Inner Garden

  They had just finished lunch, so Veronique, Rhea and Miss Hawkings were heading towards the latter study to start their afternoon lesson.

  Veronique hated to admit it but she preferred the Old hag’s company over dealing with Alexander, while the older woman preference for Rhea was blatant it didn’t get on her nerves as much Alexander’s need to undermine her at every turn.

  When the old hag did it at the least she taught her something immediately afterwards, all Alexander did was insult her with that annoying smug smile of his.

  What in the bloody hell did she do to her step brother to make him act like this? Does he have a superiority complex or something along those line? It could be that he was merely an asshole so it was simply in his nature to be a pain in the ass.

  ‘I guess scorpions must sting’ she thought

  “What’s a scorpion?” or so Veronique thought, she must have spoke out loud without realizing it

  “Oh it’s err…some kind of spider with a stinger tail” she tried to explain it “I am not sure if we got them in our area”

  “We do not, the knights eradicated those pests and are actively keeping them outside our kingdom” Miss Hawkings intervened

  “They employed knights to get rid of small pests?” the question left her mouth before Veronique could stop herself since the mental image of men clad in iron armor sent after scorpions of all things seemed quite ridiculous.

  “Small pests” Miss Hawkings repeated slowly with a raised eyebrow then asked “how big does Lady Veronique think a scorpion is?”

  “About this much?” Veronique mimicked with her hands the length of what she thought one of the biggest ones could be, which was about the palm of her hand which being child sized wasn’t a lot.

  “Ah I can see where the confusion is coming from, but trust me when say you would never want to come face to face with a scorpion” the older woman had said then added with haste “but there is nothing to fear because our knights are keeping those at bay and far away from us”

  Veronique was about to push to know more, but realized Miss Hawkings had cut the conversation short because Rhea looked scared and had ended up holding on Veronique’s dress out of fear.

  Miss Hawkings’s Study

  In the same fashion of yesterday her hallucinations stayed outside, and Veronique had the feeling they made themselves scarce specifically when Miss Hawkings was near, it was a bit funny to think about it as if the old hag had scared them off.

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  “Today we will do an out of the norm lesson” she declared as soon as Veronique and Rhea took their spots, giving a pointed glance to the redhead

  “Out of the norm?” Rhea wondered out aloud

  “Yes, the Duke had requested it as he believes that it is important knowledge even for a noble, it shouldn’t take too much of our time since it’s quite a simple thing” Miss Hawkings said as she put come silver trinkets of various shapes on the table ranging from triangles, squares and circles of varying measures not bigger then the palm of a small hand.

  Going from the numbers etched on top Veronique supposed it must be this world’s currency

  “I will start with explaining the value of each” the old woman started “in a triangle shape we got 1 lum, 2 lums and 5 lums, those are the least valuable coins” then she moved to a new set of coins “then in squares 10 lums, 20 lums and 50 lums, as you can see the higher the value the bigger is the size of the coins” Veronique noted that the two sets of coins were the same size as compared by their least to most valuable coins “at last the most valuable of all are 1 Lorens and 2 Lorens” instead those two circular ones started at a bigger size, however there were four coins of 1 Lorens instead of just one.

  “Now what’s really interesting about those coins is the story behind them” Miss Hawkings made a show of turning each coin around showing the etched figures of animals in the back, the 1 Lorens coins had a variant with a different animal but in golden instead of full silver, however while most of the figures were of real existing animals the 50 lums and one of 1 Lorens were showing clear mythological creatures.

  A Cerberus and a Gryffon specifically, which as far as Veronique was aware didn’t actually exist…but then she remembered this wasn’t her world so anything could be possible.

  “each and every one of those is a celebration of our past starting from the least prestigious of the Circles all the way to the most important ones” Miss Hawkings explained

  “Is that our family crest?” Rhea pointed out to one of the 1 Lorens coins, depicting the silhouette of a Deer

  “Yes Lady Rhea, our family directly descends from one of the four noble families that watched over the Circles as whole” the woman confirmed with pride

  “What about this other ones?” Veronique asked grabbing the 1 lum coin and showing off the cat etched in the back

  “That’s the symbol of the 17th circle, the lowest of them all where the inept were sent” Miss Hawkings responded without missing a beat

  “Sent?” the redhead questioned for clarification

  “There was a strict selection in those old times, people were ranked based on their usefulness and mostly their skills” the older woman went in more detail about it “Quite a barbaric system if I must say as it wasn’t uncommon for families to be separated over it”

  “What do you mean from that?” Veronique didn’t quite understand

  “In simple terms someone of the 17th Circle wouldn’t be allowed to live in 9th” Miss Hawkings tried to clarify “They could still visit other Circles, but it was hard to do”

  “How so?” she asked curious…and as a way to stall for a little longer the boring etiquette lesson that was coming her way.

  “History is a bit nebulous on this point, but it was probably the stairs’s fault” Miss Hawkings had supposed

  “Stairs?” Veronique had been expecting something along the lines of an hard to obtain permit, not for the blame to fall something like stairs

  “Being the weakest it was probably impossible for them, even nowadays it is considered a feat to reach the top and back” the older woman elaborated on her statement.

  “Wait…how many stairs are we talking about?” Veronique was almost afraid to ask, but it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

  “Mh it’s hard to tell, it should be no less then 10 Km of stairs reaching an height of 76,5 meters from the lowest point and they aren’t even all at the same angle between the Circles 5th and 6th, 12th and 13th; and from 15th to 17th the stairs reach about a 60 degree incline” Miss Hawkings tried to estimate.

  Veronique’s eye twitched.

  Attempts at calculating the numbers of stairs were made, but I am hopelessly bad at math.But my failed attempt at making a 1-1 in Minecraft tells me it is a lot.

  My intended translation in Italian of lum and lums is lumo and lumi (basically light)

  Hanging Jaw - the Dead with the jaw just barely attached

  Little Drag - the Dead with just the top half that keeps dragging itself around Veronique in circles

  Handstand - another Dead with just the top half, but instead of dragging its body it walks on its hands.

  Clashing eyes - the Dead with the eyes danging from its orbits.

  The Decapitated Friends - two Dead that seem to be talking while holding on their own heads

  Disarmed - Dead who uses its own severed arm as a club, another of the same appeared.They started a mock sword battle using their own arms.