Overview
The Rapid-Learning Erudite is the tall, lean, deliberate shape of the scriptorium — long-limbed, narrow-waisted, with a face that is almost a question and a head that sits a little too high for the body, like a word that is waiting to be answered. It is the truest hand of the erudite line: the being that learns a skill in a day the way a human learns it in a season, and the learning is not a choice. There is no will in it beyond the record and no patience beyond the question, but the learning arrives anyway, and the learning is not a choice.
Habitat
It lives at The Scriptorium, a silent tower of paper and ink on the edge of the old world, where the ink is the only light and the oath the only law. It keeps the outer line, because that is where the question is newest and the learning earns its keep, and because an erudite that leaves the outer line is an erudite that has closed the page. The archivists keep the deep shelves, the scribes keep the middle lines, but the Rapid-Learning keeps the outer line and does not stop learning. It is settled on the tower, and the settling is the whole of the territory, because the record does not leave the shelf.
Appearance
A Rapid-Learning reads 1.70 m tall and carries 72 kg of lean, long flesh, built narrow across the shoulder and long through the neck. The skin is a pale, patient parchment-grey to a soft, clean white at the hair, with a faint, almost imperceptible warmth to the cheekbones. The mark is the network of fine, pale silver veins at the temples, which glow faintly when the being is learning a new skill — the glow is the whole of the warning, and the not-glowing is the whole of the peace. The eyes are large and a clear, pale silver-grey to a soft, deliberate white, and the not-blinking is the whole of the gaze.
Behaviour
It moves at 7.8 m/s across the shelf, deliberate, because the learning does not hurry and the being has nothing to do but take the skill. It does not hunt by the mouth; it hunts by the day — the skill is learned in a day the way a human learns it in a season, and the answer is taken the way a question is taken, line by line. When the question is new — a day before the ink is dry, never a moment after — the pale silver veins run bright and the being learns a degree harder, the way a hand holds a blade. It does not decay while the record holds, and the not-decaying is the whole of the healing.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The day is the whole of the weapon — a skill learned across the outer line that lands on the being and keeps the tower's faith for a lifetime. There is no strike beyond the day and no defense beyond the record: the skin is a pale, patient parchment-grey to a soft, clean white, as hard as the record that keeps it, and the pale silver veins hold the word the way the stone holds the debt. A Rapid-Learning that is harmed does not decay in the way the record does not recognize — the harm simply stops being a harm, and the stopping is the whole of the healing.
Magic Alignment
Its line belongs to divination, the record, the patient, precise holding of the question across the shelf. The Rapid-Learning carries the line's truest named inborn, Rapid-Learning — it learns a skill in a day the way a human learns it in a season, and the learning is not a choice. It also carries Mental-Resistance, the line's body, which is not a choice either, because an erudite whose mind was an open book would not be an erudite of the tower. Its signature power is the Scholar's Word: a word spoken in the old tongue, and the page will keep the word until the question is answered.
Society
There is no society in it, and the not-having is the whole of the shape. The erudites of the tower speak in parallel the way the record speaks — each one its own line, all of them the same oath. The archivists keep the deep shelves, the scribes keep the middle lines, and the outer line keep the learning, and the three have learned that a skill that is not learned in a day is a skill that is not a record, and the not-learning is the whole of the peace.
Culture & Lore
The record is the only honest conversation the tower has ever trusted, and the lore of the line is the record. An erudite that learns its skill a day past the season is an erudite that has kept the tower, and the keeping is the whole of its reputation. The pale silver veins are the mark the line keeps — the fine, deliberate glow that shows when the skill is learned — and a Rapid-Learning whose glow runs true is a being the tower will trust with the outer line. The The Forgotten are the only ones who have ever kept a question the tower had already forgotten, and the keeping is the whole of the legend.
Home
It lives at The Scriptorium, a silent tower of paper and ink on the edge of the old world, where the ink is the only light and the oath the only law. The being keeps the outer line, and the outer line is the whole of its home, because the home is the record and the record is the home. The The Forgotten do not come down the shelf, and the not-coming is the whole of the enmity. The tower gives the line its question, its quiet, its one honest conversation, and its one true hand, and the line keeps all four the way it keeps the word — until the record is done.
Relations
The The Forgotten are the neighbors at the shelf-line — the banished, the cast out, the ones the Old World would not keep — and the distance has held for two seasons, which is how the tower shares a shelf without sharing a word. Uaellaen of the camp is the only mortal the tower has learned to write about, and the writing is the whole of the bond — the camp is the page above the camp, the answer worth more than the question, and the page is the whole of the word.
In the Story
The six who arrived through the The Threshold never came up the tower, but the tower has been learning since the oaths were sworn below, and the outer line's erudites have been taking a day earlier than they should. This season an erudite came down the tower with a page that was not in the record — a page that is not in the ink, and the not-listing is the whole of the warning, because the scriptorium keeps its word, and the word has started to move. The Rapid-Learning takes the day the record is keeping, and the day is the whole of the story's edge.