Many wars have been won before the first battle is taken to field.

Won by the knife in the dark. By the poisoned glass, beside the ballroom floor. By the far-flung arrow, along the roadside.

Beware of those who march upon the endless trail of red stone. The men and women of forgotten faces and tarnished souls.

....

To be honest, I'd met people like Neriah before.

Many times, in fact.

They're out there, wandering the world. Selfish, arrogant, and often quite talented (which is perhaps the worst part about them) they are mixed in with all the rest. Tucked into cubicles, workshops, or just standing in the front of lecture halls. In school, in the workforce- any job you could ever hope to stumble into, really. Modern society is full of "Neriah-like" individuals.

Simply put, the old [Scribe] was the kind of person who had no patience for others. The type who felt they did things correctly on their own, and shunned the work of their peers, only holding respect for whatever authority they were beholden to.

I say all that up front, because I wasn't very surprised by Neriah's actions. In fact, if anything, I was surprised by his restraint.

Passive-aggressive work assignments?

Demanding I write something over and over?

That was it?

Compared to threats to my life and the possibility of physical violence... it was almost laughable. Annoying, beyond any doubt, but these were tasks I could easily tolerate. Especially when set beside all the hardships I'd already seen.

The [Scribe] was simply being a bit of a bastard, and in my opinion, this was a far a lesser-evil compared to most. So far as I could tell, Neriah was just hoping that I would give up, complain, or provide him any number of other excuses to go back to the Baron with and throw me under the hammer instead of himself. Certainly, that first day, Neriah had watched and looked for a chance to write my lack of progress as a failure on my own part, and wash his hands of the responsibility.

At the same time, I made sure not to give him one by earnestly attempting to learn everything he showed me to the best of my ability.

I wasn't thrilled, true, but I wasn't overly worried. For once, I felt that I had the advantage. In fact, adjusting the perspective ever-so-slightly, I was in a situation I could call myself familiar with. All it took was to imagine Neriah as an impatient boss, or an arrogant teacher. They could yell, they could make life difficult, but when set beside hungry monsters and battlefields, I would gladly take dealing with an angry [Scribe] every single time.

So it was, locked in a room of books and papers, I carefully planned my potential strategies.

I settled on three.

First: Simplest and most straightforward, was to give Neriah what he wanted. Which was to say, if things didn't improve, I would provide him an excuse to be rid of me. Sometimes, it's not worth the battle. It's best to go ahead, and take the loss. Perhaps, also making a note to avoid them in the future.

But, I felt I couldn't in this case.

Not just because of the potential repercussions, but because I did in fact want to learn. In fact, I was desperate to learn. Giving up on the chance I'd been given was unacceptable.

Second: I could use my strange and somewhat unstable magics to set the old man on fire. Giving into the urges of the odd secondary pulse within my chest. The one, which seemed to happily thump along at the thought of burning the [Scribe] to ashes.

... and likely getting executed shortly after.

On top of not learning anything from this, I had no interest in being brutally murdered. So, I ruled that out, as well.

Third: I could meet the unreasonable demands that Neriah was making to the letter.

Pun intended.

While I was confident that there's a certain satisfaction someone could get when taking option Two, I felt my safest bet was to stick with the third option. In fact, it had a satisfying reward of its own: the oddly righteous mix of proving someone wrong, and proving yourself right, all wrapped up in a nice little "What else do you have for me?"

Bonus points, if asking that question with a perfectly straight-face.

Not that I was really going to try and tack that on.

I needed that crochety, dust-covered, raisin, of a human-being. This wasn't a summer-internship, or some part-time job I could waltz out of. The old [Scribe] already didn't like me, and the point of doing all the work he asked of me wasn't to antagonize him further. While I might not ever get him to like me, avoiding outright hatred would be a happy middle-ground. At least, until I learned how to read, until I plucked all the knowledge I could out of the man's head. Then, I supposed he could hate me all he liked.

Difficult as I predicted Neriah might be to deal with, I was more than willing to put up with his prickly persona if it meant I got what I wanted. And if that meant I could ruffle his feathers a little by outdoing his irrational expectations, all the better.

And, I believe I did.

That first morning, as he looked my work over,I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the result satisfying.

Watching from across the table, I waited patiently as he muttered under his breath. Eyes skimming along, Neriah shuffled through the nice and organized stack of parchment I'd placed for him. Ten pages, plus an additional two on the extra sheets he'd left, which I'd decided to do for good measure.

All as perfect as I could manage, of course.

Disgruntled, he huffed once, then he shuffled through the pages again.

I felt that he seemed torn between wanting to be angry, and not being able to find a reason.

"Acceptable." He murmured at last. Not quite choking on the word, but also clearly not happy to have spoken it. "Perhaps you're not entirely beyond help." He frowned. "I will prepare another example to practice. In the meantime, tell me: what familiarity do you possess with numbers?"

"I would say that I'm capable."

"Capable... show me"

Neriah's frown grew a few extra wrinkles as I attempted to put my knowledge onto a loose piece of scrap paper.

"Capable, but only with your tragically barbaric foreign scribbles." Quill flying across another page, Neriah pushed it across the table. "Take this. Even a child should be able to decipher it. Go to the kitchen and get something to eat. I expect you to have it memorized before you return."

With that, he waved me towards to unlocked door.The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Ah, the privilege to not starve to death. I felt that this combined nicely with a derogatory statement about my other-worldly heritage. While I suspect breakfast was Neriah's form of providing a "reward," I had already decided if he tried to lock me in there much longer, I was going to see if I could burn the door down. Which might have been a bit rash, but wasn't something I was going to compromise on.

I'd spent enough time in this world hungry, and I wasn't keen on slipping back into that routine.

With that mentality in mind, I took the most direct path I had available to arrive at the kitchen. Stomach turning itself over at the first scent of something edible, I soon found that Gertrude waiting beside the counter. And, for all her appearances might have led the uneducated to believe otherwise, I felt that looked very much like an angel.

I told her so, too.

"It's lukewarm, because you're late." The woman grumbled back to me, dropping a large slop of mashed grain and discolored gruel into a wooden bowl. "There's extra if you want seconds, though."

I thanked her, and assured that I would, indeed, want seconds. Possibly thirds, considering I had once again gone for an unusual stretch of time without being allowed to eat, and how wonderfully delicious the meal looked. To which she wrinkled her nose and muttered something about not being late next time. She didn't shake a spoon at me, though, so I felt I'd adequately begun to win her over.

I'll say it once, I'll say it twice: Always be nice to cooks.

Still, I knew I couldn't take too long in the kitchen. Even though I'd much prefer to stay there and eat until I passed out from exhaustion, I had been given an assignment. So, standing beside a wobbly table, I set my eyes on the new paper that Neriah had given me to look over.

And found, very much to my surprise, that I could understand something.

Quite easily, I knew what it meant.

Not because a Skill came flying out of nowhere- unfortunately. No, I suspected it was going to take a little more time before something like that happened. Yet, I found I could piece together the information on the paper without a tremendous amount of difficulty: It seemed that the bitter old man had actually decided to be helpful, and included some form of logic to tie things together. Which, truthfully, was very much needed, considering that using [Identify] on hand-written pages seemed to only provide very general details I already knew, or just describe the paper quality itself.

In a simple table-structure, Neriah had written symbols that seemed like odd wavy and curvy gibberish. Those were, of course, useless to me. Yet, aligned beside them was something that made far more sense.

Tallies.

Quick dashes, set in a row without any crosses on the "fifth" or additional logic, ran in a neat and orderly pattern beside the nonsensical text. At the tip of each, seem a quick flourish of what I presumed to be an arrowhead. Which was either Neriah's own artistic choice, or possibly the way the symbol was intended to be recognized as a tally count.

As I scanned over the page, I set myself to memorizing.

Going over it half a dozen times, I decided I had it correct. Though there was always the small chance I was completely mistaken about the [Scribe]'s intentions, I felt that had the entire thing memorized before the second bowl of foodstuff. By the third, I was already writing out basic addition and subtraction to test myself, and had come up with a decent list of questions pertaining to the symbol that might have represented zero, as it looked much like a broken arrow, and that piqued my curiosity.

By the time I was walking back though, I felt almost light-headed from the awareness of what had just transpired.

It was so easy.

Perhaps it was being well-fed and no longer starving, but on my way back, strolling through the new information in my mind's eye: I recognized how simple it was to recall. While I'd never felt my ability to remember things was lacking in any way, this seemed a very obvious example of exceeding my own expectations.

Memorization of this nature usually took a little more time than a few minutes. On top of it, I'd been distracted by brunch, and yet...

Double-checking the page one more time, I found I wasn't misguided in my belief that I'd managed to run through all the numeric symbols present.

I knew them, inside and out.

My lopsided Attributes had been the bane of my existence since the start, but it seemed they were finally pulling their own weight. At long last, I'd found myself placed in a situation I was a proper fit for.

I returned to the study with renewed confidence.

Which was a good thing, because it turned out that Neriah wasn't nearly done with being a bit of a bastard.

....

[Criteria Met]

[General Skill - Obtained] - [Inscription]

[Inscription] Level 1

As has been deemed necessary for mankind by the benevolent God of Knowledge, words and wisdom are to be preserved. Even ignorant to the knowledge on the page, you have shown talent in this purpose. Added speed and accuracy when replicating text or images.

It was a "General Skill" like [Identify] or my [Language of Men] Skill. And, a passive one, at that, which was interesting.

Of course, the Skill wasn't what I was hoping for. I wasn't going to say no to it, but... well, actually, I was pretty sure I couldn't say no. I'd never seen a message that would have allowed me to reject a Skill, and considering the invasive power that the abilities seemed to have, I doubted it was an option.

But that was its own uncomfortable subject, and besides the point.

Although it wasn't [Reading] or something of that nature, I accepted [Inscription] as a nice perk that made my life a bit easier. Suddenly, I was able to move through the pages far more quickly, and with much less in the way of worrying about mistakes.

Neriah, to his credit though, noticed almost right away.

"You've improved."

My progress backfired, as his recognition came with twice as many pages to work with. Which, in turn, lead the the Skill improving again- which lead to three times as many pages... While Neriah was an unpleasant man, he was very observant. With a keen eye, he monitored my progress. Adjusting, the moment I showed the slightest bit of progress, and increasing the work I'd been given to match.

It was somewhat frustrating. I couldn't help but acknowledge it was exactly what I needed to push my limits and improve, but I knew this was a marathon, not a sprint. As such, I simply resolved to try and "limit" my progress, should the skill rank up again.

Work was well and good, but the day had plenty of hours left to it, and I had little doubt where I'd be spending them. And that was regardless of how many times my [Inscription] Skill increased.

Still, stuck in the quiet room, mindlessly scribbling what amounted to gibberish, I had many questions I would have very much liked to ask. With a proper teacher, I like to think I would have, too. Yet, the old [Scribe] had a stern guard up. Not quite a scowl, but certainly not friendly, the expression seemed to hinder any reasonable approach I could come up with to break the ice. So it was that I set myself to finding answers on my own- even if my answers were incomplete.

Though it wasn't entirely clear to me what I was copying, I could see the patterns. After my review of numbers, I was especially on the lookout for more symbolism. The combination of multiple pieces, to form the story of a specific word or action, were present. Enough that I could speculate to some degree. But, from a more logical perspective, I could see the end results of my work as well. Splitting his attention between what I was doing, and his own work: Neriah was going back through my pages and adding information between certain gaps of text, then stamping them with a wax seal. As the pages piled up, he seemed to follow a strict routine in this, and it soon became obvious that instead of teaching me anything that afternoon, he was putting me to use for his own benefit.

Again and again, that stamp came down. Then, with quick, practiced signatures, the pages filtered over to the far side of the table, where the wax cooled, and then found themselves organized into a wooden box. The impression this gave me, was that the pages I was copying were a form of legal document, or another concept of similar purpose, which needed his approval. I was filling out the mindless details of the text, and Neriah was finalizing them.

Outside of that, all I could reasonably assume was, whatever they were for, there were a lot of them.

My arm felt like lead, by the time I ran out of paper, and my stomach churned. All this effort, and it had come at the cost of lunch. The expected meal had long since come and gone, as had dinner- I suspected, though it was difficult to tell from within the dusty room. With stone walls covered in shelved books, it was surprisingly sound-proof.

Setting down my quill, I silently nursed my wrist as I waited for the inevitable. Surely, the man would have more work for me, any moment.

Much to my surprise, though, Neriah set his quill down as well.

"These are for the approaching Fyrd." Neriah stated, as he stamped the final stack of papers. "The applicants chosen from this pile will be considered for the honor of serving the Kingdom." He set a glass cap atop the candle he'd been using as a heat source for his wax-stamp. "Your work today was adequate. Tomorrow, at first light, we will review the basics."

With that, I was dismissed.

A quick stop by the kitchen earned me an oddly covered piece of cheese and a stale loaf of bread, but no threatening spoon. I gave my thanks and retreated back to my small, humble, abode, pushing myself for another hour to go through some basic form of exercise.

No attributes increased, but I wasn't really expecting them to. After all, a short workout after sitting at a desk an entire day is hardly going to push one's limits.

Still, there was one other ability I could practice.

Magic.

It was always there with me, now. The temptation to let mana flow through my veins crept up. As I let my head settle into the fabric of my bunk, hand raised towards the ceiling, I pushed it away.

Of course, I wanted to dive back in, but caution had the greater hold on me. Thoughts of the dream, of the throne, still sent a chill down my spine. I had no intentions of wandering back into that terrible place.

Instead, I turned my thoughts in review of the day. To try and piece together the patterns on the pages. To trace along the motions of the quill. Scattered images of script and pages. Scents of ink and books, paper and wax, of knowledge that was just out of my reach...

Though I was far too tired to realize it: that night, for the first time in a very long time, I went to sleep looking forward to the morning.