Tribal

Tribal 1

I've read about these creatures called "Humans," "Homo sapiens," or "men." They come in various shades and wear things. How can they handle that? Well, according to my studies, these fictional creatures would be susceptible to these "natural hazards," such as hot and cold. They're obviously incompetent. If they did exist, it makes sense why they went extinct. They also held many false gods, and their beliefs about them always clashed. What kind of twisted minds must they have to believe such things when the gods are among them? Furthermore, what kind of creature would want to produce offspring? They must be monsters.

Apparently we have been given a degree of invincibility and power that these weak figments of a mad man's imagination completely lack. Our skin is silver, and we are very hard to kill. Despite that, for hundreds of years this conflict has plagued Tessa. There are four primary families we call tribes. When the tribes had reached an equal amount of members, since everyone longed to be part of a family, the gods granted each tribe their own power, an ability that the other three tribes would not have.

One tribe was granted the ability to instantly appear at any location, as long as they had been in that spot for one minute straight, and had been there in the last thirty days. This tribe was named the Portae.

Another tribe was allowed to change their form into any man or beast. When they took advantage of this, they had to be in clear line of sight of another member of their tribe (or where they can turn their head and see them.) Nobody here knows what happens when the connection is severed. These were named the Formae.

Yet another tribe was given the ability to create objects off the surface of their bodies. These objects would disappear if they got too far away from it, or after thirty minutes. Their objects are transparent but can prove deadly. This tribe was dubbed the Novae.

The last tribe was given the ability to manipulate the sands of time. The Chronae can rewind up to three seconds but become dizzy when they do, or slow time as far as half speed, allowing them, and anyone they choose, to bypass that change. Chronae can skip ahead up to one second, or slow time to a crawl: one second becomes one minute, but after that time is up, they instantly lose consciousness and fall to the floor. I'm a member of this tribe.

Now the gods who granted this to us, Charrus and Quintilla, were pleased with our aspirations to do great things together with them. An unconfirmed rumor has floated for hundreds of years that Terrus, the god of mischief and terror, stirred up this war. He took on disguises of a member of each tribe. While he was in a disguise, he would go to another tribe and do or say something they didn't like. Terrus eventually stepped back and let his terror overtake the world. Charrus and Quintilla were very unhappy with him. They have refused to intervene for hundreds of years. This was about to change.

I looked around the room. My roommate is there, and he's laying on the bed. He's looking distantly into the ceiling. I was concerned about his wellbeing. He had done this a lot recently. I wasn't sure he was okay, he must have been concerned about something. We were as far away from the action as we could be. Our hut was built in a corner, before the endless forest that encircles Tessa begins. He couldn't have been fearing for his life. He had a way to get out of danger.

"What's up, Marv?" I asked innocently. He sighed.

I sat on the bed near him. "What's shaking you?" I asked calmly.

He sighed again, but began to speak in a low voice. "The wars, Pete. I just don't think showing off, the contest of who's stronger, is worth it." He sat up a little bit. "When a Tessan dies, we don't come back. There's one less Tessan. When we fail to use our abilities to defend ourselves..." He rolled over, onto the edge of the bed, and sobbed into his pillow.