We have spent a little time getting to know the people in this village, and their beliefs. The fellow we met is named Lira. He says that his culture believes the gods live on the time stones (bah). Among these gods are greater and lesser deities, including a trickster god named Yehar, and some fish god.
As seems typical for primitive tribes, they believe in the concept of spirits, and all the baggage that goes with such a concept. No need to elaborate.
They have no mages, but do have what we would call priests.
The people in this village are quite easy to distinguish from one another. Their furs vary in colour significantly, as does their height. Moreover, only some of them have tusks. Judging by their belongings (harpoons, fishing gear), their existence must be pretty simple. The ``feast'' they held for us left somewhat to be desired. It consisted of fish. Lots of it.
They are aware of three cultures in the surrounding area. There are the pains in the rear humans, the definitely evil humans, and to the south a group of evil elves. The elves are evil as they want the same territory as these people. The evil humans are known as the Azkans, and apparently attack frequently. The other humans live in a forest, and are known as the Neathar (the same name as the language which is meant to be dominant down here).
Hopefully we'll be able to stay and learn Neathar from these people.
Gurzurk built us stone shelters to sleep in, and Melany, desiring darkness for a change, cast continual dark. They didn't look comfortable at the notion of darkness.
They really didn't like our display of power. We've been kicked out. We'll have to be far more careful of displays of power in the future, lest we meet a similar reaction from other groups. The others didn't react all that well to this suggestion of mine, though I thought it quite reasonable. Zim especially seems to think that I'm being very ``un-Grey''.
We've decided to head south.
If we keep heading south, we'll bump into the tip of a mountain range. We've decided to go onto the coast side of this mountain range.
We've hit the coast again. We saw a time rock heading directly north, which seems against the trend.
Lani flew up to investigate some of the other time rocks. Unfortunately, she was unable to actually arrive at one of the rocks, but observed that they are taller than they are wide. She thought that they looked similar to tall buildings.
In her flight, she saw cultivated fields further to the south.
Finally.
A busy day today! We unwittingly conquered a small village.
We had been travelling south, and finally reached a forest, from which Lani observed smoke emanating. We decided to traverse the edge of the forest before heading towards the smoke source.
As we were moving along, Lani noticed a boat out on the water, which she decided to investigate. It was a simple fishing boat, and she thoroughly scared the simple fishermen on the boat, but otherwise didn't accomplish much. The fishermen decided to head back to their village.
A little while later, we saw the village that the fishermen must have hailed from. Unfortunately, a group of somewhat unfriendly copper skinned armed men were waiting for us (shields, hardened leather, spears and bows, perhaps 10 of them). They didn't even bother trying to talk, but instead just attacked. Another group attacked us from the trees at the same time.
If they were anything but stupid, foolish peasants, they might possibly, just possibly, have posed a threat to us. But, as they were stupid, foolish peasants, they didn't. We didn't even have to kill that many of them.
The idiots even attacked the thick part of my armour. Stupid.
We then discovered that in their culture, people defeated in combat become either slaves, or sacrifices. No middle ground. They were attempting to enslave us. As they failed, they would either be our slaves (the entire village), or our sacrifices. Of which we desired neither.
Priests hold the seat of power in this culture, and the priests of the deity with the most sway are not meant to be nice people. Indeed, it looks like the peasantry intensely dislike them. Lani went off and killed the priest of this village. People looked rather happy at that.
We spoke to another priest in this village, quite a reasonable fellow. He worships, of all things, Atan, one of the 400 rabbits, god of the forest. 400 rabbits!
A high priest, chosen from the priests of various deities, rules these Azkans. The current high priest worships a deity known as Azantiol. It does not appear that people like this fact. However, they have some pipe dream belief that some benevolent feathered serpent will one day aid them.
Indeed, when asked, the priest of Atan (of the 400 rabbits!) agrees that this society sucks.
Oh, in this world, east is west, and west is east. Makes sense in a way. We are upside down, after all.
Another aspect of this culture that really sucks is that people in the army who fail to kill enough people are thrown out.
Anyway, we've had enough of this village. They'll make up some story about a disease killing the priest here. After all, they'd rather not be made slaves if they don't have to be.
To speed up our progress, we'll cast lots of fly spells to move about.
We'll head north for a day (to get us out of this place), and then head east over the plains (following the forest).
We'd like to find these Neathar.
In our travels, we saw some wagon tracks today, which we followed for a bit. We met a patrol of Azkan soldiers, which said the city was four days walk from here, although we have no idea which city they were talking about.
Neather is east of here, away from the city, so we'll head that way.
Finally, we have met with the Neathar, although it was a bit rough at first.
After all, Roland walked into a pitfall, and then we were ambushed. Unfortunately, the only command language we had with these people was Alphatian. Given this, they thought we were Alphatian, with whom they are at war.
It is these people who are slowly being conquered by the Alphatians.
However, they heard us out, and believed that we are indeed not Alphatian (they appear to have detect lie spells). They have consented to let us stay with them for a period. We'll tell them about the Alphatians, and they'll help us learn their language.
The Neathar are another primitive culture. All of their people wear headbands, which show their tribal markings. Their culture, in some ways (at least deity-wise), resembles the primitives that are being enslaved by the Thyatians in Davinia. Curious.
The Neathar had some interesting things to tell us. Firstly, they too had a week of no magic, during which time the sun went out. One suspects that it was around this time that they introduced a word for darkness. Apparently the Alphatians, their enemy, were easy targets during this time. Unsurprising given their reliance on magic.
It appears that the Alphatian presence has had a unifying effect on the Neathar, who no doubt previously had tribal squabbles. Instead, they have been presented with a common enemy.
They told us of the arrival of the Alphatians. One day, they just appeared out of the ground. The Neathar tried to greet them, but the Alphatians just captured and enslaved the Neathar. The Alphatians then continued to expand their territory, sorely pressing the Neathar. At the moment, the Alphatians have stopped expanding. No doubt they lost quite a bit of support from the surface. After all, their main continent was destroyed!
Somehow, the Alphatians have managed to get flying ships here. It'd be nice to get hold of one, but I doubt we'd be able to pilot it properly.
It should be an interesting stay. After all, there are apparently creatures known as dinosaurs here. Parts of them should make excellent spell components!
We've each had a boy assigned to us. The boy I've been assigned is, unfortunately, a little weed. Well, could have been worse. Not much though.
We have learnt much in our time with the Neathar. For example, we can now understand these time stones, and speak their language.
With respect to the time stones, one circle is, as far as we can tell, equivalent to one year.
A while ago we saw what we thought was a time stone heading directly north. We now believe this to be a flying ship. The question is, where was it headed? If it had of maintained that course, it would have entered the anti-magic area. Perhaps the Alphatians are aware of a way to get their flying ships past that region that we are not?
The Alphatians first came here five circles ago. Furthermore, it appears that the Alphatians have driven off the Heldannics on the surface, and re-established contact with the outside world. I wonder why they haven't begun expanding again? Perhaps they are building up their forces?
Ah, from the traders that the Neathar occasionally capture, we have learnt that the date today is indeed the 10/8/1020, so our calculations were about a month off. I'll keep note of this in future diary entries.
Of the surrounding lands we have learnt that elves reside to the north-west (valley elves), and to the south are powerful mage elves. There is a swamp called the Malfegi somewhere to the south (occupied by lizardmen). An interesting choice of name, since there is also a swamp in Darokin with the name Malfegi. Does this mean anything?
Someone wondered if the giant whirlpool where Alphatia used to be might actually come out somewhere down here. An interesting question.
One exceptionally frustrating thing I have found is that no-one is interested in trading spells with me. They are even reluctant for me to give them spells in exchange for nothing! I find this highly unusual behaviour! Although my companions feel that there is nothing unusual about this.
To me, a mage unwilling to trade spells is just a crazy notion! They have an opportunity to learn things they have not even imagined, and they aren't interested!
Apparently they have reluctantly taken to using some of the spells taken from dead Alphatians. But only reluctantly. I would have thought they'd be interested in learning from me, given their situation with the Alphatians.
And still my companions see nothing strange about this behaviour.
Lani has decided to fly off and scout the Alphatian territory. We await her return.
Lani returned today. Something is up.She pointed to a timestone, one of larger, lower ones, and then stated that it was actually very high, far higher than she could hope to fly. It would have to be absolutely huge. For whatever reason, the Alphatians fly back and forth from it in their flying ships. They must use some form of magic to avoid breathing problems.
This huge timestone has only been there for a couple of years. Indeed, it seems to have first been noticed about the time Alphatia disappeared. Our current delusions make us wonder whether this timestone could actually be Alphatia. This would make sense in some ways, especially since we know Thora is still alive.
Lani says that the Alphatian territory is pretty stable, and well established. Moreover, they are taking dirt out of the hole. I wonder what they are digging for? An alternative exit to the surface? Expanding the one that is already there?
Lani saw 10 flying ships. I imagine there are more.
Oh, something I forgot to mention, the people in this world have recently been granted access to raise dead spells, although none of the Neathar priests are powerful enough to cast such spells. I wonder about the timing of such a spell being granted? Hmm.