IDE EVENT: Jibber Jabber (D2, Late Afternoon)

[Isawa Nonin]

While such was not his strength, honestly anything that was not animal or magic related was not a strength, Nonin was happy to give it a try.

He set to trying to puzzle out the shapes and order them into patterns, they has some vague ties to the kanji, but they were distant at best. Still, he felt happy that he gained some insight into how the new language worked.

Then they asked him to read and write in it. To his surprise, it flowed extremely easily and he was able to comfortably complete the task. The talking, to his surprise, he found himself even more comfortable with, managing a competent discourse.

Finding that he enjoys the conversation and hopefully it will prepare him for the learning of future languages, he uses the remaining time to talk with the Ide in their fictional tongue, though he is beginning to slip back into his native tongue near the end.

At the end, he is quite pleased with his progress and promises himself that he will master another language at some point in the future.

OOC:
Pt 1, Calligraphy (Cipher)/Intelligence, Success with Two Raises, +2k0 on future rolls in the event
Pt 2, Commerce unskilled/Intelligence, Success, 1 Point
Pt 3, Etiquette/Intelligence, Success with 3 raises, 4 Points
3 x Bonus Credit of Talking, Etti/Int, 3 Successes no raises, 3 Points

Total 8 Linguistics points

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki sat down in high spirits to take the test assigned by the Ide. Confronted with the scrambled language the woman smiled politely and got to work. It was simple enough, the Ide had relied heavily on Mekhem as a base for parts of the code, with a smattering of Yobanjin grammar. That was tricky. There were a few parts Yuki didn't recognize, but she understood enough to be able to piece everything together with no problems.

Then, of course, came the practical use of such knowledge.

"Ok. So the first one is... if a woman weighs as much as a duck, is she a witch?" Yuki paused, frowning some at the odd question, but the gullible little Asako didn't think twice about answering in her own garbled use of the language and happily turned it in. The Ide examined the paper and managed to not sigh at the answer that "Sister always said witches could steal skins, so it doesn't matter", and quietly handed a new paper to the Asako to try again.

The dutiful, smiling, Phoenix continued to work diligently on the questions provided, quite happy with her answer each time as she returned to the Ide, who sighed, looked at the paper, and by the end reflexively began to hand Yuki a new sheet. At the end, just as the ending bell was ringing, Yuki finally managed to get one right, much to the disappointment of some judges, which had begun to look forward to the Asako's absurd answers.

Just as happy as when she had arrived, Yuki left the field of competition, having rather enjoyed the experience of learning a new coded language.

Squiggly Lines:
19 Success
Story Problems:
Try 1: 14
Try 2: 6
Try 3: 10
Try 4: 13
Try 5: 17 Success
Bilingual Conversation:
Out of Time

Linguistic Points: 1

[Seppun Aramoro]

There was a subtle smirk on Aramoro's face. This task took power of the mind. He dispensed easily with understanding the language, but soon his arrogance was met with frustration when he could not practically apply the language to the questions.

He could not bear the embarrassment of failure after failure. He stood up with a huff and walked out of the Administrative Senter, but not before turning at the exit and bowing to the organisers.

1) Calligraphy (Ciphers)/Intelligence - 30 |Pass [TN 25] 2 Raises
2) Commerce/Intelligence - 5k3 5 |Fail [TN 15, Untrained]
3) Commerce/Intelligence - 5k3 8 |Fail [TN 15, Untrained]
4) Commerce/Intelligence - 5k3 8 |Fail [TN 15, Untrained]
5) ...
6) ...

0 Language Points

[Doji Fukawa]

Doji Fukawa entered the exam feeling quite ill. But she couldn't spend the day in her tent. It would show weakness. Also, her tent reeked of fur and leather, so that wasn't helping. So she would attend the exam, and even if she did not shine at it, at least no one would call her week.

Ugh, squiggly lines...she could feel them in her stomach as they swam before her eyes:

The lease run outward on sixteen weeks. That thing for small noted with able to caused despair.

The smell for burned rags itches I nose. Grape juice and watered mix good.

Bribes fail where honest men work. Hedge apples may stain your hands green.

It took an hour of eye breaks, deep breathes, and more than a little fanning, but the little Doji finally made her way through understanding the gibberish language.

And so they presented her with math problems. Fukawa's family was wealthy enough she really just had to point at things she wanted, and she got them. However, she got lucky with this math problem. The writer had thrown a bunch of distracting information in, but Fukawa really only understood the part that actually mattered.

"Seven" she said confidently, and she was right.

That left her about 40 minutes left to speak in this made up language. But there was truth in knowing that when Crane spoke, people listened, even if it was inquiring after the health of one's Gleep-glops.

Squiggly Lines Attempt 1: 9 vs 20
Squiggly Lines Attempt 2: 13 vs 20
Squiggly Lines Attempt 3: 22 vs 20
Story Problems Attempt 1: 26 vs. 20
Bi-Lingual Conversation Attempt 1 & 2: 20 & 24 vs. 20. FR's used for extra points

Linguistics points: 5

[Moto Khulun]

Khulun arrives dressed in a simple cloth top with her arms exposed and simple pants with sturdy leather boots in the colors of the Unicorn. She is still feeling a bit under the weather but is well enough to attempt the task at hand.

She looks at the made up language and frowns not seeing a pattern but soon with more effort she can see the meaning and how things fit, the story of Moto Silvia was coming into focus. Who was Moto Silvia? The name was everywhere but maybe she needed to see more so she started sticking different papers to different surfaces to form a map… a road map of this Moto Silvia.

Now she was ready she approached the Idea and began grilling them about Moto Silvia, but they were in on the conspiracy as well, she kept gesturing wildly at the papers, Moto Silvia… Moto Silvia but still they denied any knowledge of what she was talking about.

The Ide scratches her head in confusion as Khulun rants about how the pieces fit, it was obvious and she was hiding something from the young warrior. Khulun jabbed at the papers until the Idea sighs and send her on her way confused at how the young Moto came to such a crazy conclusion.

OOC: 2 Linguistic points earned.

[Kitsune Takeo]

Not expecting to be very good this particular test, Takeo arrived to give it his best, as befit a proper samurai.

Surprisingly, he was able to work through the cipher relatively quickly and, even more surprisingly he was able to apply what he knew of the language to the math problems the Ide presented.

Perhaps sensing his initial hesitancy, or seeking to put the Fox Prince in his place, the Ide began to rattle through a conversation, scarcely pausing to take a breath in between sentences and giving Takeo little to know time to comprehend what was being said to him. Though he came close, occasionally, he never could quite grasp the meaning of a particular word and this led his attempt at conversation down some interesting paths that involved a tree owning a sake stand and a monk who could fly - though based on what he knew of monks, the last part wouldn't necessarily be untrue...

When time was called, Takeo apologized, "Forgive me Ide-san - in this it seems I was a poor student."

The Ide gave a sympathetic look and wrote something down on his pad.

(Callig/Int : TN 15 = 22

Commerce/Int: Tn 15 = 35 - 1 point

Ett/Int: TN 15 - 14 ; 5 ; 14; 5 - 0 points

1 linguistic point)

[Usagi Tsukimi]

What the what?

What even?

What is?

It took Tsukimi an hour to figure out what all the squiggles and shapes were meant to be.

When she got it, she stumbled her way through the story, and garbled her way to the end.

It wasn't pretty, but she did the thing, and walked away with a headache for her troubles.

Calligraphy (Any Cipher)/Intelligence TN 15: 2d10k2 13
Roll 2: Calligraphy (Any Cipher)/Intelligence TN 15: 2d10k2 12
Roll 3: Calligraphy (Any Cipher)/Intelligence TN 15 +Void: 3d10k2 15
Commerce (Mathematics)/Intelligence TN 15 +Void: 3d10k2 16 = 1 Linguistics pt
Etiquette (Conversation)/Intelligence TN 15: 2d10k2 15 = 1 Linguistics pt
= 2 Linguistic pts

[Iuchi Saksaha]

Saksaha settles in with her sheaf of papers mostly unbothered by the heat in her embroidered robes, though she does pop open the top button of her collar as she becomes more deeply involved in the language puzzle. Her first, more ambitious attempt to diagram the verb forms of the invented language in detail is abandoned when it proves much too time consuming to be worthwhile; she starts over from scratch and manages at least a working understanding. The mathematical puzzles... well, she grabs one off the 'easy' pile, but having done so, she's able to work through it quickly. Then, since she's never an easy conversationalist at the best of times, it takes her a few long minutes of live-fire practice to feel comfortable enough with the examiner to stop scrambling her "z"s and "th"s, no doubt to his amusement.

As at last night's feast, at least she hasn't catastrophically embarrassed herself... and doesn't that count for something?

---
Squiggles: Fail with two raises, then success with one raiseStory Problems: Success, no raises
Bilingual Conversation: Fail with one raise, then success with one raise.
Bagging the last time slot as I don't think I can make 7 or more points in one roll.

3 points.

[Mindshred]

Once the event comes to an end, the Ide spend a few moments quietly discussing the results of the competitors among themselves. Eventually, they step forward to make their announcement.

Iuchi Yukarin earns 3 Courtship Points.
Usagi Tomoe earns 2 Courtship Points.
Yasuki Tomonaga, Kakita Nanami, and Yogo Mizuki each earn 1 Courtship Point.