The First Day of the Quest

The two questers continued walking through early bluewall. The terrain they were traveling through was dry prairie with the tough grass growing between clumps of gravel scattered amid a ground of rock-hard clay. The fast-growing grass was the only thing that would grow on the prairie, with the exception of some small bushes on which grew an intensely sour fruit that would make up for lack of water and cause horrible mouth ulcers if eaten too often. Nearer the villages, some cultivation had been done with success, but it took a lot of patience and work to get it to happen on the scale that was necessary for the communities to thrive. There were waterholes scattered throughout the prairie and a couple of rivers that didn't run dry except for the driest of periods. The locations of these were the first thing every child learned as they started exploring the land for themselves.

It was drier and more desolate in the southern Spine Mountains and most travelers avoided that route. There were plenty of routes to either side of the mountains where plenty of water and other necessities could be found until the great forest began. Unfortunately, for the two questers, the beginning was the first route that followed the spine of the mountains. It didn't mean the quest would be a foregone conclusion, but it did mean that it would be more of a challenge. It also meant that the route would be considered the path less taken by a long shot.

As bluewall fell, the two were at the top of one of the smaller foothills that slowly grew towards the Spine Mountains. It was a place they were both familiar with, having explored the area for years in preparation for the quest they were now on. There was a small spring that trickled at the back of the well defined camping area, a fire ring, and a fairly level place for them to lie down that was cleared of most of the stones and rocks that were everywhere. They'd be in familiar territory for approximately another day before moving into unfamiliar lands the way they were going. While Wing tore up some of the fibrous grass and twisted it together for fuel, Growler did a wide sweep of the area to make sure there wasn't anything about. There normally wasn't danger this close to the village and none of the People were particularly territorial, but it was wise to be on the lookout, just in case. Wild animals weren't often found this far south except for the small hand-sized ones that lived in small holes and dens in the ground and fed on the grass, the fruit, or each other. Every now and then, a guaran would make it this far south and it was wise to be prepared for them. They were normally docile but were also unpredictable and could become irritated very easily.

This eve, nothing was found out of the ordinary, which meant no watch need be set, and Wing made a hot cereal type thing from spring water and a couple of handfuls of grain dumped into the boiling water. It wasn't the best tasting thing in the world, but it was nourishing and would keep the hunger at bay for a long time. Before they ate, they both said a prayer to their respective totems. Totems weren't really gods, but kept things organized and kept a watch for the main gods and the Serpent God. They also lent their particular strengths to their followers, but also their weaknesses as well. They also had the disconcerting habit of wandering among their followers, or so it was told. Although such events seemingly occurred on a regular basis, no one ever knew anyone whom that had happened to.

After finishing meals and clean-up, the two let the fire go out. Most of the People had incredible night vision, and these two were no exception. Some of the People who lived closest to the tail, in the wilds, were said to almost glow in the dark from all the magic in them. Again, no one who spread the tale seemed to have first hand knowledge of it.

“We did pretty good for the first day,” Wing said, yawning a little as he watched the twinkling lights play up in the night sky. The legends surrounding what they were and why they shone at night were rampant and whole belief systems had been built around a particular glow in the sky and the way it twinkled and how shadows passed in front of it and when it might or might not show up in the sky at night.

“We could have done better,” Growler said as he fretted on the pace they'd made the first day.

“Sure we could have,” Wing agreed. “We could have run all the way and then we'd have been who knows how many paces back as we collapsed. It's too early to worry about pace and remember what the Quest Chief said about getting things done too fast.”

“Yeah, well... We don't want to get caught in the mountains in Whitelight. I don't want to have to depend on help from the spirit realm if something happens. You know what might happen then.”

“Don't worry. Whitelight is a long way off and there's no telling what's going to happen between now and then.”

“That's what scares me.”

This brought a laugh from Wing. “I know it would take more than that to scare you and that you always worry about stuff you don't know. It wouldn't be much of an adventure if you knew everything that was going to happen.”

Growler agreed, even as he thought about some of the possibilities that might occur as the quest went forward. For a moment he felt overwhelmed about all the things that could happen and how little experience he'd had in dealing with anything. “Still, if we weren't supposed to succeed, we wouldn't have been chosen to the Beginning, right?” There was no answer. “Yeah, I know,” he said aloud to his sleeping companion. “If I don't get to sleep you'll be sure to wake me up in one of those ways.” He curled up and fell asleep.

Quest for the Beginning 1

Growler moved the pack on his back from side-to-side trying to find a place where it was comfortable. After a few minutes of manipulation, the rawhide straps found the indentations in his shoulders that he'd sworn had been created by numerous trips before this. He looked at his friend Wing who was equally burdened. They both held a spear and each had a sling to defend themselves with. The two exchanged nervous grins but didn't say anything as they waited for the Quest Chief to approach. It was the Year of Leaf and Sun and the beginning of both Yellowlight and Winged. The traditional time when boys went on a spiritual journey to become middings. If successful in their journey, they would be raised to partial adulthood and trained in the ways of the tribe until they felt confident enough to take the second step and achieve full adulthood and tribal membership. The two were standing on a raised platform in the center of the ceremonial circle. Their friends and family had gathered nearby but kept their distance as nothing was allowed to interfere. There was a hollow bong as Silverwall was struck. The Quest Chief approached the two boys who stood waiting. It was understood that they were no longer required to kneel when a tribal elder approached as they would have yesterday.

“Are you ready to begin the passage from leaf and sun to that of order?” the Quest Chief asked them. The question didn't signify how long the journey would take, there were tales of some taking years to complete their journey, but the passage from beginning to middle.

“As the Great Serpent requires, we shall obey,” Growler and Wing responded, giving the ritualistic response. It was one sentence, but probably the most important they would utter for the year. If either hadn't repeated it verbatim, it would have been considered a sign that the Great Serpent felt the prospects lacking and the quest would have ended before it even began. Those who failed the quest were not outcasts, it was simply accepted that they were better suited for the more menial tasks. It was a system that wasn't questioned nor had anyone ever expressed dissatisfaction with it. At least not publicly.

“So may it start,” the Quest Chief declared. Around his neck, he wore a leather cord that had a small pouch tied to it. He untied the pouch, shook it vigorously causing the contents to rattle, and then dumped them out on the ground in front of him. Seven small bones bounced as they hit the ground and then fell to earth. Six of the bones were dirty white. The seventh had been dyed a dark yellow, befitting the season. This was the way in which the direction of the journey was determined, the travel being in the direction that the yellow bone lay from the majority of the white ones. Through magic, design, or something else, the white ones always stayed together while the yellow one would bounce about six inches away in one direction or another. Growler felt a surge of excitement as he saw that the yellow bone piece had landed in the direction of Sluggard's head. The Quest Chief murmured as he examined the pieces. “An interesting choice,” he said to himself as he placed the bone pieces back into the sack and replaced it on the leather cord. “To the beginning,” he bellowed, letting those around the platform know where the two where headed. There was a stir from those gathered on hearing the news. It was extremely rare for a quest to be directed towards the head and many wondered if this might be foretelling something that would affect everyone. Comments and opinions were traded as those gathered dispersed from the ceremonial circle. No one would see the boys leave to lessen the chance of any interference. Yesterday had been the time for goodbyes and preparations for the journey. The only one to see them off would be the Quest Chief.

The three walked to the edge of the city, studiously ignored by anyone who happened to cross their path. Once at the outskirts, the Quest Chief stopped and regarded them. “It has been scranthor triannum since a quest went in the direction you are to take. An indication that your journey will be of great importance to the village, the tribe and even the People. You will return, if return you do, with something of great importance. What that will be is unknown. It may be thought, idea, spirit, magic, or wonder. Be quick but not abrupt as the importance will no doubt be of a subtle nature and will require effort to determine what it is. Be also cautious that you not end too early thinking that something which shines may be what you seek when over the next hill there may be something that would dim its light with its own brilliance.” Without waiting for a response, the man turned and walked back towards the village center. Wing and Growler looked at each other a moment, before sprinting forward as if afraid that the whole thing might be taken away at any moment. Neither said a word until the first hill was between themselves and the village.

“Beginning,” Wing said, slapping Growler on the back. “How'd we end up lucky as that?”

“What makes you think it was luck when you have a shaper with you?” Growler asked, trying to be mysterious and failing in his excitement. “I couldn't believe it when I saw it.”

“Neither could anyone else,” Wing exclaimed. “This journey will be talked about long after we're with the hills again.”

“Hopefully it'll be told because something excellent happened and not because we mucked it up so bad we managed to wipe out half the People.”

“Are you kidding? Look at that sky. How could the beginning of disaster start with a sky that yellow and with an omen like that?” Wing pointed up into the sky and Growler looked, following the direction of his finger. There was an outline of what looked like bird wings or faery wings in the sky. The outline was close to being transparent and unless you were looking right at it, would be easy to dismiss as nothing at all. In another week, though, the images would grow firmer and darker and the motion of wings flapping or moving would be readily apparent.

“Yeah, have to admit you're right about that,” Growler said after watching the sky for a bit. “You hardly ever see Shape the first day of the season. Maybe this whole thing is a foretelling. Wish I knew what it was saying. It could be that we're going to have to get serious about things.”

“Or it could be that you're thinking too much as usual. Right now the only thing we should be worrying about is how far we can get before bluewall. They say the farther away you get the first day, the more successful the quest.”

“Yeah, but you never heard it said by anyone who actually did it, do you? Last one to the top of the next hill has to do fix dinner,” Growler added with a laugh, starting to run.

The Migrant - 1

The indigo light of noon suffused the city of AzureEye. Red inlays all over the city darkened to full black in the rich blue light. It was the middle of the day, but the colour made Caidrun feel sleepy: on the Inward side of the Spine Range, the light did not turn this color until midnight, and noon was a brilliant silver, charged with energy. He grasped the leather loop to hold himself steady (all around him, other passengers did the same) as the tram paused and its head lurched upward, treads seeking purchase atop the next level of the city wall like a caterpillar climbing onto a leaf.

Steam hissed. Bolts rattled. Treads clanked. AzureEye was both darker and noisier than his home city. Here, steam-trams could be seen rising up to make arcs over crowded streets and even rows of houses in order to get to their next stop. They looked like sea monsters, or maybe Sluggard himself, in his dancing days.

Caidrun had migrated across the Spine Range, from Inward to the Edge several months ago. A new city, a fresh start. He’d gone from one large city to another: They were known as the Eyes of Sluggard, one on either side of the Spine. He still missed the bright green light that greeted each morning in the electrically-charged SilverEye. In AzureEye, Greengem was not until evening, and was more of a greenish haze beyond the Spine than a true illumination of the air.

While growing up in SilverEye he had never noticed the way the colours affected every aspect of life, from clothing to architecture to popular euphemisms. The light might just as well have been the colour of water, for all he’d taken it for granted.

Suddenly every shift in the serpent’s spin, every reflection off a different gem-wall, was vividly apparent. Caidrun supposed he should thank his migration for that.

The tram finished its arc and ground to a halt. Caidrun counted his fare from his remaining few coins, clattered down the thin metal steps and onto the curb. Steam swirled his dress coat as the tram took off. Caidrun readjusted his coat. Most people in AzureEye wore heavy buttons on their sleeve-cuffs and hems for exactly this reason; especially ladies.

Caidrun appreciated the practicality of this particular fashion, but needed a job before he spent any money on clothes. Contrary to the doggedly cheery missives he’d penned to his sister, he needed a job before he spent much more on anything. This afternoon he was on his way to an interview. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment with a few sentences and a rudimentary map in 3 pieces, each denoting a level of AzureEye. It was quite a hike from the tram-stop to his interview, but the heavy boots with thick soles that had served to ground out current in SilverEye were up to the challenge. Crumbling masonry and steep, leaning stairways were no problem. Caidrun resisted the temptation to splash in long puddles showing jagged reflections of the Cavern roof, unimaginably high above.

His destination proved to be a two-storey building that backed up to one of AzureEye’s many city walls. The place looked more like a home than a business. There were shutters beside the windows, and the eaves were trimmed with wood carved in fussy shapes. Someone had painted these red, but that had been years ago and they no longer turned black in the indigo light. Caidrun took a deep breath. He tried to survey his reflection one last time in the window before knocking, but a large man in uniform abruptly appeared in the window. The bowl of his pipe glowed bright orange, then he disappeared for a few seconds before flinging open the front door and demanding to know what Caidrun wanted.

A Myth; one of many that were told

(Some music to go with it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR-CeSjg2aY&NR=1 )

Sluggard, in his younger days, lived alone in the great cavern of the sky, above the limitless sea. But, finding no giant serpents like himself to talk to, he became lonely.

Now, all was dark except for the dimmest glow from the algae swarming down in the endless sea at the bottom of the cavern. He flew down into the sea, the dark waters cascading over his long body and swallowing him. He searched about, the lights around him swimming and swirling away as he moved. Some of the algae clung to his scales, making them green and verdant; but he found nobody. For a time he simply hovered through the glowing gloom... until he desired to come up for air.

He flew up out of the waters and, having searched the endless sea, he made his way to the very top of the cavern. The air became cool and thin and the skywalls were very dark, except for glints of silvermetal and gems, barely glinting in the blue-green light. Feeling his way higher, he scraped his back against the domed roof. Rocks crumbled onto his back and flecks of precious ore fell among them, such that his spine became hard and craggy. But in the high realms ether, there was nobody. So he flew down to the middle cavern where he had begun.

He spent long years in broody longing, searching along the pleasant winds of the central cavern. But its immense space and depth held no others... only himself. Finally, he could stand it no longer.

In a fit of rage and sorrow, he flew to the height of the skywalls and rolled about to face the opposite side. Summoning all his sped and power, Sluggard aimed his head at where the blue wall meets the brown, just above the sea. With a roar of longing that set the endless waters to shivering with fear, he uncoiled his body and flew with all his speed toward the wall.

It was long hours to build up speed... but Sluggard pushed himself faster and faster... seeing nothing ahead of him but dancing lights as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Finally, he felt the thunderous blow as he struck the wall.

And such was the force of the impact that he cracked in the very sky open, which poured out brilliant light into the cavern, causing all gems and metals to leap to life with brightness.

The light rebounded off the waves of the endless sea, which rolled with immense waves from Sluggard's exit. The patterns of the waves were written across the skywalls in fine yellowlight tracery.

Through the crack in the sky, Sluggard broke free and out into the celestial realm... where he found every kind of god and demiurge and djin. They all danced with wild colours and wilder shapes. The kaleidescope of movement was of incomprehensible beauty to the giant world serpentl and he unfurled his body into the deathless light.

Some say he went mad from it and fled back into the cavern to eat his own tale and kill himself.

Some say the sights were of such delight to him that he withdrew to bite his own tail to assure himself that he was not dreaming.

Some say that Sluggard, after a hearty triannum of dancing with all the gods, went back to the cavern to sleep... and bit his tale in a dream.

We only know that he came back to his home. And that now he sleeps... tail in his mouth. But the light of the celestial realm remained streaming through the crack in the sky, lighting the world as had never before been seen.  The dark sea became alive with colour, blazing gold and white along its massive crests, becoming a pool of liquid light.  The ribboning reflections rolled across the cavern roof, painting it with bright lines.  They caught gems and striations of metals and made them flash in the darkness.  The colours of the walls were brightly illuminated, blue to brown to pale grey.  The light itself changed too, as the gods danced their mysterious dances, casting different colours in different seasons.  


At times the celestrial creatures would pass between the lightsource and the crack in the wall, their giant shadows marching with gargantuan slowness across the walls.  Their shapes were hard to grasp... suggestions of wings, horns, or dancing limbs.  These shadows, too, had their due time and season, wafting through the etherial light that never ceases to shine.

It is said that light carries with it the magics of the outer world.

Some of the magics and lesser spirits of the celestial realm came into the cavern on Sluggard's back. There were fire gods who made the mountains burn. There were water gods and made seas and lakes, rivers and rains. There were city gods who made the first dwellings and artifices. But after these large coherent forms took shape on Sluggard's back, there was still much left over.

The rest was the rawest stuff of light and spirit, that roiled inside and outside of Sluggard, yearning to take shape.

As Sluggard dreamed, his dreams gave these energies forms and names. His mind gave them ideas and perceptions; they became creatures like himself, possessed of matter but toached by spirit.

And so the children of Sluggard were born all down his back. All peoples and races of all shapes and colours. Elves, dwarves, humans... nagas, centaurs, and nymphs, stickfellows and guptas and varieties of intelligence even stranger: thinking cities, sentient beehives, roaming boulders. All living things' destinies were forever to be interwoven with the light, still shining through the crack Sluggard had made, and the snake himself, still dreaming. They were given bodies from the glowing algae of the sea and the toughest rock of the roof. They sprung up from Sluggard's dream and walked the wide and varied landscapes.

Some say that the ones born nearest to Sluggard's head were born first. These were the most coherent of form, and retained the least residue of their light-stuff origins. Such children of the head were apt of hand and keen to build, inventing fantastic machines for themselves.

Those born nearest the tail were born last and were said to be the the wildest and most magical; still half-connected to the light around them and not fully crossed over from the dream world to the cavern. These see the light as alive and can tend it or shape it themselves through dreams and words.

Those born all along the middle mixed these traits: some loving magic, some loving craft, and many mixing the two. If a man were to start walking from a youth, he would die of old age before he saw even a quarter of the serpent's back: and he would have lead a life full of remarkable adventures with peoples and in places one could never find anywhere else along the way. Each land of the serpent is utterly unique.

So we can conclude that Sluggard has dreamed innumerable dream... and that he has not yet exhausted the visions he gained in the celestial realm. We can also safely assume that he has been dreaming a very long time.

–A creation myth of a lost human tribe, from the library of the Philosopher's City, as recorded by Maegil the Blue, Historian.

Time and Seasons

The hours of day and night

Sky colour corresponds to the eight sections of the sky, each has various gems and striations. The lightsource shines through the crack in the sky, meaning it is always in the same position relative to the other parts of the wall. So someone at edgenoon looking towards the crack could turn 180 degrees and look over the spine mountains at the distant silverwall.

Eighths (Sky Colour) (3.775 terrestrial hours)	Edge Day/Night	Inward Day/Night	Halfs (About 13.5 terrestrial hours)	Spins (About 27 terrestrial hours)
Bluewall	Dawn	Dusk	EdgeDay Inward Night	One complete rotation
Dark Bluewall	Morning	Evening
Crack of Noon	Noon	Midnight
Dark Brownwall	Afternoon	Predawn
Brownwall	Dusk	Dawn	Edgenight Inward Day (About 13.5 terrestrial hours)
Greengem	Evening	Morning
Silverwall	Midnight	Noon
Bluegem	Predawn	Afternoon

The Seasons of light and shadow

The Lightseasons indicate the general colour of the Source, with minor variations. The whole universe is shaded with whatever colour the Source is, and the wall gems sparkle differently in different seasons. Shapeseasons indicate the kind of shadows that sweep over the world as some god or astral artifact passes between the Source and the serpent. Their shapes are more visible on the silverwall than anywhere on Sluggard.

Week:8days

Year:10weeks

Year of the leaf and sun

Year of Order

Year of Freedom

Lightseasons

Greenlight

Yellowlight

Whitelight

Redlight

Bluelight

Shapeseasons

Waving reeds

Winged

Glow Mists

Spikes

Purple Dancers

Triannum

One complete cycle: 3 years; ~1 shapeloop, ~1 lightloop;  30 weeks; 240 days

Greenlight is the warmest part of the cycle, and when most plants blossom

Yellowlight is cooler, and a time of growing

Whitelight is the least warm, but snow is rare except nearer the mountains; also the time of harvest

Redlight is strongly associated with life and death, and fires often clear out old growth

Bluelight is a gradual warming up, and a time of rest and hibernation

The Basics