Moonscape: The Cradle

For Moonscape by: LaFea NiDraco

Written by: Eddy Hess

The Cradle

Welcome to my library, wanderer. Checking in? Just kidding. If you've come for a tale you should know that I have them all. Not one is lost for there is nowhere I can't find you once your book has closed but enough talk, you want to hear a good story.

Many years ago, millennia in fact, there was a woman who lived atop of what is now known as Anchorin Top. This was before the wars and a little time after the first races walked the land. Back when the land had regained the fertility that was lost during the era of invisible flames and diseases of the flesh without cause. There was a woman who paid homage to the old gods, the gods of a world she never knew. Many would make fun of her prayers and smash the offerings she'd leave at the foot of a ruined temple.

The woman didn't let this bother her since she knew the gods were looking for intent. The fruit and grain that would be stolen had already done their job and she would simply walk away.

"Who are you praying to? The gods have abandoned us!" They used to say.

The woman would remain silent for she knew the truth.

"What you see now, the plants animals and life was brought back by us not the gods!" They'd spit.

Still, the woman kept giving her offerings and saying her prayers. This went on for years.

One day, there was a storm. Storms weren't unusual, they happened quite often but this one was different. The rain that came down ate through everything and the wind tore trees out of the ground. Lightning split mountains and spurned the quakes that shattered the continents. The gods saw nothing of use in this aftermath world so they sought to destroy it.

That was until Gaima, the only god who was still revered, stepped up to stop the others from ravaging the planet. She pleaded and told them about the bountiful offerings she had received over many decades from a woman living in a valley all the way down on the surface.

The other gods considered her plea but knew the land was fatally wounded so they then turned to save what remained above the tides. When the dust had settled, the surface was far too scarred to bear the life that once roamed. Due to this they agreed to create from the wreckage and loosened their hold. Gaima was happy but felt there was more she could do.

In the dark valley where the woman lived, light barely reached. The grain and fruit she would offer was thin and frail so Gaima decided that because the woman had been loyal she would ascend her high above the rest and brought from the lowest depths her home and the ground on which it was built to the highest place just below the gods' home in the clouds beneath the fabric of reality. No more would the woman suffer through the dark and cold but instead she would never see shadow and always know warmth.

Out of gratitude, the woman built and never stopped building. House after house for her children and their children and the children after them. Her days since were spent creating. Soon the woman began to notice that her children's hair had grown white. Her own remained brown as it had always been. Her children's backs began to bend while hers remained upright. Slowly, one by one would leave. Their children would grow old and follow suit behind them while the woman seemingly never aged. Decades passed then centuries until eventually her family had filled the land...and no one recognized her anymore.

The people whom all sprang from her womb eventually turned hungry for power and lusted over domination as countless others before them had. This tore the woman's soul into pieces. She knew the gods would return and finish what they had started were they to find out. It was then that the woman knew what she had to do.

The woman climbed down the cliff and found the ruined temple. Again she harvested crops and brought them to offer but when she turned to walk away, Gaima herself appeared.

The woman told her of everything that she had lived, the hundreds of generations she'd been witness to and how they had forgotten the lesson learned. Gaima took pity on her and lamented how her efforts were undone and forgotten. Gaima had one more solution.

The woman returned to her city as confident as ever. She watched as the people began to step out of their comfort and a new spark of ambition and a thirst for exploration had grown within each of their hearts and the one people split into many groups and each set out with their own kind to inhabit the lands that began to surface in the receding tides.

This was the cradle of the new life that the gods created to inhabit Moonscape and from that clifftop did the new life spring, the second era of Moonscape had been born and the new races that were spawned from the woman had been entrusted with this world once again. For the final time.