Moyna Calligh

In all my searching, I never thought I would find such a thing, such a treasure. I am getting a bit ahead of myself though.

I was born in the one hundred and tenth cycle of this age. At least, I think it was that cycle. At the end of the last age, the world tore itself apart. That is how my grandmother explained it to me; how her mother explained it to her. I do not know how long the turmoil lasted, I doubt anyone really does. What I do know is that the world beforehand was a very different place. Life was easy then. People lived in very large groups, with numbers beyond count. Yet scarcity was practically unknown. A person could walk less than a day to find anything and everything they could need to survive. They did not toil with the ground, as many now must. Purportedly, they had tamed the natural world. They forced it to do their own bidding. They had conquered powers I can barely imagine. They were indestructible, or so they thought. I doubt they could foresee what would happen, that nature would come alive and consume them. I wonder, if they did know, would they have done anything differently? I wish I could understand it all better. What they thought; how they thought. Alas, very few records of the time before the breaking remain. Even fewer of those are still decipherable. The way they expressed themselves was so different than how we do now. So much has been lost, and yet, I believe I may have found something that could shed some light on the past.

On my last expedition into the stone wastelands a mere two days from here, I found a strange chest of artifacts. I call it strange because it is made of a substance I have yet to find in the natural context of life. I am certain it is many hundreds of cycles old, yet it shows no signs of decay. Most things that endure as such are so weighted that it takes at least two people to move them. This chest, however, has practically no weight at all, apart from the things inside it. I can lift it with one hand. This chest contains two hundred and one artifacts. The vast majority of these are so delicate I dare not disturb them again. I only disturbed them initially out of curiosity. Such relics of the last age fascinate me. I will do my best to describe them.

These relics are of two types. Two hundred of them are practically identical. They are slightly smaller than one of my hands and as thin as a few hairs. On one side there is an image of a man with shoulder-length hair near the center. This image is surrounded by what I must assume is the style of writing from that time. The only characters I recognize are the numbers; by some miracle of time, our numerical system seems to match the old ways. Some of the writing appears to be pictorial in nature. The coloring has greatly faded from these, but there is still enough to see that they were once quite colorful. The numbers I mentioned are “100.” If our numerical system truly is still the same, as I suppose it is, then this combination of numbers means one hundred. This set of numbers appears five times on this side, however, so I must wonder at the meaning. Is it one hundred, or five hundred, or even eight hundred, as these numbers appear three times on the other side. I genuinely do not know; perhaps the more unique item can explain this a bit. The other side of these objects is mostly filled with an image of what I think is a building of sorts. I think it is a building, but again I am not certain as I have never seen its like before. Neither the stone wastelands I have visited nor anywhere else contains this kind of architecture. However, this image, as well as the one of the man on the other side, must contain a great sense of meaning as they both appear on each of these two hundred objects.

The other relic, the unique one, is vastly different in many ways. I believe it is what the old ones called a book. It is a thing that opens to reveal a bound collection of thin materials within a hard, black cover. If this is a book, then these would be called pages I think. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to them as such. Each page is filled with characters - individually and in groups. This book is filled with the scribbles of someone who lived hundreds of cycles ago. To find such an artifact is an amazing experience. Unfortunately, its contents are a complete mystery to me. I only hope that a friend of an acquaintance of mine can decipher it for me. From what I understand, some of the knowledge of the old ones has been passed down in her family, from generation to generation. She lives at least seven days journey from here. My acquaintance has given me directions as to how to find her. I set out on that journey tomorrow. If for some reason I do not return, this entry will hopefully suffice to explain what I have done. I will leave it here, in my home, to be found if I indeed do not return. Whatever happens, I sincerely hope I am able to gain a better understanding of the world before the breaking.

May the gods sustain us all, and keep us from making the same mistakes as our ancestors.