RBL Interviews: Hlao of Irrib, Coherent Shambler Disease Patient

[Preface: Hlao is a resident of the greater Irrib area, centered on the Western Branch of the lower River Khesh. He has been afflicted with Coherent Shambler Disease (CSD) for approximately twelve years, and is the longest-living known CSD patient by far. CSD, known by many colorful names, is a little-understood disease that attacks the nervous system of humans and, allegedly, certain ungulates. It is characterized by loss of bodily control from the neck muscles down, and a tendency toward lapsing into extended periods of low energy or borderline-catatonia when not in proximity to other humans unaffected by CSD. When in proximity to uninfected humans, a sufferer of CSD tends to violently lash out with lethal force, albeit not intent. The subject remains in full control of their mental faculties, but cannot exert physical control over their own body except to breathe, speak, blink, etc. The ultimate cause or vector for the spread of CSD is unknown. Theories include parasites, airborne toxins, emotional trauma, and even divine punishment. People with CSD tend to be killed immediately after their illness manifests, either in self-defense by their would-be victims or as a precaution by local authorities. That Hlao has been kept reasonably safe and healthy without any major incidents for more than a decade is very rare.

Hlao lives in a repurposed farmhouse located on a cousin's property. He is in his late thirties. He has short, messy hair beginning to grey at the roots. He is secured at one end of the room in a large, padded chair equipped with about a dozen reinforced leather straps to detain him. The only part of his body that is free is his head, which swivels and bobs slightly from years of slow neurological deterioration. As I enter the room his head snaps upright and his feet begin to kick. His fingernails have been freshly cut and filed, but the deep grooves dug into the armrests beneath his hands indicate that he is not always so well-manicured. His wiry muscles tense and strain hard enough beneath his long tunic that I fear he'll rip a tendon, but his gaze is clear, bright, and peaceful. He offers a cautious smile my way, but quickly averts his gaze and looks into an empty corner. I sit down at a stool placed close to the opposite wall away from him. His handler, apparently a friend, reminds him that they will be right outside, and takes their leave. We hold our conversation in raised voices to account for the distance between.]

RBL: Thank you again for reconsidering my request, doh¹ Hlao.

Hlao: I rebuffed you in haste the first time, doh Litte. I'm sorry for that. I assumed that anyone who wanted an interview with me would be like the last one who did.

RBL: I assure you I am not here for anything outside of your consent and comfort. I take the ethical strictures of my training very seriously. I simply wish to know more about you; not your condition. Besides, I have not paid off any of the town magistrates in order to see you.

Hlao: That last part is the most reassuring. Thank you.

RBL: Out of curiosity, who was this last person to "interview" you? I may have the means to file an official complaint about any misconduct on your behalf, if you so wish.

Hlao: To be honest, I don't remember him very well. I tried not to remember him or the examination for a long time, and eventually it worked. He's sort of a... pale, ghostly blur. I do remember he was from Serminwurth, or at least said he was. His name was M-something. Maren or Murzin or something like that.

RBL: ... Ah.

Hlao: Ah? Ah what? You know him?

[Hlao leans his head forward with sudden interest, his chair gently squeaks as he animates more]

RBL: I know of whom you speak. He is no longer a licensed practitioner of, well, anything.

Hlao: Well, that's good to hear. I hope he landed in a poorhouse.

RBL: He continued to study CSD for some time before he... ran afoul of certain ethical constraints. Last I heard, he floated down the Khesh and disappeared.

Hlao: Good. Drop-heads take him and keep him, I say.²

RBL: Er... quite. Now, may we begin the interview? I just have a few questions I wish to touch on.

Hlao: Sure, sure.

RBL: Please introduce yourself, in as many or as few words as you like.

[Hlao pauses at length, head gently lolling from side to side until he speaks]

Hlao: My name is Hlao. My village doesn't have a name, but it lies close enough to the town of Irrib on the Western Branch, that many of us tell outsiders we are from there. So I am Hlao of Irrib. I come from a family of farmers. They farm riverbed gourds. I used to farm with them too, but stopped when I became sick twelve years ago. I have one brother and four sisters. My siblings' children are learning how to read.

[Hlao straightens up in his seat to say that last part with some proud emphasis. It is the first time he has held eye contact so far]

RBL: That is wonderful to hear. Have they read anything by Tirti Naorut?

[Hlao grins in surprise]

Hlao: She is the littlest one's favorite. She says she wants to go to Nambar to prove the fairytales are real.

RBL: Oh, I remember feeling the same way... Now, could you describe a typical day in your life?

Hlao: I sleep in a special bed that is made to restrain me, so that I cannot hurt anyone or myself. It was made by one of the woodworkers in my village. It is one of a kind. I have a few chairs that I can sit in, too, but they are not as special. They are like this one here; repurposed from surgeons' or torturers' chairs- if there is any difference between the two. They are not as comfortable as the bed.

Anyway... I usually wake at dawn. Even in my sleep, I can hear other people getting up and moving around. I don't go to sleep around other people. My friends and relatives—my handlers—help me move to a chair and feed me breakfast. Sometimes they use a long spoon made from a broom handle to give me food, but that is only if my body is feisty that morning. Most mornings I am behaved, so they can feed me by hand. Everyone who knows about me, associates me with the giant spoon, though.

[Hlao laughs ruefully]

Hlao: Washing and dressing are still difficult. But we are leaving those out here.

RBL: Of course.

Hlao: Later in the morning, if the weather is not too bad, they will take me outside. I can walk with bound arms, and my legs will not cause too much trouble. Not anymore. I like to go for walks. So they tether me with ropes, and someone will walk where I've asked to go, and my body will try to chase them down. It keeps me exercised. And we all enjoy it- as long as the person in front of me is faster.

I spend most of my time at home, though. I don't really go places. I like to listen to stories while I sit. Stories or music. Anything that passes the time. But my handlers have to leave me alone in my room often, to give my body a chance to stop tensing up and fighting my restraints. When they do that, I close my eyes and... imagine things. Cities, languages, worlds. I imagine myself out there, experiencing them. Sometimes I can even wiggle my toes.

[Hlao looks down to indicate his sandal-clad feet, which are still making the same impotent kicking motions toward me as before]

RBL: What sorts of worlds and languages do you imagine?

Hlao: Why do you ask?

RBL: That sounds fascinating to me.

Hlao: Pssh. It does not.

RBL: I would not be out here if I did not value places and peoples, and the words they speak.

Hlao: Mmh... you know how they say that magic is like a sea?

RBL: Yes, that's one theory I'm familiar with. A metaphorical ocean of spiritual essence with the occasional godhead rising out of it like an island.

Hlao: It is like that, but... much more. I am there, standing on the "water", or sometimes swimming in it. I see the land rise up out of nothingness like the bobbing islands from Nambarish sailor tales. I sink my hands into the loamy ether and then rise up with it, into the sky. Into creation. I am there to see the first fires flare up and be quenched. The first to hear the burbling pits that stew with life. I stand like a stone, or drift like a cloud, and watch the world move around me. Sometimes it is like our world- sometimes it is our world, and I can walk it differently.

But other times I fill it with my dreams and nightmares. The words they speak, too. The screams and songs and profanity that they use every day, until one day no more mouths are left to speak them. I wander the emptiness afterward, and dwell on what has ended that never even existed. And then when everything else has crumbled away, the world sinks back down into the sea and only I am left.

RBL: ... You might want to consider having these imaginings written down.

Hlao: Why?

RBL: It would make a good story for people to read. Your niece, perhaps?

[Hlao scoffs initially, then stops to think]

Hlao: ... Hmm. I would need to trust someone with my private thoughts. Or learn how to write more than my signature with my teeth.

RBL: Did you not just trust me a moment ago?

Hlao: But that was... well, you are more... hmm. I will think about it.

[Hlao fidgets more than usual]

RBL: Shall we move on?

Hlao: Please.

RBL: Where do you usually hear stories or music from?

Hlao: My handlers, and other people who visit.

RBL: Tell me a little about these visits.

Hlao: Sometimes people visit me. Most of them are people from Irrib or beyond, who come to watch and study me. I don't like them. But they sometimes bring gifts and food that my friends and I need. They can't look after me for free. So I put on a friendly face and tolerate them. I almost broke loose once. That scared them off. It was funny.

[Hlao smiles impishly]

I like it when my family visits me. I may see them every few months. They tell me how the farm is going, and how the children are growing. I hope that someday my little niece will visit to read me some of her stories. Her mother won't let her, though. She is afraid of me. She... when I first got sick, I almost strangled her husband—my brother—to death, right in front of her in their bed. I don't blame her, though. Maybe in a few more years. My brother forgave me. He visits me the most. 

RBL: Tell me about your brother.

Hlao: He is set to leave and start working his own stretch of riverbank with his branch of the family in a few years. Our parents' farm passed to our eldest sister some years ago, and he has been saving up and doing favors ever since. So many families split their plots up smaller and smaller between siblings over the generations here, until you have barely enough land to feed yourself with and your second and third cousins don't even know you. Then one of the rich city people come around and offer to pay you half of what your land is worth, so you can leave to go and work for them on their tax-farms for even less. But he doesn't want that for us.

RBL: That sounds rather noble of him.

Hlao: I would go and help him if I could.

RBL: That sounds rather noble of you, too.

Hlao: Pfft. I just want out of this chair.

[Hlao and RBL both laugh. Hlao clears his throat and licks his lips]

Hlao: ... Doh Litte. A favor of you?

RBL: Yes?

[Hlao lolls his head in the direction of a nearby pitcher of water sitting on a table]

Hlao: I need a drink.

RBL: ... Oh! Of course.

[RBL pauses his live recording here]

[RBL set his notes down and crossed the room to the table. He found a small wooden cup to fill with water, then approached Hlao. Hlao's hands and feet tensed more than usual, curling violently as the proximity of another living person sent impulses through his body. Hlao just kept his eye on the water. RBL hesitated momentarily, then leaned in and tipped the cup to Hlao's lips. Hlao drank in loud, draining gulps that emptied the vessel in a few seconds. He belched, and nodded appreciatively at RBL]

RBL: Oh, erm...

[RBL produced a handkerchief and gingerly dabbed away the water that dribbled down Hlao's chin.

Hlao: What a gentleman.

[Hlao chuckled]

RBL: You are uh, welcome.

[RBL returned to his seat. Hlao's body relaxed somewhat]

[RBL resumes his live recording here]

RBL: Tell me about your friends? Forgive me, I just sort of took their presence for granted until now.

Hlao: The people who act as my handlers? They were old acquaintances from before I first got sick, but they became real friends after the fact. They renovated this house for me, and take shifts keeping me company. They're decent. They don't fake smiles around me. I appreciate that. One of them is a cousin we never lost touch with. The other three are old drinking buddies. We don't drink together anymore, though- my body fights the beer.

RBL: How so?

Hlao: I don't know. It's like it knows what drink does to it- dulls its reflexes and makes it less able to attack someone. I went sober after the first year when I kept popping loops in my chair to fight off a kurshaz³ of beer.

RBL: Do you miss alcohol?

Hlao: It was bad, the first few months. But it was bad for a lot of other reasons, too. Not so much now. I switched to tea.

RBL: I am sorry to hear that.

Hlao: Which part? The trouble, or the tea?

RBL: ... Yes.

[Hlao snorts]

RBL: What other creature comforts do you enjoy?

Hlao: After the harvest season ends and the river branches reflood, people here do everything they can with their gourds. Make bottles, ferment the greens, dry the flesh for later, whatever works. But I like the seeds, roasted. Go to Irrib during the festival and try some for yourself- but make sure they don't use too much salt and oil. That drowns and ruins all the flavor in them, mmh?

[Hlao inclines his head at RBL with the gravest of expectations. RBL nods solemnly]

RBL: Light on the oil and salt.

[Hlao nods, his head bobbing and drifting hard to one side. He stares off into space for several moments, then drifts back]

Hlao: May we finish soon? I am getting tired.

RBL: Oh, of course! Forgive me, we can stop now if you would prefer.

Hlao: No, no. I can finish.

RBL: Very well... Let me see. Ah, yes. I think this will do. What is something you aspire to? Is there a particular dream of yours that you hope will come true?

[Hlao dwells on this question at length]

Hlao: I have been told that we do not attack other people who are sick. Do you know if that is true?

RBL: Hmm... Yes, I believe so. In all the literature on the disease that I have read, none has ever suggested or shown evidence that infectees react aggressively to one another's presence. That is part of why infections in isolated areas can come as such a sudden surprise.

Hlao: I would like to meet another like me someday, then. And I would like to spend time with them. Even if we just stood still with nothing to talk about... I just want to be in another's presence where we aren't a danger for once. I would like that very much.

RBL: Of course. I... I will make sure your words are heard.⁴

Hlao: Thank you, doh Litte. I thought you were odd when you approached us. And you are- but you are also an enjoyable visit.

RBL: That is my single greatest aspiration in life.

[Hlao laughs again]

RBL: Before we finish this, are there any parting words that you would wish to share?

Hlao: You mean something I want to tell your readers?

RBL: Yes, I suppose I do mean that- all four of them.

[RBL laughs weakly, then clears his throat]

Hlao: Be good to your family, whether it's the one you're from or one you find yourself in. They might be the ones holding your spoon someday.

RBL: Thank you, doh Hlao.

[Live transcription ends here]

¹ An informal honorific commonly used in and around the alluvial plain on the western bank of the lower River Khesh. Comparable to "mister" or "boss".

² I chose not to confront my interviewee on this issue because I am his guest and he has already been a surpassingly gracious host. Additionally, I did not want to jeopardize the project by breaking from the interview to lecture him. But it should still be stated somewhere that the Sayaula do not appreciate any of the epithets derived from their cranial shape, and I believe their use should be discouraged.

³ A vessel and associated colloquial unit of measure roughly equal to half a liter. Literally a "thin one".

⁴ I should not get his hopes up with promises to seek out another patient. I have no idea what sort of hurdles this would require, if it is even possible.

Ivory Tower University: A Soft Reboot?

Hey there, Burrowers.

If you've been following my blog since the beginning, well, I am kind of underserving of that crazy dedication. Thanks for that.

But more relevant to this topic, if you've been following me since the beginning, you know one of my earliest long-term projects was world-building through cheeky academic article snippets written in the Ivory Tower University setting (ITUniverse for short).

Typically I'd write from the perspective of Roberick Bertrum Litte, the reluctant bearer of the most snobbish name I ever conjured, as well as my paper-thin author avatar for when I want to mix academic cynicism with humanistic idealism. He'd write up a paper from his supplies office under the staircase, scribble in his own snarky footnotes, and then send it into circulation among a readership that even he wasn't convinced of the existence of. And for a while it was pretty good times- for me, at least.

Of course it's been years since I regularly made posts tied to the ITU, excluding occasional shout-outs in my belabored but ongoing Troika! character background series.

Some of you may have wondered "what gives?" I know I did. And I think I've finally figured out what, in fact, is giving.

I created the world that houses Deneroth and the ITU as a home for my own very, very, very modestly different take on orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins. That was the impetus for starting all of it. My first-ever post about the Fokari was meant to get the ball rolling on that. But of course you don't see any of that in the full scope of my ITU posts. Even the Fokari are just a blip on the radar compared to my lengthy and scattered writeups on life in the safely generic Ersuunian Basin (assuming Iron Age societies with 20th century social sciences still count as generic). Because every time I leaned toward writing about those cultures directly, I felt the need to justify their existence first, by creating the world around them, and then finally, hopefully placing them in the perfectly humanoid-shaped hole that would be leftover.

Basically, I fell into the trap of writing what I felt I needed to write in order to set things up, before I could get around to writing what I had wanted to. A slow accumulation of layers of stuff to get ready for the even slower peeling-back of those layers, so that I could ultimately reveal the thing I had in mind when I started my blog one summer during college.

That's a totally valid strategy for writing fiction and it can lead to a really good payoff, don't get me wrong. But I was just doing mundane, unclever worldbuilding in order to get around to the slightly less mundane and unclever worldbuilding, and at the pace I write stuff it was going nowhere fast.

It was very fatiguing, and it felt pointless sometimes, but the compulsion returned every time I returned to the ITU. Even after I took a long break to do cringy audio logs, or to write more TTRPG-related stuff and accidentally become a member of the artpunk OSR blogosphere.

A visual map of OSR blog links, traffic, and interconnections aggregated through Discord.
Somehow I wound up visible on it. I don't know who the original creator is.

Now that I've identified the issue, it's probably good to work on it. That's what my therapist usually said to do, anyway. And I think there's some old self-help saying about writing a thing down to make yourself more likely to do it?

I've decided to give ITU something in between a soft reboot and a time skip.

RBL will still be my vehicle for most of it, and pretty much everything he's touched on remains canon. But rather than writing about his subjects from a great distance of time or space like the armchair scholars he so despises, he'll be far more mobile, and focused on bringing other voices to the fore. He'll come out the gate doing what I was inching toward with my aborted Looking Southward and Backward travelogue all those years ago.

I don't want him to be like one of those YouTube personalities who give a shallow and sensationalized account of whatever "exotic" historical or geographic topic they're covering- we have enough of those in real life. Hopefully he never actually came across that way to any of you readers. But even if he didn't, this change will help me quell that minor, personal quibble about him that I've had since I started meditating on all this.

The biggest mechanical change will be that the average post reads less like a micro-article and more like an interview transcript. I wouldn't dream of getting rid of the margin notes and fictional citations, so those will reappear in some form too. The posts will also just be longer in general, both as a natural outgrowth of my increased comfort with rambling since the beginning of my blog, and as a way to cut down on the overlapping multipart numbered series that wore me down the first time around.

So, yeah. I hope to start work on ITU posts again soon, and have one out for you to read within the next few [units of time of your choosing]. I hope this little aside made sense, and I hope we both enjoy it again.

On the Pain-Tasters of Najis.

Najis is the godhead of harm and healing, and the cycle of endurance and suffering that they perpetuate. While not uniformly sadistic in their depictions across the known world, the cast of the deity's clergy and most fervent devotees tends to be somewhat grim. It is the only known cult in which self-flagellation is a competitive sport, and the 'self' part is often omitted.

Even so, the god's focus lends its followers a keen understanding of the bodies of living things, and the myriad problems and ailments that can befall them. While they may approach infirmity with more spiritual glee than more mundane healers, the priests and surgeons instructed in the ways of Najis are often skilled and sought-after doctors all across the Basin. Sought-after, but not necessarily wanted- one of the more infamous pieces of commonly known Najisi stricture is the forbiddance of any and all anesthetics during procedures: pain is life, and so the absence of pain is an abominable miniature death.¹

The most (in)famous of these healers are the Pain-Tasters.

Barber Surgeon (Zweihander RPG)
Dejan Mandic

While their name is a bit too on-the-nose, their expertise is remarkable regardless of whether you have a high or dim opinion of the order as a whole. The Pain-Tasters are alumni of the highly prestigious and highly secretive Sodality of the Blissful Scourging, a medical school and seminary in Serminwurth with another extremely on-the-nose name.

The Sodality is open only to Najisites of demonstrable faith and fervor, and the vast majority of students already have successful medical careers prior to their induction. Students are forbidden to leave the school until they have either dropped out or completed their training, which is a process that can take up to a decade or more. More than one disappearance or suspected murder in the city has been explained by a new entry to the Sodality simply forgetting to alert every relevant party in their life of their aspirations before cloistering.

Most students do not complete their training. The isolation, coupled with rigorous daily schedules and study regimens that blur the material with the arcane, can lead many to burn out within their first year or two. Surprisingly, these dropouts are often allowed to leave and resume their lives in the outside world, though they all share some dismay when they wake up and find that much of the knowledge they acquired at the school has been obliterated by an as-of-yet unknown agent--possibly a potent and specialized drug--employed by the school.²

Because of these measures, very little slips out about what actually goes into training a Pain-Taster, and its members are quite tight-lipped about it. It doubtless involves mastery of any and all bleeding-edge knowledge and technology of medicine, as well as liberal addition to the 'bleeding' side. It is also possible that they undergo a series of inoculations against any diseases they could conceivably encounter during their practice: Pain-Tasters are well known for how fearlessly they throw themselves into highly contagious situations, yet rarely ever seem to grow sick themselves.

The rumor that the government of Serminwurth hands certain condemned criminals over to the Sodality for clandestine vivisections is unsubstantiated, but it would surprise absolutely no one if it came to light as truth. They possess insights into the physiology of humans and many other living things that could only be obtained through intimate familiarity.

Once a Pain-Taster has graduated from the Sodality and donned their ceremonial mantle of knives and needles, they have a wealth of options available to them. Most hospitals in any given area will accept them outright- if not as full-fledged members of their staff, then at least as advisors and specialists kept at a cordial arm's length. They may emphasize their religious training and become members of the formal religious hierarchy. Or, they go wandering in search of new avenues and methods of practice.

Some of the best details on Pain-Tasters outside of Serminwurth have been recorded in Deneroth, where a permanent office for one has been in place ever since the founding of the city by Laizij. Here, a senior Pain-Taster operates out of a small Najisi shrine that has nonetheless been granted the flattering title of "basilica". This taster acts as the personal doctor for the city's Steward, as well as the Directorate of Ivory Tower University.

The voluminous notes taken at the latter location has teased out many details about Pain-Tasters over the centuries, much to the chagrin of the Sodality. But in the interest of maintaining the relationship between the two cities, Serminwurth does not object to these incidental gleanings.

Foremost among the abilities of a Pain-Taster is their skill at diagnosis. This is where their name comes in, and they live up to it every bit. They can reportedly see, smell, feel, or occasionally even taste the onset of an illness hours or days before visible symptoms appear in a patient.

They can identify broken bones or ruptured arteries at a glance, and even make educated guesses at the exact breed of parasite infesting someone based on the 'look' of their eyeballs or the smell of their bodily waste. They operate on the threshold where preventative medicine is no longer possible, and treatment and pain are the only paths forward- precisely as Najis would will it. Their senses seem to have been honed by years of study and memorization of subtle cues coupled with experience, but something about it is downright preternatural.

Just as they are skilled in determining what will happen, they are unerringly accurate with what has happened. Pain-Tasters can act as coroners, able to detect even subtle causes of death some time after the event, at least so long as the cadaver has not undergone considerable putrefaction. The most famous instance of this comes again from Denerothi records, in which the senior Pain-Taster of the basilica determined the cause of death of Laizij.

The rumor that had spread like wildfire upon the discovery of the Eternal Scholar's body was that he had been poisoned, or smote by black magic conjured by everyone's favorite scapegoats, the followers of Dherna. The taster was able to determine quite confidently that he had died of blockage related to a truly prodigious collection of gallstones. The taster reportedly came to suspect this after ingesting a piece of Laizij's raw, jaundiced skin. After the requisite amount of bureaucracy was waded through to receive a permit to perform an invasive examination, the gallstones were found. 

The chronicle then takes an extensive sidetrack relating the legend of how these stones were inscribed with motes of wisdom that were then sought after or scattered with the winds, in good Denerothi fashion. But the procedure itself is corroborated in similar cases elsewhere, adding to the Pain-Tasters' lengthy list of qualifications for everyone else's reluctant respect.

¹ To say nothing of the fact that one common depiction of the afterlife in the inner esoteric circles of Najis-worshipers is a perfect perpetuation of life-affirming, exhilarating pain via stabs and scrapes.

² This memory erasure does not appear to be flawless, however. Mersind, once an aspiring biologist and anatomist of Serminwurth, was expelled after breaking some sort of grave taboo during his second year at the Sodality. Yet descriptions of the pale, enigmatic man suggest that he fled the city with his memories of the school almost fully intact a decade and a half ago. Ever since then, his former colleagues have been keenly interested in returning him for examination, and to put a stop to his more well-known excesses (while also seizing all of his collected data for their own research).

Carving Mouths with which to Scream.

The forested hills that the Esgodarrans now call home boast considerable farmland, dug into the slopes and concealed by the trees. These terraced gardens favor smaller numbers of nutrient-rich crops quite unlike the vast fields of grains from the plains dominated by modern Ersuunians. Among these staple crops are included a variety of gourd vegetables in diverse colors and shapes. Just as diverse are the customs and cultural traditions surrounding many of them.

Some gourds are grown solely for the purpose of housing medicines or sacred substances for the holy folk of the hill people. Others are used as food, or animal fodder, or their rinds are ground up for several purposes. One type of spotted vine fruit is even known as a source of a potent intoxicant, when fermented properly. All of these uses and more are ingrained in Esgodarran tribal memory by a wealth of stories and songs.

One story in particular is told and retold every harvest season, to explain why so many of the hill tribes hollow out different gourds, carve their sides into elaborate shapes, and then plant them around the tops of specially prepared torches as part of seasonal celebrations.

Once, long ago, the Esgodarrans were fighting a losing war against the encroaching Haraalians. Before the chariots and the saddled archers of the horsemen, they fell like so much scythed wheat. As they retreated into the hills where they eventually built their holdfasts and villages, they brought the bodies of their dead with them.

When the first crops were planted in soil ill-suited for farming, pragmatism led to a creative, albeit somewhat grim, use for those bodies. The dead became fertilizer, so that their families could live to see the coming year. And their sacrifice was not in vain: the legend claims that the hills bloomed with produce, chief among them being swollen gourds of proportions that any farmer then and now would be envious of.

But when the harvest season drew close, the Esgodarrans sensed that something was wrong. The gourds seemed to be disturbed ever so slightly when looked over every morning, and at night strange sounds could be heard coming from the gardens. These happenings continued and intensified over the following weeks until the hills were weighed down upon by a terrible pall- the people were sure that a curse had settled upon them like clinging spider's silk.

Eventually, the source of the omens was discovered. It was the gourds themselves, writhing and moaning upon their vines as if they were alive. When terrified tribespeople dared to stalk closer, they found that they could recognize the pained, muffled sounds as human- even as the voices belonging to their deceased loved ones. Terror gripped one and all as they realized that in growing their food from the corpses of their kin, they had unwittingly trapped their souls.

A wise and skilled woodsman proved to be their salvation, as he stepped forward brandishing his biggest and sharpest knife. One by one, he cut the gourds from their vines and then cut into their sides, carving faces into their hard outer layers and allowing their soft insides to spill forth. Blessed with eyes that could weep and mouths that could scream, the gourds wailed their horrors out. They had been reliving the moments of their deaths over and over again while trapped in the blind silence of the earth, and only through the woodsman's cuts were they able to rid themselves of the accumulated pain.

Days passed as the hillsides screamed and lamented, the sound of which drove even the most stalwart of god-king Haraal's soldiers away from the hills in fear. The Esgodarrans stuffed their ears with tree cotton dipped in beeswax to block out the worst of the wailing, but it grated terribly at even those steady folk before the end.

One by one, the gourds expelled their anguish and gave up their ghosts. The nightmare ended at last when the final gourd's voice quieted to a pulpy sputter, in which it thanked the woodsman and their tribe for the mercy. It bequeathed the banquet of their bodies to the people of the hills, but warned them that never again could anyone be buried beneath a garden. With that, the last trapped Esgodarran soul sloughed out and moved on to the afterlife.

Ever since that day, the use of human fertilizer has been strictly forbidden among all of the Esgodarran tribes. As a reminder of that grave mistake, the people carve more mundane fruits into contorted faces or depictions of other mythological scenes every year, and place them on display for all to see.

A popular trick aimed at children or very wayward lowlanders is to throw one's voice so that it sounds as if a gourd is speaking--or screaming--at the observer.

The God of Dust

((In honor of World Rat Day, which is apparently a real thing, I thought I'd slightly tweak and then finally implement a little idea I came up with a long time ago.))

 

"Three garbs have We- dust, cobwebs, and skin of flea. Long is Our tooth, for we hide from the blinding torches of truth."
- A snatch of skitterrhyme scrawled above a waste receptacle slot in the Basilica of the Blissful Calculation (Dormitory #12).

"[...] Lastly, all members of the Dutiful Staff and Most Enlightened Faculty are encouraged to remain alert, as you doubtless have been without need for admonishment nor reminder, of the traces of queer murine totemism which have of late infiltrated the Lower Colleges..."
- Agendum 261, CMOE DIX.

"Is this what the kids are into these days? Inventing gods? Incorrigible."
- Senior Editor Onsaro Adelbramp; Provost of the Board for Historical Ordination, Associate Vice-Dean of Affairs for ITU Publishing, and clueless old dodderer.



The Ivory Tower University, despite its pledge to pursue universal "truth" is not exempt from creating its own myths, folklore, and an urban legendarium murky and tantalizing enough to keep even the most exhausted undergraduate study groups riveted during cramming season¹. There is nothing wrong with myth-making by itself. In fact, I would consider it something of a sign of a healthy community- it means that their society is still thinking, dreaming, and being creative. However, certain myths sometimes lead one to wonder just what in the world that community was dreaming about when it thought them up.

A favorite example of mine is the God of Dust & Lost Things, popular among the residents of the Lower Colleges. The God of Dust is, when dignified with the attention of our resident theogonists, designated as a "small" god- both figuratively and literally speaking.

Its influence is said to be limited to the area in and around the ITU campuses, though some especially smitten young students claim that its reach even extends into the lower city and the world beyond. It exists where dust, dead insect husks, shed skin cells, and other detritus of the ages accumulate, dwelling in shady corners and forgotten storage rooms. When it takes a physical form, it is said to be fond of appearing as a small black rat with a skeletal head and tail. In this form, it finds and steals away any small, half-interesting item which anyone has ever lost. The god's warren somewhere deep below the university is said to be snarled with enormous stacks of knickknacks, bits and bobs, odds and ends, and a veritable ocean of lost change in denominations that are no longer recognizable, let alone acceptable as legal tender.

The god is lonesome, but not lonely. It has no altars, no priests, and no proper worshipers. Only the occasional undergraduate gives lip-service and offerings to it in the desperate hope that it will bring back some item which they have lost. This is done by leaving another item of minimal but equal value in a small, dark corner somewhere and then returning to the spot a few days later. The desired item is rarely left in its place, if any at all is given. It is unclear if the god has difficulty understanding human reasoning, or if some bored individual makes the rounds at night, looting places where the skeletal rat is believed to dwell. Sometimes it does seem to work, however, and this serves to reinforce a less-than-joking belief in Ol' Dusty. Rough, sketchy, and discreet images of rat skulls denote popular sites of invocation across campus.

One side effect of the playful, surreptitious "veneration" of the god among young undergraduates is the proliferation of a form of poetry known as Skitterrhyme. Skitterrhyme was originally a type of praise poetry directed at the God of Dust. The earliest recorded ones jokingly extol its "virtues" such as doing absolutely nothing with its massive yet useless hoard, or boring holes in the walls to keep tired academics awake at night. They displayed an extremely rudimentary rhyme scheme and virtually nonexistent meter, but over time the arrhythmic style became more sophisticated and mathematical. The words themselves also began to be coded with meaning, until finally the staccato hymns began to be used to gossip and share secret messages in public. There are about a dozen different cyphers for skitterrhyme today, spread out across the various dormitory houses of the ITU.

A popular story is that the god presides over an entire court of lost and little things, some of which could be the cast-off remnants of other, forgotten gods.

It is both the creator and ruler of a race of animated dust bunnies, who hold the god in distant reverence while going about their lives collecting dander and evading the brooms of the indefatigable but woefully underfunded Custodial Corps, which is often the butt of jokes among the student body- and the faculty, for that matter. The dust bunnies are believed to know the secret of how to summon and gain the permanent favor of the god, but none have ever been found living to question.

The ultimate enemy of the God of Dust is said to be a great, desiccated sparrow corpse which was reanimated by the spirit of the wind, to blow all dust away forever. Sparrows, alongside squirrels, are a ubiquitous and often very annoying sight around the university, so it is somewhat of a natural antagonist to set against this strange underdog.

The earliest attested references to the God of Dust & Lost Things is from an encyclical reminding members of the university staff and faculty to report any and all instances of skitterrhyme or unsanctioned and/or ironic religiosity to the old Committee for Mythological Ordination. This encyclical was published a few years before the committee was disbanded in the wake of Article 921, which de-problematized certain rites in the interest of expanding minority religious freedom on campus. Because this publication dealt with an informal belief in or at least playful acceptance of the God of Dust which was so entrenched in the Lower Colleges that the excruciatingly blind upper councils took note of it, it is safe to assume that the god had existed for at least a few decades before that point, placing its origin as far back as one hundred and fifty years in the past, at the time of this writing.

I personally suspect that the legend was created, or at least greatly contributed to, by our small but consistent body of exchange students from Serminwurth. While it is presumptuous of me, I can think of no other city that affords such respect to the rat without trying to ascribe any sort of lofty, unrealistic ideals to it.



¹ Which is to say, all semester ever semester.

A Brief Tourist's Guide to Notable Stops in Porylus Mons.

As our tour of the city continues, Kibra has been quick to point out every sight or structure of interest for our group. She would sound like a compensated tourist trap informant if she wasn't so genuinely enthusiastic about everything her topics have to offer, down to her points of interest which, I hope she'll forgive me for saying, I can't imagine many other people would find interesting.

How riveting is it that a series of mistakenly translated homophones resulted in one of the oldest inns in the city being named after a pet toad?

... Extremely, actually- at least according to Ciudo.

In any event, I have elected to share a report of some of the city's sites when we return home. Below is a portion of what Kibra has to offer us, curated for time.

Ewefield

When Kibra brought us to this site, we at first mistook it for an immense tract of pasture land slapped down right in the center of the city with the hill overlooking it. And to be fair, we were not entirely wrong in thinking that. There were after all several small herds of sheep grazing across the field.

What we did not know is that these sheep are gardeners rather than livestock, and they were being made to graze in that field not to grow fat, but to trim the grass in anticipation of an upcoming game.

The Ewefield is the largest sport field in Porylus, and has a history not so different from that of the oldest game fields in Deneroth- excluding all of the episodic violence and pig cheese, of course.

According to the local legend, the spot was picked out for for the city's founding games for its unique flatness. A great festival was in the works, and competitions on foot or on hoof were inevitable. But for some reason--possibly foul play, a lover's quarrel, or spillover from a heated academic debate about the spontaneous generation of small rodents--the group hired to cut the grass to regulation length was never paid, and so refused to finish the job. This would have delayed or doomed the games, if not for an accidental strike-breaking sheep farmer who drunkenly shepherded his animals onto the field the day before, rendering it perfect for use.

I have not gotten any answers yet as to whether or not the games were hindered by the mountains of dung that the sheep must have left behind.

Because there are no games being played just yet, I cannot attest to how fine the venue is. But as is, it is somewhat relaxing to be able to sit down on a raised bench overlooking such an odd scrap of greenery so deep inside of a town. The sheep are placid and comforting to watch, and the occasional shouts drifting through the cold air as shepherd-gardeners cooperate to tidy up this corner or that is amusing.

This will be the last game before winter truly sets in, and everyone seems to be quite looking forward to it here.

The Shout-House

One might not expect the politics to be so volatile in a small city like Porylus.

One would be deaf to continue to believe that, after walking past the city's municipal center on any active night.

Unlike the government of Deneroth, which was originally intended to be just one regional facet of the larger Haraalian empire but which now exists in perpetual semi-electoral stewardship, Porylus Mons has always had a nonstandard way of doing things. Northern rhetoric would have you believe that Porylus has been infected by that curious brand of anarchic lawlessness so plaguing the P.A.S.C.O.P.P.Y. on-and-off for centuries, but that is not the case- nor does that accurately describe the favored systems of the Pach-Pah, for the record.

Because of Porylus' relatively small size, a representative government is easier to maintain than most. The smallest political unit is the neighborhood, the heads of which are chosen by a variety of traditions, including direct election by their neighbors. Those neighborheads then serve in and advise the central administration of the city, which is a tentative balance between the common citizens and various other power groups in Porylus, such as the trade guilds, old families of wealth and prestige, and the (surprisingly minor) presence of the university.

The goal of congress between these groups and their representatives in city halls such as this is general consensus on how to handle the running of the city-state, overseen by subdued authority of a governor or governess.

The result is a lot of yelling, and a provost with very high blood pressure.

The appropriately named "Shout-House" is the largest of these city halls reserved for the largest of debates, located across the street from the traditional governatorial domicile. They are the perfect intersection between politics and spectator sports, drawing huge crowds on every occasion and providing no small stimulus to the businesses nearest to the area.

We are not in town for one of these debates, but I hope to interview a regular in my time here.

Harhal's Place

Informally named after its deceased previous owner, this nameless and unposted building on a thoroughfare close to the beginning of the hill's spiral would be easy to miss if it wasn't for the steady stream of people coming and going through its doors, held wide open despite the wind and frost.

This establishment is an eatery of sorts, focused on serving hot food to its patrons quickly and efficiently to match busy midday hours. It apparently changes from a hive of activity into a near-abandoned shell within ten talecks of that window, though we did not stay long enough to see the (somewhat welcome) lull.

Much of the food is prepared ahead of time and then reheated as needed. Though this invariably affects the quality of each meal, the price and convenience seem to be worth it to the workers and students in the area. Anything leftover at the end of the day is also given to the urban poor- assuming it is still edible. This tradition has earned the Place a considerable amount of goodwill from the locals over two generations now.

I have my reservations about their fare, however.

Don't mistake me for someone with any amount of culinary acumen or snobbery. The ingredients and taste seemed just fine. I just don't understand why the dishes are named the way they are.

Everything has a slightly off-putting or unnecessarily risque name attached to it, apparently originating from the late Harhal's sense of humor. The tradition has been continued by his son Rhal, the current proprietor.

As such, when Kibra finally convinced us to go in for lunch, I sat down to a plate of "Mother Fried in Her Children", which is to say cutlets of chicken breast fried in an egg-based batter. Kibra meanwhile swore by a bowl of "Bull Taken Hotly to the Wedding Bed", or steak peppered with Nambarish spices and served over a bed of a short, white rice harvested from the northern slopes of the Pashels. Hraela and Sarq both tried and enjoyed the "Crimson Infestations" after a bit of goading from one of the patrons we were seated close to. The mushroom caps were stuffed to overflowing with a variety of ingredients, but the bits of tart or savory red berry sprinkled throughout gave them the name. Ciudo burned his tongue on a serving of fried black bread topped with cheese curds that had been heated up to the point that you can hear the cheese hissing and whining. "Flaxen Screamers" indeed.

Eventually the contrast between the wind at our backs and the enormous braziers and cooking fires in front of us grew tiring, and we moved on. Kibra paid for us, and Rhal insisted she take home a few roasted taproots as a gift to make up for it.

The Benefactory of Eotirus

The maxims of the ITU and the Laiziji faith in general hold the creation and acquisition of knowledge to be vital and defining for the human experience. It is agreeable to me, for sure. But historically, the center of the Eternal Scholar's clergy has had issues with the freedom of access to that knowledge. Stemming from a combination of tradition and a desire for control, education has never been easy to obtain outside of the University's gates. Unless you were born to a founding family or had the new money to buy a temporary adoption into one, you are not going to get in. And unless they're going off to found a new sister-campus, an instructor at the ITU is not going to set foot outside of the place, by choice or by law.

Eotirus was a vanishingly rare exception to this tradition.

He was the third headmaster of the university at Porylus Mons to be elected by a council of his peers. And though he did not have the deep personal connections and/or blackmail to affect change from within, he did have a considerable amount of money to spend to the same effect, thanks to his family's involvement in the construction of much of the city.

When his tenure and his life neared its end, Eotirus decided to cap his fairly average legacy off with a controversial finish. He had the funds secured to build a library located outside of the school's walls, and designed an endowment for its maintenance and assured independence from any powers in the city. He died with a lot of enemies and without a lead coin to his name, but reportedly could not stop smiling at his own funeral.

The library has stood for a little under three hundred years since, its collection expanded to include a wide variety of topics ranging from mathematics, cooking, botany, political histories, and more journals than one could shake a stick at, were one inspired to go shaking sticks for some inexplicable reason.

All of these may be accessed by anyone coming in from the street. There is an entry fee of course, and strict monitoring of every volume, but it is not attached to membership or descent like one would expect. We spent a woefully short period here, but what time I had within the cathedral-esque structure was energizing. I saw an old woman teaching herself to read with the titles on book spines, and a young man snickering at a satirical piece aimed at a prominent governor and his mistress from three generations ago.

I hope this is the future. I could stand to be in one like this.

Old Cairn

Porylus Mons is not the first major human settlement on the hill or the surrounding area. The city was built atop the ruins of a much older hillfort, believed to be Esgodarran in origin. Evidence of this old habitation is normally quite invisible, with the significant exception of the so-called Old Cairn.

This mound-like jumble of stones and the spot of land it rests on have been kept untouched by development thanks to the administration of the school. It acts as something of a centerpiece for the campus park, and is a popular landmark to meet or hold gatherings next to.

It is only called a cairn because of its current shape, fallen into disrepair as it is. Local researchers argue that it likely wasn't any sort of burial site, and boast that it might have been a rather tall lookout tower instead. That would be an impressive feat of engineering indeed, but I am skeptical given the lack of mortar in traditional Esgodarran architecture. I would be more than happy to be proven wrong, of course.

I should ask for a copy of any existing research when we at last meet with the faculty. Their offices loom close now, here by the Cairn. Their perfunctory hymns can just barely reach our ears on the wind.

A Day in the Death, Part 2.

The coffin, he rested against a tree again. His staff, he asked the coffin's occupant to please hold onto, and so leaned it against that.

He then found himself a nice, sturdy stick with one tapering end that he didn't mind getting damaged. With this, he struck the earth. He dug and raked, and then cleared the debris away with his feet, until he'd made himself a clearing. Then he bit deeper into the topsoil, using both hands to twist and wedge the digging stick in and turn up dirt from a single deep hole. He did this several times, each at the edge of the clearing, until he'd completed a ring several paces in diameter.

Back into the trees he moved then, ears trained on the distant sound of trickling water.

It was a fine stream, small but clear, cut deep into the earth with the passage of time as it flowed down from the western hills. It did not take long for him to find the right type of rock at its banks, but it did take him a time to shape it. Until then, the clash of smooth, flat river stone on stone rang out up and down the banks. Eventually, he was satisfied with the edged fragments he held in his hands. The smaller, sharper flake, he tucked into his clothing, while he used the larger axehead on his way back to the clearing.

He whispered apologies and thanks to each flexible sapling as he struck its base with the rock. There was a woody knock, and a sharp rattle of foliage with each. It was a satisfying rhythm to beat out, and it only interrupted the dull roar of wildlife around him for a few moments each. Before long he was dragging several felled saplings with him. He stripped their branches and the more fibrous bark, which he thought would make fine rope later on. The first sapling was driven into one of the holes in the earth at the clearing. The old man mounded earth up around its base and packed it in tightly, and then he reached up to bend its other end down toward the ground.

He was lifted off of his feet before he could bring the other end down into its own opposite hole, which he also filled in.

Several more times he did this, each time tying the middles of the tense saplings together with fibers stripped from the bark. The finished frame was comfortable enough to sit down in, with room for tools and a bed if he was diligent. But for now, the skeleton needed ribs. These, in the form of shorter branches, he lashed in rings around the frame with thin vines once he ran out of softer bark. The lowest two were left open at one end, where he would put the door facing south. The bones needed skin, and so he ventured back out into the brush, confident that the coffin would keep an eye on things for him.

With the stone flake, he harvested the fronds from ferns and other plants along the ground level. And with each frond harvested, he spoke the words due to someone who was having a limb cut off. He took the time to study their leaves and their pinnation, thumbs running over every feathery edge briefly. A bushel was made, and a bushel was peeled apart to arrange tips-downward along the future wall, lashed to the branches with more creeping twine from the bushes. The old man felt a sweat coming on, and winced at the ache in his back from stooping for so long. But he had much more to do before he could rest.

The hours wore on and the sun began to blush dark and flirt with the western hilltops before he had angled the last series of leaves and tied them in place. A roof cap would be able to wait until morning- he expected no rainfall, at least not where he was. Hunger and thirst would not wait for him, however. He could already feel the pangs, and before long they would add to the shake in his hands.

First, he crept back down to the bank and laid down supine before its burbling current. He drank deep with his hands, until his stomach felt cold and swollen. Then he sat back on his bony arms and waited for it all to settle. Someday, he thought. Someday he would allow himself the luxury of a clay cup to drink from. Or perhaps a gourd.

Once it felt as though his insides weren't sloshing around with every step, he rose and moved back onto greener ground, where his digging stick once more became of use. The root vegetable bulbs he found were small and bitter, but if they spent a few hours soaking in the water, they'd be leeched of their toxins. He wouldn't be able to eat them that evening, but they would make for a decent breakfast. A small pile of rocks kept them in place as they laid submerged in the stream.

If they were still there in the morning, he'd eat easy. If an animal found them first, then... well, then nothing. Then that was a lucky animal.

Unlike the considerably less lucky fish which he began to eye next.

A Day in the Death, Part 1.

The one called Grandpa Corpse wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. He dared not touch his hands to his face, for they were caked in dirt and lurid honey. He stood up straight--or at least as straight as he could stand those days--and packed the earth flat with his feet. Then he took up his digging stick and cast it into the trees with a curse. He listened to the crack and clatter of it rebounding through the boughs, and waited until the rustling of leaves and underbrush quieted. The susurrations of the nearby river regained its prominence.

He found a rounded stone at its banks with which to scrub, and he did not stop until his hands were rubbed bright and raw. His feet he stamped in the shallows for some time, until the cold creeping into his joints finally forced him to quit, and to decide that he had done all he could. One last time he surveyed the area for any shards of glass or fragments of pottery. Satisfied that he had left nothing remaining of any jar or bottle, the old man took up his old staff. He apologized to the trees of that place as he left, explaining why he had chosen that spot, and promising them that they would not come to much harm from the toxins.

The sun had begun to rise by then. He could hear the fat red and green rooster crowing at his distant post, and the first villagers rousing themselves in reply. He would not return to the village- there was no need to, after they had agreed to take the young men in. He had seen to each of them personally, and the folk of that place trusted his word when he said that they would convalesce before long. They would work to make the riverbank a safer place.

A lone coffin stood nestled against a split tree. He approached it and ran his hands over its weathered surface, brushing some light debris from it and then kissing its face. There came a gentle tapping from within, and so he held his ear to the old wood. Then it knocked, much harder and louder, and he stepped away from it with a chuckle. He offered it teasing platitudes as he reached down and grasped its trailing rope, which he wrapped around one hand several times before giving it a pull. Once it was eased down onto the broad, flattened expanse of his shoulders, he hefted its weight with a soft grunt.

Cautious, halting steps and hard leaning upon his staff gave way to a slow but relaxed pace as he finally left that river north of the mangrove forests.

The sun was still rising, so he decided that he should rise with it. He turned west, toward the hills, and began to walk. He walked over brush, and along the dirt roads of the people. He walked through fields of taro, and along the narrow bridges woven across flooded terraces of deep-rice. He never walked through the shadow of a fruit tree sapling, and he always walked the long way around a den of animals. The walk turned into a climb, and by mid-morning when he could look out across the canopy below and watch the mist as it rose twisting and evaporating in the sunlight, he decided that he had punished himself enough.

He still needed the strength to settle down, after all.

On the Disappearance of Haraal.

It has come to my attention that nowhere in my recent writings have I actually addressed the vanishing of Haraal. And while it is my first instinct to assume that any potential readers of these mad scrawlings would be intimately familiar with the major cultural myths of the known world, assuming is exactly what I should not do. Indeed, perhaps one of you right now lives far and away from knowledge or influence of Deneroth.¹ I would be remiss in omitting anything which could contribute to a more complete understanding of the world in which I write, and the context of powers that currently be.

Haraal, unifier of the Ersuunian tribes, emperor of a burgeoning empire, living culture-hero on the receiving end of cult-like levels of reverence even before his deification, removed his crown and abdicated from his throne one day after a strange visit, leaving without a word, never to be seen or heard from again.

Of course it isn't so simple as that, but those details are all that can be agreed upon between sometimes starkly contradictory sources.

First, we are unsure of exactly how long Haraal reigned as king-chieftain. Histories of All by Yashka the Sage reports a reign of 114 years and this number is often regarded as canon, particularly in Deneroth. But Yashka wrote his chronicle several centuries after the disappearance of Haraal. Mythinterpretations of History by the late Berschut Groz offers a more conservative estimate of 70-80 years. Both theories either explicitly or implicitly support the idea that Haraal was blessed with supernatural vitality and long life, but neither gives Haraal a definite point in the timeline of history which we so enjoy using. We can relatively safely say that he reigned no earlier than 800 years before the time of Yashka however, putting Haraal no more than 2,300 years in the past.

Second, we are unsure of where Haraal disappeared from. We do know that his imperial palace-camp was somewhere in the northwest region close to the sites of his last great battles, but its exact location has remained a mystery shrouded in myth, with more than a few frontier folktales and cunningfolk assertions clouding it up further. It is assumed that the camp was located on a relatively flat area of land where the royal herds could graze comfortably, but that still leaves a very wide possible range of area. Again, we can only judge by the broadest limits, and say that the palace must have been located somewhere south of modern settlements such as Bluehill, and that it would have given the Axebite a wide berth- even Haraal was cautious of some dangers, it seems.

One day, traditionally emphasized as being just like any other with no foreshadowing or warning, Haraal was adjudicating cases brought before him in his throne room. After the third or fourth defendant graciously accepted his imminent beheading after prolonged exposure to The Presence and The Gaze, a hush suddenly fell upon the court. There was a muffled sound in the distance, outside, and it was slowly growing in clarity and volume. Haraal took notice of this after he found his servants not immediately responding to his commands, and had the doors to his court opened wide in order to better hear what the disturbance was.

It was crying.

Deep, gut-wrenching weeping, growing in volume and in voice.

Haraal waved a hand to send two of his guards out to investigate, but in a matter of moments they filed back into his throne room with limp arms, stunned expressions, and thoroughly overactive tear ducts. Again, he sent guards out to confront the issue, sending four this time. Four sobbing messes returned to him. A third time, sending six guards, Haraal was once again confounded. This almost comical mix of repetition and escalation continued for some time until Haraal had dispatched his entire royal guard, to no avail.

The other members of his court were growing concerned by this point, so Haraal rose from his throne and cast his aura upon them. Calmed somewhat, they begged their lord to go and see what this dreadful thing was. He proclaimed that he was already on his way to doing so, and then strode out into the light of day. Huge, dark-bottomed clouds were already approaching on the horizon, but his eyes fixed on something far more immediate.

At the base of the hill which his palace crowned, his people had fallen into disarray in droves. Hundreds of men, women, and children had absconded from their duties and their leisures to add to the mournful cacophony. They did not heed their lord when he commanded them to rise, to rejoice in his presence. They only bowed their heads lower in grief toward a single point in the distance. Haraal's smoldering bronze gaze tried to fix it in place, but it only continued its approach.

A small, greyish hunchback of immeasurable age was hobbling his way up the slope, one withered, useless arm clutched tightly to his side. He was weather-worn and almost hairless, with one enormous shoulder and a clubbed foot which he dragged along the ground. His scabrous, diseased-looking skin was stretched tightly across his emaciated frame clad in nothing but rags soaked in morning dew. Despite his disabilities, he moved with surprising speed, and his voice, though labored, sounded not the least bit short of breath. For the hunchback was the loudest of the crying voices- only his weeping was song.

It was wordless, lacking in any real rhyme or meter. But what it lacked in composition, it made up for in dreadful emotion. They were the sounds of raw, ageless sorrow and loss. Of grief and regret for everything that has ever happened or never happened. Of a child yearning for a mother.

And that was exactly what he asked, when at last he climbed the hill and halted before Haraal, eyes only dimly registering the man towering over him as they rose up from their naturally downcast state.

"Have you seen my mother? I was lost by her. I have not found her. Have you seen her?"

These questions were all that he interrupted his quavering song with, and he repeated them again and again as he stood pitifully before the emperor. His words were strange and rustic to Haraal's ears, like the tongue of some of his most distant Ersuunian subjects, many centuries removed. Haraal, being uncharacteristically compassionate, was able to look beyond the breach of conduct in addressing a chieftain which would have ended in a greater man being beheaded on the spot. He made an exception for the strange creature, and asked him his name.

Depending on the age or dialect of the account, the hunchback's name varies in form. But each name is generally a recognizable cognate with the others others, for his name when taken literally was "Grief".

Haraal treated with Grief then, all the while becoming increasingly suspicious of the outsider and the effect he was having upon his subjects. It seemed that the influence of Haraal was mitigated in the hunchback's presence, for he could merely quell their weeping rather than elevate them to an exultant state more pleasing to his senses. But Grief would not bend to Haraal's will. Nor did he even seem to be conscious of the effect his presence seemed to be having on the palace, as if he had spent so long in his current state that this was his 'normal'. He asked over and over for news of his mother, whoever she was, and patently ignored any of the emperor's attempts to assuage his anguish and coax him into staying and reveling at his court.

Things might have gone very differently, had Haraal decided to quit his attempts at dominating the will of the hunchback.

But there was no challenge insurmountable to the son of the pine tree, scion of the sacred peak. No individual had ever resisted him, and a hunchback would not be the first. He butted heads with the cluelessly resilient Grief until his own followers were red eyed, vomiting, and bleeding from their noses with the force of that sympathetic misery. He promised rare silks, jewels, and iron to him if he ceased his weeping. He promised him a place in his court if he told him his story, and the root of his cursed power. He promised him a mended body and thousand purebred horses to draw an army of chariots across the land in search of his mother, if he would kneel before him. All of this and more was ignored by the hunchback, who continued to whimper the wordless lullaby of his missing parent.

At last, Grief announced that he needed to find her, and turned his back on Haraal to begin ambling back down the hillside.

This is said to be what sealed the fate of Haraal.

He went after the hunchback, quickly overtaking him with his long stride full of indignant purpose. The chieftain put himself in the way of Grief several times as he tried to shuffle away, each time demanding that he halt and show him the reverence which was due. Each time, Grief slunk around and sidestepped the tall, bronze man. Finally Haraal seized the hunchback in his hands and lifted him off of the ground, shaking him violently as he commanded him to come to heel.

Grief locked eyes with Haraal for the first time, then. His song and his mourning stopped, and a silence fell over the campgrounds so heavy that it could be cut with an obscure bladed weapon of Ersuunian origin, the identity of which is still fiercely debated in some highly semantic circles.² Then, slowly and deliberately, Grief began to move his arm. Not the "good" one with its swollen shoulder joint, but the shrunken and skeletal one which had been held to his chest for the whole time. Ruined joints popped and cracked loudly as he extended his limb toward Haraal, who regarded it strangely but did not pull away, even as the bony fingertips touched him upon the cheek, and then reached around to the nape of his neck.

There shouldn't have been any observers of the event capable of seeing through unclouded eyes by this point in time, but the narrative nonetheless states that Grief appeared to grow in size suddenly, while Haraal shrank. Perhaps he also shrank back in fear, despite the long-held belief that Haraal knew no fear. The hunchback met his stature and then exceeded him, somehow standing tall and straight despite his shape remaining the same. Then his other massive arm rose up to embrace the dwarfed form of the chieftain, almost like a parent would a child.

And then he whispered something into Haraal's ear.

What was whispered is unknown, but it is one of the most highly speculated-upon pieces of history and/or mythology to day.

Whatever the hunchback's words were, in a span of seconds they broke the spell. Grief was shrunken and warped again, Haraal as tall and statuesque as he'd ever been. Grief was singing anew, and ambling down into the wilderness beyond the reach of the Haraalian camp. The wracking sobs which had plagued the palace subjects subsided at long last, much to the relief of all. But when they looked up to their lord uninhibited, they saw him turning away.

Haraal had a haunted look about him. His burning eyes were darkened and glassy, and they looked around wildly as he staggered back from the spot where the hunchback had grabbed him.

Then he screamed.

He screamed, and clutched his ears as if it were ringing in his own ears, and then he fled in a frenzy across the palace grounds before leaping atop and unbroken horse and riding beyond the horizon. As he passed by the ever-growing tapestries which lined the thoroughfare leading to his court, it is said that their intricately woven programs twisted and morphed to depict not their history and grand achievements, but a bleak future of clouds and blood. Haraal fled into reaches unknown, forsaking crown, throne, and people as the failing of his powers and the ineffable words of the hunchback shook him to his core.

Sober-minded from the catharsis of the hunchback's influence, and free of Haraal's Presence and Gaze both, his subjects are said to have promptly burned the settlement to the ground and then dispersed, the site of that short-lived capital forever lost to history.

Traditions which venerate Haraal as a deific figure tend to describe his confrontation with the hunchback as a penultimate battle against good and evil, which ended in Grief being banished at great personal cost to Haraal, who vowed to return to his people one day once all pain and decay had been driven from the land. Belief in the imminent return of Haraal has waxed and waned with the centuries, growing particularly strong during times of hardship when many such millennialist movements are taking root, but dissipating soon after it becomes apparent that the end is not nigh.

Even among less dogmatic communities across the Ersuunian Basin, where birth defects and deformities often set an individual apart as special or touched by divinity, the possession of any aspects associated with Grief is a universally dire social stigma lacking in any duality or complexity of meaning.

The streets of Porylus seem to be free of such anxieties as we pass them by, but I have heard rumor that Haraalian movements are beginning to come back into fashion with the approach of the three-hundredth year After the Rupture.





¹ If so, please tell me about this distant place so that I might move there.
² The "skirpha" referenced originally by Yashka the Sage has been variously interpreted as a sword, long knife, grain-scythe, or horseman's axe, with concessions to the theory that it was a generic term for "blade" being few and far between. Our own Professor of Fencing & Swordsmanship Berchtold Vogt claims in a footnote in the Appendices of the recently released second edition of his Manual of Masterful Martial Maneuvers that the skirpha was actually a pole weapon having more in common with an earspoon spear with a weighted, metal-capped butt. As his theory goes, the weapon was not actually meant to slice the silence at all, and Yashka's description was actually a subtle infiltration of the old Nambarish tradition of metaphysical poetry, in which the fundamental properties of poetic subjects are altered dramatically for emphasis or coded layers of meaning. Though remarkably deep and compelling compared to his usual area of... expertise, Vogt's theory has only drummed up more conflict among etymologists.

On the Other Origins of Haraal.

We all know the classic version of the story by now. Kibra says as much while prefacing the speech she is surely about to give us. We each nod our heads, but then don't really object when she goes on to describe the origin myth anyway.

Most commonly (or at least, traditionally) the culture-hero Haraal is believed to have been birthed from the trunk of an aging tree on the side of the peak known as Yorl'di. This mountain is generally considered to have been an isolated part of the southeastern Pashels. Haraal is unequivocally described as being exceptionally tall and of Ersuunian ideal, so theories that he may have been one of the Pach-Pah are quickly quashed. He fell from the mountain, injuring himself, and then he was nursed back to health by a family of herders who would become his first servants in the conquest of the whole Ersuunian Basin. Spectacular feats of strength, skill, and seemingly divine luck quickly follow, mixed in with some tribal politicking. Wrap it up with a few vague allusions to abduction and ethnic cleansing here and there, and you've got the early years of our beloved bronze god-chieftain. Plain, simple fun for the whole family at the monthly Reaffirmation of the Law.

But there is another story. Several in fact, but this fountain brings to mind one in particular.

In the Histories of All by our beloved Sage, Yashka, there is a single verse which reads that once Haraal had conquered the last of the Ersuunian holdouts in the west--specifically after he finished tightening an iron band around the skull of king Sperhel until his head exploded--he decided to "settle down and embrace the land of his birth."¹ This excerpt has three primary interpretations.

The first, generally tied with the above narrative, is that it is metaphorical, and that Haraal was decreeing that he was going to shift from conquest to administration, thereby embracing all of the land that he now claimed as his own by birthright. Thus "the land of his birth" is synonymous with every area of the Basin which he eventually claimed as part of his empire.

The second is that Haraal was specifically regarding the area where he would later found his court and capital city, styled on the palatial nomad camps of old. Following this line of logic, the area in the northwest of the Basin would have been the place where he was "born", which happened to be the farthest point in the entire empire from the purported site of Yorl'di.²

The logical conclusion of this interpretation was that Haraal was born in some other fashion, and that the mountain and tree were more symbolic than actual, historical sites. The Ersuunians of the northwest were quick to apply one of their own myths to the story, in their attempt to subsume their conqueror into their own culture, probably before those filthy mid-landers or water-drinking east-fringers could make the same claims or some such. The myth in question was one of immaculate conception.

There once was a great, nameless king among Ersuunians, said to be of the twentieth generation of nobles descended from the chieftain Gohr himself. This king had an insatiable desire for collecting wives, though for exactly what purpose was unknown: they were entirely leisured within his court, and were not made to engage in any state or domestic matters. Nor did they serve the less common but more infamous purpose of a harem, for they all remained virgins in his company, and he had no known children. The count varies from source to source, but it seems that he had several dozen such brides in gilded cages.

And one day, he decided to add one more to the bunch.

Kibra tells us that the young woman's name was Tiamis. She was the daughter of one of the king's sub-chieftains, and probably the sister of one or more women who were already the man's wives. She was brought to him in time for the spring harvest, when the chiefdom's agrarian subjects were paying their tribute of grain, animals, and leather. A great feast was held by the king to host the representatives of his vassals and bond-servants, as well as to celebrate his latest wedding. At that feast all manner of Ersuunian delicacies were to be found. Among these curiosities of semi-settled cuisine was the pasture date.

Ciudo asks our guide "what are pasture dates?" because of course he would. She seems all too happy to answer him.

"Pasture date" is a euphemism in modern speech used to refer to roasted horse testicles.

How they got that name and why anyone thought that disembodied genitals resemble pitted fruits, I cannot fathom, and I'd rather not try. But that is what they are, and that is the origin of the unusually-shaped, fist-sized globe which the statue now identified as Tiamis is reaching for.

I am not sure if I approve of this visual pun or not.

Our storyteller goes on to describe how great rows of spitted pasture dates were being roasted over trough-like fires all throughout the camp on that day. They were fresh- exceedingly so in some cases, for the stallions they'd been "harvested" from had been gelded earlier that morning. When Tiamis arrived at the banquet and saw these highly seasonal treats, she seized one at once. Unfortunately for her, the date she plucked had not been cooked sufficiently, and she did not realize how raw it was until she'd eaten more than half of it. Kibra illustrates her nonchalance at this discovery by shrugging her shoulders and mimicking downing the remainder.

I begin to consider what I will do for my lunch hour today, because none of us are going to be eating now.

Rather than becoming wretchedly food-poisoned, Tiamis felt herself become mildly bloated after her meal. Over the course of the next few days, it became apparent that she was miraculously (and severely) pregnant. Her husband was as confused as he was enraged, and chose to wait until the birth of the child to decide just what should be done. Tiamis gave birth after only forty days. Within minutes of his birth, the boy named Haraal was able to stand and speak, and warded his father away sternly. Another forty days passed, and he had grown into a fully mature young man. On the forty-first day of his life, Haraal strangled his "father" to death and assumed control of all his holdings. This story serves as an explanation for how Haraal appeared so suddenly and with such a solid power base at his disposal, once conquest of the Basin began. Tiamis and the other widows disappear from the narrative at this point, and the story quickly takes a shape resembling that of the traditional rise to greatness.

Kibra explains unsolicited that the merger of the two contradictory tales in this piece of art is meant to represent equal appreciation of all ideas, grand or small, orthodox or fringe, in the name of the greater goal of acquisition of knowledge. I am impressed- this simultaneously reaffirms Porylus' relationship with the Ivory Tower, and takes the latter to task in its approach of research in recent centuries.

Our guide turns and quits the scene now, gesturing with both hands for us to follow after her as we make our final approach to the tower of Porylus Mons.

I quietly wonder if any statues are hidden away here depicting the conflicting beliefs about the disappearance of Haraal.



¹ Verse 16,982, line 44 of the Histories of All, Yashka the Sage, 1284 BR.

² The third theory is that Yorl'di is misidentified with any of the Pashels, and that it was in fact the highest peak of the Oron'er Mountains. But this argument doesn't really come into play because the greatest proponents of it are based in Nambar, Serminwurth, and the pauper graves reserved for heretics after they've been ritually bled to death via paper cuts by priests of the Ivory Tower.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 21.

Everything is smaller in Porylus. That is a common expression in Deneroth, generally used to belittle the city, or to keep it in place relative to Deneroth as a "little sibling" in the mythology of post-Haraalian city-states. But it means that everything in Porylus is closer, more familiar. Cozy, dare I say. That is certainly what it feels like, as we ascend the spiral-pathed slope of the central campus.

The various stone buildings to our left and right are practically built on top of one another, rather than having vast yards and imposingly tall fences or walls between them. Dormitories seem to be spaces intermittently amid buildings operated directly by faculty and stuff, each of them identified by small graven signs out front or above the doorway. They almost look naked without an elaborate coat of arms or numerical rank range adorning them. We barely realize what it is when our amicable procession stops us in front of the dual-purpose admissions and visitors office- back in Deneroth, the comparable building at the ITU is a cathedral-shaped edifice which absolutely dominates one of the six gates leading to the campus, where as much ritual is performed to cleanse newcomers of the outside world as paperwork is done to make them feel at home.

I do see one deliberately placed symbol, however. Carved into an arch-shaped plaque above the entrance of the barrel-shaped office in bold, equidistant characters is a line taken from the Hymns of Knowledge-Making, written during the first decade following the death and canonization of Laizij.

"Find within these Walls the Whole of the World."

I hear my fellows repeat it as we approach the threshold, Ciudo even speaking it in the deliberately archaic dialect of the cult, a standard introductory subject for the students of dead and obscure languages at ITU.

The "walls" refer both to the institution of learning, whether Ivory Tower or Porylus in this case, as well as the bones of the human skull. The message indicates that possessed knowledge of anything and everything exists within one's own mind, though the spoken or written word do exist as valued vehicles for it. The brain becomes a sacred vessel meant to be filled to its fullest capacity with knowledge, with the elusive goal of complete knowledge implied, lurking but ever-present.

Within the brazier-lit office, the fitted stone walls and floors are bedecked in thick, decorative textiles of gold, red, and cooler colors. The far side of the one-room building is dominated by a huge series of shelves which hold hundreds of cylindrical wooden containers, each of which containing hundreds of rolls of parchment or more fibrous mediums. Several assistants navigate the archive on squat ladders, and several short lines of campus-dwellers or locals stand awaiting their turn. We are directed toward a large space which seems to have just been cleared of people pending our arrival. Bisecting the two halves of the room is a long, low counter of polished wood, covered in many places by similar containers or their documents, as well as an array of writing implements and what appear to be stamps or seals. I can scarcely count ten, as opposed to the set of eight-dozen generally required to keep up with bureaucratic standards at ITU.

Standing behind the middle of this counter is a woman with blindingly white teeth and red hair, possessed of equal measures of competence, friendliness, and exhausting chipperness.

Her name is Kibra, and apparently she will be our guide for the duration of our stay at Porylus.

Within a few short talecks the paperwork is sorted out and stored away, and we are able to depart. We are somewhat dismayed to find our wagon gone upon reentering the light of day, but Kibra assures us that all of our belongings will have been brought to our accommodations by now. The promise of being able to sleep in real beds overwhelms our momentary discomfort at the well-meaning breach of privacy, and we continue on up the hill. The crowd of onlookers has thinned by now with the continuation of classes, and we are somewhat more free to go as we please without feeling... doted upon.

As we walk, our new guide offers brief insights into each major building which we pass by- on their histories, and on any possible links which can be made to similar institutions back at the ITU, whether through architecture, shared instructors, or the rare exchange program which does not peter out amid webs of silver tape.¹ I appreciate Kibra's enthusiasm, though to be honest I am not particularly interested in what binds the two campuses together so much as what sets them apart from one another.

Now, as if Porylus Mons itself has read my scribbling, we turn a sudden corner which brings us out onto the level top of the hill, where several more buildings ring a broad, circular plaza dotted with benches and fixtures of plant life or the occasional torch-post. In the plaza's center is what appears to be the most expensive piece of stonework any of us have witnessed yet on the premises. It is a tall fountain of marble and other light-colored stones, carved and smooth and gleaming, even in the half-light of this cloudy day. I do not know how the fountain functions at first glance, when there are no other points of high elevation from which water could be flowing in order to provide gravity power. But I can't be too concerned with that detail, given that I can see what is depicted upon the fountain.

An intricately carved three-dimensional representation of the white bristlecone pine of Deneroth rises up just right of the fountain's center amid branch-like cascades of water and root-shaped streams down at its base. Just to the left beside it, reaching a hand out to pluck a bulbous fruit from one low-hanging branch, is a woman, nude save for a cloth which is wrapped around her waist. She clutches her stomach, the swell of which mirrors the turgidity of the tree's trunk.

These are the two contradictory tales of Haraal's birth, merged into one.



¹ While the majority of intra-University documents are contained within traditional binding of a red (really more of a dark wine color), materials concerning communication and cooperation with its sister campus are generally distinguished by a silver (more of a faded sky-blue) wrapping. This, coupled with the complete lack of silver coinage in and around Deneroth, has led many to joke that the color simply doesn't exist in the ITU, or that working at the University makes one color-blind to it.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 20.

The days pass, and winter settles deeper around us. Our wagons reach the outskirts of the muddy land on which Porylus was founded, and are relieved to find that the earth has frozen up substantially. Rather than mucking through trackless fields for an extra few days, we are staying on schedule while serenaded by the constant, uncanny crackle and crunch of frost beneath our feet, wheels, and hooves.

It reminds Hraela of the sounds of the rivers back home, and we are treated to another one of her tales of Gertish folkways, which I am always more than happy to hear. After the burning of children in effigy has been taken care of and a village is settled in for the long haul of winter, ice becomes a source of occasional diversion. Apparently it is a custom to strap bones to one's feet and use them to glide across the surface of a frozen river. The rivers can produce a fine layer of thin, blackish ice which apparently makes a very eerie sound when glided upon, or when stones are skipped across it. Skilled ice-gliders are able to produce series of sounds and notes bordering on music. Unskilled gliders tend to fall and sink, their ghosts lingering below the river's surface and adding to the intensity of other gliders' performances by chancing them around under the ice during subsequent winters.

Sarq asks her if her people have any traditions that don't involve someone dying horribly in some way.

She scoffs, but does not otherwise reply.

We are jarred from our discussion by the sound of shouting up ahead. Not particularly spirited or angry shouting, but the kind of shouts used to carry a conversation long distances through cold air. We stick our heads out from below the wagon cover and crane our necks, and eventually spot a figure on a hilltop overlooking our procession, body dark against the pale grey smoke which rises up from a squat chimney behind it. They wave a rather large grain scythe around in our general direction. Apparently the snow cover obscured a series of property markers, and we've torn through some farmer's field. Fortunately it is fallow this time of year, so we've done no real damage, and the farmer will not be bringing that scythe and two-dozen relatives down to speak with us personally- assuming we are quick to extract ourselves from their property.

I can already tell that I will enjoy our stay here.

While cresting the next few hills we are far more cautious about staying on the road, and we begin to see towers in the distance. The tallest catches our eyes, and for good reason. It is the tower which was once the heart of the Ivory-Campus-at-Porylus, and its architecture is a clear hearkening-back to our beige city. In fact, for the past two hundred-odd years it has been said to be even more ITU-like than the tower of the ITU itself, stature notwithstanding.

The exact details of the controversy (if it could even be called that) are vague to this generation, but what is known is that the damage sustained by the former study-observatory of Laizij was damaged during or immediately after the events of the Rupture. The domed roof of the tower collapsed and a section of wall on the top level sloughed off to one side. The damage to the Eternal Scholar's personal study was a severe blow to the ego of the University. Curiously however, instead of working to erase the memory that it had ever happened, the Directorate decided to embrace the wound. The debris and top floor remain untouched, except what was needed in order to shore up the integrity rest of the building, and Board meetings continue as they have for centuries, just one floor lower than previous generations enjoyed.

Damaged relics and artifacts, including the section of wall, were incorporated into the ritual practices of the University's religious functionaries, adding a dimension of grief and mourning to the previously stuffy and emotionless practice of the Eccentric's most devout followers. If money was ever presented for the tower's full restoration--as many have suspected must have been the case at one point or another--it never saw the light of day. Rumors of embezzlement or deep, generations-long rivalries between Board members and their successors are popular among freshmen and library wall graffiti to this day. I suspect the story could be blown wide-open and exposed, if anyone ever took an interest in that sort of high-tier budget trivia and administrator gossip.

But that is a story for another time, and hopefully another person. More than towers are creeping into view now.

Roofs of red, white, or black checker the outskirts which grow organically outward from the center-most cluster of the city. Mud brick, wood, stone, and other materials make up the walls supporting them, none of them ordered together or separated in any manner that suggests a rigidly-enforced policy of hereditary decorum along family lines. And amid that refreshing forest chaos can be seen people stamping along in the cold or driving wagons this way and that along streets of raised earth and cobblestones. They don't pay us any mind as we near the outskirts. No one stops to stare or make a crude remark relating to graduate students or mistaken associations with wizardry. We are nothing special here. It is almost like we are back in a nicer district of the False City, though Porylus has only a fraction of the former's population.

Our caravan splits at a forked street, the majority of our help going right to find suitable lodging for the night. We continue on toward the left, into the city center. Taller, older, and more stately buildings are here, from the better decades following the city's founding. And nestled amid them, delineated by little more than a waist-high stone wall with wide openings, is the campus proper. The school here is arranged spirally, with the gradual inward, rightward turn of the main road culminating in the historical tower at the hill's crest and center. I don't know the reason for the spiral shape, though my guess would be that it was seen as an auspicious sign by those old alumni of Laizij's entourage.

Before we are able to reach the beginning of the incline, we see a crowd forming as if out of thin air. They are an irregular bunch of mostly young folk, with a few comparable to my age or a bit older peppered throughout. I count between twenty and thirty.

And they are all staring at us.

And they are... smiling? And waving?

We do not realize that they are students of Porylus until they tell us so, and we do not believe this for a good couple of moments afterward. But apparently our coming was announced, and these people willingly, without duress or threat of academic discipline, chose to come and welcome us. Several of them even introduce themselves as members of the university's representative sporting team, and they seem confused by our momentarily frightened questions of where they are hiding their spike-toed boots and wooden clubs. Evidently "sport" means "sport" in the local dialect, and not "heavily armed and bored children of wealthy families harassing people for fun and profit", as in Deneroth. Hraela is hesitant to let go of the grip of her training sword until they convince us of their peaceful intent, all while the rest of the students or off-duty faculty laugh at what they perceive to be a big joke.

Gradually, the others are compelled to hop down from the wagon and join with the small crowd, which picks up a few stragglers as we make our winding way up through the campus. Hands are shaken, names exchanged, and interest in the Ivory way of things is piqued. I even hear something resembling a compliment about the school uniform, which Porylus entirely lacks. Sarq, Ciudo, and even Hraela seem to enjoy themselves.

As I watch them, I am overtaken by a deep, wounding nostalgia which I've no right nor reason to feel.