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Early the next morning, as the sun was just cresting the horizon, Bellona was putting the last of her gear onto a merchant wagon. With the change in plans for several routes that came with the news of the new dungeon came an opportunity to start the first part of her route with some company. For the first leg, she’d be accompanying a caravan, then going by horse alone for the second leg, before going on foot for the last leg. It made her logistics easier, she didn’t have to worry about feed for the horse for most of it.
The champion of Amirume went over her mental checklist one more time as she adjusted the position of her stuff, making everything as neat as possible. All her heavy armor was in the chest, until she was setting out on the last leg there was little reason to wear more than a chain shirt. There was little chance of danger on the main roads, so her axe she’d keep at her side and her shield on the horse. Even when traveling solo, it would be easier on the beast to distribute the weight of her armor rather than have her entire armored mass centered on its back.
For the last leg, when the horse would be left behind, she’d wear her full kit. If you were going to be carrying the weight anyway, there was no better distribution than to wear it. That would also be the section where she’d be traveling up mountain paths, and she didn’t look forward to it. She’d worn her armor for days while moving and fighting across relatively flat land before, but days of going up a mountain in armor were going to be quite different. Fortunately, it was early summer, so the mountains wouldn’t be too cold on her way up.
.
After Moriko had reached the monastery, Mordecai and Kazue had turned their attention back inward, for it was time to build. As usual, Kazue went first. With her plans finalized, the walls of the cavern on the fifth floor shifted and formed tiers, enabling ever-higher placement of mushroom buildings, and larger structures that could spread their weight on supports of multiple heights.
This was a large village of artisans, crafters, farmers, athletes, entertainers, writers, philosophers, and similar professions. She expanded on her tokens idea, to pass through the gate required five tokens, but the laganthros were free to hand tokens to one, some, all, or none of a party’s members as they saw fit, and the tokens would attune themselves to those who they were presented to. She also borrowed from Mordecai’s double-door concept: the first door could be opened by anyone who had five tokens, the second door would open only if the first door was closed and everyone inside the corridor had five tokens, and the first door also can’t be opened unless the second door is closed.
In addition to the more straightforward challenges she’d been thinking of previously, she had developed some slightly more complicated quests. Many professions use heat, so a challenge could start with “My fire drake wandered off and I can’t find him!”, leading to tracking down the drake, then figuring out the sub-challenge (it might be somewhere hard to access, or be distracted by a love interest, or maybe it found a shiny to large for it to carry but won’t let it go and hisses at any one who gets close, etc), solving the issue, and then they might still need to persuade the drake to come home.
There were many variations of ‘I need a thing’ that could be made into challenges, and the first obstacle was unstated: The inhabitants could pick the challenge, and could make it harder. If they didn’t like you, it would probably be long and involved, and wind up getting dirty, wet, and cold. So being at least reasonably polite made everything much easier. It wasn’t terribly likely that this would be an issue by the time someone got this far, but Kazue had decided that she was going to include variability in all her future challenges that made things easier for people who were being nice.
Now, people needed proper settings for them to venture into, so she spun off side caves of differing layouts and environments; some were jagged rifts that required navigating a lot of vertical terrain, some were wide with one or more streams or small ponds, others saw a return of crystal outcroppings, and a few were mildly caustic with acidic, alkaline, or salty environments. Nothing too dangerous of course, unless one was exceptionally foolish.
With many of the available challenges being at least partly physical, she started arranging for appropriate rewards as well. Mordecai had made sure she now knew how to craft some of the common physical enchantment items and how to alter their form and fine-tune their secondary abilities. A belt that could let someone carry more weight, boots that made you a little faster or made your steps quieter, a cape that could keep you warm or could help you blend into the background, and many other possibilities.
Not that she neglected the mental side either: glasses that could help decipher an unknown language, a pen that always wrote smoothly and without smearing and with unlimited ink of your choice, crafting tools that enhanced the product you made, and several other items of specialized use were all available rewards. She wanted the rewards here to be more focused on helping people better their skills, rather than rewarding them with direct knowledge as the library did.
Of course, sometimes people would be coming through who knew more than anyone in the dungeon did on a topic. Their challenge would be to teach, and rewards would generally be in raw materials unless there was other information they wanted.
She did have to be careful just how generous she was though. From dawn to dawn, there was a limit to how much the dungeon could create that could be claimed as loot, and they could only ‘stockpile’ for values that had already been won or that they already owed as part of a trade agreement. Their inhabitants were not so limited, but only if they worked with ‘real’ materials rather than ones created directly through dungeon mana, and it took a fair amount of time and effort to craft even a minor enchanted item the proper way. So unless there was a good cause, the items the inhabitants crafted were their own to use or to trade as they saw fit.
When Kazue was done she looked over the town to make sure she was satisfied with her work. There were towering mushroom spires, thick-walled squat mushroom buildings, long buildings made from many mushrooms grown together, and every other combination that had been asked for that she could make work. A lot of them were ‘dummies’ at the moment with no roads to reach them or doors to enter them, but she’d change that as the population grew. She even had a few unoccupied buildings growing from the ceiling, which were left available to be claimed by any inhabitants that could make their way to them. A little challenge and reward set up for her own people, figuring out how to make flying magic items or systems.
Creating the lighting had been one of her favorite parts. There had been a few concepts she’d considered, such as just making every mushroom and fungal surface glow slightly to create a very even and ‘sourceless’ lighting, but in the end, she went for something a bit more flavorful. The underside of the mushroom caps glowed to illuminate the area around their base while large glowing ‘spores’ floated overhead to cast a dimmer radiance to the general area, and all the paths were marked with tiny little puffballs that would collapse in a sudden burst of glowing dust spores if disturbed, most likely coating whoever messed with them and leaving a glowing residue that would smear the more you tried to rub it off.
All of the fungal-based light was in a soft blue/green color, but in addition to the ‘natural’ lighting, the inhabitants had access to fire and normal light spells, making the interior of the buildings look warm and inviting against the backdrop of perpetual twilight outside. Overall she rather enjoyed the contrast of slightly spooky exterior lighting and warm, inviting interior lighting.
.
They’d had plenty of time to build up lots of energy since Kazue’s mother had come through, so technically Mordecai could have built up his side at the same time. But he felt it was best to wait until she finished in case there were any surprises. The upside-down houses on the ceiling had not been in their original ideas for example, though in this case, they didn’t cost a significant amount more. They did, however, give him an idea to add later.
For now he focused on his original plan. At the entrance to the fifth floor, visitors would find themselves entering a wide campsite. There was no equipment, but the space was obviously cleared with a small, 2-foot tall ‘fence’ of piled stones and a fire pit in the center. There was also a plaque that read:

This area is neutral territory for the two warring factions beyond, but animals and monsters do not know such distinctions. Proceed at your own time and in your own way, there is no one path or one method to success. 

Combat challenges were fun and straightforward, but even the library was only a warm-up. Beyond the cleared campsite stretched a dimly lit mushroom and fungus forest that gave away nothing of what lay in wait for brave adventurers to face. Or at least would, when he was done.
Mordecai started with the terrain. The campsite was going to be slightly disadvantageous in that it was at the bottom of a shallow depression. All ways out were uphill, making it impossible to see most of the cavern from here even without the addition of a forest. From there he varied the terrain, creating twisting valleys, solo and clumped hills, the occasional small ravine, and very few areas of simple, flat land. If one tried hard enough, one could even find thin trails running along the walls of the cavern, but those were carefully placed and angled to be difficult to spot from below. Once done with the layout, he created a few springs to become the heads of several streams that eventually combined into a river that flowed into the boss chamber at the end of the cavern.
Back toward the entrance, he also introduced a small, natural ‘alcove’ with three waterfalls coming down along the inner curve of the wall into a small pool, which in turn started its own stream. These three waterfalls were connected back to the warren’s water network, making them part of the ecology of the dungeon. It was also time to add a layer of complexity: rather than just having exclusive pathways for different water uses, he started using nature’s filters of rock, soil, and sand to keep most of the impurities flowing into the sewers, and then let water seepage work its way into various underground ponds, which in turn became the sources for further streams. He made sure the paths alternated going into airless pockets and into caverns that were half-air and had light sources embedded in the ceiling to let photosynthesis take place. All natural purification. This was the source of the water for these three waterfalls and introduced the preexisting biome into this floor.
Now he looked at his entire catalog of available mosses, lichens, and fungi to select the best ground cover options, then he carpeted the entire floor in a mixture of this ‘grass’. Not entirely unaltered, Mordecai did fortify them to make them more resistant to being walked on and generally tougher, but for the most part he left them alone in their design. He was also doing a wild-seeding mix, to let them all compete and find their preferred environments. And there were plenty available, every single visitor had brought in various spores and tiny seeds that most humanoids never realized were clinging to them and shedding from their skin at all times.
He’d also been very considerate of Kazue’s origins. While she knew how to zoom in on material structures, he’d carefully avoided showing her how that technique could be used to examine all the tiny critters that lived on people all the time. Mordecai had found out a long time ago that most people did not want to know about them. It did however provide a source for the next layer of this floor’s ecology, filling all the undergrowth with tiny creatures invisible to most people. Once Mordecai was satisfied that everything had reached a self-sustaining state, it was time for the ‘trees’ of this forest.
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In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

The title of this one intrigued me enough to give it a read, and to my complete shock /s it seems that Disney's '''progressive''' pandering in their recent output still isn't good enough for some of the people they're actively courting.
"The Little Mermaid" live action may have racial representation, changed plot points and song lyrics, but it's still problematic, sexist, and promoting violence and patriarchy, apparently.
The review in question:
 

Disney’s 1989 “The Little Mermaid” was at once a masterpiece of the brand and a somewhat cringey retelling of a very dark Hans Christian Andersen tale. The story of a mermaid who gives up her voice to be with the man of her dreams, it falls neatly into the Disney canon of plucky, curious teenage women, whose pluck and curiosity mostly end up leading them into early marriage. But it’s also a ton of fun, with a dazzling Howard Ashman/Alan Menken score, an iconic villain in Ursula whose look was inspired by the drag queen Divine and a hilariously menacing sequence about cooking fish.
Disney’s had decades to think about how to update “The Little Mermaid” for new generations of viewers. Which makes the dour, overlong, dimly-lit and still pretty sexist product they’ve just released completely baffling.
They’ve jettisoned the fish song, “Les Poissons,” purportedly deeming it too cartoonish (what?) but given a dull musical number to Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King). They’ve obscured the great Melissa McCarthy, playing Ursula, in a murk of bottom-of-the-ocean “natural light.” And they’ve retained the central plot, which confers happy-ending approval on a young woman making bodily-harming sacrifices in order to get the guy. Seriously?
I can report that the children in my small-town movie theater were checked-out at best. More than one kid was wandering among the aisles by the time we passed the 90-minute mark of the 135-minute affair, which begs the question: Who, exactly, is this movie for? Why does it exist?
This latest chapter in Disney’s never-ending quest to impose all of its hits on us again, in live-action format, is a profound miscalculation on almost every level, especially about how to revisit a beloved animated property that boasts some pretty problematic themes.
This feels lousy to say, because I was rooting for a huge success to follow the noxious backlash to the trailer last year: Some people apparently couldn’t handle the audacity of reinventing a cartoon character as a Black actress. But star Halle Bailey, in the role of Ariel, has nothing to apologize for: She’s the best thing about this movie. Unfortunately, that’s faint praise.
A lot of ink and pixels have testified to the value of Black children and their moms being able to see themselves in a Disney heroine, and that’s a powerfully admirable goal – as well as a long-overdue one, given the brand’s still overwhelmingly White majority of characters.
Unfortunately, director Rob Marshall’s approach sets a tone of violence at the beginning, rather than inspiration. The film kicks off with a sequence in which the crew of Prince Eric’s trade ship lean and leer over the edge, throwing harpoons at something in the water. A whale? A mermaid? It’s never quite clear, but the bloodlust certainly is. I can’t believe the kids in my screening had imagined a movie called “The Little Mermaid” beginning this way. Yikes.
Then there’s the running time: Two hours and fifteen minutes. The original was an hour twenty-three. The time expansion is such a comically bad decision, I still can’t get my head around it. Nothing little kids like more than sitting still for over two hours! Most recent Disney remakes have kept it at least under the two-hour mark, with the exception of 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2021’s “Cruella,” both of which were, at least, livelier than this one.
Everywhere you look, a detail about the movie has been slightly altered, but most end up being empty gestures rather than meaningful updates. For example, King Triton (Javier Bardem, who mostly looks bored) still has a bunch of adoring daughters who follow his every command, except now they’re a rainbow of ethnic diversity. So what’s the message here: diversity is good as long as patriarchy remains intact?
When Bailey’s Ariel gives up her voice in exchange for a human body, with three days to kiss the prince, she’s also given amnesia about the kiss part – which handily removes the fun from the original film of having her be an active participant in trying to get the smooch. And in this iteration of Ursula’s show-stopping number “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” they’ve removed the lines in which she smacks down Ariel’s doubts about losing her voice: “The men up there don’t like a lot of blabber. They think a girl who gossips is a bore. Come on, they’re not all that impressed with conversation. True gentlemen avoid it when they can! But they dote and swoon and fawn on a lady who’s withdrawn, it’s she who holds her tongue who gets a man!”
As Alex Abad-Santos of Vox tweeted, it’s “quite literally the best part of the entire song that crystallizes cynical Ursula’s worldview and, at the same time, shows us how she’s tricking Ariel.” Menken has said the change was made because the lines “might make young girls somehow feel that they shouldn’t speak out of turn,” which feels fairly patronizing; in my experience, kids are very good at knowing not to take a cartoon villain’s advice at face value.
That’s gone, but Lin-Manuel Miranda has added some new music, notably a rap song for Awkwafina as the seagull Scuttle, a number which is brief but so tonally different it brings the scene to a screeching halt. If there’s one unifying quality to all of these tweaks, it’s that they aren’t going to convince any of the 1989 movie’s fans that this one is worth their time or money.
More broadly, Disney’s painted the movie with the broad brush of corporate studios’ vision for What We Think Will Put Butts in Seats, which consists mostly of gloomy, under-lighted visuals (which audiences are, in reality, very tired of) and extensive action scenes. The 11th-hour standoff in which McCarthy’s Ursula grows to Godzilla proportions is so very dark here that you can barely see her, which begs the question of how much bad CGI they’re trying to cover up.
As Hollywood continues to wring its hands about the decline of moviegoing, “The Little Mermaid” doesn’t feel like it’s going to be an asset in that fight – let alone inspire many repeat viewings. (I imagine any parent who’s known the earworm of “Let It Go” from “Frozen” will know this is damning indeed.) Maybe a cool reception will inspire a little more introspection for Disney before next spring’s release of the next remake: “Snow White.” What could go wrong?

 
I feel like I've seen a few examples of this in recent times, like they're almost close to getting it (beyond the obvious flaws like the crappy CG) but they're ideological tunnel vision is preventing them from seeing the forest for the trees, so to speak.
And meanwhile we continue to be baffled as to why Disney and so many others are pandering to this crowd when they will never be satisfied...

I'm continuing to thin out my collection of the lesser used items.
TimeStamp: https://imgur.com/KHntbg8
Microtech UTX-85 - SV: $175
I bought this new from knifecenter and it has been carried and used but not abused. It has some marks on the clip and a few lines in the DLC on the blade. Factory edge.
Video: https://imgur.com/a/Rrj9T4e
Kizer Cormorant M390/Ti - SV: $135 Sold!
This is a white mountain knives exclusive that I won on KnifeRaffle it's great but a little too small for my tastes. I installed skiffs and carried it a few times, it has cut tape/paper. Factory edge.
Video: https://imgur.com/a/iizw394
TM River Wolf Demko - SV: $245
This thing is a beast but it's freaking smooth. It has skiffs installed and it has cut tape and paper, but mostly flipped while sitting at my desk. Factory edge.
Video: https://imgur.com/a/0JIAlwP
Divo Growler - SV: $65 Sold!
This has been carried and used but not abused, tape and paper mostly. Factory edge.
Video: https://imgur.com/a/3ZojZSQ
Kunwu Pulsar Digi G10 - SV: $165
This knife has the stiff omega springs installed and skiffs as well. It has been carried and has cut tape/paper. The softer springs are in the box if you want to swap back. Factory edge.
Video: https://imgur.com/a/9ly2GKj
AWT Manix 2 Scales - SV: $50 Sold!
I got these new from AWT (~$95 shipped) and they're cerakoted brick red. They are awesome, but these are blemished because I'm an idiot. I broke a screw off while attempting to swap a pocket clip. I then scraped some more of the coating by trying to get the broken screw out, so I have left the piece in there. I can drill it out, but I don't want to mark them up anymore. I'm left handed so these would be great for a righty (almost everyone else lol) who wants about a 50% discount on some scales that take the Manix 2 to a new level. It has the standoff and screws that are required when using these.
Video: https://imgur.com/a/JRJL7N7
Paypal FF, no notes. CONUS only and I usually ship within 24 hours. If my pricing is whack, please let me know. THANKS!
Yolo takes priority!

For the last several years I have been planting dozens of chestnuts in pots outside my apartment and distributing the year old seedlings for free to my community every spring. Next spring I will distribute 96 chestnuts, 100 or so semi domesticated pawpaws, 20 American hazelnuts, and the year after I plan on adding American persimmons into the mix as well. American chestnuts would be great and I am interested in their restoration effort but they are currently very expensive and a mix of Chinese, European, Dunstan, Peach, Qing, Kohr trees are what I have been giving out. Mostly I harvest nuts from trees in my town but supplement with some bought online, you pretty much need to buy them in the fall and refrigerate or bury them until spring.
Chestnuts are the ultimate food for supply chain collapse, one mature chestnut tree can provide half of the grain-based calories for an adult every year. They can be made into pasta, bread, desserts, just ask the Sicilian peasants who subsisted on them for generations. I like to make chestnut gnocchi. Smaller trees (like the pawpaws), bushes and shrubs (hazelnuts) and other food crops can be planted in the understory. They also make great food for pigs, deer etc.
Slightly off topic but it pisses me off how the media completely ignores widespread environmental problems and blames everything on climate change (real btw). Insect biomass in developed countries has fallen by half to 80% since 1990, bird populations in Germany have halved, flooding that gets blamed on climate change is largely caused by soil compaction, sediment runoff filling in river bottoms, parking lots etc not allowing water to infiltrate properly. Hundreds of square miles of the gulf are so depleted of oxygen due to fertilizer runoff that no fish (or shrimp ☹) can live there, similar problems in the great lakes, and Chesapeake bay, many other locations. Nutrient content of food is far lower than in the middle of the twentieth century, not only because vegetable varieties have been bred for longer shelf life and appearance but because the soil bacteria that synthesize riboflavin (one of the most effected nutrients) have been killed off by modern agricultural practices.
If you hear about drought causing crop loss just know that it would be significantly less destructive if instead of killing all plant life off with glyphosate and leaving the field fallow for the off season the farmer had planted cover crops. If you hear of biodiversity loss know that its because of light pollution and insecticides far more than it is caused by climate change.
So take the chestnut pill, get your neighbors to grow big beautiful chestnut trees and roast some of them over an open fire for Christmas, they can throw most of them out but if everything goes to shit, that tree in the yard will take the edge off. Plant them at the edges of fields or in highway interchanges in the middle of the night, give them to the local church with a gay flag out front. Stop crying about how climate change is going to kill us all but you dont know what you as an individual can do about it, start trees and give them out.

So, this is the story of how this group and I started a coup on our DM and regained our freedom. TW: Mentions of Racism
Important people! Pluto: The DM, ruler of our personal hell Jericho: My friend and the local Paladin Bird: The Bladesinger Wizard with wings Soap: The Tricky Drow Cleric/Ranger Hornet: Barbarian Satyr and the newest addition Boy: The Eldritch knight… yeah that’s it Toad: Local Plant boy with a pet dragon And I am… Well, me. (Names changed for obvious reasons) So this story starts at the beginning. I found a listing in the CritCrab server for a new game that sounded interesting. A group that is in a fantasy school for adventurers. Sounds interesting enough. I sent the DM (Pluto) a character idea for a Water Genasi swarm keeper whose swarm is a school of tropical fish. He said that I can’t use fish because it's not one of the official options for a swarmkeeper… Okay? Change it to birds and then he asks if I wanted to be siblings with someone else who wanted to be a Genasi ranger. I hesitantly agree and then I meet Jericho. I began becoming closer with Jericho and tried getting closer with Pluto. I brought up taking a level into a homebrew monster tamer class and he approved it but every time I did something that irritated him he half jokingly threatened to kill my character’s wolf to the point where it made me not want to play the class knowing that if I didn’t do what he wanted he would take it out on my character. Eventually that game didn't go anywhere so he started up a new game. Pluto decided he would run the same game as before with a new group and we started at level 3! Jericho and I were the only ones who came back for the reboot. During the down time between campaigns I began being closer friends with Jericho and began playing some of the same games as him. Pluto, not liking these games, told us that people who played those games were “bad people and people who say otherwise are objectively wrong.” Anyways, character creation. Jericho and I wanted a connected backstory but didn't want to be siblings again since we just did that. He decided he would play a paladin and so I thought “if he is the knight, i could be the dragon” and brought up the tamer class to Pluto again, he accepted it but didn’t stop talking about how Drakewarden Ranger is just better. Even after I told him I didn’t like it as much. Now, I wouldn't have this issue if he hadn’t already said the tamer class was fine. He already accepted the homebrew but was still pushing me toward something I said I didn't want. On top of all this, he told Jericho that since he was a Knight he would also have the Noble background and since he was a Noble I should also be a Noble and his sister! We sorta just went along with it since it sorta just worked. I ended up swapping from a Tamer (because he clearly didn't want me playing it) to a Wizard with a high charisma in hopes of going into bard or warlock. We were all excited to be some noble kids in the school just hanging out and stuff only to learn that by Noble, he meant the most Noble. Jericho was the Crown Prince and I the Princess of THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. This was not at all what we signed up for but we thought, Hey, this will at least make things interesting? The other players were Boy, who made an eldritch knight who sorta just hit things? He didn't role play too much and mostly just split off to talk to random teachers and stuff instead of participating in what there was of a plot.The other was a druid for a couple of sessions but left due to frustrations with Pluto. So it starts with us going to a school and doing a test to see what class we are in, sorta Yugioh GX style if you are familiar with that. We all got sent to Obelisk Blue and were assigned to the team. Woo! We set off for our first mission, go find “something of interest.” We weren’t told what exactly to look for or anything just to find it. Okay? We search and find a cave with spooky noises and glowing. My player senses are tingling! We go inside and find a woman who is all like “Make a deal with me, i will give you some shiny stuff and you are not allowed to talk about me ever to anyone outside of here. If anyone asks you where you found this stuff say it's from the river” Jericho: Can we say walk away? Pluto: Nope, you are stuck here. Druid: Well, can we fight her? Pluto: You can but she can tpk you Me: So we just take the items then i guess
We go on to the next bit and we return our interesting items and the druid tries to sorta not say explicitly what we found but every time we try we get told we can't get around the binding contract. Cool, so we can’t talk about what happened or try to get any information. We take some classes, have some fun conversations amongst the party, teach the druid what a snake is, all fun. We then go to find our next quest. Hunt some mini cockatrices. Okay, interesting, let's do that. We do it without incident. We come back and roleplay some more before going onto the next quest. A strange feline creature is doing some petrification in a nearby town, go solve it. Me: More petrification monsters? I wonder who is letting em all out Pluto: Oh, no. i just chose them because petrification is easy to run Yeah, not plot reasoning just easy to run… okay We continue onward and find ourselves in an area and we decide to go to the library. Turns out there is a fire downstairs in the library that leads to a secret laboratory with a bunch of notes and stuff and something that mentions the monster we were sent to find. I had never heard of the monster so I looked up what it looked like (mind you not trying to meta-game was just curious because i had never heard of it. It is like a lion medusa, I forgot what it was called. Anyways, Pluto got upset with me for looking it up and yeah, maybe I shouldn't have. So Druid was having issues with Pluto during all of this and ended up leaving the campaign. In the meantime Pluto decided to invite someone from a group he was kicked from for being rude to the other players. Turns out in that game his character had a baby dragon that he was taking care of because of a homebrew race he was playing. This is when Bird joined. Turns out there was a secret fight club in the town and Bird is doing great. Bird is a homebrew race that is like an elf with wings. Bird was the most forward with their complaints. Anytime Pluto did something frustrating they would bring it up. He was not afraid to say blatantly that something Pluto was doing was annoying. This led to several arguments and I won’t lie, it was quite annoying. Their character was similar and would call my character out for what she was doing which was really fun to roleplay out. We ended up going and fighting the boss and instead of attacking the tank it felt like he targeted my wizard. Weird but okay, i was pretty pushed up and i almost went down because funny d6 hit dice. Also, I was hiding in a tree. We also saw the petrified body of the character who left. We went back to the school and role played a bit between missions.
We were then given an option between going to the capital for purposes of going and meeting the king and queen or going on a quest to find some flowers. We think about it and going to the capital seemed like the best way to push the story forward and then Pluto tells us that going to the plot is actually at the flowers which made no sense at all and still doesn’t. Especially since the only plot stuff was uh not region specific Next mission was trying to find a medicine for petrification. We go and talk to a king but a different type of king from our character’s father? Pluto swears up and down there is a good reason for this but it's confusing. We went to talk to him. King: So, you are looking for this really rare plant? Well, I will tell you where to find it so long as you make a deal with me Everyone: really? Another deal? Bird: “Yeah, my character is super paranoid and traumatized and wouldn't make deals with random people Pluto: Can you quit derailing things? Bird continued to try to get around the contract but no matter what he tried, Pluto didn’t allow anything. During all of this Pluto invited two new people to join us. Toad and Soap. They hadn't joined the game yet because he kept refusing to introduce them for like 3 sessions in a row. So they were both just quietly waiting in the vc for hours on end, much to the annoyance of Soap in particular. Eventually we got to the point where we were looking for the plants and Jericho had to go to work so we hand waved it as he went to go look somewhere else for the plants. We find the plants and they seem eerily out in the open. We get to problem solving. We decided the best course of action is if there are traps, send the flying person to go get them so we don't trigger them. Bird goes and flies towards them and then the tree shoots some roots or something at them? Idk, it makes no sense. And then they tried to Misty Step away. Anyways we roll initiative and fight a bunch of plants and then Toad and Soap see us fighting the plants and decide to help us. We beat the fight and then head back to the castle. We get told that Pluto would have a side session with Jericho. Jericho then tells me later that week that his character is dead or close to death. Turns out when he went off alone he fell into a random hole and had to go through a bunch of fights. And also he found someone who recognised him as the crown prince because of his fancy armor that he has stated many times wasnt fancy because he was very humble. He ended up getting so close to death that he had to make ANOTHER DEAL in order to get out alive. When the next session started we were told we went back without him and waited several days for him to come back and he just didn't. Excuse me? My character just sat around when her brother was missing for more than 12 hours??? Anyways we tried several things to find him and then i decided to make ANOTHER DEAL in order to ensure his safety. (I had a way to summon a fey-like entity). After all of this and more, Bird was causing a new argument or 2 every session and Soap was also upset by the same things and backed him up. The biggest argument was because we were defending Jericho from being killed off screen for committing the unforgivable sin of going to work. Eventually Pluto decided he would kick Bird. He also decided to gaslight Soap into apologizing for agreeing with Bird and BEGGING FOR HIS FORGIVENESS. Now mind you, after all of this Bird’s character had already been a massive part of the character development of both Soap’s character and my own so seeing them leave was rough narratively. Then it was implied they were killed, as was their pet pig, Chris P Bacon (Rest in Peace, sweet prince) Anyways, we go back home, role play, and then we go into a multi session dungeon crawl. Half way through the dungeon crawl he decided to add another player to the group and had Hornet send several different backstories and then admitted to not reading any of them. Now something I hadn’t mentioned was that he would often be late or cancel sessions day-of because he wanted to go to a party. It got to the point where he was the least consistent player. During the Dungeon crawl is when it became super problematic. People had had some schedule shifts and we asked to have the sessions an hour earlier and he agreed. Except, we didn't expect that that meant he would then opt to ask if we could postpone the sessions by 30 minutes or sometimes an hour and 30 minutes. When I complained about him being late all the time he said it was “Latino culture” to always show up late. Yeah, I was also confused. Anyways, this meant that 2 players were rarely able to show up and when they could they had to leave and hour in. We learned a bit more lore and then left the dungeon after like 5 sessions. We then went to a different town that had a rival school in it. Neat. We looked around, read some books, role played a bit, y’know, the usual. Then we decided to head home to the school to be there for a tournament! And now Hornet joined! After like 2-3 months of being invited to the server. Eventually, we all talked out of character about our experiences and decided that Toad would be the new DM and run a similar game and we would keep our characters. Thank you, Jericho for finally taking the time to talk to everyone. This situation ended a month ago. I would like to just say that these people tend to not have any self awareness so they can even watch these videos and not see the parallels between these bad DMs and themselves. Be careful out there, friends.
Some other notes that i didn't know where to put Pluto made almost all of us change something about our characters. -He made me and Jericho siblings and tried to force me into Drakewarden ranger. -Soap was supposed to be a Ranger Rogue, but he said “rogues cause too much trouble” and that “we needed a healer.” We did not need a healer. I had bard levels and was the support of the group. Then when they chose to be a cleric and decided to go to a church he was super surprised that the cleric wanted to do cleric things. -Toad wanted to be a Firbolg but then the Pluto pushed them towards his new homebrew race that has a pet dragon that he swears wasn't based on the same race he played in the game Bird was in -Hornet was going to be a shifter Echo knight but was then told no for some reason? -Told Bird no goblins, and argued about other races and stuff. Also forced them to be the cousin of mine and Jericho’s characters He was an incredibly toxic friend. He eventually ended up playing the game “only bad people like” but it was okay because he “didn't take it seriously.” Anytime I took a kill he would yell at me for stealing it and then say he wasn't actually mad because he doesn't take the game seriously and then go back to yelling at me. He did this with knowledge that people yelling at me was a trigger for me. I ended up buying a skin for him in the game as a gift and then he kept trying me to get him another one. I offered to get him a cheaper one as it was on sale and then he kept saying “No i want this one” If you liked something it was immediately a bad thing to like because of reasons. Like it was made by a corrupt company or stuff like that. You just weren’t allowed to enjoy things around him. In the game, he kept giving Soap, the archer, knives for loot? It was weird. Just because Soap had their character buy a dagger so they would have some concealed melee just in case. He also made it so whenever Soap looked for information they found a book about potatoes which was funny the first time bc nat 1 but the second time just felt like haha reusing the same joke but for an 11. And most of the time Soap was the only one actively looking for information about the lore due to the god they followed not being a part of the main pantheon. He also liked giving us very little money and then showing off all the cool magic items we could buy if we had money. Or make us go to a special shop and then make us spend most of our money there and then say “should've saved your money” THERE WERE SO MANY NPCS. I couldn't keep up with them all. Also all of them were very holier than thou. Pretty annoying He also said because I was taller than Bird IRL I could beat him up in a fight which was weird especially with how insistent he was about it
Bird got yelled at for “power gaming” which is a fancy way to say thinking before acting If you disagreed with Pluto it was a direct attack. His opinions weren't opinions; they were facts. If you liked something he didn't, you were a bad person
He also told the Soap that because they were a Drow they would experience Racism and then proceeded to not give any because he expected my character to be racist for him. Also he didnt think Drow were elves. We believe that when he said there would be Racism it was towards Soap and not their character. He seemed to have something against everyone who was American in the group… which was everyone but Toad. But more often than not, Soap was the butt of the joke Toad also kicked him from his game before the events of this game which was based on an Anime he liked. He then got Bird to DM another game based on that anime and then didn't join it because it was Pathfinder and not 5e Ignored Soap’s backstory and just focused on the fact that they were poor because every other character was “too spoiled” even though he forced them to be that way. He called a young boy a Shota and didn’t fully comprehend the… implications which was funny and we had a laugh but he said then had to argue that it was perfectly innocent and has no implications Jericho had special rules as the crown prince he had to follow so when he was taking a more calm and stoic route he was punished for not taking a stand. To the point where when someone else was consoling someone Jericho was told that a group of people that saw him minding his own business hated him. It basically made him afraid to give his character a personality We had to take classes but we had to take 3 of the same class to get anything out of the classes There was a point where we found a fire Genasi that was very attractive and everyone was like trying to rizz her up but when Soap said they were just kinda staring at her they were called a creep. Mind you, Soap’s character was a 13 year old boy who looked about as “creepy” as a soft cuddly bunny.

Nature of Predators is created by u/SpacePaladin15, whom was willing to let his horde of fans write fanfiction.
I'd like to give my thanks to u/SavingsSyllabub7788, the creator of Death of a Monster, and one of my favorite birbs. for giving me an odd bit of inspiration, and the discord at large for shaping this story with theories and random discussions. This one shot didn't even conceptually exist last week.
Also referenced u/Acceptable_Egg5560's Nature of a Giant in this one.
Tell me how you feel about this story. I'm content with where it ends, but others' insight always helps me figure out my flaws.
.*~*.
Memory Transcription Subject: Barkim, forsaken krakotl veteran.
Date: December 20, 2136
.~*~.
I came before Captain Sovlin and Captain Kalsim. I remember watching Kalsim train. I doubt he remembers me. My career made me into a captain pretty fast. Faster than most. I had repelled five Arxur raids while in control of the bridge. My crew were brave enough to trust me and my insane methods. Letting a colony world fall was unacceptable in my eyes. We were the vigilant, always ready to warp in ten minutes or less. The federation as whole didn't seem to understand how much value a few extra minutes bought for the settlers meant. Even if I had to order a retreat, tens of thousands would survive because they managed to find a place to weather the raid while the Arxur were distracted.
I was a hero.
Rumbling laughter and howls make my slow trod falter, and I look though a window into the recreational room. There's several humans at a table holding scraps of paper and barking in a jovial mood. They're not masked, and my feathers ruffle looking at them. A flicker of movement on the table catches my eye, and I finally spot the Dossur in their midst, almost completely hidden in a bunker of coins.
A Dossur beating an entire group of pack predators by himself. I never would've believed it, but I'm still not surprised it would be Alvin of all people.
That little runt was the only reason I've managed to hold onto my sanity for so long. He was braver than I, and he brought me back even when I was at my worst, again and again and again. He was the first to run to our predatory saviors back at the facility. And he was the last to leave, running back into the fighting and leading a human doctor to me to stop the stray bullet from taking me into Inatala's grace.
I left him to his card game, faintly overhearing one of the humans complain about being a several years running Texas Holdem champion. Alvin's response sounded very much like him, asking if he wanted to bet the actual crown next to add to his growing wealth.
Eventually I found myself in front of a door. Inside was a small room. One wall contained a wooden desk carved with enough craftsmanship to rival old Krakotl wood carvers. The desk was cluttered with cylinders and writing apparatuses, and a primitive writing board resting on the wall above it displayed several print outs of various people. Relatives. Descendants. People that had enough empathy in them to take back the few lucky souls that still had people they could trust. The computer underneath it was not active, but if it where I'd imagine there would be encrypted communication logs trying to reconnect with those few love ones. Plans to reunite them. Promises to protect them under this faction's umbrella.
It was strange, that this group of humans wasn't desired by the rest of their kind. They take more direct, brutal action than their leaders, but they act to save lives.
On the opposite wall was a locker. Inside were several firearms of Human make, and multiple emergency atmospheric suits. Many were for human use, but some were Federation standard. A pair of boots and engineering equipment rested on the floor before it, scuffed and well worn. There's a strange logo of an orange planet on the back of a jacket hanging from a hook nearby, and an even stranger article of cloth called an 'arm band.' The arm band has a large tree sewn into it, flanked by two prey animals and a river. The human I'm visiting was part of that arm band group, named after a tree of all things.
You couldn't get me to harbor a guess as to why they'd name themselves after a tree.
The far wall was rather simple. A faded green paint coat, covered in various anti-predator posters. One was of a human in a blue space suit, the visor open and revealing an endless pit of teeth. Another depicting a feral, over-proportioned human salivating over a dressed, screaming krakotl on a dinner plate. A third poster depicted some venlil collared and chained in place, stuck in some multi-colored wrapping that went up its legs halfway.
There was a mirror beside the posters, and I winced at the terrible shape I was in. I'd abused myself too much after I was freed. Even after stopping, I was still recovering. Looking past the mirror, there is a large banner of a green Terran letter. A few paper photos are plastered around it of smiling humans in strange places, and my eye always lingers over those photos despite the many times I've seen them. Earth looked lovely. I wished Kalsim had called off his mission.
Feeling like an intruder, I turned my attention to the last part of the wall. A set of black out curtains were flush with it, concealing a human roost built into the structure itself. If I was lucky, she would be there.
"Hope?"
Come on, you're better than a chicken.
Carefully, I lifted the curtain. "Hope?"
There she was. The one human I wasn't bothered by on this station. I can hear the music playing now that the curtain is out of the way, and the thick visor over her eyes tells me she's watching a video or simulation of some kind. I hesitate, watching her in her own world. What fur she does have is short and remarkably dense, and she has such a unique coloration that I would swear she was one of a kind if she hadn't mentioned having family. A tan complexion, painted over by splotches and stripes of white and violets that humans can't see with their own eyes. Her face is relaxed, mouth slightly open in wonder.
The human that helped staunch my bleeding, and gently broke the news to me of everything that had happened while I was locked up. The same one that kept me from pulling myself apart immediately after, and tried to find a way to keep me busy as my whole world went up in flames. A stern, capable person that could make decisions under pressure and wanted to save lives. While not a leader, I could see it in her. She had mettle.
She was completely exposed. Had I been the old me and not the one that woke up in a PD cell after a Sillis conference, I might've followed Kalsim's path. A talon in the right spot, and humans die fast.
"Hope?" Even raising my voice, she didn't hear me right in front of her. "Hope!"
As much as I respected her, coming this far in my state was exhausting. I, being a former fleet captain, hero, and outstanding Federation officer, decidedly acted like a child in that moment and pecked her.
"AAAAAAAH!"
"AIIIIIIIIIEEEEE"
I let out the most undignified shriek in my life and fell over backwards, landing on my tail feathers and sending a jolt up my spine. I forgot that since Hope was human, by extension she could be loud. Really, really, unfathomably loud.
There was a blur of limbs and Hope was sitting up, visor wielded as a bludgeon. She made eye contact with me, and I realized all my remaining feathers had poofed up.
"Blu!" She scolded, face curling in frustration. "What in the matter is- Blu?! You're not in your room?"
Shock, this time. I felt some shame in how low my standards had fallen, and smoothed down my feathers properly. My poor heart was already recovering and I stood, puffing out my chest.
"I... I wanted to go for a walk. See what you humans could do with a dated station like this."
"You're in my room."
"That appears to be the case." I pushed a ball of dust across the floor with a talon and regarded it absently, turning my head and keeping an eye on Hope. "It needs cleaning."
With speed I was anticipating, she hurled a pillow at me. I caught the assault and rerouted it, catching her in the face. She leaned back and laughed, a noise that calmed what was left of my quaking heart as I hopped forward. She offered a hand that I accepted, and she helped pull me onto the edge of the bed.
"You offered to show me your skies." I began, feeling uncertain. "Is that possible?"
"Yeah," she said. "Here-"
Grace put a hand on my chest and pushed down. A profound sense of horror washed over me as my back hit the soft bedding. She wouldn't- no. She can't- is it even- when have I last- Inatala please-
I realized with a start that Hope leaned past me, grabbing her pad. She plugged an odd attachment into it and fastened it to the wall by her head, and flopped over beside me. My immediate terror faded into embarrassment, and my face warmed at my own stupidity as she pulled the curtain closed. It became dark, and I felt her shift slightly until the ceiling above us started to slowly glow. Her pad booted up and began to project an image up there, and I felt my initial problems fade as a blue sky opened up before us.
"Oh wow." I breathed, realizing it was a video as a plane flew overhead. I forgot myself for a moment, looking up into an alien sky as clouds blew by at a lazy pace. The jet stream slowly lost its uniformity and stretched out, facing away as other clouds replaced it. I could hear wind and alien birds chirping, and for a long moment I was there. I was really there.
Storm clouds, massive weather fronts, all began drifting by. There was a dull rumble of thunder. I started as a bird flew very close overhead.
"What was that?"
"Woodpecker. Some can get pretty big back home. Not as big as you, Blu."
"Is it really this serene? Where was this taken?"
"My backyard. There was a massive hill out back. I used to lay there for hours when I was younger. Lived at the edge of a village. The only noise back there was the odd combustion engine or farming drone. Sometimes someone firing off a gun or listening to music loudly."
"You lived in the countryside? You're a pilot!"
Hope chuckled softly. "Surprise! There's some pretty sharp people that don't live in the cities, Blu. Especially us humans. My father could repair any farm equipment you threw at him going back a hundred years. Of course, I also have an uncle that thinks the Queen of England doesn't exist, so it probably levels out." She finished, sighing and reaching up. She swiped her finger across the ceiling and suddenly the skies changed.
They were orange now. More clouds. I felt a familiar pang in my chest thinking of a Nishtal sunset, but I kept quiet as the skies gradually changed. I was surprised to see such a vibrant shade of orange, then a sharp streak of violet bleed into it. There was red as well. A lot of red.
"Why red?"
"Oh, that. Massive forest fire in Canada. That's a country above mine. The smoke changed the colors for a little while. It made for a nice view."
That it did. I got lost in the footage, and started losing track of time. Only the occasional creak of the bedding kept me from forgetting where I really was. Hope seemed content watching the skies, and it dawned on me how close I was to her.
I'm acclimating well. Maybe I'll be like Alvin in no time.
When the skies slowly turned to night I was amazed at the stars that came out. Constellations I was unfamiliar with, patterns and swirls of light that could never be seen from a Federation city. I heard Hope inhale and reach out, changing the scene before it could linger anymore. "How about a time lapse. I've got some good ones."
"I don't know what that is."
"Really? Someone sets up a camera in a nice spot and records hours or days of footage. They take everything they've documented and then speed it up to a couple minutes." Hope starts a new video. I'm taken back by it, how a cloud bank flows around a mountain pass like water. It looks like a stream, where the clouds shift with each wind current change, flowing back and forth as minutes are turned into seconds.
It's stunning. Hope switches to another one, and another. I'm struck dumb with wonder, baffled at how not one other creature out of the hundreds of species thought to do anything similar over the course of the Federation. Massive mountain tops, where humans blur through trails like plasma. Prairies with storm cells moving in, lighting and rain sweeping through and giving it new light as the terrain is rapidly drenched. A large road where thousands of human vehicles streak by and leave brief paint trails in their wake.
"Thank you, Hope."
She nods, an odd gesture of acknowledgement, before changing the video back to a more slow paced skyline. After several minutes of silence, I feel a weight forming in my chest. Slowly, my wonder begins to crumble.
"How many confidants were you able to find? For the others?"
Hope shifted to look at me, turning her head and making my feathers tingle slightly at how close her face was to me. She looked back up at the sky. "Seven."
"There were forty that wanted to leave as quickly as they could. What happens to them?"
"We're letting them go. Even if they don't want anything to do with predators, they're going to find out avoiding my species is pretty hard. We're going to give them access to the network anyways, in case they want our help down the road."
"And the rest of us?"
"I'm helping the ones that want to go back to a somewhat normal life find that. There's several planets they can go to, and countless colonies. They'll be placed close to the support network in case there's trouble and they need to come back, or need financial assistance or help integrating."
Hope had mentioned something about 'shelters being a safe place' for us break outs, but had never elaborated on that.
"And what about the others that want to stay?" I noticed Hope scowl at the skies, her face forlorn.
"The ones that want to stay and help us fight are welcome to. It's not all dangerous- being part of the network isn't as risky. Helping the ones that wanted to go back to living, or finding others that got lost or fell through the cracks. It... it feels wrong asking anyone we rescued to fight and die for us. We don't want clouded judgement and people thinking they owe us that. But, there are a lot wanting to join our ranks in more aggressive operations. We're making them combat ready, teaching them how we wage wars so that they don't turn into their overseers."
I lay there for a long moment, staring at the open skies above us. "What about me?" I asked quietly.
"You're not excluded from those choices, Blu."
"You read my file. You know who I was. What I would've done if I didn't end up in that place. You'd really just let me go?"
"If you wanted to go, then yes."
The simple way in which she states it confused me. Like such a choice wouldn't cause issues or risks.
"But, we've been thinking about a better choice for you."
Oh?
"The Mazics are turning into the next Paltan Combine. Their newest influx of refugees were the released Krakotl."
My chest tightens. Nishtal is no more, razed to the bedrock and dead. We had been abandoned by our neighbors, our home slaughtered well before our true nature was revealed. And in the same year, the Federation deploys over forty thousand ships to take back a world that left behind their rule. Billions of loyal citizens captured and destined for a bloody fate were worth less than billions that seceded peacefully.
And then the humans brokered a deal with the Arxur and saved their souls. This was yet another time they did the impossible.
"We were thinking they could use a strong anchor to roost against. Someone that they might remember. A leader that they can trust."
I turned my head to directly face Hope, but she was still looking at the skies.
"I... they hate you humans."
"They do."
"I can't try and lead them, and sell out anyone that still doesn't believe in the UN's cause. I can't betray them." I chirped, dread worming into my gut.
"We wouldn't expect you too. We don't want you too. Blu-" Hope turned her gaze on me, her voice sincere. "We want them to find the right path. They deserve peace and security. They don't deserve to live in fear and rot with hatred. We don't... my group does not want yours to suffer over what your government did, even if the masses supported it at the time. We think you can lead them to a better future, where this hell can have a chance to heal and fade."
She looked back up at the artificial sky above us. "You don't even have to talk to us again if you choose this. If you do your best to ensure your species can coexist with mine, that would be more than we could ever hope to see happen."
"You think that's possible? That I could get that far? It seems so far away."
Hope bared her teeth in a smile. "You're more than capable. You love your people with everything you have, Blu. They'll see that. They'll believe in you. When you stand firm for your people, they'll follow you, too. We'll help where we can- peacefully. This can happen, I know it."
I found myself looking up at Earth's sky once again, apprehensive above this new burden. There was no way I would turn this down. If the Wolverines thought it was possible, then it was possible. A future where my people were both free in body and spirit was one I would fight for until my weary body gave out.
"How do we start?"

Note to self 92,
I was researching the foundation of Arhada city-states, just to get a general sense of what they looked like, and I found a very informative and fascinating read. The name is "A Tale of Two Cities: the development of early Arhada city states (0-500 AD)" and it's supposed to be the early work of some important professor at the Horean International University. Unfortunately, I'm still banned from borrowing at the Uni's library because I've held that book on Early Ibandr for a bit too long – I'll just copy the abstract and some passages for future reference.

This essay analyses the emergence of the first large-scale polities within the Arhadan cultural sphere, putting together the writings of notable scholars and the archaelogical record at our disposal. The title, "A Tale of Two Cities” was chosen in reference to the sites of Kamābarha and Amadahai, two settlements which would continue to act as major actors in the region throughout the following centuries. Because of their prominence, these two cities have been chosen as case studies through which we will examine the political, cultural and social characteristics of Arhada city states in the formative period. Those first few post-dawn centuries see the emergence of other important centres, but these two examples prove to be the earliest, the most consistently documented and the only ones who maintained their preeminence in post-formative eras.
The text is divided into three main sections: the first detailing the general characteristics of urban, social and political developments within the region, the second and third delving into the specific nuances that these developments acquire in Kamābarha and Amadahai, respectively.
I thank the department of Tritonean studies at the Horean International University for their help in procuring material for this research, and Dr. Amaha Geherun for her invaluable guidance and insight.

[...]

2.a Palaces, urban settlements and their spatial characters.
Scholars of late Tritonean prehistory usually divide the development of Arhadan settlements in three main phases; the Stilt House Period (SHP), which lasted roughly until 750 BD, the courtyard house period (CHP), which covers the millenium between 750 BD and 250 AD and the palatial house period (PHP), emerging from 250 onwards, with the development of the first palatial complexes and the first signs of wide-reaching palace economies, large scale political networks of reciprocal exchange, and true suzerain-client relationships. These three periods are named after their defining building types: the main characteristic of the SHP, unsurprisigly the one for which we have less documentation, were the small, square wooden constructions built on stilts along the lake shores and wetlands, next to the paddies. This period is the longest, stretching from the early development of zizania, cattail and sagittaria cultivation; with the construction of more specialised agricultural works and the consequent emergence of a higher level of inequality within Arhada settlements, we shift to the CHP, wherein successful family units migrated away from the lakeshores into dry land and extablished a new building typology, the multifamily courtyard house, acting as a higher status dwelling. The palace is nothing more than the natural evolution of the Courtyard-house type: it is merely larger and with cellular buildings constructed within the confines of the courtyard. The general layout consists of three outbuildings: a shrine, where the clans held religious functions both for the families and for the community at large, a granary, where the harvest would be stockpiled for distribution in lean years, and a treasury, where specialised group of artisans, usually the women of the clan, created and gathered family hierlooms, which obtained a near-sacred value and acted as further insurance against difficult harvests (See chapter 4a).
The palatial typology is fairly standardised: the frame, the courtyard building, is usually two or three stories high, with the ground floor being dedicated to common rooms, the middle floor containing the apartments of the clanmen and women and the last floor, built under a steep thatch roof, hosting lower-status inhabitants: servants, guards, favourites. What is more variable, however, was the disposition of buildings inside; shrines especially assumed different typologies: the constant is in their verticality and consistent central-plan type. From pictographic and sculptural sources, we can also note that canopies, usually defined by square-plans with four columns at the four corners, were important places of gathering, where tobacco ceremonies and clan meetings were held in the hot summers of southern Tritonea.

[...]

While it's interesting to consider the palace as a singular architectural and typological phenomenon, no discussion about the palatial type is complete without a mention about its relationship with the city at large. Built atop a hill (the term Nabaradjân, 'house of the hill', is, in fact, synonymous with palace), it acted as a centripetal force for the expansion of villages and cities, with important buildings being constructed radially from the central point of the palace and all other houses, small scale orchards and other structures being built in between. As architectural types specialised and key public buildings began to be built outside of the confines of the palace – granaries first, then shrines and storehouses – the radial composition of cities began to be even more clearly visible – in later periods those secondary "nodes" would create other radial sprawling points. "Radial cities, early settlement patterns in Arhadaland", by Dr. Amaha Geherun, provides an in-depth study of the spatiality of early, late and imperial Arhada cities.

Reminder to get that book as soon as I get paid this week – couldn't find it at the library.
This chapter had a very nice drawing (It looked better in the book) that showed an estimate of the plans of Kamābarha (A) and Amadahai (B). Amadahai was smaller, but it had quite an impressive quay leading straight into the city. The Mound of Kamābarha, on the other hand, was perhaps the most interesting thing about the city: it's one of the few ancient sites that the author had studied with an asymmetrical mound layout. Overall, I found the differences in Tritonean urban planning and that of Early Ibandr quite fascinating.

4.a Political Networks, the first states and the "Bead Bracelet" Structure.
With the growth of palaces, we can truly see the evolution of Arhada settlements change from villages, to cities, to city-states: each palace acted as a key driver for a city’s local economy; from within the various clans of the palace, the men of the clan oversaw and organised works in the paddies, allocating human resources and ensuring the harvest was safely stored in the granary. The women, on the other hand, handled the production of specialised crafts - pottery, textiles, painting and dye production being the most common ones - which would form the bulk of the treasury. This setup, which contributed to a general labour specialisation even outside the confines of the palace, greatly contributed to the growing influence of palaces in the surrounding sub-urban territory.
Archeological and archaeo-anthropological studies show that the early Zizania aquatica strains cultivated by Tritonean farmers were prone to failures, with some estimates indicating a one in six chance of failure. This insecurity was the main driver for the construction of granaries, and, later, the use of the palaces treasure as a sort of insurance against bad harvests. There is ample tangible evidence of extra-urban exchanges of luxury trade goods between palaces around the southern lakes - with them, came birchbark contracts (and, more rarely clay tablets), documenting the exchange agreements between villages. Sadly, we have very few documents of this kind, but just enough to get a clear picture of what these signified.
What looked like simple exchanges based on favours and giftgiving - which basically amounted to “I owe yous” with a precious gifts attached - quickly developed into more deliberate agreements. We find pictographic contracts detailing the exchange of zizania for corvée labour or zizania in exchange for a larger repayment over a period of several years. Often villages would repay their benefactor by providing labour until they were able to return the same quantity of zizania – other times, contracts operated over a fixed period of time. The maturation of these systems culminated in semi-permanent ties between villages and a construction of hierarchical client-patron relations. The short term contracts between polities, exchanging part of the harvest for corvées, valuable goods or interest on the repayment, became more and more drawn out, until finally long term relationships were established.
The term "Bead Bracelet network", introduced by Dr Lagor Daham in her seminal work "Early Political Relationships along the Southern Tritonean lakes: new models of political unity", is used to refer to these long strings of villages sharing some form political affiliation, each village being the client or suzerain of another one within the chain. The water-based agricultural tradition of Tritonea conditioned the developments of their urban centres as lines running paralel to the lakeshore, each with some influence over their adjoining woodland and wetlands: the creation of these ties would then follow these lines, creating complexes of neighbouring villages with varying degrees of freedoms and duties towards one other. these ties and contracts, which would be overseen by clan matriarchs, would connect all villages within a single network to the highest one.

I had to copy the map in the book, because I was having a hard time visualising it. There was also a more schematic version of it. Apparently, villages owed "fealty" (though I'm sure that's the wrong word) to bigger villages wich in turn owed "fealty" to bigger ones. It wasn't really a feudalistic setup, though. Land belonged to the single villages, who cultivated it directly – but they were essentially client cities, providing labour or artisanal goods to their suzerain, provided they would keep their granaries full in lean years. Another quote on this, and some interesting notes on the contracts between polities:

In truth, most of these ties would not be very long lasting, and could break immediately if either of the parties was unable to maintain the foundational promises of the agreement. This usually resulted in small scale warfare in which the suzerain's victory would result in an even more restrictive contract and the clients victory would signify temporary freedom from the expansion of its neighbour's political influence. Kamābarha and Amadahai were the first to estabish stable and well-maintained networks of this kind, mostly due to the fact that their prosperous positions – Kamābarha in fertile and rich land, Amadahai straddled between two lakes, controlling trade and expanding at a fast pace along two lakesides – allowed them to maintain control over nearby polities thanks to the consistency with which they were able to provide their side of the bargain and distribute parts of their abundant harvest to their clients.

[...]

The terms of the contracts themselves were extremely heterogeneous – and could be easily changed and misinterpreted. Being pictographic in nature, with imagery tied to Arhada proverb glyphs, they served more as visual aids to help the matriarchs remember the exact terms of a contract. It's a widely held belief that it's a need for specificity in birchbark contracts that led Arhada women to the development of true logographic writing in the following centuries.

This note I found particularly interesting! I'll have to read more on that.

7. Trade and external relations
One final point to be made, before we delve into the specific configurations and internal histories of our two cities, has to do with trade systems within the Arhada cultural sphere. Arhadanists and scholars of Tritonean history speak of the Formative "Northern pottery", "Middle pottery" and "Southern pottery" schools: the Arhada territory fell squarely between the Middle and Southern areas, with Kamābarha being connected to the Kemithātsan polities along the southern shore of the Sihodjivôdjo (Middle school), and thus having an closer relationship to northern and western cultures into Xanthean territories, and Amadahai being connected instead to southern cultures such as the Zonowōdjon, beyond the lake, with whom they entertained relationships in a network that extended south, beyond Tritonea proper, in the territories of the Aluwa. As such, our two case studies present very different cultural traits and influences – it must be noted, however, that the deep interrelation of Arhadan cities through the connective tissue of the lakes serves as an avenue for the exchange and merger of these two very different cultural impulses.
The Arhada themselves were great exporters of finished products. Indigo dyes, pottery, hemp-cattail blend textiles and pecan oil, used both in cuisine and cosmetics, were ubiquitous items throughout Arhada territories; preserved fruits were common southern commodities; brass products from the zinc-abundant copper ores along the Green River, were Kamābarha's most valuable export. It's interesting, however, to analyse what was imported into their territories during this period, so that we can better track the changes in material culture throughout the early formative. Contact with the nearby Kemithātsan is evident in the spread of glazes in Middle Pottery school sites. Even in Souther Pottery sites we can begin to observe more Middle style artefacts, and we have evidence of kilns being built – many scholars believe these kilns were actually built by Kemithātsan artisans who relocated in the south. From the Kemithātsan they also obtained picked goods and wines, whose production was more specialised. Maple – a prised product in the south – was also obtained through northern trade routes.
Southern trade relationships were more tenuous at that time – Arhada groups migrated into Zonowōdjon lands around 500 AD, and while intermingling did occur at an early stage, we have evidence of a rather fraught relationship, with several Arhadan led attacks into the southern regions, certainly with the aim of clearing coastal land for more intensive agricultural production. Sanaboborôn, another formative site which would develop in the later quarter of the 1st millenium AD, emerged in the wake of these attacks, following different dynamics when compared the other early Arhada cities. This development, which lies outside the themes of this research, is brilliantly explored in another seminal work by Dr Lagor Daham, published in the collection of essays "Dawn of War: Martial history in formative Horea". While tensions and distrust with neighbouring Tritonean peoples slowed trade between the eastern and western southern lakes, polities such as Amadahai and Sanaboborôn found fertile ground with trade further down the continent. Crossing the Gorgonean-Tritonean mountain range they would encounter the Aluwa people – corals were an especially prised trade item, but spices such as peppers and citrus peel were also brought north, where they would enter the diets of elite Arhadans.

One last bad drawing for today. I saw this map and I was truly impressed with how developed trade networks were at that time, especially for people who did not have horses or chariots. I'm afraid I'll have to read through second half of the book tomorrow, the library's closing now – end of note.