Viki Luxe. Romantasci-fi. It's catchy.

Names have power! And the names in this story have meaning:

• Arista comes from Latin for ear of wheat
• Eurig comes from Latin through Welsh for gold
• Alaric is Gothic, meaning king/ruler of all
• Mortimer is a placename meaning dead or still water

Then we have the names Arista guesses:

• Johann, Wilhelm, Jacob: a nod to Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. (I threw in Johan for John Jacob… Jingleheimerschmidt.)
• Mephistopheles, Berith, Haagenti: Demons that can transmute metals
• Gwydion, Hermes, Loki: Trickster gods
• Puck, Goodfellows, Robin: Playful sprites
• Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frankincense, Gideon: A nod to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
• Avraham, Bullerskaft, Cvilidreta, Duende, Eiman, Gilitrutt: Avraham Shlonsky wrote a Rumpelstiltskin children’s play, and the rest are all other names for… Rumpelstiltskin!
• Yacob, Zair, Yasaf, Zaphnath: Random! I needed Y & Z!

Stuff will go here!

Rumpelstiltskin is actually one of the oldest and most universal tales. The concept of names having power is something seen in several cultures covering Ancient Egypt to Japan. Stories of a magical helper with a secret name are found in Europe and Asia wherein learning the creature’s name changes the power dynamic. “Barbarous” names of seeming gibberish have been found in magical spells, left scrambled or untranslated because of the power inherent in the name.

While we think of spells as rhyming invocations as from Shakespeare’s witches, most early spells came in the form of warped Latin or Greek mystic words. The most famous we have today is Abracadabra, used by 2nd Century Romans for curing fevers and asthma. Another, Ablanathanalba, was a protection against evil… and a really cool palindrome (considering TH as a single letter from the Greek Θ Theta). Spells were often repeated, losing a single letter each line:

ABLANATHANALBA
ABLANATHANALB
ABLANATHANAL
ABLANATHANA
ABLANATHAN
ABLANATHA
ABLANATH
ABLANAT
ABLANA
ABLAN
ABLA
ABL
AB
A

One oddity that has popped up, scribbled or etched in several locations (and yet to be fully-explained), is the SATOR square. The oldest occurrence is from Pompeii, between 50-79 AD. The original begins with ROTAS, wheels, and forms a square that can be read forwards and backwards:

R O T A S
O P E R A
T E N E T
A R E P O
S A T O R

Its translation is incomplete because Arepo isn’t a known word nor name, though it’s often translated as such. Usually, it’s translated along the following lines:

The farmer Arepo carefully works his wheels.

Aureo is Latin for gold, however, so, I just couldn’t help myself. The translation holds up as a transmutation spell.

Stuff will go here!