As Starday morning came, the party rose early, eager to meet the day. Tea was brewed and new nicer clothes were donned. All five, as the sun rose, approached the stage erected at the edge of campus, shaped like a key and decorated with intricate, colorful, circular mosaics, set up with tall pillars flanking the ramp up. A small curved stone wall stood just past it, as seating for any potential audience. But as the sun rose, our mentor, Teacher Ot, was nowhere to be seen, wayl

Yeah, you don’t believe me, do you? I don’t really expect you to. Call it a fever dream, call it a near-death experience, whatever you like. Later on, we’ll see if you believe. I woke up right where They told me I would. I did not, however, wake up in the condition they told me to expect.

The snow hasn’t fallen for a couple days. The Gatherers have come to you and said they need berries, but you’ve never been out on your own. You’ve dreamed of being a hunter most of your life, but your keen perception has been noticed by the Gatherers long before the Hunters. Your partner told you it was safer, gathering. Your parents agreed. And so, you take the role.

I laid there crying as a boy/man I felt nothing for tried and failed to console me for… I don’t even know how long. Eventually I told him I needed to leave; his “consoling” had passed my tolerance threshold. Pain I can deal with. Annoying people? I struggle.

Scarred as a collective from a week of tasks proving our place within the hallowed halls of the Magaambya, our party of five rose on the Fireday, one week after arriving, with hanging dread for what remained from the last remaining branch, the Uzunjati. Your humble narrator was unconcerned with their task, as the Uzunjati are the branch responsible for the storytelling, art, and using the lessons of the past for diplomacy going forward. This Conrasu storyteller knew they woul

The next few trials were pretty uneventful. I could probably draw them out in some kind of convincing narrative, but it’s not really necessary. I passed them all easily. I snuck around, I hunted the prey, I hauled the carcasses, I knew poisonous versus edible flora, I held my breath (not as long as some, but well enough to hunt a caiman), I climbed the trees, and I scouted the area. I even fisticuffed properly (the only one I didn’t pass stunningly. I mean, I passed, just not