MereHuman

Chapter 1

I was human once, much like any man. I stood on two legs and walked through my life. I was born in a northern country, which no longer exists. In a time before the rising of Atlantis. My tribe was small, but fearless. We hunted and gathered to our need and lived with the land. Disputes were often settled by feats of strength until we grew to understand the wisdom in our minds. Until that time our lives were short and the elders among us taken advantage of. As we grew in size so too did the wisdom of our minds. Settlements formed in a valley we often frequented as members of our tribe ceased their wanderings. It was about here that I was born for shortly after my birth, my tribe was introduced to war. A country had grown up to the south of us and though we didn't know it at the time our mountains were rich with ores and our valley fertile for farming.

To the north of our valley was mostly wastes of freezing tundra and south was the hilly land of this other country, often beset by mighty storms. Our sheltered valley was a prime place in the unforgiving mountains to the east and west. First they came as friends, offering knowledge and goods to begin relations. We took what they gave and slowly began to be a country of our own. As we prospered in our lands they grew more and more jealous. Until the day that they brought a treaty to us. They thought to fool us with their writing and make us servants in their land, while they took our home as their own. In their wisdom our elders had learned not only their speech, but also their letters and rejected this false treaty. 

Our response was equal to our anger at their falseness, but perhaps to harsh. We sent each of the party back without hands to demonstrate how they tried to rob us of our works and toils in this valley. Our response was met with battle. We were not as prepared for battle as our strong ancestry would make you believe. We managed to repel their first advance and were lucky enough to have a long winter set in shortly after. The mountains were closed and allowed us to fortify and militarize our home. Six months later the southerners were met with walls and small fortified positions and more trained warriors. I was raised to be a warrior, for our tactics my clan studied the wolf, and so were known as the clan of the wolf. The other two warrior clans were the clan of the lion and the clan of the bear.

The large garrisons were manned by the clan of the bear, the clan of the lion would stalk their prey in small groups in the mountains and report on the enemies movements. My clan would be the ones to attack enemy encampments using our numbers to back the enemy into corners. I grew well in my youth and strongly through my training years. The war lasted until my training began and we had pushed the southerners completely out of our valley. It was their original teachings and gifts that had made our victory possible. Our metal weapons and hide armors were superior to theirs due to the quality of our resources. After the war we closed the ways into the valley with the walls of forts and made our little country into a large fortress. Occasionally caravans of traders would ask to be let in, but we would not allow any more free entrance to our lands.

Without trade some of our holding suffered and so the Elders decided to expand to just south of our mountain range. Over the course of my training we built a fortress city and there we conducted our trade. I was stationed there shortly after I finished my training and became a man in the eyes of my people. Watch on the city of trade was at time dull and at times very dangerous. During my short time there I helped a trader with a broken cartwheel one day and killed that same trader for attempting to enter under cover of night to steal goods that were in the city. Twice were we besieged by the southerners as they claimed we were unrightfully on their land. Our fortifications surpassed their ability to break and any attempt to cross over or under was easily thwarted. It was here that I heard a fanciful tale of the wonders of Atlantis, I would see with my own eyes before long the truth of those tales.

Our country was prosperous, but prosperity often leads to greed. Bright ores that were softer and lighter than the ores we used for fighting were discovered in our mines. Women and men would adorn themselves with these as decoration to promote how prosperous they were. The trade value in our trade city was also so high that the miner clans sought more. Soon they fount crystals that they attached to these decorations and the traders began to call them jewels and when worn in the bright metals jewelry. Here is where the fall of my country comes from. Our walls withstood all other countries no matter what they brought to bear. Once even fire rained down into our streets, but never caught. 

In our delving the miner clans found strange rocks that our tools could not break and on these rock were words we could not read. In the last year of my station a robed figure gained entry into our country and was able to tell us the words written on these stones. He spoke them in our tongue and warned us against speaking them in the tongue that they were written. A scholar he called himself, but he had told one leader of a miner clan how to recite the ancient words. After the scholar left that miner's greed took hold. Believing the scholar had told them not to say the words to withhold access to some greater secret or greater fortune, which he would return to take from our grasp. He spoke the tongue of this ancient relic. None at that time could tell you exactly what happened or what anything looked like. For in the dead of night the mine and village around it were wiped clean of people. like wiping blood off of a blade.