Alice got up and brushed the dirt and grass off of her. As she did so she also realized how difficult it was to wipe tears without some kind of fabric to use. She stretched a bit, noting that she felt much better than before. It looked like it was a few hours before sunset, so she could continue her practice, but she would need to meditate and recover her mana. Something she did not want to do since she remembered losing entire days to meditation. If she had to stay she would rather hunt for some meat, but given her track record she likely wouldn’t get anything before sunset.
That also reminded her about balancing her diet. So far most of her diet was meat, which was apparently quite bad for her. She had been having the occasional berry and fruit, but she preferred meat, even unseasoned, to anything she picked. Especially since hand picking fruit was so much more work than cooking meat, though she supposed the difficulty of getting the meat more than made up for it.
That’s why she’d planned on hunting more so that she could trade the hide and meat for other things. But at this point her meat had rotted and decomposed. It seemed her wards went down at some point during her coma.
This meant all she had was deer hide and some poor quality wolf leather off cuts to trade. Which she doubted would get her much more than the communal serving of food. Maybe she could get Karandi to provide food if she accepted his ‘mentorship’. Again. Either way she had a lot of time to think about her future, so for now she decided to go back and find something to do.
Alice made it back to the village about half an hour later. When she got back she could see the village emptier than it was at night, but still fuller than it was when she left. Probably because they were starting to come back from their work. She looked around and found herself quite bored, not having anything to do at the moment. She once again thought of meditating but with no way to keep track of time she was hesitant. She also couldn’t find anyone playing games at this point in time, so she just kept wandering around.
Eventually she decided to go find Nadi. Hopefully she wasn’t busy so they could find something to do. Not knowing where to find her she asked one of the nearby goblins, probably an ‘adult’ if she had to guess. They had an odd look when she mentioned Nadi, but they gave her directions, keeping any conversation short.
She followed the directions, all while pondering how her language skill even worked. She hadn’t felt anything when she ascended or levelled it up, but instead just found speaking goblin way easier, deep how incomprehensible and nonsensical it sounded at first. She wondered how she sounded to others. To her she was simply speaking and the translation was taking care of, but maybe she sounded similar to the great dreamer to others. She would make sure to ask someone later.
After walking past the hut she was looking for, lost in thought, and backtracking quite a bit after confusing the instructions, she made it to the hopefully correct hut. There was no way for her to know though, as if looked similar to every other hut there. There may have been some identifying features she was told, but apparently level five in a language skill didn’t mean she knew all the words. Hopefully this hut was the one made of ‘rama’, if not the worst that would happen is a bit of embarrassment.
She got to the door, remembering to knock this time, in case someone got sour about it. There was no response but she could hear some talking through the walls. After a bit more waiting and another round of knocking, the door was pulled open, rotating around the wooden rods impaled in the ground and attached to the top of the doorframe. Alice found it interesting how the goblins here managed to make hinges out of nothing but wood, but was disturbed before she could finish that thought.
”Oh, it’s you. What do you want.” Kani said in a hushed tone.
”I wanted to see Nadi. Just to talk.”
”It should be fine but let me go ask. Just wait here for a bit”
As Kani opened the door and went back in Alice noticed just how bright the inside of the room was. It was especially noticeable when compared to the waning daylight outside. After a few more words were said, Kani came back to through the door and told her to be back later.
”Do you know what happened to her? Did she get sick or something?”
Kani glared at her as his gaze shifted from confusion to anger, before he just sighed and spoke, “She’s been afflicted by something called draconic madness. It was a few days ago when she was hunted by a monster. Thankfully it’s only mental, though there is no cure.”
Alice had heard of draconic madness before, though she didn’t think you could get it from anything other than a dragon. Apparently whenever a dragon got angry entire countries would suffer from it. It was a huge problem for any country to deal with, especially because of how many lives would be lost to the rampage.
”How did that happen?”
”She went to go stop a fire in a forbidden area. Turns out those places are forbidden for a reason. Thankfully you were there to take most of the wounds for her, even if it was your fault in the first place.”
Alice couldn’t help but notice that Kani was acting differently from how he normally did. Well, at least she assumed so, she’d only spoken to him once before but from that interaction she felt he was a lot more abrasive now.
She didn’t like the thought that this her fault either. Though it really did look like it. She didn’t think she had done anything wrong, but lighting that fire was what had apparently brought Nadi to danger. And if not her then it would have been some other goblin who got hurt. She mumbled a quick apology before pushing her way outside. The sunlight was still visible, though hidden somewhat by the trees. Alice went to her hut and waited in silence for dinner to start.
After the sun set, Alice went outside before noticing just how dark it was. She realized it was because tonight was a new moon, making it darker than usual. But the village was also quieter than it should have been. There was still the fire in the village centre, but there was no one playing and there was nothing else to suggest life. Alice, more than a bit frightened, walked over to the fire, checking her mana all the while. 37%. Definitely not enough for anything meaningful. Still she pressed onward, trusting that she would have heard something if this were anything bad.
Thankfully once she arrived, she could see all the goblins standing or sitting as Karandi addressed them.
”Life has never, and will never be easy. Despite that, we have grown as a people once more. Out of thirty children, fifteen survived their first trial, and twelve have lived to this day. Of the grown, there have been seven deaths. We will mourn the lost and rejoice for the living.
“As the remembrance is prepared I shall tell the story of the first death.” He cleared his throat as people either settled down or began digging a pit. “Long, long ago when the world was yet to be born, there was only the sun and the moon. The sun and the moon were madly in love, and would even die for each other. One day, to prove their love, the sun tore pieces of themselves and scattered them among the void, giving the gift of sky full of stars.
”The moon, so moved by this gift, tore itself apart in turn to give the sun the gift of a child. The moon used its primordial essence to give life to the cold stone. Rock became dirt, and dirt became all the life on the land and in the waters. However, in tearing such a large piece of itself, and infusing it with so much essence, the moon found itself approaching death. It could no longer sustain itself, and its love was too powerful to allow it to kill its only child for survival.
“In its endless desperation, the sun sent its essence into the earth and the moon, for as long as it could it kept both alive, however the strain was too great, and eventually the sun dimmed and died. With no sustenance the moon and earth would be next, so the moon prolonged her child’s life by offering what little essence she had left, before she too withered and died.”
Alice couldn’t help but notice the translation breaking every time he said ‘earth’, probably because the concept matched up but the direct translation didn’t.
“The earth was full of sorrow and fear. Both its parents had died for it, but it could do nothing but wait for its own demise. The earth, seeing that at this rate all life would fade, offered a deal to its inhabitants. It would provide them its essence, and with it the ability to grow and thrive, but when the time came it would reap their lives.
This allowed it to produce its own essence, but no matter how much it produced it could not resurrect both its parents. So it came to a compromise, it would give the sun essence for half the day and for the other half it would provide for the moon, this would allow them to recover their strength, slowly but surely. However, this a would keep them separated, unable to see each other ever again.
The moon refused this, deciding it would rather die. And so it visits the sun during the day, draining its energy until it dies on the night of the new moon.
”Therefore we thank the earth for the life given, bless the sun for the vitality it gave, and honour the moon for the love it shows all who know it.”
As the story ended, and the pit was mostly finished, Alice found herself thinking about what she’d just heard. She didn’t think it was a true story, but either way she could never be able to verify it. But if that was what happened, it did make a few other things make more sense. She remembered asking her mom why the sun went down or the moon was sometimes visible in the day, and this story was a much more satisfying answer than ‘gravity’.
While Alice found herself distracted by thoughts of one day talking to the moon, a whole bird, fox and goblin corpse were brought to the edge of the pit.
”Life is as fair as it is dangerous, and death comes for all. From those who we hunt and kill, to serve as our sustenance,” as he said that the metre tall bird was unceremoniously dropped into the hole, bloodied as it was.
“For those who do us no harm, taken as is their duty to the ground,” The fox was in turn placed into the hole, a bit more carefully than the lithe bird, but still quite roughly. “And those who must tear survival from the claws of death, taken despite their refusal.” At that the surprisingly fresh goblin was gently laid in the hole.
”We offer the lives of the fallen to nourish the ground, and our futures. We remember their lives, and cherish the memories. Just as we hope that their death, as well as the lessons learned from them benifit our future and our present.”
Karandi walked to the hole and began to fill it in by hand. One by one others began joining in and helped fill the hole. Alice felt pressured to join in, but also felt out of place in the strange ceremony. As she was left as the only one still waiting, she walked toward the deep hole and began filling it in as well. After the hole was full, Alice was covered in dust, but it seemed everything was over now. The somber mood still remained, though it was slowly dissipating. There was nothing notable about the food, though she couldn’t help but notice that despite the death of seven goblins, there was still just as much food there as before.
She looked at how much others were getting and got a similar amount before heading to bed, with nothing else to do. That was because everyone else was still remembering the dead, so there was nothing to do but watch them.
It was difficult to navigate through the darkness, but she managed to get back fairly safely. Before going to sleep she decided to meditate for a bit, regenerating her mana and expanding it. She had no idea how long it took, but it was a relaxing way to spend her time. After she had done that she fell asleep.
