For your whole life your world has been a self-contained two mile diameter Sphere, filled with part of a seaside port town and a bit of coastline with what amounts to a small lake of stale seawater. Your parents died when you were still a child, and since then your only companion has been The Optimumist, an old man who has instructed you in the arcane arts and is responsible for keeping the Sphere in existence. Whether for good or ill, his time is coming to an end, and so too your home's.
The Optimumist rests in his study, an immaculate and ordered room filled with scrolls and parchments of his own writing on a multitude of topics: your primers and textbooks for his tutelage. These past few months he has become increasingly withdrawn and vague, seemingly able to focus on the present only with effort; he speaks to you now, but his attention seems directed elsewhere, his mind wandering paths unknown.
"The prophecy foretold that the elements would break their bonds in the foundation of the world and wreak vengeance upon the gods, the firmament would shatter, and a darkness would swallow all of creation - and that was what happened. There were signs, indications of what was to come, but we haughty few of the Octad thought we could manipulate them, manipulate fate itself, to attain an outcome we desired. We were wrong.
"T'was the Beckoner that saved me and your ancestors. When she called to summon me to the Spire, as the world crumbled beneath a falling sky filled with warring gods, I sensed the darkness bloom behind her and consume our brethren. I warned her, and in that instant she chose not to save herself, but to save me. She conjured forth the Sphere, locking me and the entire town away from the world, safe from anything outside. Perhaps the founders of this place had some inkling of it's fate when they named it Bastion.
"I have used my own power - indeed, my very soul - to make this place more hospitable and to extend it's existence. For every day that has passed for us here, a hundred have gone by outside - if Time even still exists outside of this place. I have tried to make life meaningful and enjoyable for you and your ancestors; preparing for the day, this day, when I am spent and the Sphere ceases to protect us. But I must admit to you, the last of Bastion - it may have all been for naught. Not even I can see beyond the Sphere, and all my predictions and foretellings end with it.
"I have tried to best teach you the foundations of my skill and trade, Wizardry, and you have taken to it like no other I've seen. While the things you know may seem simple compared to the powers I wield, they are the tools with which all greater feats are made. And remember this: it is the simplest things which are the strongest.
"In the end my time runs short, seemingly all the more so for my efforts at extending it. I have always endeavored to achieve the greatest amount of good for the largest number of people possible; my life's work, all life's work, now rests with you. You must prepare yourself as you see fit, for shortly I and the Sphere will perish."
The old man looks about the room, obviously confused, then meets your eye and smiles, relaxed. "Is there any last question you would ask of me, Vernalis?"
Vernalis thinks for a moment on his many quiet years in the sphere, the hours he had spent immersed in books or in formal discourse with his mentor and sole companion. He reflects for the briefest moment on the impending loss of all that he has known. A hundred questions spring to mind but the keen intellect his mentor helped to hone quickly settles on one... "If there is some world beyond the sphere, what am I to do in it?"
"Do the most good for the most people."
The old wizard lets out a long, rattling sigh. "Now go, Vernalis, and good luck. Prepare yourself as you see fit; the end is nigh, and I would that I perish alone." He smiles and settles himself in his chair, waving you away. You suddenly realize how frail, how faded, he appears.
Vernalis dutifully walks from the room but lingers in the doorway.
has he always seemed so old, so... hollow...
With a heavy heart he closes the door and wanders out of his teacher's home, quite possibly for the final time. Although he knew this day would come he had never made a plan of what to do when it did. It had been as if the act of planning would somehow cement the inevitability of it. So he meanders through the town, unaware of where he is going until he finds himself in the small graveyard next to the now run down church. Silently he makes his way to the humble stones that mark his parent's burial mounds.
what became of you, Mom and Dad... I suppose I'll find out, or be able to form a theory soon... if there is nothing outside the sphere I'll be joining you in oblivion very shortly... and if there is still some physical world out there it stands to reason that there are still outer planes for your souls to have settled upon... too bad none of that offers much comfort, I'm scared...
The young man lays down between the two headstones, tears welling up in his violet eyes, and he stares up at the ceiling of the sphere to see what becomes of it.
Only a short while passes before the Sphere disappears, it's vague grey luminescence fading away over a matter of mere moments to reveal a starry night sky. Bright points of light of a variety of colors - white, yellow, blue, red, green - twinkle and shine down on the young wizard. There is a sudden rumbling and convulsion of the earth as, with a reverberating roar, the town of Bastion and it's seawater are released from the confines of the Sphere and drop onto whatever land it laid upon.
A few long moments later Bastion seems to have settled; already supine, Vernalis is shaken but unharmed by the violent movement, though he can hear the noise of buildings collapsing throughout the town as well as the rushing of water from the "coast;" from the sound he doesn't believe he's in any danger of being flooded.
The mourning and fear that wet Vernalis' eyes quickly fade as the breathtaking sight of stars appears for the first time in his life. A wave of relief washes over him and expels the tears rolling down his cheeks.
rest well in the outer planes, mom and dad, and my dear teacher, and all you others who lived and died in Bastion.
Suddenly his whole body tenses as the ground feels like it's falling out from beneath him. When it settles he springs to his feat and runs to what's left of his small stone home to retrieve his backpack and rapier before cautiously heading toward what had been the shore to see what has happened there.
Vernalis gathers his things from home, often having to jump or climb across Bastion's new landscape. Bastion seems to have settled onto a slope; indeed, he can see that some sort of hill or peak now looms over the new "high side" of town. His house is damaged but intact, the stones cracked from the stress of the shifted ground beneath.
The town grows cooler and cooler, such that by the time he reaches the piers, panting with effort, Vernalis can see his breath on the air. While he has exerted himself in navigating the town's new geography, he finds it curious that he's so winded from the effort. The new slope of the town runs roughly parallel to the old coast and from the piers he sees that the seawater is gone, apparently having flowed away downhill, leaving behind a wet sedimentary mass of rocks, mud, and sand that glistens in the starlight.
Vernalis squints and strains looking for any signs of light or smoke in the valley below.
the air seems... thin... perhaps outside of the sphere wind flows down hill like water... or it could be that there's something in the air that makes it feel this way... I fear setting out in the dark but if the air is flowing away I don't suppose I have a choice...
Doubling back to the nearest store of food, he gathers a couple tightly wrapped pickled fish and as many root vegetables as he can comfortably carry. Then, after casting light on his rod, he heads back down to the shore and follows the slope to its lowest point.
Vernalis gathers some food then picks his way through the tumbled piers and crumbling slopes of the old shoreline. Large formations of black rock have pushed up out of the ground in places as a result of the town's settling, some over forty feet in height, though whether they were merely buried within the earth beneath Bastion the whole time or the town has been impaled upon them since the Sphere's disappearance he cannot tell.
Taking care not to hurt himself, he reaches the down-slope edge of town after about an hour, the ground crumbling away into a muddy mess which comes to an abrupt end at a wide cliff. Peering over the edge he is disappointed to see only vague darkness, and for a moment he worries he peers into a void when suddenly a silvery moon begins to rise above the far horizon and lights up the world below.
Beneath the star-strewn sky Vernalis looks down from a mountain peak onto rocky slopes and a mist-shrouded valley below, the tops of conifer trees piercing the veil of grey vapor to trace out hilltops and ridgelines. On the foot of the slope he can make out a scattered few points of wavering light - contained fires of some kind, no doubt. Far across the valley a glow in the mist hints at a much larger source or concentration of illumination. Turning his attention to the cliff itself, he sees that it is a short distance down to a navigable slope covered in boulders of all shapes and sizes, the result of some large past avalanche. A swath of new activity can be seen cutting out from directly below the cliff, no doubt the result of Bastion's floodwaters.
Under the light of the moon and stars, Vernalis dismisses his light spell and allows his eyes to acclimate...
Fires... Do I dare hope there are people down there? It's just as likely elementals... or the perpetually burning vestiges of the world that was... What if the sphere didn't protect Bastion through the great calamity but dislodged it from time like a massive time stop spell and now I've returned just in time for the end of all things? No, surely the Optimumist would have discovered that and warned me. At any rate, the temperature continues to fall and those fires are my best bet for staying warm through the night.
The young wizard finally turns his eyes from flickers in the distance to the crumbling edge of the only world he's ever known. He carefully climbs down until his foot finds solid ground in this new world. He sets his weight upon it tentatively at first, until he's certain it will support him. Then, with growing confidence, he makes his way down the hill towards the closest light. As he walks away he whispers, "Farewell, my home, my shelter, my Bastion."
Vernalis picks his way down the earthen slope, treading in the wet but relatively clear wake of the flood from the town. Looking back and up it seems to Vernalis that a large portion of the peak above, where Bastion now rests, very recently collapsed - meaning that in all likelihood the Sphere had actually been inside the mountain. Shallow pools of seawater and the ocassional dead fish dot the slope, as do some monumental boulders far too large to get swept away by the rushing waters.
It takes him several hours to wend his way down to the base of the slope, by which time the moon has set and a sun has begun to rise over the far horizon, tingeing the thinning mists he's entered a golden hue. While the slope has leveled off, the ground remains wet and is quite rocky, covered in loose rocks ranging from the size of his fingernail to his own size; he can also smell the faint scent of brine. It seems he has reached the aftermath of Bastion's emptied sea.
He has little time to study his surroundings, however, as he suddenly hears cries of pain from somewhere close by ahead of him. While unintelligible, they are clearly the grunts and exclamations of a sentient creature, not the howls of a simple animal.
speech... that sounded like some form of speech... what if they're hostile... 'do the most good for the most people'.
Doing his best to listen for the source of the sound, Vernalis scrambles over the rough terrain through the mist hoping to find and help whatever, or hopefully whoever, made the noise...
Vernalis moves as fast as he can given the rocky landscape and the mist, and a minute later spots a humanoid figure. It is thirty feet away, prostate, slowly crawling in the same general direction as Vernalis's travel away from the peak, it's legs apparently useless. The figure is dressed in a long leather vest and high leather boots, with it's exposed arms, legs, and head appearing quite hairy, if not furry. It groans with pain and effort as it struggles forward, leaving an obvious path across the loose rocks back the way it came from the left of Vernalis's current position. The creature is obviously too engaged in it's own woes to notice Vernalis through the mist.
the hair... what is that thing? it's armor is manufactured though, it must be sentient... is this what has replaced men and the demi-humans? what if its hostile... I suppose it wouldn't be able to catch me in its current state... it can't speak the old tongues of men, can it? perhaps the timeless language of the dragons, if anything survived the cataclysm it must have been the dragons...
Vernalis calls out, tentatively, to the creature from where he is standing.
"Excuse me, what's going on here?"
The creature stops and turns it's head in Vernalis's direction, and after a few moments calls out in a strange, unknown language.
"♒□♓⬧⧫♒♏❒♏?"
The creature moves it's head from side to side, as if looking for Vernalis in the mist.
so much for that... I hope these hairy people aren't warring against some kind of lizard people, I might have ruined any chance I had... well, if it's out here alone maybe it's some sort of exploring scholar, I suppose it couldn't hurt to try the tongue of men...
While he thinks, Vernalis follows the trail behind the crawling creature with his eyes, looking for any sign of where it came from or why it was injured. Then he tries again in his own language, "Excuse me, what's going on here?"
After he finishes speaking he crouches down in the mist in the hopes of making it harder to see him.
The prostate figure continues to look around.
"♒♏❒♏♋❒♏⍓□◆? ♒♋⧫♋❒♏⍓□◆⬧◻♏♋&♓■♑?"
The trail extends towards and to the left of Vernalis at a sixty degree angle to his current position as he looks at the creature (so somewhat more to the left than towards him), and extends beyond his field of view into the mist.
The young wizard continues to call out his greeting in each of the elemental languages until he exhausts his options.
"⬧⧫♋⍓♌♋♍&♎♏❍□■!"
The figure, apparently unable to see or understand Vernalis, begins to crawl away again with a renewed fervor.
Vernalis calls upon the power stored in his ring to cast a comprehend languages spell. Then he calls out once more in his native tongue and begins moving towards the wounded creature.
Vernalis easily overtakes the crawling figure. Up close it is evident that the figure is a particularly hirsute human male, or something close to it; thick, dark hair covers his limbs and even his neck, and he sports hair and beard that are both long and wild. As the young wizard overtakes him he rolls onto his back and puts out his hands to shield himself, staring up with frightened eyes.
"Leave me be, mist-thing - take the dead if you must!"
how do I keep it talking when it can't understand me?
Vernalis slips his rod into a loop in his belt and slowly raises his empty hands in an attempt to reassure the man-creature. Then he gestures towards its legs and in a calm even tone asks, "what happened to your legs?"
While he waits hopefully for an answer, the young wizard tries to visually inspect the other being's injuries.
The man glances down at his legs, then back to Vernalis's inquisitive eyes.
"No! I am not dead yet - I will survive this! There are dead back at the mine, that way!" He gestures back the way his trail leads. "Go eat them instead. It is not far, you lazy thing! Leave me be!"
It appears to Vernalis that the man's legs have been crushed quite recently; it seems safe to assume that the landslide caused by Bastion's sea played some part in it. The man is bleeding from a compound fracture in his right leg, though it seems likely both his legs have multiple broken bones.
well... it seems a shame to use a scroll so soon, especially when the creature will likely resist... I'm not sure how else I can help though...
Continuing to move and to speak slowly and calmly, he places a hand on his own chest and says, "Vernalis." Twice more he points at himself and repeats his introduction. Then he points at the frightened creature and asks "what's your name?"
The man narrows his eyes and looks into Vernalis's.
"You're a 'Vurnlish?'" He shakes his head. "I don't know what that is. I'm a Bergmann," he then mimics Vernalis's self-referential motion, "Bergmann Klaus." Calming down somewhat, Bergmann Klaus looks Vernalis up and down. "You don't look like you're from around here, but seem mortal enough up close. Are you from another province?" He pauses for a moment, then scowls and sighs. "Like you can understand a word I say."
He scoops up a handful of small stones in both hands, pours them out over his legs while making a guttural 'whooshing' sound, then motions about indicating the rocks.
"Bergmann Klaus," the wizard repeats with a little bow, then he gestures at himself once more and repeats, "Vernalis."
He grabs a stick off the ground and snaps it in two. He points at the broken stick and then at the broken leg, watching for any sign of recognition, then begins chanting and pushes the broken pieces of the stick back together.
Klaus furrows his brow at Vernalis's pantomime. "You're a healer of some kind? Or a singer?" He glances back over his shoulder in the direction he was crawling, then down at his ruined leg, and shrugs. "Either way, I suppose you can't make it much worse, stranger." He gives Vernalis a nod.
Vernalis smiles at the hairy man's understanding. Kneeling down next to the wounded leg, he draws a scroll of infernal healing and, placing a hand softly on Bergmann's ankle he reads it.
The color drains from Klaus's face as Vernalis's spell takes effect, and the fear returns to his eyes as he stares at the wizard.
"What... what are you?" he whispers. He falls quiet as his legs begin mending themselves and lowers his eyes to them, though whether it's to watch the process or avoid Vernalis's gaze, the young wizard cannot tell.
After the spell has run it's course, only bruises remain on Klaus's legs. He tentatively runs his hands over them, then looks up at Vernalis with guarded eyes.
"What now, mist-man?"
Vernalis shrugs.
what now, indeed... wise question Bergmann the fur-man... I suppose now I get you to lead me to your town and hope that there's someone there who speaks a language I know...
He extends a hand to help his hairy new acquaintance to his feet.
the young wizard points in the direction Bergmann had been crawling and mimes walking with the two fingers on his right hand across the outstretched palm of his left hand, then shrugs again.
Klaus accepts the wizard’s aid and once standing stomps his feet, first one and then the other, testing his legs. When Vernalis mimes walking the man gives him a hard look, then nods curtly.
The two set off across the rock-strewn landscape, their pace quickening as the morning sun burns away the evening’s mists. Once the mist has cleared Klaus looks back at Vernalis, as if checking to see that he’s still there. It becomes evident that Klaus is following a trail down the hillsides, and the pair wends their way down until little more than an hour later Vernalis sees a small village on the next hilltop – no doubt the source of last night’s small, flickering fires. Looking back he can see the peak still looming above them, somehow seeming bigger for the miles he's put between them.
A number of people are lined up in front of the village facing the two men, and as the two draw near a long-haired woman dressed in furs breaks from the group and runs up to Klaus, shouting in their strange language and embracing him. After a few long moments the two separate and briefly murmur to one another, both looking back at Vernalis. Klaus nods to the wizard and gestures him onwards, leading the way into the village.
The settlement is comprised of several long, low, windowless brick buildings with short, squat chimneys sticking out from the middle of slanted thatch roofs. These buildings frame a central square with several smoking fire pits ringed with stones, as well as a small walled-off area with a sturdy looking wooden gate barred on the outside. On the far edge of the village there is a square chimney-less brick building of small size positioned next to a road of packed earth which leads away into the hills.
A crowd gathers in the center of the village, milling out from the entrances of the low buildings; a score or so of men dressed and groomed similarly to Klaus, twice as many fur-clad women, and twice again as many children in long, sleeveless tunics that look to be made from straw. All look unwashed and unkempt save for the occasional leather cord tying back hair or beard. Klaus addresses them all, and as he speaks the men become disgruntled and some of the women begin to weep. Then Klaus gestures to his legs and eventually to the wizard, obviously recounting their initial encounter. He finishes his tale with a shrug, and all eyes turn to Vernalis.
a whole village, this close to where the sphere has been... amazing. I wish I had prepared a comprehend languages spell, communication was so much easier when one of us could understand what was going on...there's only about sixty adults, it seems unlikely any of them will be a linguist at all... what other options do I have right now...
Pointing at his new acquaintance, he says "Bergmann Klaus," then he points at himself and says, "Vernalis." With some sense of futility, he asks, "please, do any of you understand this language?" He repeats this question in each of the other five languages he knows until someone responds or he runs out of options.
The village stands mute as Vernalis makes his overtures; once the wizard has run out of languages, Klaus again addresses them all. At first he seems to be talking about Vernalis, given the looks he gives him, but then seems to move on to some other subject. Within a minute the villagers begin debating and arguing some point amongst themselves with growing vehemence without sparing Vernalis another glance, seemingly having forgotten about him.
While the fur-men are arguing Vernalis decides to look around the town. As he walks away from the gathering he watches to see if anyone protests the movement. If nobody does, he wanders off to explore the settlement.
Vernalis spends the morning in the village, exploring the small settlement and observing its people. Overall the village is spread across 8 acres of land, encompassing the hill it is perched upon and some land on the roadwards side of the hill's base.
The fire pits in the center of the village sport iron spits, racks, or cauldrons above them, and seem to be kept at a low burn at all times. The spits and cauldrons seem used for cooking food, while the racks have thick animal skins of some kind stretched across them. Children tend the coals, tossing in large chunks of rock from time to time, then removing them with metal tongs once heated and bringing into the fire pits of the houses. Water boils inside the cauldrons along with the ubiquitous straw material used for their bedding, childrens' clothes, torches, and thatch roofs. Children tend to these large pots as well, occasionally stirring them with bamboo-like rods.
The area walled in and gated features seven-foot high brick walls but no visible roofing, and encloses an area of ninety square feet (thirty feet to a side.) From inside come occasional animalistic grunts and bleats.
The bricks used in the village are made from a grey stone, the same that the children heat in the fires though the bricks are of a lighter hue. Outside the village's main square (the bunkhouses and central meeting place) there is a sort of kiln/forge half set into the ground near the road; though currently not in use, it appears to be where they manufacture these bricks when needed, as well as the simple metal tools they possess. On the opposite side of the road is the square building, which also features a barred wooden door of similar manufacture to the presumed animal pen. The road itself is hard-packed earth and has deep ruts, as if from years of regular use by wagon wheels, though Vernalis has seen no evidence that the villagers keep either wagons or team animals.
At the bottom of the hill on the roadwards side are about two acres of farmland fenced in by low, crumbling brick walls, an acre on each side of the road. On one side tall, thick stalks sprouting long, thin, frond-like leaves are grown; this appears to be the source of the village's straw and bamboo-like rods. The other acre features some sort of root vegetable with thick, thistly leaves which sprout up from the ground. Both are tended to by women from the village. These farming lots also seem to be the site of lavatory pits, with the contents probably used as fertilizer.
At no point does Vernalis see any signs of writing anywhere in the village, nor signs of magic use, nor anything approximating a church or altar.
Most of the women and children seem to have assigned tasks, while a fraction of the population seems to sleep during the day. Whatever the men usually do, today they remain gathered in the village center and continue to vigorously debate amongst themselves, attended by a few women and children while the rest go back to their chores. Included in the discussion are also three elders, one man and two women; though the people of this village are new to Vernalis, it seems to him that these three are several decades older than the rest, who range from infants to perhaps thirty-some years of age in his estimation. These elders were present during Vernalis's initial attempts at communication and seem equally ignorant of the languages he speaks.
While he explores the village he is largely ignored by the residents, who seem in a somber mood and merely give him the occasional curious or annoyed glance. Shortly after noon the group seems to come to some sort of agreement, and they round up most of the males that appear to be about eight years or older. They retrieve a few implements from the sqaure building by the road - a handful of iron sledges and picks - and head off back up the trail that he and Klaus arrived on, though Klaus does not accompany them. Instead he sits on the ground in the village center, giving Vernalis a look of appraisal.
Vernalis approaches the seated man. "Bergmann?" he asks; he points to himself, then to the departing men, then he mimes a digging motion, and finally shrugs...
Klaus cocks his head to one side, again looking the wizard up and down. Finally he lets out a long sigh, his shoulders drooping, and looks up with a hopeless expression, eyes rimmed in tears. He shrugs and motions in the direction of the departing men and children.
I wish I could understand you, Bergmann Klaus... are you upset because I'm going or because you're not... or, are you not going because you're upset about what happened... I can see there are too few men here, how many friends did you lose back there? It may be a lost cause, as you suspect, but I think doing good for these people means helping dig anyway...
Vernalis trots off after the departing men.
Vernalis follows the group of villagers back up the trail into the foothills of the peak. After a couple of hours they have returned to the spot where he met Bergmann Klaus, and several hundred yards past that they reach what appears to be a collapsed cave or mine entrance choked with a combination of grey stone such as was to be found at the village and black rock washed downslope by Bastion's sea. The adult men begin to move aside the larger rocks, making strategic use of the few hammers and picks they have in order to hasten the process. The older boys clear aside what they can, while the youngest children pick through the cleared debris, apparently looking for some specific kind of rock amidst the rubble.
Vernalis falls in with the adult men and does his best to keep up and be useful in moving the large rocks...
Vernalis pitches in alongside the villagers and soon deduces a better strategy for clearing the rubble based on what he can tell of the cave-in. He attempts to convey this to the villagers, who quickly catch on and adapt their methods to effect more efficient progress. Occasionally a cry goes up from one of the young boys, clutching a rock held high, and it is added to a small pile of similar stones; these seem to have some kind of metallic crystals that the wizard is unfamiliar with within them.
As the sun touches the peak above, two runners are sent back to the village with the crystalline rocks they have pulled from the rubble thus far. They return several hours later just as night falls, bringing with them armfuls of straw tapers and torches which are lit from the sparks of iron on stone. Even with Vernalis's assistance work looks to continue on into the night, a task which the adult villagers undertake with increasing urgency while the young children begin to fade into exhaustion.
sleeping and preparing spells would be so nice, but they can obviously still use help... and if I left now it might harm the way they see me...
Vernalis continues on, laboring alongside the men of Bergmann's hairy tribe.
Vernalis hardly notices the moon and stars this second evening, consumed as he is with his efforts to assist the villagers. He quickly deduces that the villagers are concerned with retrieving as much of the crystalline rocks as possible from the rubble, not rescuing any possible survivors, and it is a task he realizes he is much better suited for as they seem not to have his keen night vision. Leaving the shifting of rocks to Klaus's kinsmen, he spends most of the night sifting through the cleared rubble picking out the strange ore. He keeps several tapers next to him for some warmth as the temperature drops, and sometime in the night it begins to snow, the large fluffy flakes momentarily distracting the wizard before he resumes his task.
Several of the younger men begin working in shifts, resting an hour at a time, and as the sun first peeks above the far horizon they begin to gather up the ore Vernalis has separated. The adult men seem surprised by the amount of ore Vernalis has gathered, but still despondent over their failure to clear through to the mine. Those that still have their strength grimly continue, while the younger men begin to run back down the snow-covered trail to the village with their arms full of ore, the fatigued adults staggering along behind them similarly encumbered. When one of the rock-clearers notices Vernalis is still awake and active, he motions for the wizard to carry as much of the ore back to the village as he can.
I wasn't helping anyone... this was all just for ore... well, hopefully it will at least earn me some gratitude from these things... now to get back to town and get some sleep... I suppose I have one more chance to prove myself...
Vernalis nods and forces a tired smile. He gathers up as much of the ore as he can carry and trudges down to the town. Arriving in the village exhausted and half-asleep, he follows one of the other laborers to the drop off spot where he dumps his load. Unsure of what rules or conventions dictate sleeping arrangements, he gathers up lose straw from all around the village and makes himself a bed down among the central fires. He takes off his backpack and lays it out like a pillow (as much for security as comfort), and lays down. Although it is not as comfortable as the mattress he left behind in Bastion, and despite feeling awkward about sleeping in full view of more creatures than he has ever seen before yesterday, he falls quickly and deeply asleep.
"知识就是力量"
The Optimumist drops a stack of scrolls in front of you, each covered in writing from a different alphabet.
"If this axiom is correct, then the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge is of primary concern to a Wizard. But, you may ask, what good is knowledge of a world long since destroyed? While it is true we cannot know what lies beyond the Sphere, we may theorize possible scenarios based on what we know of what was before the end. Almost all intelligent creatures possess a language that we are capable of learning without the aid of magic, for all language, all communication, shares a common basic purpose: the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. And like most things, languages are based on patterns - consistent structures of conception and execution - which we may, with time and training, learn to identify and understand.
"If intelligent life of some kind still exists outside the Sphere and communicates in a language descended from the world that was, the most likely roots will be the elemental tongues: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, Terran. But why then did we begin with Draconic, you ask? Because by ancient tenet and tradition, Draconic is the language of Wizards; also, if you can learn to speak the native tongue of giant magical lizards, odds are you can learn to speak anything."
As usual, your mentor looks sternly at you for several moments before smirking at his own joke. "Now, by tomorrow I expect you to have reasoned out the basics of these four alphabets and whether each language is analytic, fusional, synthetic, or polysynthetic." You look hopefully up at him, waiting for another smirk, but to your disappointment one does not appear...
Vernalis starts awake, looking around in confusion for a few moments as he suddenly finds himself in a strange village instead of The Optimumist's 'classroom.' Clearing his head to the here and now, he finds that the village square is empty save for him. From the roadwards side of the village he hears a frantic terrified bleating; no doubt what woke him. Given the position of the sun in the sky, he guesses he has slept for about three hours. Gathering his things he walks around the roadward bunkhouse to investigate.
What must be close to the entire population of the village has gathered at the roadside near the square building, which earlier this morning he discovered is used for storage of the crystalline ore. Over the heads of the crowd he can see a bulky-looking carriage of some sort, as well as the head of a helmed newcomer with a very tall fur hat who nears eight feet in height and stands adjacent to the end of the carriage closest to the ore storage. Some sort of tall metal device is next to him; based on what he can see of it, Vernalis presumes it to be some sort of weight scale. Bergmann Klaus is pleading with the figure while several village men struggle nearby with whatever is making the bleating noises. The villagers seem terrified of the newcomer, and many of the adults are openly weeping, some clutching their children close.
Still tired, Vernalis stumbles down closer to the commotion. He looks for the source of the bleating sound on his way to the strangely helmed creature. When he gets close enough, he looks for an opportunity to address the being; when it arrives he says, "My name is Vernalis, do you understand this language?" Once again he repeats his greeting in every language he knows until it elicits some response, or he exhausts his options.
Vernalis stumbles to the front of the crowd, the villagers parting to let him through.
The carriage is windowless and made entirely from several different silvery metals. It is basically a bulky, oblong box, set crosswise on an oblong chassis - an arrangement which looks quite odd to Vernalis. The side of the carriage facing the crowd has a set of rolling double doors which have been slid aside to allow entrance/exit to the interior, and a set of three tall steps lead up to this entrance. The left end of the carriage is open, having a construction similar to a drawbridge; that is to say, the entirety of the back wall of the carriage is hinged and has opened down to provide a ramp to the carriage's interior, and there is an inner portcullis mechanism which is currently raised, the gate sticking out the top of the carriage end. Through the open door the wizard can see a bench seat against the far wall, facing the door; there appears to be no interior ornamentation.
The scale is a complicated bronze affair of hinged metal arms, wire, and counterweghts, from which hangs an empty wire basket.
The struggling village men are holding down a large furry bovid creature possessed of a thick, heavy body, six short, hoofed legs, and a wide head set on a stump of a neck; though of somewhat strange anatomy, it appears to Vernalis to be a variant of the goat whose skeleton and hide were preserved in Bastion for his study. He believes it to be adapted for life and travel in the cold, mountainous terrain to be found duskward of the village, and it's teeth look sturdy enough to gnaw through rock let alone flesh and bone. The creature is on it's side, occasionally lashing out at the men holding it with it's legs, it's long thick tongue, or it's large gnashing teeth.
The helmed figure is wearing a luxurious thick-collared brown fur cape over drab brown robes and elbow-length black leather gloves. As Vernalis speaks, the figure turns its head to regard him, the lenses in the helm making whirring noises as they briefly rotate back and forth. Up close he can see that a stylized 'B4' is stamped in the center of the helm's forehead, and over the sound of the bleating goat-thing it sounds as if the figure is making a hollow tutting noise.
In a hollow, monotone voice, the figure responds to Vernalis's common.
"I be'est tar'ff offic'r B 4; balanceth is did owe byest b'rgmann attendant antecedental cycle. Summation: tw'nnytoo orders ore, 'r six adultes, 'r nina youths, 'r therdeen infantes, knave 'r wench, pendeth due. If 't be true not relinquish'd anon, sum did owe shall collecteth by fate."
unbelievable... it's a strange form of common, but a relief nonetheless... I have so many questions... About who these people are, what this place is, this tax code... about what's happened in the years the sphere remained... I suppose this may explain their urgency to mine the ore though, they might have needed it to pay the tax for this cycle... it is strange though that this officer B4 offered all this information rather than simply answering my question...
"Pleased to meet you, Officer B4," Vernalis answers, "is my language common among your people?"