Bingling nods at Oligur.

"Yes. But while I am sure that Greatmother Kyger Litor was at the mountain that you call the Spike, I do not know what stories we have that would meet her interest. Much of our tale starts after Orlanth kills Yelm, who burns us and drives us from Wonderhome."

Idovanus looks to the Uz.  "The Spindle Hag teaches that Darkness was first born of the elements and her presence was ever present in the Spike.  It is Bingling, correct?  Would you speak to those who you came with about this question?  I feel that some among your people would react badly to my questions."

Looking toward Oligur, Idovanus says, "she is looking for something.  I do not know what yet, but she is looking for something in the stories of the ages before the Great Compromise. Either that, or she is seeking to distract people from something else."  He pauses in reflection.  "The story needs to be done during Sacred Week.  This will give me an opportunity to speak with the enigmatic Desola as it will be by her leave that we perform this story.  That was the deal struck by your Commander Jalmon."

In reply to Narrator (msg # 182):

Bingling nods at Idovanus.

"It is. I shall. I shall ask Magora, born of the Garlins and Reborn as Uz. Tell me the wording you think that I should ask."

Idovanus thinks for a moment, "ask Magora what she knows of the spike and the earliest tales of your people.  Since she was once human, and would have been taught about the Green Age as a child, she may have learned more about the early history of your people than others of your kind."

In reply to Narrator (msg # 184):

Bingling closes his eyes for a moment as he recites the wording to himself. Then he takes his leave and trundles off to look for Magora.

Two days after the commotion, Zeti is approached by Nadakar.

"It seems like the little mother is ready to speak with you."

You go to the second floor of the inn and enter the room.  Her bodyguard Zuzorek is seated in a crosslegged position near the bed.  Know what he is, you suspect that his current position would not be a hindrance if he needed to protect Gulk.

"So girl.  Why do you think yourself worthy of the Spindle Hag's secrets?"

Zeti considers a moment and then responds "I hope that I am, but in truth I do not know until I know. I do know that I would very much like the chance to try."

"I have an enquiring mind open to learning and I do not assume, though I do like to theorise."

She remembers Sandien's comment from that night "I was at the shaman Sandien's house the other night offering my assistance with the one they call Tamarkorda, what little I might give at any rate. She said I struck her as being clever, though in truth my assistance was very limited."

She shrugs "All that I was doing was voicing some suggestions based on observations of the combined rune that 'Mother' drew. Very strange."

"Of more pertinence perhaps is that my ancestors have always dealt with entities outside of Uz spirits. My line includes Tzank Two Eyes who you may have heard of, but then amongst Uz many lines include such shaman."

"No, I am me and would be judged by my own deeds, but I do seek the honour of being taught and judged by you."

"You may have a mind that is good, but you are thinking too much like the humans that you are surrounded by.  You do not hope to be ready for the Spindle Hags secrets, you are or you are not.  When you stand before her on your path to the deeper darkness, to witness the dying moon, will say that you hope to be worthy of her secrets or that you are worthy?"

"Do not worry, you will be judged for your deeds, but you are also judged by your words."

"Have you given birth yet girl?"

Zeti feels a cold wave of embarrassment was through her at Gulk's words, but this is followed immediately by frustration and a little anger at the last question.

She composes herself before responding "I am worthy and I shall say this!"

"And no, I have not born a child yet. Neither will I and risk birthing an enlo for I have witnessed the ways they are treated, the ways my twin brother was treated."

She shakes her head "No, not until I can know that my child will not be mistreated, either because I can control its environment, or..." and here she fixes Gulk's eyes with her own "I can know that my child will be  an Uzko... or perhaps even greater than I!"

"Yet you seek to study from an Enlo, a creature you fear to birth?"

The power of her voice echos through the room.

"You think like the followers of Kyger Lithor, our unilluminated Great Mother.  What does the Goddess teach you, child?"

Zeti holds her ground against the force in the voice and replies "We Are All Us. But not all know this yet. I do not fear to birth an enlo, I fear that it would be as despised and mistreated as my brother. I fear that it will disappear as my brother did and I would have no idea of its fate."

"It is natural to want more for your children than you have, I want my child to not be hampered by the prejudices or those about it just because of how it looks!"
This message was lightly edited by the player at 09:22, Sun 22 Dec 2019.

It crosses Zeti's mind that this might be an appropriate group in which to speak of her earlier thoughts, though she decides that it is safest to approach the subject carefully.

She speaks again "Yes, the Goddess teaches that We Are All Us. I have not attained enlightenment, but I have been thinking lately on this teaching."

"Could it be that We Are All Us because we are all of the same thing? Everything came from something and so perhaps that something that everything came from was in fact everything."

"So if everything came from that thing then it stands to reason that we, everything that is, are all part of the same thing, hence We Are All Us is not a philosophy, it is quite literal!"

For the moment she stops short of voicing her thoughts that the everything that everything came from, the everything that contained everything was, is Chaos.

Gulk nods at your answer.  "I too wanted more for my children, and gave much to ensure that they had it.  As Preceptor Idovanus would say, it became my greatest occlusion."

She nods as you discuss We Are All Us.  Her face does not give any indication if she is pleased, impressed, or upset by your conclusion.  "From your training, which was the first Rune to come from nothing?"

Zeti answers almost immediately "I was taught that Darkness was the first Rune to separate itself, and from the Darkness, Water was born."

She frowns in thought before adding "I do wonder of late though, how can any know this? I mean, when the Rune of Darkness separated, then who is to say that the other Runes did not separate at the same time."

"Although, even to say the same time is wrong isn't it? For this was all in the beginning and there was no Time until much later." Her frown deepens "Or rather there was everything and nothing, creation of the Runes, all existence, lives and deaths of the Gods and Goddesses, Harmony and Disorder, Death and Life, stagnation and Chaos, everything and nothing all at once."

"All at once gods must have been born and died, made and unmade simultaneously, for there was no measure by which such things were separated, no Time until the Great Compromise was made."

"It is something that is difficult to grasp for me because I was born into Time. My whole existence has had a thing to measure itself against." She peters out loosing herself in these thoughts.

Then from nowhere the thought comes, and she speaks it "As I copied the combined Runes Sandien's 'Mother' drew I felt a discomfort. Sandien said that the act of drawing it was enough to cause a disturbance. Could this feeling, this disturbance be because the Runes were all as one, all from the same place in that age before Time? Could it be that they should not be combined in Time otherwise Time might cease to exist, or perhaps a better way to think of it is Time would not exist yet?"

"You are asking better questions," she says with an appraising look.  "We want to impose order onto something we, as creatures of time, cannot understand.  So, can there be cause and effect even when there is no future and past?"

"Let me see this rune that you saw."  After looking at it she says, "an interesting convergence.  You said Sandien saw this, who else?"  Her expression appears cautiously curious.

In reply to Narrator (msg # 195):

If the Lunar garrison allows Bingling into the fort (and he is willing to introduce himself as the Uz with whom Oligur was chatting), Bingling bows and head to the inn.

When he arrives, if Gulk and Zuzorek and Zeti allow, he will enter the room and petition Gulk.

In reply to Bingling Hyxloriz (msg # 196):

If allowed, Bingling will enter and nod to the shaman. He waits until Zeti and Gulk are not conversing; if met with n awkward silence, he is already planning how to smile and seem affable.

"Mistress of the Spindle Hag, I would ask a favor of you."

He speaks to Gulk with inflections of respect.

"Desola seeks add in knowing something of the time near the Green Time. I know not if you can seek out and see such things, but if you can, then I would ask of you what payment you would have from me to talk to Desola and possibly help her."

Bingling looks at the floor, then back at the Witch of the Seeker in Darkness.

"I trade with this town. Priestess Magora's relatives live in this town. The Lunar garrison of my friend Oligur, we are in it now. I would see this town thrive. I call those who dwell here 'Friend.'  Would you talk to the Ernaldan priest? And what would you have of me for doing me the favor of talking with her, if you are indeed able to help her?"

Zeti closes her eyes as she pictures the faces of those who were in the room or who observed and then put names to them.

"Sandien of course, her 'Mother' who first drew it and the servent she called Aranda, but I do not know if she saw it. Nadakar was there, and the one called Eldresa, but I am not sure whether she saw it."

"Another, one they called Vastos arrived later with a human child, and he saw it as well as mentioning another he saw, infinity within a circle, Darkness or Fire, within the square of Earth. He said no more of this, but I had the feeling from what he didn't say it was related to the child he brought, one that would not speak."

"Sandien's Mother had drawn Stabiliity, Motion, Fertility, Death, Truth, Illusion, Harmony, and Disorder above and below Darkness, Water, Earth, and Fire. She seemed stuck, but had drawn them in the order I had learned and when I spoke aloud the order with the missing ones she drew them combined."
This message was last edited by the player at 09:29, Fri 27 Dec 2019.

OOC: can we say that this bit occurs before Bingling arrives, otherwise she'd not say it in front of him :)

After a moment's pause for thought she bites the sling stone and continues "You asked about Darkness, the first Rune to separating itself from nothing."

"I have heard it said too that Darkness separated itself from the Chaos that went before."

"I have been thinking on this since that night. Could these both be true. I mean, nothing means 'no thing' and it is true that Chaos is no thing, but it is all things."

"Could it be that Darkness was the first Rune that 'purified' itself out of the Cosmic Chaos. That the Chaos contains the potential for everything. Could it be that We Are All Us, because we, and by that I mean absolutely everything, the worlds, the gods, perhaps even the dragons; we all come from the Cosmic Chaos and are just refined parts of the same whole."

She frowns tying to visualise it "We are like the hairs, flesh, bones, everything that makes up the whole. We are all a part of one whole." She nods continuing the line of thought in her head before voicing it. "All was birthed from chaos and Time could be considered the point of birth, when everything had finished coming together... no, not coming together but not separating from Chaos to form the whole."

Zeti looks questioningly at Gulk wondering whether she is way off from the mark and has gone too far, blown her chance at apprenticeship.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:37, Fri 27 Dec 2019.

In reply to Zeti (msg # 199):

(I am good with that!)

"You are questioning.  That is good," Gulk begins.  "The questions you have can take a lifetime to answer, and some answers require great sacrifice."

"I am less of a philosopher than a practical witch, so the origin of the first Rune is not a question I have sought to answer.  If you ask Preceptor Idovanus, he will give you an answer, but ones you may not like.  Two last questions for you apprentice, what is the role of the Celestial Court in the origin, and if Darkness is the first Rune, and all things come from Darkess, then what would you give to the Goddess of the Inner Darkness to find the answer to your question?"  (Zeti would know that Gulk is referring to Subere).

---

Once Bingling arrives and pleads his case.

"I am exhausted disciple of the Talking Troll God.  You speak in circles, but it sounds like the Earth Priestess seeks a road to the Green Age."  She laughs, which is less than comforting.  "You seek to help her on a fool's errand?  You seek a road through the Darkness to the Green Age?"  Then she pauses.

"Zeti!  You seek answers to questions about Darkness.  Even what the God Learners called the Green Age has its roots in Darkness.  How would you advise the Earth Priestess Desola?"

In the pause before Zeti speaks:
"Circles, yes! Reciprocity! I thought of friendships and trade like a spider's web, but circles too!"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:07, Sat 28 Dec 2019.

The first question Zeti can easily answer for she has heard the teachings so many times "It is the ruling court of the first gods and goddesses, the Power and the Element."

"It sits upon the Spike which, in Time, is now broken."

"It is the source of all that came after, the worlds and the deities, some devolved from their sires and others a mixture of two or more."

She frowns considering "Perhaps it was not the source of all that came after though. Perhaps Chaos came directly from the same source that Darkness did. Perhaps Chaos stayed true to itself, stayed complete."

Zeti shakes her head returning her concentration to the here and now. "Your second question is harder for I have no way of knowing the price of such information."

She considers a moment before answering "I would give what was asked, the price that had to be paid to follow that path. But, if that price was too great then I would seek another path, either to the same destination, or find a different destination."

---

Zeti considers all that has been said and then speaks "First I would ask her what her final destination is. Does she seek a path to the Green Age for the sake of reaching the Green Age, or does she seek the Green Age for the sake of attaining some other goal. Sometimes paths other than the one we see are better suited to reaching a goal."

"If though it is the Green Age that she seeks, then I would not bother counselling her on the dangers of creatures born of Time venturing outside of it, for surely she must know of them already. I would though counsel her on the dangers that await in the element older than her own."

"She would need a guide of that element, one who knew the path and the dangers, and friends upon it. It is one thing to be shown the beginning of a trail, it is quite another to follow its course."

Zeti pauses, remembering something and then speaks again "Actually, there is a history in my family, an ancestor who did something that may be of interest to her."

She looks at Gulk "If I may, I will go and see the Earth Priestess? That is unless you wish me to stay?"

"I shall be fine.  Go see the Earth Witch."  You get the sense that witch is not an insult to Gulk, but a term of respect.