It was a pleasant and warm day, with the women gathered in the garden in tending to the flowers. It was the lady of the manor's garden, Celia, who was wife to the lord. Her garden was a place of symmetrical beauty, with well taken care of flowers and vegetables housed in a glass house.
The attic was accessible from the manor's side staircase, which spiraled all the way up. There was no lighting asides from a single window at the center of the room. Of course, it was used as a storage room, with trunks full of various items filling it to a cramp. There were weapons, various pieces of armor, old clothing, portraits, and old furniture. If only out of simple curiosity, Erik was looking around, stumbling upon an old shelf with a basket full of paper. He unravelling one, he found it was a blueprint to the manor.
He hid the blueprint in his room, underneath his dresser. He then went to the window where he had a rope and a lantern waiting on the sill. Tying a rope to the lantern, he lowered it down from his window that saw over the paddock. Between it and the manor as a thin and cramped crevice of bushes and trees that grew wildly, with one tree in particular standing strong, right outside his bedroom window.
Erik climbed up onto the window ledge, falling against the tree and making his way down steadily. He stepped onto branches, hanging from them in lowering himself to the next, inching his way deeper into the thicket. He jumped off once he reached the bottom, landing with a loud thud. It was not ground that his shoes landed upon, but that which was hollow and made of wood.
With a knife, he cut away the vegetation. He wiped away the dirt and leaves, revealing a cellar door on the ground. He yanked at the hinge, that though rusted, remained as it was, iron and sturdy, yet the door hardly budged. A couple more yanks, with dirt being thrown, and it eventually swung open with a loud crack. Dust and debris clouded the air, prompting Erik to cover his mouth with his white tunic. It was clear that the cellar had been forgotten for years, with mud trickling down when it rained, seeping into the cracks. He cut the rope that the lantern hung from and lowered it first into the cellar. It's flame revealed a stairway, only upon seeing the steps did he follow the flame he held ahead of himself.
The steps were made of stone but were covered in dirt that only piled up the deeper he went. He reached a metal door, heavy and unbudging, even as he pushed against it. He pressed his shoulder and body against it, pushing even harder until its hinges cracked and it opened. Inside, he found boxes, cobblestone walls that stretched, a shelf, table, and shackles. The trinkets that seemingly decorated the furniture were of unrecognizable shapes to Erik, who was still so innocent to their uses, yet he recognized a blade when he saw one.
An ordinary child would be afraid to see skeletal remains of anything, let alone that of man, but as his eyes fell upon the decayed remains that settled in the corner, he only grew curious. He grasped the skull, lifting it up in examining it. Of the many subjects he had learned, anatomy was one he had learned all about. He spent hours laying the bones out upon the table, seeing clearly the damage that was done to the deceased when they were alive. The forearm was shattered in the center. He speculated what the room was, finding all the makings of a torture room less hidden beneath the manor, and more forgotten, with the remains being the last victim that was tortured and left. There were shackles and chains that dug into the walls. Various tools meant to inflict pain, as well as cells. There were two hallways that led from the center of the main room to the east and west, aligning a dozen cells in total.
He looked to the shelves, finding it to be full of books and old scrolls. He expected them to be records or documentation, but instead found them to be informative tombs, though he unfortunately could not understand them. The text resembled Common, with some seeming recognizable to words he knew, but with slight differences. He guessed it was an old dialect of Common, or another language with shared ancestry. Either way, he could hardly understand it. Calm and quiet, Erik was not one to bother others or be bothered, yet if there was ever anything that was able to upset him truly, it was his own shortcomings. Thus, the simplest solution he found, was to learn further.
He searched the library first, looking for any possible books on the language he was looking for, as many were old and historical texts. From one corner, he began, tossing books that were of no interest to him from off the shelf. The ruckus of heavy books, slamming against the ground was difficult to ignore, with a deep, clear voice questioning his actions. "Young Master, may I help you find something?"
Erik turned his head to the door to see the butler. "I have decided I want to learn another language."
"Another language?" the butler inquired. "I see, may I know which you wish to learn?"
"Something older." he answered, continuing to search.
"Older? Old Highlandic, perhaps?" Erik stopped his tossing of books and once again turned to the butler who was making his way to the pile of books on the floor. The butler began to pick them up, placing them back on the shelf as he continued. "Young master, I do believe we have a small selection of such books on the third shelf, at the top, on the right side, farthest from the window. That is where I placed all the books of languages."
"I see." Erik said as he made his way over to the third shelf, center of the room. He gazed up and at the books where the butler had told him, indeed finding a multitude of books with recorded languages. One was such a book titled, The Old Tongue, and was clearly much older than others with pages of deep caramel that were written by hand.
"Old Highlandic was a scattered tongue, used widely across the major central kingdoms before they united and diverged, becoming the Common tongue of today through the incorporation of the many tongues of other kingdoms. Common gets its name from being the commonly used tongue of the kingdoms of man. Old Highlandic is a dead language nowadays, but there are still those who carry on its tune, though, I believe they are mostly orders of knights."
"Orders of knights?"
"Yes, Young Master. There are orders of knights that have existed for hundreds of years, since back when Old Highlandic was the dominant tongue and Highland had conquered most of the realm. They remain true to the traditions their predecessors established."
"I see. Thank you for your assistance, Heinrich." Erik said as he began to rush out.
"Yes, of course, young master. Oh, but might I request something of you, Young Master?"
"What is it?" Erik momentarily slowed to a halt.
"It is no more than a humble request that I would ask that you be more careful with books such as these. I firmly believe they are to be appreciated and protected, for they carry with them the knowledge and history of our people, and without them, we as a people would be lost. You especially should understand, as without these simple texts upon paper, you, with your gifted mind, would know less that they have provided."
Erik rushed out, giving no more than a simple, "I see. I will do so."
Though short of respectful, that simple response was more than enough to bring about a smile upon the butler's face as he continued to fix the shelves.
Erik would return to the cellar after a few days with the book, The Old Tongue, in hand. It took him only those few days to get a grasp on Old Highlandic, an impressive feat, though made easier by the similarities it had with Common. Pronunciation aside, Erik was able to read Old Highlandic.
He brought with him four more lanterns to light in the cellar. Promptly, he began to overlook the first book. One such page depicted a throat and the anatomy in different layers, with a dagger slitting said throat. After reading it, Erik learned that it explained how best to cut a throat. It was in excruciating detail, including how to only inflict a would, or fully end one's life.
It was full of precise methods of harm in various points throughout the body of a man; to kill instantly, to kill slowly, inflict the most amount of pain, even how to paralyze in severing the spine at multiple different points which left alone different limbs. It was a master's book on torture. Before reading it all the way through, Erik placed it down in looking into another.
One was a thick book on poisons, drugs, and acids. Another was not nearly as thick, and instead had a black and leather cover that was flexible, and depicted corpses being raised to walk again; necromancy. The most vile of all magic, that which violated the nature of life and death. Like a child who had been caught red handed, Erik's face flushed. He knew, down to his most basic of instincts, that this book was not something to be shown in broad daylight. Any other child would have been weary, or at least ignorant to what they possessed, but he was eager. Everything here was something he would not be able to get his hands on simply by asking his father or instructor, as they were not subjects they would be so keen on allowing him to learn, no matter how much they spoiled him. They were his new fascinations.
In secret, he read them, never taking them out of the cellar and being very careful when slipping away from the many leering eyes that went about the estate. With a valued pocket-watch that his grandfather, Henry, once gave him when he was seven, he kept track of time when hidden away. He returned at specific times throughout the day, such as lunch, lectures, dinner, and nighttime, where he would sleep from eleven at night 'til six in the morning.
"Child, are you reading them thoroughly?" Godfrey's disappointing voice cut Erik's focus.
"I am." Erik answered, his eyes laying upon the pages of a book on thermal reaction.
"I think not," Godfrey slung himself from his chair toward Erik, taking the book from his grasp. "If you are reading this thoroughly, then tell me what the first line explains."
Calmly, Erik did as told. "Heat is not an element in itself, but the result of motion within matter, and that all bodies contain it in differing measure. When two substances meet, the faster motion passes into the slower until balance is reached. This exchange is called a thermal reaction."
Godfrey was certainly taken aback, not because Erik was simply correct, but because he stated exactly as the text had written. "Very impressive..." his eyes leered ever so slightly. He sniffled, wiping at his nose before sitting down to draw his finger on the page to another paragraph. "How far did you read?"
"The entire first page."
"What does paragraph four read?"
"It explains that certain substances resist the exchange of heat more than others, and that this resistance is why iron cools faster than stone, and stone faster than water. The author writes that the density of a body alone does not decide its reaction, but the manner in which its parts are bound together. He calls this property thermal resistance, and states that it must be understood before any controlled reaction can be produced."
Godfrey slowly lowered the book, his expression tightening with interest rather than doubt.
"…And you say you only read the first page. Can you remember everything you see?
"I believe so."
"You can remember every word, with a second's glance?"
"Not unless I commit it to memory. I promise you I am learning. Before, it took me longer to learn something, because as I was reading, I had to take time to understand. I believe my comprehensive ability has only bettered as I have matured, thus, it takes me far shorter an amount of time in order to truly learn something.
"Ah, I see." he placed down the book. "I had suspected that perhaps you had the gift of Redfield."
"The gift of Redfield?"
"Yes. He was a scholar who once had the perfect memory. He remembered everything, from the most insignificant detail of a glance, to the whole of a painting. He learned at an unparalleled pace, able to understand just as quickly.
"Your memory and ability are truly gifts, not to be undermined. I admit that even I struggle to remember if not for repetition, the simplest way to memorize something."
The books explained nothing on how to learn magic, but rather, to enact. They were intermediate books for those who already knew how to wield magic, rather than something that taught the basics.