King Flevance
Deity
Prelude
A strong wind carried the smell of the salty sea and evergreens as waves crashed violently against the rocky shore of the Baak Forest. A young shaman slows his singing ritual to a stop at the faint sound of thunder as he steps away from his fire to investigate the strange sudden wind. Looking up at the night sky, he sees dark clouds begin to roll and smells trace hints of smoke on the air. At first, he thought it was his fire but realized he was upwind of the fire and the smell did not suggest that it came from burning wood but something else - something unfamiliar. Small flashes of lightning began to flicker through the rolling clouds. The young shaman fell to his knees and continued his singing ritual unsure of what would happen next. Lighting flashed behind the clouds more frequently and the clouds began to swirl. The shaman's singing grew louder to overcome the wind and thunder of the storm until his singing had became shouting. Streaks of lighting began shooting out from the clouds and across the sky growing closer to the shaman. What he had seen as an answer from nature now felt like a warning or an attack as fear began to grow inside of him. He heard a loud crack, and everything went white as he was surrounded in light and then total darkness. For a few moments he thought maybe he had somehow gone blind but soon another loud crack and flash of light. He realized that the lightning was striking the trees around him, and he instinctively tried to shield his eyes from being blinded by the light. Thunderclaps were growing louder, and his ears were ringing as he stood to leave the forest and return to his people. After a few steps, he tripped over some branches that were smoldering in the winds burning his leg. Smoke and ash got in his eyes as he struggled to regain his footing being hardly able to see at all. As he got to his feet, he turned to see these branches were his own ritual fire that had been doused by the winds. Then another large flash of light made everything go white followed by the familiar darkness of his eyes trying to readjust and he felt the wind quickly calm. His ears still ringing from the commotion before, now couldn't hear anything but the ringing. He tried rubbing the ash and smoke from his eyes as he heard a few cracks from burning wood around him. Opening his eyes he could make out some flames in the distance that seemed to be in the trees. He held his hands to his eyes and felt water flushing the foreign toxins out just letting his eyes rest for a moment as it seemed the storm had somehow passed as quickly as it formed.
"Where am I?" The young shaman heard the voice of someone else in the forest with him. He opened his eyes to see not only a man but a small girl, perhaps his daughter, in front of him. The girl had bright blue hair and strangely large ears that came to a point at the top. The man seemed the age of an elder with pale skin. Both had on unique dressings that seemed odd to the native man to the forest. "Man, it is freezing!" the young girl said in a strangely masculine voice. Perhaps this was a boy, a boy with a voice unusually deep for someone that young. The shaman stood there stunned as to where these two had came from.
"Excuse me," the elder man addressed the shaman, "my name is Benjamin Franklin, what is yours? Can you tell us where we are?"
"Benjamin Franklin?!" the young blue haired person spun to look up at the man behind him. "Ah, crap! Why am I so short? Aw, man! This has to be a dream. Am I in a coma?" After slapping himself in the face a few times with both hands, he pulled one of his dreadlocks around and inspected it. Then he began inspecting his own clothing.
Benjamin stepped away from the young stranger visibly uneasy with their disposition. He approached the young shaman carefully and asked, "Do you speak English?" Confused the young shaman turned his attention from Flevance and after a thoughtful pause, he addressed Benjamin.
"My name is Ian. I am a shaman of the land. You are in the Bone Forest. What is English?"
Both Flevance and Benjamin paused and looked at each other puzzled. Then a look of realization comes over Flevance's face and he holds up and shakes his right index finger as if to signal to Benjamin that he has a thought to share and begins walking towards Benjamin and Ian. "I know that this is probably going to sound strange but, if I am right, in this... land... you can always understand people. It doesn't matter what language they speak; you just automatically understand them. It is like an automatic translation."
"How exactly would that be possible?" Benjamin asked.
"My theories on why would sound even crazier than the explanation. So just trust me for now. But one of my easier to explain theories is that I am dreaming."
Ian stood silently watching the strangers talk. A look of concern was carved into his face along with visible confusion. "Where are you both from?"
Both men paused to look at one another briefly before Flevance gestured toward Benjamin. "I really want you to go first on this one, Ben."
"Well," Benjamin said after a brief reluctant pause, "The last thing I remember doing was reading a book by the fireplace with Deborah as my evening came to a close. It had been a calm and clear evening, but a sudden storm blew in rather quickly and I went outside to gather a few items I had been using for an experiment that I didn't want left out in the rain. I remember gathering those items and heading back toward the house... but suddenly I was here. I don't remember retiring for the night but perhaps I have - and fallen asleep." The words trail off as he stares with slight disapproval and disbelief at a man barely half his height with long blue hair and pointy ears.
"Interesting," said the little man, "I also experienced a storm move in quickly this evening for me. So, I would assume the storm somehow brought us here. Did you cast some magic spell or something, Ian?"
Ian suddenly, for the first time in this encounter, felt like the person with the answers. "It was a prayer to the land." Ian calmy offered as explanation, "My tribe has moved into this area, and I was performing the harmony ceremony that the land will accept us and take care of us. I must admit, I thought these lands refused our people with the storm at first - but if it has brought you two to the land, I am not sure how to interpret the land's response."
"Well, I don't suppose doing it again or maybe doing it backwards would reverse this then?" Flevance's defeated words were met with and exhausted sigh from Benjamin.
"Perhaps your people could help us?" Benjamin's words sounded more pleading than inquisitive. Ian offered a comforting smile at the request and nodded.
"I will lead you back to my people and we will try to understand what has happened." Ian assured them as he waved them to follow him. "The Maya Tribe would be happy to help travelers from the starts."
"Ok, that is weird." Flevance chuckled.
| Game Settings Leader: Benjamin Franklin Starting Civ: Random (Maya) Mementos: None Difficulty: Sovereign Game Speed: Epic (Long Ages) Map Size: Standard Map Type: Shuffle Crisis: ON Disaster Intensity: Low | 
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