Sharp stones dug into Adria's feet, biting through the leather soles of her boots as she navigated her way across the mountain range. She stumbled and caught herself on a jagged outcropping of rock, tearing a deep gash in her hand.

"Damn!" she shouted, irritated that she now had no choice but to stop deal with the damage.

She was distracted, still seething from her encounter in the market, and not paying attention; a dangerous combination for one navigating the treacherous Scian Mountain range.

As she cleaned her wound, her mind wandered and she found herself thinking, again, about how persistent Sorlan could be. It was, in fact, quite irritating.

Love was not an emotion that was prevalent in her village. It was considered much more important to marry a wealthy man to provide for one's future family; than to marry someone for love. Adria however, was very well off herself and had no intention of marrying Sorlan or anyone else who she did not care for.

She was in a unique position for a woman in her village. Able to provide well for herself, she could afford to be picky when it came to choosing whom to share her life with. Many of the village elders found this to be an unattractive quality, and thought she should consider herself lucky that a man of Sorlan's status would want to marry her.

. His family were horse farmers and he stood to inherit the land, livestock, and wealth when his parents became too old to tend to it themselves. She didn't consider herself lucky at all, just the opposite; she was plagued by Sorlan's imposing presence on an almost daily basis. Which was a shame really, otherwise he could have been quite good company.

She finished cleaning and binding her wound and headed deeper into the cavernous mountains. On her frequent visits here with her father she had discovered a few large concentrations of gems and precious stones that were not too far into the caves. She returned to these same places often as an adult to mine the stones and was confident in her ability to defend herself, should anything occur; though in all her life nothing ever had.

Lost in thought about Sorlan however— and their encounter with Morai in the market—she had accidentally wandered further south than ever before. She cursed her innattention and looked around, trying to get her bearings. She did not recognize any of the surrounding rock faces. She looked to the north and saw in the distance the entrance to the caves she usually frequented. She sighed in relief and began to make her way back to them, angry thoughts about Sorlan drifting through her brain as she forced herself to concentrate on her footing.

As she carefully navigated her way north, she noticed a large cave leading almost all the way through the mountains to the other side. As far as she knew no one from Alskiia had ever ventured to the other side of the Scians. Hardly anyone ever even came out here, Adria and her father were the only two in her generation that she knew of.

Curiosity burned in her as she peered into the cave. Legends were passed down like fairy tales in the village of monsters, demons and all manner of malicious creatures inhabiting these caves. Although Adria had never encountered so much as a bear, or mountain lion; she could not help the feeling of fear bubbling up inside her. For all her defiance of the elders in the village she had been raised by them and the same stories were ingrained in her psyche along with everyone else.

After a few more minutes of internal deliberation she couldn't take it anymore and began to pick her way along the rocks toward the mouth of the cave. Once she reached the entrance she realized that the cave didn't just appear to go all the way through the mountains— it did go all the way through— to a valley on the other side. Grass and trees swayed gently in the wind and for a moment she thought she heard the babbling of a stream. The Tonai River, which enclosed the village at its north side, continued on to cut through the mountains in the east and now she wondered if it went all the way around them.

Slowly she headed into the cave, her entire body on high alert. Her senses were in overdrive waiting for something to jump out at her, or come wandering in from the other side. Who knew what could possibly be over there she wondered, if no one had ever seen it. As tense as she was, Adria jumped over a foot in the air when a strange crunching noise came from beneath her feet.

She stepped back and looked down, searching for the source of the noise. Directly beneath where her right foot had just been planted was a sheet of...something. It was a material Adria had never seen before.

Flat and crinkled in places, it looked as though it had been white at one time, but yellowed with age. It was rectangular and torn at the edges. She crouched down to get a closer look; one corner was caught under a large rock. That explained why it hadn't blown away, as it looked very fragile. It kind of looked like parchment, but it wasn't made of animal hide and was impossibly thin.

Upon further inspection she realized there were symbols of some sort on it. It looked like writing but not in any language Adria recognized. Carefully, and trying to be as gentle as possible she pried the material out from under the rock; in the process a small amount of the corner that had been trapped tore away. She stood held it up close to her face, trying to make out the fading symbols.

Perplexed, she continued to study the symbols for quite a while. They seemed to be arranged in groups, possibly words. Though they were in an alphabet she had never seen.

There was very little recorded history in Alskiia, only the brightest of the population knew how to read and write. Her father had been among them. Most of their history was passed through the generations by word of mouth. It was not a useful skill to have, as there were no professions requiring a person to be able to write.

Adria herself had seen a few written documents in her life, most of which were contained within the tiny archives hut, and she was able to read a limited vocabulary of words. Though she had never seen anything like these symbols, nor had she ever seen anything like this material.

What very little written history there was among the Alskiians was recorded on dried, stretched animal skins; or on very thin bark peeled from the trees in the wet season and meticulously dried before being used. Yet another reason that writing was so scarce in the village, it was more trouble than it was worth.

A noise startled her and she looked quickly around, the muscles of her body coiled tight waiting for an attack. She saw no one, but was astonished to realize that outside the cave the suns were beginning to set.

She cursed herself for being so distracted— for the second time that day— and began making her way back out of the cave. She decided to give up for the day and come out again tomorrow to mine for stones. As comfortable as she could be in the mountain range, it was foolish even for her to stay out after sunset.

She still held the strange material in her hand, As she cleared the mouth of the cave and headed back west toward the village; she wondered what she would do with it. Maybe she could show it to Morai, who was one of the oldest men in the village, he might be able to help her make sense out of it.

Though she was not terribly eager to see him again so soon, he was one of the few village elders she got along with— relatively speaking-- and she was dying to find out what the symbols meant.

She approached the village and glanced quickly around to make sure that there was no one out to see her approach. For some reason that she couldn't explain, she wasn't quite ready to share her amazing discovery with the whole village just yet.