower mouth. "Well, that's rather easy! Humans are the most common race! Next would probably be....hmmm, well, humans, actually. Humans are very common even though they don't really have a main home world. They typically just populate every place they can and force the locals out."
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