They entered behind the Chapel and tiptoed down a long staircase, guided only by a trail of drowsy cressets blinking like lazy fireflies. They reached the bottom crypt which had trifurcating paths.
The middle one pranced higher than the rest, leading to a room with elegant, ivory swirls. The other two paths sprawled off to the sides, leading to less impressive rooms.
Craig's eyes scanned the entire area. Brianna said in a serious voice, "Come with me."
They turned to the right one and entered an enormous room – It was totally unexpected given how incommodious the exterior was.
Both of them walked inside and heard the low murmurs and palpable strokes of quills. In each table, the reader recited the scriptures in the ancient langauge while the scribe noted them down in the modern ones.
Craig noticed that on every table there was a candle. Brianna to dispel his confusion said, "These candles are error indicators. If they burn green, it indicates correct translation, if yellow, it means misleading or inaccurate translation, but if red, it means a reversal of the meaning."
Craig swept his eyes across nearly all tables, 'There are atleast 50 to 60 tables here and almost all of them are wearing pretty fancy clothes. I wonder what their salaries are, if I only knew the langauges well, I could've worked here too. Right now I can only speak and understand Agloic but I guess writing skills can only be accquired through practice and not some potion.'
A jolly woman seated at a particular table waved at Brianna. She was wearing a brown chiton, partly concealed under a dark yellow himation.
"Saintess, you won't believe this, we were translating Zhlatic Hymn, verse 20 and Iphitus' translation was so bad, he translated 'annual feasting' as 'anal fisting' and got laughed at by the entire room." The woman giggled at the memory under her curly dark red hair.
The man sitting infront of him was dusty blonde and had a smaller, paler body, his whole body was covered in a black robe, "Just do your work Theobule. It was partly your fault too."
Iphitus held a piece of parchment with inscriptions above the candle, "Argh, why isn't the flame colour changing? I'm doing the same thing for atleast ten minutes now."
Brianna took it from his hands, "How will it change if You weren't doing it correctly."
Brianna took the candle and placed it over the original papyrus manuscript and held the translation sheet above the flame, this time with the writings facing the flame. In a few seconds, the flame turned red.
"There you have it, good job Iphitus." Brianna said while sneering.
'Should I talk to them and make friends?' Craig pondered but stopped as he earlier got confused glances from both of them. Craig peeped in to see the original manuscripts and saw that the langauge they were finding so difficult to translate was an earthly langauge – Greek.
Craig tried to comment on it but stopped as Brianna walked further.
At a distance from the staircase, there was a small bar with neat shelves and labelled bottles, displaying both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks with seperate labels. However a placard saying 'Not Available Now.' hung on the alcoholic ones as they weren't allowed during working hours.
The right wall of the bar which stretched outside was lined by a series of lecterns which had different boards with various informations about the greek language. At the centre was the most impressive one – a giant wooden board listing all greek letters from alpha to omega. It also had it's corresponding Agloic letters written alongside them with immaculate colour coding for intelligibility.
Both of them climbed the staircase and reached the second floor, here the arrangements were same but there were fewer seats – around five or six, each with the regular pair of reader and scribe. Here the translators weren't rattled, the manuscripts were older and more arduous.
"This is the second tier of the scriptorium, the translators here are way more skilled and professional." Brianna said in a low voice.
Near the far end of the gallery stood a table covered in green silk cloth, it was occupied by an older man in bronze robes with short black hair and neatly combed hair and trimmed beard. Several scrolls were open in front of him, he wasn't writing, he was reviewing. Two young scribes stood before him for his approval.
Brianna tried to talk to him but he stopped her and examined the script deeply and then let out a sigh, "This was very difficult indeed, it had both superior and inferior letters, but you translated it correctly, good job!"
'Superior and inferior letters?' He peeped into the original manuscript and saw that there were upper and lowercase greek letters scattered randomly with no rules.
'I think they don't know the concept of capital and small letters, should I inform them?'
The man signed at the top of the paper – it meant that this was approved for calligraphers to copy and store in the Archives. The two scribes left with smiles.
"Now that I'm quite free St. Brianna, what's the issue?" The man finally asked.
"Metrodorus, I'm here with an object which I'm guessing is a sacred relic, can you help gain information about it?"
"Sure, but who might this be?" The man asked pointing at Craig.
"I'm priest Judas, a humble servant of my Lord." Craig said while bowing slightly, he had become quite habituated with this introduction.
"Didn't see this one before." Metrodorus said while raising his brows.
"Judas, this is Metrodorus ‐ one of our four chief translators who work under the two Magister Scriptorii – one regulates the Archives, another regulates the Aparagorevmenos."
"That's correct." Metrodorus smiled, "Show me the object."
Brianna said in a cautious voice, "But before that promise me one thing – you will not be reckless while seeing this."
Metrodorus laughed and said, "Oh is it that powerful? What will it do? Summon Charybdis?"
Brianna scolded him and slowly took out the red gem from her pockets and showed it to him, "Be careful, don't touch it's surface at all, there are books here!"
"I know, I know." Metrodorus held the gem by the metal string and brought it close to his eyes, "Looks like Helios' Sun Pendant but the colour is brighter." He kept it on the table and went to a shelf and took out a book. This book was an account on sacred relics of different gods.
He turned to a chapter titled 'Helios' in Agloic. It had the record of seven sacred relics and out of them a yellow necklace like object named the Sun Pendant was noted as the 3rd strongest sacred relic and there was a rank attached to it – Aurum.
'No matter how stupid one is, if they ask politely, the other is bound to answer."
Craig turned to the book and realized he could read it since it was in modern Agloic. He asked, "Sir, I can see the word 'Aurum' inscribed before the sacred relic, what does that mean?"
"It is a grading method used for sacred relics and the non-gods of Fable. It goes with Aurum being the strongest followed by Argentum, Ferrum, Cuprum, Plumbum, Stannum." He replied.
He tried to find structural similarities between the Sun Pendant in the book and the gem he had in his hands, "But for some reason, this one feels way stronger, its divinity isn't ordinary."
Brianna notified him, "Previously just on a slight accidental rub, it sprayed out an astronomical amount of fire which could've burned the entire Chapel if it was allowed any further."
Metrodorus was frightened, "What!?" He exclaimed.
'If this sacred relic isn't the same as the normal ones, perhaps I would be able to garner information about the normal sacred relics by asking him to differentiate both, wow, bravo Craig, you're a genius!'
"Sir, It's evident that this is very different from the sacred relics we have noticed so far, we aren't even sure if it is a sacred relic to begin with! Can you tell us what makes it so different?"
Metrodorus calmed his expressions and said, "If I am correct, this is probably even stronger than the Aurum rank itself. One thing is certain – This is created from the divinity of a Gospel of Sun holding deity hence the only option is Helios as he is the only one who holds it. But this relic isn't mentioned in the book at all."
Metrodorus oscillated his eyes constantly between the red gem and the sun pendant in the book, "The closest one is the Sun Pendant but given the difference in structure and prowess, I don't think it's the same."
Brianna was saddened. Seeing her Metrodorus suggested, "St. Brianna, why don't you go to the seers? I'm sure they would know way better."
Brianna's face lightened up, "That's a good idea."
Craig smiled lightly and said, "So... are we going to the seers now?"
"You're quick." Brianna added as she waved goodbye to the chief translator.
Metrodorus said as they started to leave, "If you get any information, report it to me too!"
Craig smiled and nodded in approval before leaving the second floor.