ROLEPLAY

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 sheds his heavy armor and props his pike up against the wall before putting on aa simple set of clothes. He pours himself a drink of stinga rum and gazes out of his window at the fish. He then sits, opens his journal, and dips an Izam quill in freshly made ink. The sun glows through the water and into the windows of his apartment as he begins to write.

Thermis 27, AC1, JY 2577

I have just returned from an arduous tour of the regions of Oflovak's Oasis and Frahar Towers, then Fleeting Gardens, and then Oflovak's Oasis and Frahar Towers again.

But first, good news to put in this journal. The culturing of the termites has finally borne fruit! Daomei and Geyos were able to transport termites to the Mounds at Malmont near Dyron and at at Running Ridge south of Thesos and to apply the potions from Daeronn and Ardan to the transplanted termites. When rigorously tended the termites reduced the mounds to naught in a week! There were the predicted swarms of predator Goari, and the expected incursions of white kitins and the green Kipee workers, but those were not so great as to cause serious problems. Despite Daomei's fears that the predators would grow stronger as more and more termites bred, it seemed only that they grew more aggressive rather than stronger.

Zorro 'Arg and Kiwa Lie have been working on the Mounds in Aeden Aqueous. The one near Avendale is destroyed and the other two are on the way. All the months and cycles of testing and reports at meetings finally came to fruition.

Last week the Matis Karan Stevano finally rallied his troops and Nobles and drove the kitins in the Verdant Forest down into the Abyss of Ichor. I heard from Daomei, who was there, that the Karavan even sent a squad of their guardians to fight alongside the Karan. I have not seen such a thing since the Exodus during the Second Swarming. This is a sign of the highest regard of the Karavan towards the Karan and the Matis people.

The Nobles and the Royal Botanist are still trying to find a "botanical solution" to the problem of sealing the tunnels that run to the Mounds, but there might have been some recent progress. We shall see. If not, then at least the worth of our little worker termites has been proven.

That's good, but not what drove me to write today. Yesterday my guildmate Sherkalyn Abygrian sent me a message that she had found white kitins in the region of Oflovak's Oasis, a region that I had thought should be clean of such incursion. I prepared my armor and my pike and broke a Kami pearl to transport myself to the desert.

I arrived to greet Sherkalyn and join with her in a team with Meggy. The white kitins were easy to spot and easy to track down. They were not so easy to eliminate, especially the more furious ones in the region of Frahar Towers, but we were a strong team and the kitins were cleaned from the region.

Meggy had also spotted white kitins in the region of Fleeting Gardens in Verdant Forest, the area cleaned so recently by the Karan and his troops. We traveled thence and cleaned that region as well, then rested a bit. Then Sherkalyn reported that there were more white kitins in Oflovak's Oasis and Frahar Towers less than two days after we had cleaned the area. These were clearly not a pod or two that we had overlooked, but fresh pods come up from the ground near where we had destroyed them earlier.

We cleaned them out again until we both were so tired we could move no longer.

What is going on? We thought that sealing the tunnels would prevent this. Clearly it has not. Or is it clear? Possibly the tunnels are sealed but there were eggs and embryos laid in the Dust to hatch. I will need to investigate more, but not today, and not even tomorrow. For now I will drink and rest.

Mac'Od Bittty dries the last of his writing, then closes his journal. He picks up his pen again and scribbles a note. He steps out of his apartment and walks to the offices of the Guild of Scribes, then returns to his apartment to rest.

Pluvia 22, AC 4, 2577

News today from Zorroargh that the apparent failure of the Rotoa may not be a failure, at least according to Cuiccio. Inspected two mounds in Witherings and the KoD mound in the forest. I see nothing different, though the kipee workers seem slightly less agressive.

I will have to remember to patrol on a regular basis. I have been spending too much time with needle and thread working on armor.

And if Cuiccio is wrong? What then?

Nivea 4, 4AC, 2577

Yesterday there was a development! Rotoa all over the place! They were tearing up the Bark in their emergence, and I can hope that they are tearing up tunnels as well. The kitins seem stunned and sluggish. Wrote a letter to Wilk and celebrated at Liffan's bar. Just a little tipsy atm. A good day.

Folialy 14, 1AC, 2578

It's Spring and Atys is beautiful. Spend some time and checked out the rotoa again. Especially in the Forest they complement the soft lavender of the spring growth in the trees. The kitins seemed even more sluggish than before. I stayed very near to one Terrible white kipuka for almost a minute before it reacted to me. Then it called for its companions and they all chased me for a while, but I am faster than a kipuka.

I wonder what it means. Are we going to have rotoa for years to mark the spots in the Forest and the Jungle where the kitins came through? That would be a fine memorial to all the homins who have fought over the last seven Jena Years since we returned from our refuge.

Very pretty still.