Knowledge was precious to nagas. They lived short lives but ones not selfish to one another; nagas always passed down their knowledge. They’d teach one another, the best of nagas passing on the best they know to make the next generation even better, smarter, more skilled. They were efficient, even in learning.
Shared knowledge and efficiency were not traits the rest of the world seemed to share with the nagas.
These people kept their knowledge in books. Much of what you wanted to learn required reading material, and yet they were uncommon items. Carefully made. Detailed, clearly, but also most certainly unnecessarily ornate.
And Suchus needed them. He couldn’t even understand the local alphabet, but that was a bridge he’d have to cross when he got there; he needed books. Simply slithering around, expecting a nagish-speaking teacher to jump into his arms was unreasonable. Yet, at the same time, it was also impossible to just slide into a mainland town and take the books as he pleased. What stood before this naga was a challenge, but not one that Suchus hesitated to take on.
It took time by itself to figure out who even had books. Not just anyone in Allir Reach did. He’d checked peasant homes while they were working fields and found very little. The impoverished did not collect them. Anything the poor lacked, one could assume the rich had, but Suchus wasn’t foolish enough to expect a large manor to ever be so desolate as to facilitate him slinking in order to rifle through their stuff.
Eventually, Suchus found a town that had a building that proudly displayed a wooden board with a carved picture on it; a carving of a book! A book vault, a library, a store, Suchus didn’t really care which, but there were books THERE! Yet while the town was small enough for Suchus to scope out a few buildings, it was never so sparsely populated that Suchus could do anything more than spy from afar, among the thick foliage.
The obvious solution was to stalk those who did get books from this place. Some of them would leave town, some of them lived in nice homes too--but out on the road, they were much, much more vulnerable.
If he mostly took books, Suchus assumed the robbed wouldn’t bother putting up much of a fight. They could keep their lives and their gold. If a few carriages or horses were broken in the process, if a few humans were scratched or smacked, then surely that was negligible.
And so, Suchus began his first horde of books.
Hidden beyond brambles and poison ivy, where Suchus had not seen a single bootprint prior to his arrival, the books were collected and covered by a few purloined canvases and coats. Suchus plucked a few books from a recently made pile and very quickly thumbed through the pages.
He couldn’t read a lick of it, but sometimes these people put pictures in them. It was enough to figure out if the book was a bestiary, religious text, or wordy and useless. A quick look and he had to conclude he had yet again found no book on local herbs.
Suchus gave a frustrated growl to himself before hiding his stolen goods back under the canvas. The naga then yanked a dark-colored coat over his head before slithering out from his little grove. There were still a few hours before nightfall. Perhaps he could find another lone carriage to pilfer.
Shared knowledge and efficiency were not traits the rest of the world seemed to share with the nagas.
These people kept their knowledge in books. Much of what you wanted to learn required reading material, and yet they were uncommon items. Carefully made. Detailed, clearly, but also most certainly unnecessarily ornate.
And Suchus needed them. He couldn’t even understand the local alphabet, but that was a bridge he’d have to cross when he got there; he needed books. Simply slithering around, expecting a nagish-speaking teacher to jump into his arms was unreasonable. Yet, at the same time, it was also impossible to just slide into a mainland town and take the books as he pleased. What stood before this naga was a challenge, but not one that Suchus hesitated to take on.
It took time by itself to figure out who even had books. Not just anyone in Allir Reach did. He’d checked peasant homes while they were working fields and found very little. The impoverished did not collect them. Anything the poor lacked, one could assume the rich had, but Suchus wasn’t foolish enough to expect a large manor to ever be so desolate as to facilitate him slinking in order to rifle through their stuff.
Eventually, Suchus found a town that had a building that proudly displayed a wooden board with a carved picture on it; a carving of a book! A book vault, a library, a store, Suchus didn’t really care which, but there were books THERE! Yet while the town was small enough for Suchus to scope out a few buildings, it was never so sparsely populated that Suchus could do anything more than spy from afar, among the thick foliage.
The obvious solution was to stalk those who did get books from this place. Some of them would leave town, some of them lived in nice homes too--but out on the road, they were much, much more vulnerable.
If he mostly took books, Suchus assumed the robbed wouldn’t bother putting up much of a fight. They could keep their lives and their gold. If a few carriages or horses were broken in the process, if a few humans were scratched or smacked, then surely that was negligible.
And so, Suchus began his first horde of books.
Hidden beyond brambles and poison ivy, where Suchus had not seen a single bootprint prior to his arrival, the books were collected and covered by a few purloined canvases and coats. Suchus plucked a few books from a recently made pile and very quickly thumbed through the pages.
He couldn’t read a lick of it, but sometimes these people put pictures in them. It was enough to figure out if the book was a bestiary, religious text, or wordy and useless. A quick look and he had to conclude he had yet again found no book on local herbs.
Suchus gave a frustrated growl to himself before hiding his stolen goods back under the canvas. The naga then yanked a dark-colored coat over his head before slithering out from his little grove. There were still a few hours before nightfall. Perhaps he could find another lone carriage to pilfer.
