Quest for Knowledge

                  Although advanced in her age, Brynhilda lived a fit and healthy life. She believed in the importance of living well. As she made her way up the physically demanding path through the forest, she paused to catch her breath, pleased with the choices she made in her younger years. Her family owned a summer cottage nestled deep in the woods, higher in the foothills of the mountains surrounding Eknor. Isolated from the busy life of the village, surrounded by nature, trees, meadows, and streams. It became an idyllic escape for her family, as well as an ideal place to study the ancient text given to her by Jonas.

                  Brynhilda shook her head with a sigh. Why they ever built the cottage so far back into the wilderness bemused her mind. After the brief rest, she pushed onward.

                  The cottage lies in a physically demanding location for an escape, but her ancestors must have wanted the safety, security, and relaxation in complete isolation. She had been there many times with her mother and grandmother. When she was young, she held distinct memories of her great grandmother before she passed on. Yearly trips to the summer cottage became a tradition she carried on with her own daughter and her family, creating recent memories with Lili and Leila.

                  As Brynhilda rounded the corner of a cliff side wall, she saw the cottage. Memories flooded back with such force, her eyes lit up with a smile. The old cottage, looking more worn than she remembered, still held up strong. Built between and around two massive oak trees, the cottage almost looked like an elaborate palace-like tree house. An absolute dream for a child. The ages old oak tree grew around the cottage, with moss and ferns growing on top of the massive trunks and branches. The tree itself looked like it wrapped its barky branches around the cottage in a hug to protect and conceal the home. Brynhilda smiled ear to ear as the memories of playing in the nearby fields, picking wildflowers, playing in the streams, finding fun and interesting wildlife rushed through her mind. The place felt like pure peace.

                  She made her way to the cottage, unlocked the door, and went inside. The slightly musty smell reminded her of her childhood. So many happy memories. Her ancestors built the cottage for many purposes: family, feasting, amusement, games, relaxation, meditation, with an overarching purpose of learning, growth, and wisdom. As she walked into one of the main gathering rooms, it felt like visiting a library in a fairytale. The walls were built out of bookshelves containing all manner and types of books; history, science, art, poetry, journals, fairy tales. Plus, the library included hundreds of children’s books that her ancestors created. Her favorites were those adventures about magic and sorcery, something she always dreamed of.

                  As unrealistic as it seemed, when Brynhilda was a child, she truthfully believed that her grandmother could, in fact, do magic. Her grandmother loved showing a young Brynhilda her magic tricks, and to this day she could not find an explanation for how she did some of them. A part of her didn’t want an explanation. She loved the idea that she, too, had a knack for the mystical and unexplained. Brynhilda often felt like she could sense or feel what others felt, though she couldn’t explain it.

                  The memories distracted Brynhilda from the work she had to do. She made her way through the cottage, opening windows, letting fresh air in. She arranged her items to study at a comfortable desk area, then ignited a cozy fire in the fireplace to warm the home for the long night. Brynhilda prepared a teapot to warm water, inviting the friendship of her favorite teas for the long night of reading.

                  A peaceful place to study was only part of the reason she made the trek to her cottage. Her family stored several translation guides for ancient languages. She scoured the many shelves of books for any information about Gumtal. Her grandmother could even speak Gumtal, although Brynhilda never learned much of it for herself. The complex language challenged any student, and as a young woman, Brynhilda thought it served no purpose other than pleasing her ancestors.

                  “Ah-ha, there it is!”

                  Brynhilda pulled several books about the ancient language of the Gummundir, with several translation help books. She knew it would be a challenge since the Gumtal translation texts her family owned were written by her ancestors in the old common language, and not the modern common language. Any translation would require a multi-step process. She carried the texts back to her desk, took a breath, settled into her desk, and started reading.

                  After several hours of study, Brynhilda discovered nothing more than what Jonas and Rasmus already learned. The several notes throughout the book written in Gumtal were easy to translate with guidance, but she couldn’t find the strange symbols anywhere in the texts from her family’s collection. She hoped to find buried in some of the educational texts a reference or information regarding a variant of Gumtal, yet there was nothing. To add to the frustration, Brynhilda worried about her mind and her memory. She would look at one symbol, search through the textbooks, looking for any similar characters, then looking back at the strange symbol, it looked different. Plenty of activities accentuated her age, yet her mind and memory had never been in question. Until now.  

                  Frustrated with the lack of progress, and worried that her eyes began seeing things, she reached for the only link to the unique symbols. She pulled over the mysterious children’s book with matching symbols in it. She knew there must be meaning in the coincidences. Brynhilda sat before an entire text written in a strange language, the same strange language that graced the pages of a children’s book about a girl that can de-code messages. The odd similarities were too intriguing to ignore.  

                  The probability of both books being connected seemed extremely high. No author was listed for either, but both books had her family symbol inscribed on them. Brynhilda wondered if the found text could have been a supplement to the children’s book, although the idea didn’t align with logic. Why would a children’s book connect to what seemed to be a very long and complex book? It made no sense.

                  In frustration, she got up and looked through the shelves holding hundreds of books that lined the library. Brynhilda gave particular attention to the children’s books, hoping to find another that may have the same symbols in it. The rows of collected children’s books brought back many vivid memories. Tales of courage, good and evil, wonderful sorcery, and adventure. The tale of the ice dragons and the ice princess was one of her favorites. As a child, she dreamed of visiting the underwater city of gold, and the one with the evil mountain monster fascinated her young mind with thrills of narrow escapes and close calls. Countless memories of adventures played out in her mind. Her grandmother always encouraged her imagination and daydreaming. Then a surge of warmth reminded Brynhilda of how much she missed her grandmother, the one responsible for encouraging her youthful and imaginative outlook on life. Brynhilda struggled to maintain focus in such a memory filled environment.

                  The memories of her grandmother reminded her of one more place to look for answers. She walked over to the main family room, grabbed a corner of the rug on the floor and pulled it back, revealing a very well-engineered door on the floor of the room. Bending down to brush the collected dirt and dust away, she found two locations on the door and pressed downward, popping up a handle in-between. Brynhilda took a deep breath and pulled the door, revealing a staircase into the dark.

                  She grabbed a nearby lantern and descended the steep staircase, holding tightly to the railing. As she descended into the hidden basement section, she noticed the strange sconces attached to the wall. She never understood the design of the unusual sconces, as they had no way of holding any form of fuel to keep a fire lit. But her lantern provided plenty of light.

                  The light illuminated a long narrow hallway filled with shelves of stacked papers, books, and journals. Her family’s own personal archives. Her family kept records for years since the beginning of Eknor. They believed in recording their own family history and preserving it for generations to come. Brynhilda walked past stacks of books, following one hallway connecting to another, navigating her way to the older sections of their basement archives. She walked past shelves of books, all written in the old language of Gumtal. Her family kept records in the ancient language for years, before finally converting to the common tongue.

                  When her family learned of the Kingdom’s new law requiring donations of all ancient texts to the kingdom’s historians, they built their own underground library to house the most important documents and texts. Some from their ancestors dating back to the founding of Hallador. They feared if the kingdom knew they harbored texts of that age written in Gumtal, they would be deemed an ancient artifact and confiscated by the kingdom. The family wanted to preserve their own records for their own family members. They designed their underground library to keep their oldest records safe and out of sight. Only to be used as needed.

                  This was one reason Brynhilda came to her cottage. She could turn to her ancestors for help. Maybe they held some clues regarding the strange symbols and what they represented. Her grandmother’s passion for teaching Gumtal finally made sense in her mind. Her grandmother hoped Brynhilda could someday read the journals of her ancient ancestors. Brynhilda took a deep breath. “Probably should have paid more attention back then?” she said to herself as she scoured the shelves, looking for any hint or clue where to start.

                  Brynhilda plucked a text from the shelf and flipped through it, looking for any connection to the unique symbols, or even further guides on how to translate Gumtal. But to no avail. Randomly walking up and down the hallway shelves, she would select a book, hoping to find anything to draw her closer to an answer. Her random efforts provided no results. Brynhilda held her lantern up, looking over the shelves of stacked texts, notebooks, sketchbooks, and pages wrapped in leather. Her mind took a logical analysis of the room. She shook her head.

                  “This is impossible.”

                  Her mind recognized that randomly checking shelves would not be an efficient method unless she was the luckiest woman alive. The only way to scour her family’s records for any clue or hint of translation would have to come through a systematic and thorough review of every book on the shelf. Her mind calculated the time it would take. Even if she recruited Lili and Leila to help, it would still take days, although it seemed to be the only option.

                  Brynhilda drooped her head in defeat and turned back to the stairs.

                  “Brynsie!” a voice whispered from behind.

                  Brynhilda whipped around, holding her lantern up high, casting as much light as possible. “Who’s there? I heard you; how did you get in?”

                  The room remained silent.

                  Despite the initial shock, Brynhilda’s heart slowed down. It felt at peace.

                  “Grandma?” Brynhilda took a step forward, looking at every aspect of the illuminated shelves. Brynhilda’s grandmother called her ‘Brynsie’ as a child. It felt so real, hearing that name, but her mind rationalized a memory of old must have surfaced so fast it felt real. Brynhilda held the light steady. Despite the paranormal experience, she didn’t feel frightened. She just hoped to hear it again.
The room held silent.

                  Then her eye caught some movement. A bound text on one of the lower shelves tipped over and landed on a cluster of documents loosely wrapped in leather. Brynhilda stared at the section on the shelf. She looked around for any evidence of someone else in the room. The room held silent. Brynhilda took a few more steps forward and kneeled to the lower shelf of the tipped book. She pulled out the large leather journal that wrapped around a cluster of loose pages and flipped it open. The first page revealed a chart of Gumtal Characters. She flipped another page to reveal what looked like more instruction in Gumtal. Then she flipped the page again.

                  A chill ran down the back of her neck. In the middle of the page, she saw a paragraph written in the same strange unique symbols of the found book. Brynhilda’s heart beat with excitement. It looked like the additional documents served as a guide or instructions written in Gumtal, a language she could translate. She immediately gathered up the collection of documents and, with newfound energy, she bound up the steep stairs, returning to her working desk on the upper floor.

                  Fueled by the excitement of the discovery, Brynhilda spread out the new documents alongside the translation reference guides and got to work. Late into the night, she slowly translated the ancient instructions into what she hoped would soon answer the mysteries of the found journal.