You have an idea where the elusive root may be.
You head into the forest, depper than you've ever been, looking for a dense set of vines. You find them, luckily, in but an hour, and search them for fireflies (or the equivielent, as fireflies are a earth creature. silly!)
You grab some of the beetlebrights and lug them home, smiling happily at Amma on the way. What a nice lady!
You find your new Patron outside her hut, tanning the hide of some great beast brought in by the hunters. The area around her smells strongly of urine, and the hide bubbles disgustingly under a slightly golden pool of... You wish you'd never seen that. You don't know it yet but that is a wish you'll be wishing often, very often indeed.
"Well, Boy, what random forest object did you get?" She grumbles, not taking her hands out from the tannery. You place the beetlebrights on the edge of the stone tub.
Ulla looks at them expressionless for a very, very long time. Days seem to pass, then weeks, perhaps even centuries, as she stares down at the beetlebrights, eyes sometimes flicking over to you, then back at the beetles.
"You..." she begins. She blinks slowly, first a clear eyelid (you suddenly realize you have one! Perhaps that is what the meant during you ceremony by "shutting the first eye"...) and then the opaque one.
"What are these?" she finishes.
"T-the roots, mistress..."
"No, you
Jashe-ta Idiot, these are BEETLES."
"I didn't know what you meant so I went and asked for help but then there was a but and-"
"Shut up." Ulla grabs you (oh suns above her hands are still wet and pruned) and drags you by your ear and shoulder to the edge of a forest, to one of the large mushrooms spanning the canopy. It's
dangling it's net down almost to the forest floor, and the buzzing beetlebrights are already getting entrapped by sticky filaments and thin webbing. Most of the insects are already turning white as the mushroom grows mycelium into their corpses to feed. Some are drained by symbiotes, tiny creatures of many even tinyer legs dancing around the sticky spots and through the thin hairs like snakes through tubes. But something catches your eye.
"This is a
Saksa-Tolun. A Flying Star." She says, pointing to a bulb hanging from one of the strands. A curious eyelike coloring encircles the point where it hangs from, making the star look like a animal more than a seed. In fact, as you watch it's three small tentacles begin to swing without wind; it's moving!
"They're spore pods. Inside is a dust that grows into all the little mushrooms in the grass, see them there? But sometimes they dig their way underground, or more likely into a greenleaf, and sprout into one of these." she guestures to the giant mushroom. "They're good to eat, if you don't mind the bitter taste and dry texture. Perhaps it's better to say they're bad to eat, but if you're starving it's far better than death." She plucks it from the tree and it begins squirming. Taking the Flying Star in both hands, the twists and tears off one of the tentacles, then tosses the still-flailing seed to the ground, where it opens with a puff of white dust.
The tentacle is still squirming as Ulla-sha bites into it and hands the rest to you. "Go put that in the pot in my hut. I'm making a tincture for a story later this month." You nod and rush off, feeling smarter.
STATUS CORED: FOREST LORE
STATUS CORED: IRON STOMACH (Ulla doesn't wash her hands...)
----------------------------
It's later that month. You've learned alot about the world you live in, and about what being the Shaman is all about.
It's not so much a religious position as a historian. The shaman knows and retells all the stories of the tribe, and writes new ones if they need to be made. It's the shamans duty to keep the stories from getting muddled and lost, and to keep the tribe on a morally and historically rightous path. Tonight is the first night you get to see that in action.
You've learned your words well, under Ulla. you already speak better than most your age, and some adults have complemented you on your growing silver tongue. You're no diplomat, and you're turning quite snarky, but that's to be expected, and nobody groans about it with you in earshot.
Ulla is on the stage now, draped in heavy furs despite the growing heat of late spring. The dual suns set in the sky; the distant one, Naula, is tiny and dim, for this is a year of Shadows, when Naula retreats to mend her wounds from her battle with Dasun, the violent Sun-God. The battle never ceases, but it is a necessary one, for without it all the world would burn up and drift away. Ulla is wearing a cowl with a helm made of the skull of a great rodent. Sharp, silvery fangs lance down in front of her goat-like eyes, which are narrowed in concentration and dulled by her shut Clear-eyelids. It's a ceremonial event, a storytelling. This is the history of the tribe.
"GOBLINS! I AM A OLD WOMAN, AND I HAVE SEEN MANY STORIES COME TO PASS. I HAVE COMPOSED TALES OF MANY HEROES, TUTORED MANY YOUNG GOBLINS-" There's a coughing from the adults that sounds oddly like "liar" but Ulla-sha ignores it. "AND FOUGHT MANY ANCIENT BEASTS. BUT THIS STORY HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD TO ANY BUT SHAMANS FOR SIX HUNDRED DANCES OF THE SUN [four hundred earth years, humans] FOR THIS TALE WAS CURSED, CURSED BY AN OLD, CRUSTY SHAMANESS. YES, A TERRIBLE CURSE WAS LAID, FOR ANY GOBLINS WHO HEARD OF THE TALE WERE CURSED WITH A LIFE LONG BEYOND NATURAL, A LIFE OF PAIN AND UNENDING SUFFERING. I LAID THE CURSE ON THIS STORY, BUT NOW I LIFT IT TO TELL TO YOU!" A cheer!
"I WARN YOU THOUGH, THIS TALE IS NOT EASY TO TELL. CURSES MAY -LINGER-!" she jumps at a small child, a girl of your brood. The poor hatchling jumps almost as high as the surrounding trees and lets out a squeal to peirce the heavens. "BUT IT MUST BE TOLD. A GREAT STORM IS COMING, AND ALL THE HISTORY MUST. BE. KNOWN."
What tale is Ulla to tell?
The tale of Us the Unknown? A figure so mysterious they don't even have a gender honorific?The tale of Three Creeks? A haunted delta by the Biglake, and the hero who put their souls at rest?
The tale of Boga-Ga? A explorer who traveled among the forests fighting elves and rival tribes, to find the Delta?
Or the Tale of Naula and Dasun? The gods who created the universe, a tale of split lovers?
Poll
6 (31.6%)
Author
Topic: The Starborn [Xenofiction?] (Read 77391 times)