BXBX NOVEL Chapter 107 - Naming
"Don\'t push yourself with that arm," called out Li to Azhar.
They were both in the fields with Old Thane, clearing out the farm\'s second harvest of the year. A day had passed since Azhar had gained his new life sensing powers. He had also learned the [Scattershot] skill, confirming that skills that did not rely on gods or entities to be granted were learned through the same requirements present in Elden World.
"It ain\'t gonna\' get better unless I get the muscles workin\' again," replied Azhar as he used a sickle held in his left hand to scythe up a few heads of wheat. His right arm moved weakly, almost as if in slow motion, the fingers laced with trembles as he tried to pick up the stalks he cut.
"Aye, young lad, you\'ve the right idea," said Old Thane from a little distance away, his scarred hands also busy with harvesting. "Wounds healed with the body\'s strength alone will not heal completely lest you not push your muscles and bones to their former glory."
"Yeah, but we only have so much sunlight left, and trying to use that hobbling arm is slowing us down," said Li. He shrugged. "But you\'re right, old man. In the grand scheme of things, rehabilitating an arm is more important than one harvest out of many."
Li looked down, feeling the wyrm tug at his pant leg. She had good fine control over her strength, and she used her flatter molars to gently grasp and pull at the soft fabric. He could sense her impatience from her fidgeting and her active stare, but he shook his head.
"We won\'t be hunting today, Tiamat," said Li sadly. Taking Azhar\'s advice, he had named the wyrm. He had a functional knowledge of mythology because so much of it was embedded in Elden World, and he had decided to name her after the primordial Mesopotamian creation goddess, a massive sea dragon who was also considered the mother of all monsters and dragons after her.
"I\'d be willin\' to fight her to let her vent her energy," said Azhar, his head peeking through a few tall and golden stalks of wheat.
"That would be helpful," nodded Li. "My spells are too dangerous for her to mess around with."
Tiamat\'s eyes narrowed as she pulled particularly hard this time in protest, telling Li that she was, indeed, capable of weathering his spells.
"How about this: You beat Azhar today and then I\'ll show you a spell."
She loosened her bite and nodded with brimming enthusiasm.
"It ain\'t gonna\' be easy," said Azhar teasingly, and she loosed a challenging roar in response.
Azhar laughed before saying, "Y\'know, why don\'t you shorten her name to Tia? It\'ll sound a whole lot more natural."
"It\'s fine to shorten the name like that? It hasn\'t been a day yet with her having this name."
"It ain\'t like puppies where ya gotta say it over days and days to drill their names into their heads. Dragonkin are smart, and her, well if there was ever a genius among geniuses among em\', she\'d be one of em\'. She\'s just as smart as those legendary dragons up north that can put any scholar down here to shame with their knowledge and wits."
"Hm."
"And Tiamat? Where\'d ya get that name, anyway, if ya don\'t mind explainin\'?"
"That too, I am curious of, lad," said Old Thane between deft sickle swipes, stalks falling to his side in droves as bodies must have in his youth. "Your past, your culture, and your people are all yours to keep to yourself, but it is always a pleasure to know more of it."
So it would appear that Eldenia had no knowledge of the mythology in Li\'s planet.
Somewhat surprising, too, because there actually was a boss tier monster called Tiamat in Elden World, but she was a boss tier dragon monster that existed in a high level expansion that had absolutely no place coexisting with the rest of this world.
"It\'s the name of a goddess," said Li simply.
"A goddess? To think there are more of them than the Great Four," remarked Old Thane. "I\'d heard idle rumors of them in the East, but alas, despite my many years of adventuring, that part of the world is yet still a mystery to me."
"A goddess, huh?" said Azhar, nodding with understanding. Unlike Old Thane\'s expert hands, Azhar\'s hands could not keep up while speaking, and his sickle hand remained idle while he talked. "Anythin\' special bout\' her? She kind? Evil? Help people out? Eat em\'?"
Li could hear Tia loose a rumble of anticipation, wanting eagerly to know what her name meant. She had woken up this morning after inheriting Li\'s usage of demonfire, and Li had named her almost as soon as he had made sure she was okay.
Though she had woken up tired, getting a name had raised her spirits and put her in this energy packed state throughout the whole day, not only because it made her happy, but because Azhar was right: the name itself gave her strength, a stronger sense of self identity upon which to rally around to tackle influences from Li\'s being.
"Keep that sickle moving first off," said Li. When he made sure Azhar was back to work, he continued. "Tiamat, hm? She\'s a creator goddess of primordial creation, uniting the waters of the world such that life might bubble from them. Consequently, she takes the form of a massive sea serpent. On the other hand, she\'s also a goddess of primordial chaos, and from her, all the monsters and evils of the world formed."
Li glanced at Tia, at how she had cocked her head, trying to conceptualize what Li had said. As of now, more complicated words and their meanings were a little beyond her grasp, though she could still understand the very basic meanings behind what Li said.
"Basically, a goddess of life and death, if you think about it." Li nodded to himself. Considering his own existence as a keeper of life and death, the naming seemed very fitting now that he thought about it.
"That\'s a tall name to live up to," remarked Azhar. He started to talk to Tia, "And ain\'t you a little too short for it?"
Tia jumped up on Li\'s back, her claws piercing through his linen shirt and digging into his skin, though not piercing it. She did this to stand above the wheat stalks and get a good look at Azhar.
Considering she was almost more than half the size of a fully grown man, it was a testament to her sense of balance she could stand atop Li, and also a testament to his own balance and strength that he could keep her up there without even giving a second thought, not even stopping his harvesting.
She hissed. Not threateningly, but moreso in challenging protest. It would seem she thought of herself quite highly, the thought that she could not live up to the name her parent had given her irritating her.
"Sorry bout\' that, missy," said Azhar as he put an apologetic hand to his head. "But if ya wanna prove yer worth, then show it to me when we fight."
Tia uttered a low growl with a nod, signifying her acceptance of Azhar\'s challenge. She then leaped down from Li\'s back, following a little behind him as she performed mock swipes and snaps in front of her, probably imagining Azhar\'s throat there.
"It is a wonder you can speak to her," said Old Thane as he scratched his head. "Our spoken tongue be the same, yet mine own words have no effect upon her."
"For dragonkin, it ain\'t so much bout\' what you\'re sayin\' so much as it\'s bout\' what you\'re soul\'s trynna\' convey." Azhar pointed two fingers to his eyes. "Learned this with Hinterlander shamans. Yer eyes are windows to the soul, so they say, and ya can talk through em, connectin with anyone no matter if they\'re dragon or troll or kraken. I\'m lookin\' at her eye to eye and lettin\' my soul speak to her. The words I speak just help me form my thoughts better."
"The fabled Allspeak," commented Old Thane with a wondering nod. "Even in mine own adventures, it was an exceedingly rare sight to behold, with Aine herself being one of few practitioners that could be counted on a mere hand, but yet here you are, one who I consider still a little boy, wielding it.
I am realizing now how little of your trials and developments I know. And it is the same with the other two. You three have learned so very much and grown so very strong. I cannot help but feel pride, and I am certain Aine does too, wherever she may be."
"She better." Azhar smiled. "Took a whole damn year of starin\' at magical rocks and wrinkly shaman eyes before I managed even a little of it. Whenever I thought it too damn borin\' to push through, I remembered how she\'d whack me over the head and give me that piercin\' stare when I tried to sneak outta\' math lessons. Compared to that , plain ol\' starin\' ain\'t nothin\'."
Allspeak.
Li had it as one of his many racial passives, and he thanked it immensely for how much easier it had made his life. If he had been reincarnated here as a human, he would have had to learn every single language and writing system by scratch.
But he had not known it was a spiritual ability. It was an interesting thing to note because Allspeak was completely a flavor of text kind of ability that had no real bearing in the game, only changing some dialogue options in the campaign. But here, it was something significant, something that could even be learned by humans.
There was so much flexibility and potential with powers in this world, and Li was beginning to increasingly realize that everything he knew about Elden World was not complete knowledge. It was more like a foundation upon which he had to learn more from. His human curiosity had dampened since he had come here, but now he would try his best to hold onto it.