2.3: Breaking Language Barriers

Making it to Bilgam took a surprisingly short time, probably because we annoyed the wagon driver with question after question about the Hianic language. Learning the words was straight forward, but the grammar was a different story. We could kind of grasp what a person was talking about based off of key words, but everything else about the sentence was unknown.

Of course, learning a language took time, but I’d like to get a hang of it as fast as humanly possible. We of all people knew how easy it was to get scammed out of our belongings, and while we were pretty confident in our ability to dodge such people in our native language, we have no idea how to do so in this one.

The worst possible outcome would be if we somehow accidentally offended someone because we didn’t translate something well enough. There have been many stories of such individuals who have endured a variety of punishments because of poor wording, ranging from a slap to the cheek to full-blown banishment from the country. If Ed or I get banished from a country, we won’t be able to document it properly, and we definitely don’t want that to happen.

Making our way through the main street of Bilgam was enchanting. The streets were lit up in these lamp posts that looked mystical in nature, and while the streets were paved, it felt weirdly dated. I can see why this country was a famous honeymoon spot, taking your loved one here would definitely make her happy.

Our first destination was in fact not an inn, but rather a tourist shop. There we got ourselves a pocket-sized dictionary each and spent our remaining daily pocket money on a Bilgam badge for Ed’s collection. Sadly, the only one left in stock was a heart shaped one, which made sense due to Bilgam’s main tourist demographic, but it still felt weird buying it when we’re both single.

***

Making our way to the ITA hub we decided to put our dictionaries to good use and greeted the booth lady in their language. She welcomed us with a smile on her face while eyeing the small handbooks in our hands. She guessed we’re not from here almost immediately and started speaking in Entropic for the time being.

“Good evening, boys.” She began her spiel, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“We would like to check in per protocol, we’re Edward Saint and Lune Grimheart.” Explained Ed.

She seemed surprised at our formal reply, but after verifying our names were actually written in the member’s list we were finally allowed to check in. No strikes for us! Even still, this only gave us another month, but it shouldn’t be a problem due to our current whereabouts. It really was a good idea to go here. While we were here we decided to ask the booth lady about good ways to secure travel funds, but she was basically said That depends on you and you only so we were back to square one.

After finding an inn that seemed like it had a good util/cost ratio we decided to call it a day and went to bed as we discussed our plans from hereon.

“If we had more money,” said Ed, “we could build a branch of Arthur’s here.”

“I don’t like the idea. First off: as you said we lack funds, and secondly: that is now Anna’s and Arthur’s job, not ours’. We have no rights to the brand name.”

He nodded off at my points, looking as if he was writing my words down in his head. I’m not sure if he really agrees to what I’m saying, but I don’t want Anna and Arthur to run into trouble later on when they make it here. It’d be the same as if they were to pose as us and check in for us in a different country. Whilst it is done in good will, the ITA would definitely get suspicious of us being on two different places at the same time, leading to complications. You see where I’m getting here?

Since we didn’t really get anywhere with our ideas, we went to bed and hoped for the best tomorrow.