A Network exploration team lands on Krisses
+ Show First Post
Total: 313
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

She flips through the atlas scanning each page and then puts down the book and taps the table beside it.

Permalink

That seems confusing. "Santru dwelnane hyir shi royel yurwe?" ("Where you're from isn't on the map?") he asks.

Permalink

She takes out her tablet and shows a slowly rotating image of the planet they travelled from. The shape of the continents is clearly different.

Permalink

He startles, as does the pickup truck driver who'd been hanging around.

The pickup truck driver whistles. "Shinath nrine hyir rya?" ("Where'd y'all get a thing like that?") they ask, not really directed at the strangers.

Permalink

Her HUD is starting to fill up with suspected word meanings:
royel: second person pronoun
besadi: first person pronoun
srem: speak
Nerral: name of the local language.

Sentences should use object verb subject ordering.

Permalink

"I'm currently only sending you high-confidence guesses, if you have something specific you want to say we can try to make a guess."

Permalink

"Do you have any sense of a word for no or negation?"

Permalink

"Nothing stands out, they might be modifying words somehow but we don't have contrasting pairs."

Permalink

She signal acknowledgement then switches back to external speakers.

"Hyir yurwene besadi" she tries pointing to the globe depicted on the screen. She intends to say I'm from here.

Permalink

" - Neneyir shi dwangne?" ("Is that a question?") asks the receptionist, still a bit startled. He then recovers and pulls out a piece of paper, drawing in one corner a circle with lines coming off it, some plain circles around it, then in the other corner another set of circles, and draws a line with hooks coming off it from the second set of circles to the first. He taps the fifth farthest circle from the big circle with lines in the first drawn group, and says, "Har dwang besal." ("We are here.") Then, pointing to the second cluster of circles - "Chir yurwene royel?" ("You all are from there?") Tracing along the line with hooks from that circle cluster to the 'here' cluster - "Har tivelne royel?" ("You all come to here?")

Permalink

"Emily can you reconstruct an approximate picture of their world from the atlas?"

Permalink

"Sure I think I know what you're going for let me tweaks some things and I'll send it over."

A short while later the Emily's animation appears in Sapphire's HUD, there's an animation of the planet they came from, next to an animation of this planet and a line connecting them, a circle moves between the two.

Permalink

"Looks good," agrees Sapphire and send it over to the tablet still on the desk.

Permalink

The aliens don't seem to know what to do with that initially.

Permalink

"Try, 'Har yurwe besadi.' I think that might fix the tenses from the last thing you said. Though it depends on the specific meaning of Har."

Permalink

"Alright." She repeats Emily's suggestion pointing again at the image of the planet they came from.

Permalink

The receptionist nods. 

From the pickup truck driver, to the receptionist - "Jisper yal zanernath dwarn yeish." ("Weren't awful prepared for aliens today.")

From the receptionist, to the driver - "Chaln kwemumwa besadi. Susha orengwane royen?" ("I'll contact someone. Will you watch them?")

"Saah," ("Yeah,") says the pickup truck driver.

The receptionist faces the aliens with a smile and gestures that he's going to step out and the aliens should stay here.

Permalink

The aliens wait. A steady stream of guesses and updates march across Sapphire's HUD. The most significant breakthrough is determining that the '-ne' suffix indicates a question.

Permalink

The receptionist goes through a door. There's the sound of mechanical typing for a little bit, then a ding, then the muffled sound of the receptionist talking.

The pickup truck driver goes to sit down, lizard flopping on their feet.

Permalink

Are there any bookshelves in the room?

Permalink

Yup. Several, in fact, mostly situated in between windows on the wall to the left of the entrance - the room's four walls are the entrance wall, which has several windows, a wall of windows and bookshelves to its left, along which the lounge area is mostly situated, three doors presumably leading further into the building across from the entrance, and the receptionist to the right, who has two doors and a bookshelf situated mostly behind the desk in a way that suggests they aren't open to random visitors.

Permalink

"Do we know how to say 'can I look at that?' or something similar? I'd like to look at the books, maybe some of them have pictures."

Permalink

"They look like they're open access, it might be better to ask forgiveness than permission. Especially since we don't know the words for yes or no."

Permalink

"That makes sense." She walks slowly towards the book shelves. Do any of them look like children's books without taking them off the shelves?

Permalink

The driver doesn't try to stop them looking at the books.

There's what looks like children's board books, in fact, as well as some early reader books, in displays sized for small children near small beanbags and seats, in the left hand corner farthest from the entrance - the right hand corner has a child-sized table with what looks like a magnetic sand insert. Books at approximately preteen height on the shelves also seem to have disproportionately bright covers.

Total: 313
Posts Per Page: