Winter Musings
Mac'Od Bittty sits at his desk and sharpens his Izam quill pen. He opens a newly made journal, the clean pages looking up at him beneath the light from a glow suspended from the ceiling. He looks out at the fish swimming around the apartments in Fairhaven and sighs. He dips his pen in the ink and begins to write.
Night thoughts of an old Tryker.
Pluvia 13, AC4, JY 2576
I bought this journal 6 years ago and have not opened it until now.
I fell out of the habit of writing once we had driven the kitins out. When they came back I was busy working for Wilk Potskin. Working at killing the pods of white kitins that bloomed like gruesome flowers on the Bark, training my combat abilities (again) and digging materials for and riding the circuit to supply the burgeoning Kitin Observation Camps in Aeden Aqueous left me no time for contemplation.
Bittty takes another drink from the glass full of stinga rum that sits on the the table. He opens an older journal and reads for a while, underlining a few passages. He mutters to himself: "even then..."
Now it appears that we are in the process at last of driving the kitins down to the Prime Roots and blocking the passages to the Mounds they erected. Once again I see what I saw before – petty squabbles weakening us when we need to be strongest.
So far the Trykers and the Fyros have cleansed their lands. The Tryker action was sparked by the observation from the camp in Bounty Beaches of a great mass of kitins that suddenly appeared nearby. (I reported this as well, but it seems that the Taliari received the report from the camp shortly before I published mine.) Since I am not a full subject of the Federation, no one thought to let me know, so I missed the action, but others have told me of the triumphant success, even against the monstrous kiban Diggers.
Bittty takes another drink of his rum and stares at the movement of the fish in the window before taking up his pen again.
Two days ago I awoke from a nap to the sound of horns and bells. The Fyros had broken a new wall around a kitin Mound south of Thesos and driven the kitins out, but the kitins had taken an underground route and invaded Dyron village. A call had gone forth for all homins to help the Fyros. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I donned my best health enchanted clothes and jewels and pulled on my amplifiers. I then crushed a Kami pearl to invoke transfer to the Kami altar in Dyron.
I appeared before the altar and found myself underneath a huge white kinrey and surrounded by my fellow homins engaged in battle. I immediately separated myself from the swinging weapons and commenced to cast healing spells for as long as my endurance allowed.
As the battle continued to move west, then south, then west again and finally north to the vortex that leads to the Prime Roots area of Underspring, I struggled to keep up and to heal those who needed it. But within the great conflict was another conflict. Marauder cadres and Fyros patriots were fighting each other, not the kitins! Somehow the action, their common enemy attacking in waves that washed over them and the rest of us, was not enough to keep them from attempting to bring the other to the dust.
Despite that fracture that ran through the ranks, we were able to drive the white kitins down to the depths of Underspring, but I wonder. If only a few more people had been unwilling to put aside inter-homin conflict, what would have been the result?
Even now, six years later, we are still weak from the effects of the Great Swarming. The children are growing up, but they are still not skilled enough to help. Will we fail, not due to lack of strength, but because we use that strength against each other?
I pray that we will not. I grow tired. Soon I will need all my strength to join the probing expedition back to the Old Lands. I hope I can keep that strength in the face of what happened.
Mac'Od Bittty blows gently on the last of the ink to dry it, then closes the journal. He swallows the last of his rum, then curls up in his hammock and gestures the glow into darkness.
Mac'Od Bittty sits at his desk and sharpens his Izam quill pen. He opens a newly made journal, the clean pages looking up at him beneath the light from a glow suspended from the ceiling. He looks out at the fish swimming around the apartments in Fairhaven and sighs. He dips his pen in the ink and begins to write.
Night thoughts of an old Tryker.
Pluvia 13, AC4, JY 2576
I bought this journal 6 years ago and have not opened it until now.
I fell out of the habit of writing once we had driven the kitins out. When they came back I was busy working for Wilk Potskin. Working at killing the pods of white kitins that bloomed like gruesome flowers on the Bark, training my combat abilities (again) and digging materials for and riding the circuit to supply the burgeoning Kitin Observation Camps in Aeden Aqueous left me no time for contemplation.
Bittty takes another drink from the glass full of stinga rum that sits on the the table. He opens an older journal and reads for a while, underlining a few passages. He mutters to himself: "even then..."
Now it appears that we are in the process at last of driving the kitins down to the Prime Roots and blocking the passages to the Mounds they erected. Once again I see what I saw before – petty squabbles weakening us when we need to be strongest.
So far the Trykers and the Fyros have cleansed their lands. The Tryker action was sparked by the observation from the camp in Bounty Beaches of a great mass of kitins that suddenly appeared nearby. (I reported this as well, but it seems that the Taliari received the report from the camp shortly before I published mine.) Since I am not a full subject of the Federation, no one thought to let me know, so I missed the action, but others have told me of the triumphant success, even against the monstrous kiban Diggers.
Bittty takes another drink of his rum and stares at the movement of the fish in the window before taking up his pen again.
Two days ago I awoke from a nap to the sound of horns and bells. The Fyros had broken a new wall around a kitin Mound south of Thesos and driven the kitins out, but the kitins had taken an underground route and invaded Dyron village. A call had gone forth for all homins to help the Fyros. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I donned my best health enchanted clothes and jewels and pulled on my amplifiers. I then crushed a Kami pearl to invoke transfer to the Kami altar in Dyron.
I appeared before the altar and found myself underneath a huge white kinrey and surrounded by my fellow homins engaged in battle. I immediately separated myself from the swinging weapons and commenced to cast healing spells for as long as my endurance allowed.
As the battle continued to move west, then south, then west again and finally north to the vortex that leads to the Prime Roots area of Underspring, I struggled to keep up and to heal those who needed it. But within the great conflict was another conflict. Marauder cadres and Fyros patriots were fighting each other, not the kitins! Somehow the action, their common enemy attacking in waves that washed over them and the rest of us, was not enough to keep them from attempting to bring the other to the dust.
Despite that fracture that ran through the ranks, we were able to drive the white kitins down to the depths of Underspring, but I wonder. If only a few more people had been unwilling to put aside inter-homin conflict, what would have been the result?
Even now, six years later, we are still weak from the effects of the Great Swarming. The children are growing up, but they are still not skilled enough to help. Will we fail, not due to lack of strength, but because we use that strength against each other?
I pray that we will not. I grow tired. Soon I will need all my strength to join the probing expedition back to the Old Lands. I hope I can keep that strength in the face of what happened.
Mac'Od Bittty blows gently on the last of the ink to dry it, then closes the journal. He swallows the last of his rum, then curls up in his hammock and gestures the glow into darkness.
---
Remembering Tyneetryk
Phaedreas Tears - 15 years old and first(*) of true neutral guilds in Atys.
(*) This statement is contested, but we are certainly the longest lasting.
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