((Woo hoo, 1200th post! Sorry I've been gone for a while. I was in a possessed mood, but I was lacking Inspiration. Lucky, we got a shipment from the last caravan. It's still isn't finished, but I'm on a roll, so it should be done by the end of the day.))
Turn 39:
Leef walked into the clearing which housed his family’s nest and cookfire. His mother was there, working on the stew that was to be that night’s supper. It was a combination of tomatoes, potatoes, celery, carrots, a veritable slew of spices, and a little bit of rabbit meat. Leef wasn’t particularly fond of rabbit, but the spices usually covered up the taste, so his mother declined to tell him what type of meat it was, and Leef remained blissfully unaware that his stew had something he disliked in it. But it wasn’t Leef’s eating habits which his mother worried about when she saw her son; it was his appearance. Leef was coated, head to hoof, in splotches of what looked to be blood. As any good mother should, she panicked. Dropping the knife and the carrots she was peeling, she ran over to her son, franticly asking, “Are you hurt? Where are you bleeding?”
Leef giggled and replied, “It’s not mine, Mom.”
Somewhat relived, his mother was still rather anxious. “What in the world have you been doing?”
Leef’s smile broadened, “Riet was teaching us how to make things get better. There was a sheep that got attacked by a wolf, and the herder went and told Riet. So we all got to go to the field where the sheep was. When we got there, the sheep was covered in blood and it kept on bleeding, so Riet told me to go and make it better. And I did! It stopped bleeding and the herder said it would be able to walk in a few days.”
At the short summery of her son’s exploits, Leef’s mother began to smile with pride. “You did a good job. I bet the herder and the sheep were very thankful.”
“They sure were! The herder said if I ever needed anything, he would be glad to help, and the sheep started whining when I started to go away.”
Laughing softly and wiping away her son’s blood-matted hair, she commented, “You need a bath.”
Leef scowled at this, and sullenly replied, “I don’t wanna.”
“Doesn’t matter if you want one, you need one. You look like one of those zombies from Adem’s scary stories.” Seeing his face brighten at such a suggestion, she reminded him, “That’s not a good thing.” She turned him around and pushed him towards the nearby stream. “Now go on and wash up; if you hurry, you can help me with dinner.”
Leef grudgingly trudged off towards the stream, comforting himself with the fact that, if he couldn’t be a zombie, he could at least be a giant carp. His mother sighed; whatever was she going to do with that child? Sometimes he seemed so bright, and other times he acted like he was three years old. Wondering at what her husband would say should she suggest they have another, she picked up the knife she had dropped, wiped it off, and began peeling again.
Leef returned about a half hour later, willing to help his mother with the daily cooking. She set him to work, stirring the pot to make sure the stew didn’t burn. Leef attacked his task with a vengeance, and some of the broth started sloshing out of the pot. His mother quickly noticed this, and mentioned, “You know, I had to haul the water for that broth all the way from the stream. It was quite a task, just me and this big old pot. And then I spent a full hour getting it to where it is now, and you’re just casually letting such an effort go to waste.” Leef’s face reddened, and, duly chastised for such a waste of food, he slowed his pace down to a more reasonable level. His mother smiled. “That’s better.”
As he stirred, Leef began to think about what had happened to the sheep. “Mom,” he asked, “why did the wolf attack the sheep?”
His mother thought about the question for a moment, and then responded simply, “Because it was hungry.”
Leef, however, refused to be put off by such a simple answer. “Then why did the herder stop it?”
“Because the herder wanted to protect his sheep.”
“So was the wolf being bad?”
“No, the wolf was just doing what wolves do.”
“So the herder was being bad.”
“No, the herder was doing what herders do.”
“But the herder and the wolf were fighting. Doesn’t one of them have to be the bad guy?”
Leef’s mother smiled at her son’s innocence. “Whenever there is a fight, each side likes to think that the other is a bad guy. And sometimes one of them is right. But other times, they are both wrong, and no one is the bad guy. It’s really hard to tell. You just have to go with what your heart tells you.”
Leef thought about this for a moment. “But what should you do if there is no bad guy?”
“Sometimes, it’s just best to do what you did: wait for the fight to be over, and heal everyone who is hurt.”
~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~
It was the night of Dronkenacht. All the Ipetian people were gathered together at Wijnfontein to celebrate the finishing of the temple. Only a skeleton crew of scouts was left to patrol the border. Those from Buigend Reit had traveled long and far to see such a sight. It had taken the better part of a season to gather them all, but it was well worth it. This was to be the finest moment in Ipetian history. The symbol of their achievement, the temple, was undoubtedly the grandest thing Ipetians had ever built. It was over a hundred meters in diameter, with over two hundred monoliths towering over the people. At its center was the winespring, which was now bubbling at a fevered pitch. It was surrounded by three concentric rings of stones which rose five meters into the air. Every pair of monoliths supported a third which rested sideways upon them. The last stone was to be above the entrance.
While many of the other stones were erected using a complex system of pulleys provided by the Roshani, the last was to be hauled up a long dirt ramp to its final resting place in the traditional Ipetian manner. A sledge and wooden rollers would be used until the final moments, when the rock would have to be slid across the ground and onto its sister stones. Literally hundreds of Ipetians would be needed for this work, but there was no shortage of volunteers.
Riet stood in front of all the people, volunteers at the ropes, with everyone else arrayed to watch the spectacle. He was on a small hill, and, in view of the crowd, began to give a speech. “My people, tonight will be our greatest night on this earth. Tonight, we finish that which we began over six years ago, the Great Temple of Fenneth!” Cheers followed, but the crowd quickly quieted as Riet continued to speak. “Fenneth provided us with this glorious winespring, so that all the people could come together in joy and peace. And now, we fulfill his request; that we will always remember who we are, where we came from, and who has led us to this land of plenty!” The crowd began chanting the god’s name, and Riet let them continue for a while. When he sensed that the chanting was growing into a fevered pitch, he shouted above the voices, “So now, let us complete this temple, all of us, together; so that we may all say, ‘This is our temple. We built it with our own hands, and it shall never fall!’”
The crowd cheered franticly, and with a great heave, the stone began to move. All the ropes were as taunt as bowstrings, with dozens of Ipetians on each. Leef and his parents were at the front of their rope, pulling together in unison. They could feel the shudder of the stone as it moved along its rollers. They could hear the groaning and creaking as the logs felt the weight of the stone falling heavily upon them. Suddenly, a nearby Ipetian slipped, and a cloud of dust sprang up into Leef’s face. He dropped the rope, and clutched his face as the dirt stung his eyes. “Sorry!” said the Ipetian, “You alright?”
“Oww, this really stings,” answered Leef.
“Why don’t you go and find a bucket of water somewhere?” suggested his father, “We’ll be fine until you get back.” Leef nodded, and scurried away into the crowd. He kept bumping into people, until a kindly old woman agreed to show him the way to a refreshment table. They were sure to have water there.
Riet watched as the huge stone inched its way up towards the pinnicle. Finally, nine years after Fenneth had told him to build, this temple would be finished. Too bad Nietzsche couldn’t see it, but he was still in the Roshanian capital. Riet laughed to himself; funny how things can turn out. Nietzsche had obstructed Riet and sought to overthrow him, but now he was one of Riet’s strongest supporters.
As the monolith was pulled up the hill, Riet sensed that something was wrong. But he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Afterwards, he realized it was that the Ipetians on the left side were slipping far more often than the Ipetians on the right. But at the moment he didn’t know what was wrong until the ground began to crumble away. The left side of the dirt ramp had been poorly packed, and it was beginning to show its faults. Huge clumps of dirt started raining down on the haulers below. Lines began to loosen, and the stone began to list to the side. Someone started screaming, then another, and another, until the whole population was shouting out in horror. Riet began to cry out, “Get back! Get back!” but no-one heard him. Slowly, the rock began to fall.
At the base of the ramp, the haulers saw what was happening, and they immediately started to fall back. There was a rush as bodies, pressed together, tried to escape the death from above. Leef’s parents were at the edge of this crowd, being two of the nearest to the stone. Without warning, Leef’s mother found herself entangled in one of the ropes. She struggled to free herself, but the knotted ropes proved too tangled for her to loose by herself. Her husband, seeing this, immediately turned about to help his wife. Together, they struggled against the ropes, until the giant monolith, tumbling down, crushed them beneath its massive weight.
Leef stumbled around in the crowd; his eyes still stung, but he had to find his parents. Where were they? He moved against the sea of people, seeking his parents towards the back. Finally, he came to the edge of the crowd. He had passed through unscathed. Running back and forth along the wall of people, he searched to no avail. As he turned around to make one last pass, he saw an arm sticking out from underneath the stone. On the wrist was a bracelet, made of a deep mahogany. Leef recognized it as the one he had made and given to his mother.
“no,” he whispered. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be. His mother, she had to be alive. “No” She couldn’t be dead, she couldn’t be under that rock, he had just seen her a few minutes ago. “no” He hadn’t said goodbye. Dad said they would be fine. “No,” there was no way they could be gone. “no” it was impossible. “No” he couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let that happen. “NOOO!!!”
Riet watched as Leef charged towards the stone. He realized a part of what had happened, and knew what Leef was about to do. The crowd had grown silent at Leef’s cries, and had become still. “Keep moving,” shouted Riet, “Move, Move, MOVE!!” The crowd started again, a ring of people growing away from where the stone lay. Riet watched as Leef slammed both his palms down onto the ground.
Wolk arrived, panting, at Riet’s side. “What’s wrong? What are we running from?”
Riet answered, “Leef, down there. He’s one of the plainshaper children, and I think his parents are crushed under the rock.”
“Then we should help him,” suggested Wolk.
“You don’t understand,” replied Riet, “A plainshaper’s power can increase dramatically with sufficient emotion. Leef is going to do something big, and I worry that, in his attempts to draw Life from the Earth, he will draw some instead from the people surrounding him. He’s not trained enough yet. He doesn’t know how to control himself.” At this, the ground began to quake. The pillars of the temple swayed, but stayed upright. Suddenly, a branch shot out from under the stone. Then another, and yet another. They grew at an incredible pace, rushing around and quickly encircling the stone. As they finished wrapping around, the stone began to rise. Two pillars of wood were growing beneath it. As the giant trees moved towards the sky, their growth accelerated. Faster and faster the stone moved, until it was over twenty meters in the air. Only then did the pace begin to slow, and at thirty meters, it had stopped all together.
Riet saw Leef, surrounded by dead grass, collapse under his own weight. He rushed forward towards the child, pushing his way through the crowd, which had slowed again. When he reached the edge, he galloped as fast as he could towards Leef, who was lying on his side. When Riet reached him, he saw that Leef was shaking uncontrollably. In between sobs, he kept whispering, “No, please…please.” Riet took him up in his arms and turned his pupil’s face from the gory sight. There, where the stone had lain, was a pool of blood and flesh, crushed under the inconceivable weight of the stone. The only recognizable piece was the arm, lying at the edge of the carnage.
Leef continued to sob uncontrollably. Riet embraced him, wishing that there was some way to alleviate the poor boy’s grief. A solemn voice next to him said, “is there anything I can do?”
Riet looked over his shoulder and saw little Onschuld, the youngest of the plainshapers. Riet turned his head towards the pool of blood and flesh, “This is no sight for a child. See if you can cover it up.” Onschuld nodded, took a few seeds out of a pouch at his side, and buried them under a small covering of dirt. Riet watched as, with agonizing slowness, a carpet of ivy moved across the ground. After what seemed like an eternity, the blood of the dead was covered with the leaves of the living. Riet clutched Leef’s head and gave the boy a shoulder to cry on.
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Topic: Battle of the Gods II: an RP Thread (Read 102425 times)