{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/01",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/01",
  "publishedAt": "2020-03-23T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "You are a mantis nymph of Shatalek, a dinky farming village so tiny you\nneed to squint to find it on a map --- but it's all you've ever known.\n\nCurrently, you're in pre-vesper training, studying in hopes of one day\nbecoming a mighty vesperbane to slay fell beasts and uphold the Kindling\nDream. But for that, you'll need countenance from the Pharmacium of\nWentalel. The mentors say it's simply a matter of when, and of course\nit is; you're the brightest mind among all of your classmates. If anyone\nis getting sponsored out of these duldrums, it will be you.\n\nHervanium Alcha got sponsored just after her third instar, three years\nago. (You haven't forgotten, you never forget what's important.)\nBut you didn't get picked at your third instar. You didn't get\npicked at your fourth. Your fifth is coming up, and it gnaws at you. Why\nhaven't they accepted you yet? Your physicals can't be that important.\nAnd your histories, your ethics, your logics! They're the best anyone in\ntown's ever seen! And the examiners weren't even impressed...\n\nYou cope how you've always coped. You have in front of you the month's\nassigned reading, and you're going over it for the ninth time. You know\nit word for word (you never forget what's important); but it always\nserves to review. Other scrolls pile up around you too, dozens of\nmiscellaneous volumes on the history of the heartlands, the policies of\nthe syndics, what few scraps of vesper lore are admitted to the laity...\n\nIt's the 984^th^ paragraph, you're almost done with review, and you hear\nan abject scream, loud and distant! You turn your head. Did it\nreally... Yes, it came from in the ambrosia woods, you're sure of it.\nRight now, you sit on a massive stone whose flat top pokes from the\nearth (your favorite quiet place to study). It crops up two thirds of\nthe way along the path from Shatalek village to the ambrosia woods. A\nminute's walking would take you to the woods' edge, and two minutes\nwould take you back to the village outskirts.\n\nA glance up at the sky shows it's already darkling. Your father expects,\nno, your father knows you'll be back for dinner this evening. You've\nnever missed it, you're always on time (after all, you never forget what\nit's important).\n\nThe other nymphs would be out playing, even now. You might even\nencounter a few on your way back into town.\n\nStill, that scream was horrible, agonized. Could you conscious\nleaving that poor mantis to whatever awful fate befell them?\nVesperbanes save people, after all.\n\nSo, what do you do? Do you enter the woods and see what happened? Or do\nyou return home to a quiet family dinner? (You are hungry.)\n\nYou could even remain on your study rock, but focus will prove elusive\nwith the two responsibilities weighing on you.\n\n::: afterword\n:::: details\nSuggestions Received\n\n> I scream back at them\n\n- - -\n\n> I go and look for the person (loudly yelling, in case they can hear\n> me) of course. Being a vesperbane, as much as it is my current goal,\n> is still just a means to an end. I want to help people.\n\n- - -\n\n> I also vote go but only because I am annoyed and want the screaming to\n> not happen again\n\n- - -\n\n> I enter the woods to see whats happening like a good citizen\n\n- - -\n\n> I study the study rock, of course. I suppose I would end up\n> sufficiently annoyed at all the noise to try to go towards the wood,\n> though, or at least tell someone else about it - that's their time\n> wasted, not mine.\n\n- - -\n\n> Enter the woods, and try to turn whatever I find to my advantage.\n> Become ruthless political mantis. :3\n::::\n:::"
}