The evening was creeping up outside once more, washing the light away and making her want to curl into bed and sleep for a thousand years. She couldn't though. Not tonight. She had work to do. Sophia curled her fingers around her pencil, doodled a small face that ended up looking more like an ugly beaver, then tossing pad and all onto the floor.

She just couldn't think right now. She had been trying to write at least a few more pages of her next novel, but her creativity was so blocked that she could barely see out. Bills were piling up, and the work she did for the University though passionate to her, barely gave her enough to eek by on. So during the day time hours she made her living as a historical scholar, nose always buried in old books. The older the better (the smell of antique books always was an opiate to her). At night, she wrote whatever her little nickel-dime publisher thought would make a couple bucks for them (and even less for her as she found out). The whole set-up was actually quite amusing to her. She would go from interpreting antique texts (she had always had an affinity with many different languages) to sitting at home trying to blast out more of "The Dark Stranger", the next in her series of hideously hokey romance/detective/blatant pulp short stories.

At least these were better then the last series that she was "encouraged" to write centered around three lesbian vampires with a fondness for hanging out at Goth clubs and gossiping over cups of blood. Sophia was the first to admit it, she had completely whored herself out. This is why she never used her real name, but used the facade of Candice Kane. Yes, she new it was an utterly stupid name. That is why she liked it. Anything she could do to keep herself separated from the work. A sense of denial to keep her self respect intact as much as possible. One day she would write the stories she wanted to: stories of history and drama, of witty banter and serious ponderings. Until then, she'll just have to do what needed to be done to get by.

Sophia looked over at the book that Dan had given her. She had wanted to take it all in from the second he gave it to her, but she promised herself to get more of this damn story done. It wasn't working and she knew it. Finally giving up all together, she made her way towards the small wooden table beside her bed (her small bedroom just so happened to also be her office as well (Ah, the life of luxury!!!))

The book was laying there. Its cover tattered with age, its musty smell surrounding the area making her slightly enamored. If this really held some pertinent insight into the elusive writings of Palladus (which she prayed it was) then she was indeed in for a rather sleepless night hunkered over the old tome. Picking it up firmly yet gently, she brought it over to the desk and layed it down. There were so many questions filling her mind, and hopefully some answers lurked hidden somewhere within these inked pages. The page referenced by the Palladus Prose was definitely older from the rest of the book although it may have easily slipped by anyone without her trained eye. It was obvious that the contents of the page were much different in style from anything else within the book. Then again, it was different than anything she had ever had the honor to study before.

The only way she could start examining the page is to try to break it down into sections. It was so crammed with word and unknown sign and script that there was no other way to go about it. The page reminded her of a puzzle (no, a maze) that had been structured with a quill. Different levels overlapping others, yet each with its own story. It almost seemed as if someone tried to write the history of the world onto a single page and after running out of room, filling in any space left, cramming everything in so tight that it almost seemed that the entire page consisted of the greenish tint ink.

It was confusing, almost manic to look at, and for some strange reason it gave her an unsettling feeling in her stomach. The first thing she notice was that the page had originally started out set-up in a typical style (possibly read left to right with a discernable sentence and paragraph construction). It was written in a rather skilled stroke. The undulations of thick and thin variations within letterforms quite pleasing to the eye and flowing with a lovely slant. The language wasn't quite known to her from first glance, but for now her focus was on form, this would come later.

Upon studying the rest of the page, she could see some distinctive qualities within the writing that told her the same author wrote all within the page. The only thing strange was the way the form of the writing started breaking down (sometimes into almost indistinguishable marks). While the original lines were thought out and careful, the other jumbled passages on the sides were more haphazard and sloppy. Once those were filled in, even more passages were stuffed into the puzzle of words. The writing even more lacking in detail and having a quality of jittering anxiety (almost felt as if the words could jump off the page and run for their lives). All this, and she had not even got around to the odd symbols and possible number configurations and bizarre formulae that ran between every crevice and nook possibly left by the already three or four layers of compounded information. Sophia's head swam for a second and she had to look away. The Tylenol was downstairs and she knew she would need a healthy dose before the night was out. This was where she knew that her journey into trying to decipher this madness would have to commence. It was difficult, trying to disregard all else and trying just to focus (and pick out from so much overlap) on this first sectional. She found her reading glasses, propped them towards the tip of her nose, and opened her mind up to all the pieces before her.