Intermediate Ancient Runes Lesson 1 [4th years+]

Andrei tacked this note onto the door that normally led to his classroom. However, instead of a door, it appeared that the door had melted into the wall around it. The knob was gone, the seams on all four sides of the door no longer existed, and it looked as if a panel of dark worn wood was embedded into the stone. Today's lesson would be a practical one.

This trick was one that Andrei and many others in his field encountered on even the earliest of Egyptian digs when trying to gain access to burial chambers. The ancients inscribed runes on a door using a particular formula, not unlike saying an incantation, thereby achieving a certain magical effect. Often times decoding such formulas resulted in triggering some kind of life-threatening trap. The one Andrei's more advanced students would face today, however, would not trigger any such trap.

He didn't want to kill them just yet.

The runes inscribed on the door itself would not be visible at first and would require a spell to reveal them to the naked eye. Next, they would have to decipher the runic formula and answer the question at the end. The question asked each student present to inscribe their name in runic text onto the door itself. Certainly, there was no 1:1 translation of names, but one could approximate a name reasonably well. Once all this was completed the door would return to its normal state allowing them to enter.

This lesson would require knowledge, quick thinking, and teamwork. Andrei, sitting at his desk within the classroom itself, hoped that his new students were up to the task—today would be a bad day to forget one's textbook. In theory, these students would be more advanced and knew how to use their resources. That said, he did take precautions should the students become too resourceful.

At the bottom of the initial note in the same thin slanting cursive as the rest, he'd scribbled a postscript:


The last thing he needed was some overzealous student blasting down the door. That would be a poor way to start out the term for all involved.

[Hey! This will be pretty damn free form, so have fun with it and interact with your fellow rpers to complete this lesson.]

Clara approached the door to the Ancient Runes classroom, noticing no one else in the hallway. She enjoyed Ancient Runes very much--translating them was like decoding ciphers, which in turn were like puzzles. You just looked for patterns, and if you found enough of them, it would start to make sense. The joy of figuring things out was one her favourite experiences, and it made this a fun subject for her.

She stopped in her tracks where the door should have been. Instead there was a solid wooden panel, and a note, which she read. A spark of something like excitement flared in her chest. A puzzle. Brilliant.

Seeing she must be the first one there, she got to work as quickly as she could. She would rather figure it out by herself, for several reasons. One, it was more satisfying that way, not having to rely on help from others. Two, she hated working with other people--they were always so noisy and it made it hard to think. And three, though she was loathe to admit it, she was scared someone would figure it out before her. When it came to her peers, the thought that someone might be smarter than her made her feel...angry? Jealous? She wasn't sure, but it was a bad feeling and she didn't like it.

Studying the wood for clues, she saw nothing. She ran her hand over it, especially where the wood met the stone of the wall, to see if there were any irregularities. Nothing, it was smooth. She took a step back.

Taking out her wand, she tried a revelio on the surrounding area, but turned up empty-handed once again. She turned back to the door. It was Ancient Runes, obviously the puzzle would have something to do with that. She'd need to search for a hidden message, probably.

She tapped her wand on the door. "Aparecium," she muttered. Slowly, writing started to appear across the wood. A series of lines and shapes that made no sense by themselves were etched into the door. She smiled.

Reaching into her bag, she took out her textbook, a notebook, and a pencil. She quickly but carefully copied down the runes, then sat cross-legged against the wall and began flipping through her book.

Clara jumped when she heard a sudden thud. Her head jerked up, and she looked rather incredulously at the older boy standing in the hall. Had he just run into the door?

Her pencil hovered over her notebook as she paused to regard the newcomer with some trepidation. So it began. She hope he wasn't the first in a flood of students. She could probably deal with one or two, but a crowd would be too much.

The boy finally noticed her, and his words eased some of her discomfort. He wouldn't bother her, as long as he stayed relatively quiet. He wasn't a threat to her competitive side. She nodded at the boy's question.

"I'm working on it. Just try not to distract me, I should be able to figure it out soon enough. I think I've got at least a few words, though one of them is rather ambiguous. This symbol is definitely an 'ah' sound."

Tick tock tick tock...

The large ornate clock that sat by the blackboard in Andrei's classroom patiently counted out each second that passed without fail. Reverberating around the still empty classroom the sound seemed to make the room feel all the emptier as the normal murmur of a class in session did not interrupt it.

Indeed, the only interruption came from a dull clunk of wood as if someone had run right into the wooden panel that had once been a door. Glancing up at the sound, Andrei let out a deep breath that he only then realized he'd been holding. The thud was the first indication that his students were trying something—he had worried that the students would just leave. However, by that same token, it did concern him slightly as solving the array of runes did not require anything that should produce such a thud.

Furrowing his brow he got halfway out of his seat with the intention of checking on the students, but thought better of it and sat back down. Hand holding wouldn't do them any good, he reasoned. Though part of him did worry that they might not figure out the puzzle in time and that would be bad on more than a few levels.

Opening one of the many books on his desk, Andrei did the only thing he could do at this point, wait.

Tick tock tick tock...

Clara was slightly annoyed when several more people showed up, but she had found herself at a bit of a standstill for the past minute or two, and, though she hated to admit it, she could use a little nudge. She knew she could figure it out by herself if given enough time, but, since speed was part of the goal, she figured it would be plainly illogical not to accept help.

When the deaf boy--Elleon--pointed out the symbol for "name," everything clicked. She could practically feel the cogs in her brain come unstuck, and she fervently flipped to the right page in her text book.

"It's this one," she said, pointing at the alphabet. And with that, she got to work decoding the rest of the message. It took her less than five minutes. She read it out when she was done, passing her notebook to Elleon so he could read it for himself.

"It says we have to write our names on the door using this alphabet," she gestured to the alphabet in the still open page of her textbook. "It's phonetic, so it'll be a rough translation."

Taking her wand, she muttered a charm that would allow her to inscribe a message into the wood, and glanced down at her textbook to make sure she had it right.

Kl-ah-ehr-uh, she sounded it out in her head, carving each corresponding symbol into the door.