I had taken a great journey to the very edge of the ProVari Island, far beyond the ProVarinati tribal borders.
As I crested 18650 Point, the highest mountain on the island, my scepter slipped from my scabbard and fell in an agonizingly slow arc, time seeming to bend around it's metallic body as its molecules reached out to repel from those of the rock face below. With a gut-wrenching thud and a teeth grinding clink, my holiest of holies became a little more holey with the loss of the magnifying crystal used for divining the sacred settings.
I wanted to drop to my knees and weep, tear my clothes and cover my head in dust. I knelt and offered the scepter to the sky, a teardrop squeezing it's way between the folds of my eyelids. Surely I would be found in sin and unworthy to maintain the device, and it would be rent from me in a fiery whirlwind.
For forty days and forty nights I prayed in constant vigil atop that windswept peak, not eating, not sleeping, not drinking, and resisting all temptation.
Finally, on the ragged edge of weakness and close to death, I heard the answer. The gods would take back and fix my scepter, for a small tithing, but I would need to make a journey to the northern island for a long forgotten relic from the gods first. I gladly accepted my new life quest, and opened my eyes to peer weakly around me for the first time in an eternity.
A cool breeze from the north made me turn my head to face into it, letting its gentleness soothe my body. I had to squint against the suns harsh glare as I gazed all around the island below me, a blanket of lush green forest stretching from the northern beaches to the southern horizon. This time of day, just before the full heat of the afternoon, a thick mist rose slowly from the canopy of the trees. My eyes traveled northward, across what seemed to be an insurmountable expanse of roiling, crashing waters, to what appeared to be a hazy mountaintop in the distance, just before the horizon. With my goal in mind, I began the arduous task of clambering from the mountaintop and making my way there.
It took me another two days to slog my way through the thick jungle brush to the beach edge. It was my luck and a sign from the gods that I found an old, but still usable, canoe and paddle for the journey.
Battling an unrelenting heat, extreme thirst, and the ever shifting water below me, I managed to struggle my way to the edge of the northern island in only a day and a half, where I climbed out of my canoe, collapsed to the sand, and slept for a long time.
During my slumber, I had fevered dreams of devices long forgotten by the people that had once inhabited this land. The gods whispered to me, telling me that these relics had been rejected by the Holy Temple of ProVape for minor imperfections, yet still carried the power of the gods within them. Images of a tiny silver tube, not unlike my bronze scepter but much smaller, with a red magnifying crystal, flickered past me throughout the dream.
A tickling at my toes made me awake in a burst of raucous laughter that brought me involuntarily to a sitting position, and a cloud of various crabs exploded outward from my body and landed in an array around me with soft thuds, the vision of the dream fading away like fog in the sunlight. The crabs had been nibbling at my toes, in fact, considering all the small red nick marks on my body, it appeared they had been nibbling all over me. Apparently it is not a good idea to take a lie down in the sand for an indeterminate length of time, because something might come along and reckon it'll have a nibble at you.
I was famished, and crab seemed a particular tasty bit of revenge, but alas I had no crockery and decided to drive on instead.
If I had thought the jungles of ProVari Island were thick, this was like a wall. The massive roots of untamed trees, much like trees themselves, wove in and out of each other like braided ropes, and I found myself using them like roadways that led me windingly deeper into the heart of the jungle.
I became aware of my hunger again with a stumble. I was incredibly weak...I hadn't eaten since before making my ascent to 18650 peak, I had been driven purely on spiritual power alone up to this point, but now my trials were making themselves all too known again. Without being able to stop myself, I collapsed to a sitting position in the middle of a great highway of roots, 8 large roots wide, making its way towards the center of the forest. Panting and pouring sweat from every pore, I could do nothing but sit and stare forward towards what I hoped was my destination, and not some terrible monstrosity. Absent-mindedly, I plucked some mushrooms that were growing from the roots near where I collapsed and munched a few handfuls slowly. I didn't know whether they were poisonous or not, I was simply too hungry to care. Instead, I trusted the divinity of my quest and stared towards my destination.
I was amazed at how quiet and still the forest around me was. Although I had dropped my scepter long ago, it still worked properly, so I took in sacrament and contemplated my surroundings. No matter where I looked I saw the same sight, massive overgrown trees of all types that disappeared into the darkness all around me. There was an ever present misty miasma held motionless on the forest floor, unable to rise above the impenetrable canopy of leaves above, where not even sunlight poked its rays, that told a tale of a forest undisturbed by any creature besides the trees for many years. Where were all the creatures? I wondered to myself, realizing the answer as I continued eating the mushrooms and scanning the forest.
Though the forest was dead silent, it seemed to hum with energy. It wasn't something heard so much as felt in every atom of the body. It was as if some giant, singular life force was pulsating throughout the island, giving rampant life to everything nearby. As if somebody had struck the deepest B flat and left it on sustain for all time. It was not at all disconcerting, instead, as I rose to my feet, it seemed to be giving me energy.
After regaining some strength, I continued along the breathing roots, a smile conquering my face for not immediately explainable reasons. I frolicked along happily, dodging over obstacles and bouncing off the heads of creatures, all while giggling to myself madly. From the left and the right, two more dancing highways of roots slowly crept into my vision out of the now inexplicably purple mist of the deep forest, and I knew I was coming to my destination, and in good spirits.
I arrived at the base of the mountain I had seen from ProVari Island and peered upward. The highways of roots, two more appearing out of the darkness and joining the other three, climbed their way easily up the mountain side, where they plunged into the clouds above; however the bark allowed for no grip, and could not be climbed. Jagged obstacles like uncertainty, doubt, low cash flow, and steep prices cluttered the way before me, but I did not lose heart, I knew I would find a way as I took more sacrament from my scepter and watched a discount vine grow right before my eyes. It grew, and grew, and grew, until soon it had smothered all the obstacles before me and given me a climbable path up the mountain. Lunatic grin on my face, I began my ascent up the mountain. Occasionally I had to jump from vine arm to vine arm, the most harrowing part of the climb altogether, and made all the more difficult when, for some reason, they kept melting away from me.
After a tremendous climb, I reached the peak of the mountain and stood awestruck. At the very center of the peak stood the mightiest tree my eyes have ever witnessed. I didn't have a name for the tree, I just called it the Heart Tree, for it seemed to be acting like a heart for the very forest below.
At the base of the tree was a small, ill-kept, inconspicuous stone temple, by far the most primitive I'd seen since journeying to the ProVari lands. As I approached, intricate carvings and inscriptions in a language older than the ProVarinati's Eng-Latin started to become apparent to my eyes. Many of the carvings seemed to depict water nymphs dancing in a misty lake that pervaded the entire top facade of the temple. Templum Bolbi the inscription over the door read. Surely this was the very first temple of the ProVarinati I thought to myself in wonder as my eyes traced over a hieroglyph that appeared to depict a ProVape-1. The air here tingled, and I could hear faint angelic chords and singing voices emanating from within. I removed my boots and bowed my head reverently, saying the Psalm De ProVarinatus quietly as I stepped inside.
The humbleness of the place struck me. It was little more than four walls and an altar, lined with holy scepters of all sizes and colors. Altare macula ProVaris read the inscription over the altar, and below that, in smaller letters added almost as a footnote, read the words, Qui per ipsum, commodo. With a shrug I stepped forward and gazed over the relics. I couldn't tell what was wrong with them, or why they would be rejected by the Holy Temple, so in trepidation I reached for a small, greyed out silver scepter. As I grabbed ahold of it, a flash of images rushed through my mind. The dream I had had before flooding my mind as I flipped over the scepter to find that yes, it did indeed have a red crystal. More images showed me the liquid receptacle I would use, a small, stainless steel tank with an anatomically suggestive viewing window, not because I liked it, but because it was the only truly durable option.
With a whoop, a shout, and a gracious thank you to the gods, I took my newly acquired scepter and began the long trek back to the tribe to prepare for sending my full size scepter back to the gods for repair.
(Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed it
. I got my BLEM mini in the mail a day earlier than expected and couldn't be happier. I love the size of this thing, and the Nautilus Mini with stainless tank is a perfect match. The total size of everything together is so small, I can hide it completely in my shirt pocket.
And yes...the window really is a rather suggestive shape, see for yourself.)
As I crested 18650 Point, the highest mountain on the island, my scepter slipped from my scabbard and fell in an agonizingly slow arc, time seeming to bend around it's metallic body as its molecules reached out to repel from those of the rock face below. With a gut-wrenching thud and a teeth grinding clink, my holiest of holies became a little more holey with the loss of the magnifying crystal used for divining the sacred settings.
I wanted to drop to my knees and weep, tear my clothes and cover my head in dust. I knelt and offered the scepter to the sky, a teardrop squeezing it's way between the folds of my eyelids. Surely I would be found in sin and unworthy to maintain the device, and it would be rent from me in a fiery whirlwind.
For forty days and forty nights I prayed in constant vigil atop that windswept peak, not eating, not sleeping, not drinking, and resisting all temptation.
Finally, on the ragged edge of weakness and close to death, I heard the answer. The gods would take back and fix my scepter, for a small tithing, but I would need to make a journey to the northern island for a long forgotten relic from the gods first. I gladly accepted my new life quest, and opened my eyes to peer weakly around me for the first time in an eternity.
A cool breeze from the north made me turn my head to face into it, letting its gentleness soothe my body. I had to squint against the suns harsh glare as I gazed all around the island below me, a blanket of lush green forest stretching from the northern beaches to the southern horizon. This time of day, just before the full heat of the afternoon, a thick mist rose slowly from the canopy of the trees. My eyes traveled northward, across what seemed to be an insurmountable expanse of roiling, crashing waters, to what appeared to be a hazy mountaintop in the distance, just before the horizon. With my goal in mind, I began the arduous task of clambering from the mountaintop and making my way there.
It took me another two days to slog my way through the thick jungle brush to the beach edge. It was my luck and a sign from the gods that I found an old, but still usable, canoe and paddle for the journey.
Battling an unrelenting heat, extreme thirst, and the ever shifting water below me, I managed to struggle my way to the edge of the northern island in only a day and a half, where I climbed out of my canoe, collapsed to the sand, and slept for a long time.
During my slumber, I had fevered dreams of devices long forgotten by the people that had once inhabited this land. The gods whispered to me, telling me that these relics had been rejected by the Holy Temple of ProVape for minor imperfections, yet still carried the power of the gods within them. Images of a tiny silver tube, not unlike my bronze scepter but much smaller, with a red magnifying crystal, flickered past me throughout the dream.
A tickling at my toes made me awake in a burst of raucous laughter that brought me involuntarily to a sitting position, and a cloud of various crabs exploded outward from my body and landed in an array around me with soft thuds, the vision of the dream fading away like fog in the sunlight. The crabs had been nibbling at my toes, in fact, considering all the small red nick marks on my body, it appeared they had been nibbling all over me. Apparently it is not a good idea to take a lie down in the sand for an indeterminate length of time, because something might come along and reckon it'll have a nibble at you.
I was famished, and crab seemed a particular tasty bit of revenge, but alas I had no crockery and decided to drive on instead.
If I had thought the jungles of ProVari Island were thick, this was like a wall. The massive roots of untamed trees, much like trees themselves, wove in and out of each other like braided ropes, and I found myself using them like roadways that led me windingly deeper into the heart of the jungle.
I became aware of my hunger again with a stumble. I was incredibly weak...I hadn't eaten since before making my ascent to 18650 peak, I had been driven purely on spiritual power alone up to this point, but now my trials were making themselves all too known again. Without being able to stop myself, I collapsed to a sitting position in the middle of a great highway of roots, 8 large roots wide, making its way towards the center of the forest. Panting and pouring sweat from every pore, I could do nothing but sit and stare forward towards what I hoped was my destination, and not some terrible monstrosity. Absent-mindedly, I plucked some mushrooms that were growing from the roots near where I collapsed and munched a few handfuls slowly. I didn't know whether they were poisonous or not, I was simply too hungry to care. Instead, I trusted the divinity of my quest and stared towards my destination.
I was amazed at how quiet and still the forest around me was. Although I had dropped my scepter long ago, it still worked properly, so I took in sacrament and contemplated my surroundings. No matter where I looked I saw the same sight, massive overgrown trees of all types that disappeared into the darkness all around me. There was an ever present misty miasma held motionless on the forest floor, unable to rise above the impenetrable canopy of leaves above, where not even sunlight poked its rays, that told a tale of a forest undisturbed by any creature besides the trees for many years. Where were all the creatures? I wondered to myself, realizing the answer as I continued eating the mushrooms and scanning the forest.
Though the forest was dead silent, it seemed to hum with energy. It wasn't something heard so much as felt in every atom of the body. It was as if some giant, singular life force was pulsating throughout the island, giving rampant life to everything nearby. As if somebody had struck the deepest B flat and left it on sustain for all time. It was not at all disconcerting, instead, as I rose to my feet, it seemed to be giving me energy.
After regaining some strength, I continued along the breathing roots, a smile conquering my face for not immediately explainable reasons. I frolicked along happily, dodging over obstacles and bouncing off the heads of creatures, all while giggling to myself madly. From the left and the right, two more dancing highways of roots slowly crept into my vision out of the now inexplicably purple mist of the deep forest, and I knew I was coming to my destination, and in good spirits.
I arrived at the base of the mountain I had seen from ProVari Island and peered upward. The highways of roots, two more appearing out of the darkness and joining the other three, climbed their way easily up the mountain side, where they plunged into the clouds above; however the bark allowed for no grip, and could not be climbed. Jagged obstacles like uncertainty, doubt, low cash flow, and steep prices cluttered the way before me, but I did not lose heart, I knew I would find a way as I took more sacrament from my scepter and watched a discount vine grow right before my eyes. It grew, and grew, and grew, until soon it had smothered all the obstacles before me and given me a climbable path up the mountain. Lunatic grin on my face, I began my ascent up the mountain. Occasionally I had to jump from vine arm to vine arm, the most harrowing part of the climb altogether, and made all the more difficult when, for some reason, they kept melting away from me.
After a tremendous climb, I reached the peak of the mountain and stood awestruck. At the very center of the peak stood the mightiest tree my eyes have ever witnessed. I didn't have a name for the tree, I just called it the Heart Tree, for it seemed to be acting like a heart for the very forest below.
At the base of the tree was a small, ill-kept, inconspicuous stone temple, by far the most primitive I'd seen since journeying to the ProVari lands. As I approached, intricate carvings and inscriptions in a language older than the ProVarinati's Eng-Latin started to become apparent to my eyes. Many of the carvings seemed to depict water nymphs dancing in a misty lake that pervaded the entire top facade of the temple. Templum Bolbi the inscription over the door read. Surely this was the very first temple of the ProVarinati I thought to myself in wonder as my eyes traced over a hieroglyph that appeared to depict a ProVape-1. The air here tingled, and I could hear faint angelic chords and singing voices emanating from within. I removed my boots and bowed my head reverently, saying the Psalm De ProVarinatus quietly as I stepped inside.
The humbleness of the place struck me. It was little more than four walls and an altar, lined with holy scepters of all sizes and colors. Altare macula ProVaris read the inscription over the altar, and below that, in smaller letters added almost as a footnote, read the words, Qui per ipsum, commodo. With a shrug I stepped forward and gazed over the relics. I couldn't tell what was wrong with them, or why they would be rejected by the Holy Temple, so in trepidation I reached for a small, greyed out silver scepter. As I grabbed ahold of it, a flash of images rushed through my mind. The dream I had had before flooding my mind as I flipped over the scepter to find that yes, it did indeed have a red crystal. More images showed me the liquid receptacle I would use, a small, stainless steel tank with an anatomically suggestive viewing window, not because I liked it, but because it was the only truly durable option.
With a whoop, a shout, and a gracious thank you to the gods, I took my newly acquired scepter and began the long trek back to the tribe to prepare for sending my full size scepter back to the gods for repair.
(Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed it
. I got my BLEM mini in the mail a day earlier than expected and couldn't be happier. I love the size of this thing, and the Nautilus Mini with stainless tank is a perfect match. The total size of everything together is so small, I can hide it completely in my shirt pocket.And yes...the window really is a rather suggestive shape, see for yourself.)
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