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Fragment of Camgennia
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Fragment of Camgennia |
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fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
In my wanderings about the Minsone Library I came upon a curious volume of Warring States lore. In its form it was a history but its content betrayed to me the meagreness of its subject. The text was in fact the life of a young man who lived somewhere in the Wayland region of Compellia. The young man, whose name I shall render Camgen, sought in his private affairs to emulate the response appropriate at the time to the pressings of the communal delusion as it sought to thrust its way into the virgin mind of such a youth as himself. That is, Camgen produced every facet of the external appearance of cynicism and weariness demanded of him by society. How his mind was arrayed, however, is the subject of this short treatise. He unknowingly followed Vashua's example to the north, taking for himself all that was thrust upon him and making with it as he wished. And in so doing, he produced for himself an historical treatise to ward off the myths of them, the world about him. 1/ There once was a land to the north, beyond the forbidding mountains, wherein there lay a curious stream issuing forth from unknown crevices deep inside the ground. Now the people of this land called themselves the Camgennians. They sought to build from their meagre lot a great civilization. In isolation they set about constructing out of petrified dung a temple of experience. Quietly they built not walls but subterranean caverns, each containing a metropolis. 2/ From the mysterious stream they drew not only water and life but also power and strength. While others were content merely to slake their thirst with their rivers or to build watermills in them, the Camgennians went further, deriving from the issues of the deep crevices the raw power needed to produce lightning and thunder in the sky. 3/ By means of fire and air the Camgennians levitated themselves so that they could, in mere hours, survey and map great swaths of land. From the air the Camgennians could rain down fire and brimstone upon their enemies, who grew in number as more people learned of the Camgennian defiance toward nature and toward their lot in life. 4/ “They rape the world!” the barbarians proclaimed as they decried the Camgennians. “The have found ways to make her do their bidding even when their lot is not like that. These Camgennians should learn that you don't question where you are in life. You just shut up and accept it!” 5/ Camgennia was given time and time again offers of alliance. Always the tasks their people were called upon to perform were meagre in nature and menial in their demand. And so the Camgennians carried out their tasks with an ingenuity greater than was called for. Always they recreated where others had done just what was needed and no more. With every invention came loose ends, new avenues of research. 6/ One year a vicious barbaric people to the south invaded Camgennia. They destroyed the temple of experience, laid waste to the curved roads, stole the secrets of levitation, and plugged off the source of the Camgennian thunder. When the barbarians believed they had succeeded in destroying the Camgennians they occupied their land. To this day, an uneasiness percolates the consciousness of the barbarians whose minions now populate the terrain of Camgennia. Where had all the locals gone? In all the pillaging and the raping not one single dead body was ever to be had, yet many a barbarian had died in the vicious struggle. Every now and again, the fur-coated barbarian may silence the roarings about him and place his ear to the ground to catch a brief echo of something terrifying and forbidding rumbling and buzzing in the ground beneath him. Life's short. Think hard! |
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amusemi Senior Member
since 2001-12-08
Posts 1262A State of Disarray |
Kevin, this was very good. I hope you expand upon it. I think you have something here. |
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