The Analogy

[Traveler]

(Solo)

On one of the first days of his travels on the land of Althanas, the Traveler wandered a dirt road. As it happened, there was a roaming minstrel walking toward him across the flat plains. When the two crossed paths, it was the minstrel who stopped first, and the Traveler halted his pace in-turn and regarded the entertainer with generous curiosity.

“Hail, traveler!” the minstrel called. “We are companions of the ways, you and I. Tell me, from where do you hail?”

The Traveler considered this question for a moment. The minstrel was doubtless wandering to a destination, and as a man with a physical body, he had only so much time in the world before he began to decay and rot. But nonetheless the minstrel had asked him a question, and the Traveler took it upon himself to answer as well he could.

“My story may take some time to tell, dear listener.” The Traveler responded in kind. He motioned to a nearby brook, where stood two strong oak trees. “If you would sit with me here, where we may have water at our leisure, I would tell you many things.”

The minstrel, who was in no particular hurry despite his physical time limit, sensed that the stranger to which he spoke, being of a peculiar visage, had a story to tell. And as with any entertainer, he was eager to hear such a tale, that it might live on from one's lips to another's ears for years after this encounter. And so with a bustle in his step, the traveling minstrel made his way to the brook and sat across from the Traveler, pausing for a moment to set his pack and lute on the soft earth before folding his hands in his lap. “Tell me, traveler, what sort of story will this be that we should sit for so long at a tree?” he asked unabashedly.

Again, the Traveler considered his compatriot's words, and thought aloud as though unsure of whether he was speaking to the man or to himself. “It is a very long story. It expects an ending time and again, but is never given resolution, like how the flow of water never ends but leads to more water. Perhaps, then, I shall abbreviate the events within to make the story more finite.” After a moment of contemplation, the Traveler shook his head, his long black spectacles bobbing slightly to the left and right. “An abbreviation can only be done with great care taken to remember the most basic elements of the story. If I cannot recall the most early parts of it, then it would be a meaningless gesture to abridge them.”

By this time the wanderer seemed only slightly put-off by the Traveler's introspection, and he noticed this and proceeded with great haste to reach the end of his spool of thought. “Perhaps an analogy, then. You will understand best in such a way, dear listener, and it will be less trouble to my aged mind.”

After a breath, “Metal will work best. It comes from the land, a vast empire of metals, and is soon separated from its like. It is given shape, molded for a purpose, and begins its own journey into the world. You see, I am like that metal. I travel from one where to another, and each time I arrive again, my purpose changes. But I am getting ahead of myself. The metal, born into the world, is raised from its home and then crafted into its first of many forms. It begins with...”

[Traveler]

The powerful hands of the village's ironforge work the soft, pliable outline into the shape of a pan. His creation is dowsed in fire, and the seething furnace of birth ushers in a new existence as the outline hardens once more into a permanent shape. It is meant to last this way forever, as a cauldron for a family's home.

When he sells it to a new family in the region, the ironforge does not give his creation a second glance. A god such as he feels no pity or remorse for tossing his metalworks casually into the world beyond to serve their purpose. The cauldron is hauled by several people to its new home, where it is first put to use that night as the family fills it with water, and meat and roots and herbs. Lighting a fire beneath, they cook their first meal as a family and what remains of the stew will be left in for another 8 days until it is no longer good for consumption.

The plan for the far future is one of inheritance; as sons and daughters grew old and married to other sons and daughters, they will all live with their first mother and father until all vestiges of the first generation are no more. Then the cauldron will be passed to one of the second-generation families, in a never-ending cycle of use and inheritance until the cauldron becomes worn and useless from roasting above a fire for centuries.

But something unexpected happens. The cycle breaks early as the mother and father who inherit the cauldron decide instead to sell it, being in debt to the landlord for many years now. They give the enormous pot to a pawner, who deals in the used goods of others and sells them back again. He pays a pithy sum for the cauldron, for which the unsuspecting couple is nonetheless grateful, and one night many months later the pawner is found dead, crushed beneath the cauldron one evening under mysterious circumstances that none in the city are sure of.

Among the rumors that circulate around this particular event, one arises that the cauldron is cursed. Fearing the supernatural, the people who begin looting the shop on a regular basis make certain to keep away from it. Eventually the store is burned down and the cauldron itself, no stranger to fire, is all that remains among the ashes.

[Traveler]

When carpenters of the royal family set to work building a new tower atop the remains of the pawn shop, they dispose of the cauldron in the nearby forest before setting to work, believing that the forest dwellers would know better how to avoid the curse that rests atop the cauldron. It is found by a young witch living in a small shack in the wilderness, who carts the cauldron away and uses it for her many experiments with potions and elixirs.

Countless ideas are expended in the cauldron, until the witch accidentally miscalculates the amount of toe of owl to put into a remedy one day and turns herself into a dead body. Years pass in quiet solitude before the tiny workshop collapses in a fit of disrepair and the carelessness of raiders who aren't looking out for traps. The cauldron is crushed beneath the rubble, the cast iron bent and misfigured, only half-concealed by rubble. When it is finally discovered by explorers who are busily mapping out the new site of expansion for their city, the cauldron is taken back to the local blacksmith, who at first uses it for a spittoon before melting down the cauldron for its quality iron.

The cauldron itself was never the final form of the metal that had originally formed it. Metal can be melted down, recast and given new purpose. Through the most basic materials, the spirit of an object can live on forever, in the water, land or air. The savage hands of fire tear apart that which was given form, and once more man creates something new from the old. This is the eternal cycle of all life.

At the request of a local farmer, the blacksmith forges a fine new blade for a grain sickle, tying it fast to a sturdy handle of oak. For years, what was once a pot for cooking is put to work harvesting wheat and resting for long seasons, well-preserved in a tall shed. This new existence is just as pleasing as the former, if the iron had words like people do. It is well-accustomed now to the long rests, before it is used again and then again put to sleep.

One day, many years after the first farmer has passed away and the sickle's blade has been reinforced with another layer of fine iron, the son of the farmer's son picks up the sickle. His grip is different, it is more tenuous and uncertain. Though the sickle does not know it, a civil war has begun in the valley of the farmers near the city. The lord of the land, though he has tried to placate the farmers of his land, can no longer afford his own home with the meager payment offered by the good people who farm it. He has demanded either the farmers leave or they find more money. And then the first of many families was evicted from their property by men in armor.

These are the basics of the conflict, and so far as history is concerned, it is all that need be considered. Details become murky in the years that follow the outburst of violence, and then they become forgotten altogether save for clues that must be dug up only when they become relevant to the present.

[Traveler]

The sickle, worn, broken and spattered with dried blood and rust, is abandoned in the woods beyond the farmlands. Ivy grows around it as it, too, is forgotten. The mound of vegetation that grows on one side of the tool becomes another feeding ground of the herbivores, especially once bright red berries begin to emerge from the vines. It is eventually buried beneath the leaves, to become one with the soil one day. This is the path it would have remained on, had fate not chosen to intervene a second time.

There is a terrible fire that spreads across the woods, devouring dry leaves, grass and animals beneath the summer sun. For a week the fire rages, spewing enormous plumes of choking black smoke into the air, creating a cloud that casts a perpetual night over the land for the next week. When mages finally conjure enough dirt and water to choke the flames, they find that they saved very little. A third of the original wood remains of the forest. The rest will, as always, be recycled by time into new material. Ash and dead animals will create new life, given a century of gestation.

Long before that century, however, a young boy prods through the remains of the forest. Where once dwelt shadows and monsters that the lad had been warned of in his childhood, there was now only soot and char. Sticking up from the refuse is a piece of blackened metal – the scythe did not escape the fire, and had been reduced to a fraction of itself. What is left is a blunt, curled piece of metal that fits comfortably in the boy's hand, ending in a very thin point. The boy was a very curious one, and had taken to poking things with sticks and running away from them when he was a toddler. When he finds this curious bit of metal, his curiosity begins to soar again, and soon this inquisitive nature gives birth to a potent researcher.

The rod sees all manner of leaves, insects, animal innards and trees over the next few years. From first-hand experience, the young man begins to piece together how animals work, cross-referencing books he finds in his library with specimens that he gathers in the dead woods. It is an age of discovery for the boy, and the mysteries of the world begin to unfurl before him.

Years pass, and the young man becomes a renowned physician. He has long since abandoned his old dissection rod beneath the bed he once slept in as a child. And there the tiny bit of metal sits, years more of placid slumber until it once more becomes forgotten. In one form or another, it has existed for at least 50 years now, and yet in the face of what lies ahead the early years will be as a single blade of grass in a field. When the house is emptied and the rod is tossed aside, believed to be worthless, it sits again in quiet solitude undiscovered for a long time. It is buried in the dirt by a dog, and soon finds itself once more a part of the earth from which it was forged.

Beneath the crushing weight of the earth around it, the rod slowly bends into the shape of an L. Years and years pass, before it is dug up by treasure hunters on their way to what they believe is a big score. The entrepreneurs toss the thing aside before they stumble across a tiny metal box. The lock on the chest is broken off easily, but the entrance to the box has rusted itself shut, and the men scramble to find a way to pry it open when their bare hands and their spade is too big for the job. One of these hunters remembers the tiny tool they'd dug up earlier and retrieves it from a nearby patch of grass.

Slamming the smaller bit underneath the divider of the box, the treasure hunter pushes down until the leverage forces the box open with a sickening, rusted screech. Staring back from in the box is a priceless gem from the ages past that glimmers in the sunlight. The hunter looks back at his makeshift tool and gives it a swift kiss as his fellow hunters run up to get a good look at their loot.

“You and I may well have a career together, my friend.” he says before pocketing the bent rod...

[Traveler]

For three days and three nights, the Traveler spoke. The story carried on in a similar pattern the entire time, either with the object being melted down and acquiring a new form, or remaining the same and begin put to a different use each time. Though the analogy may well have been everlasting, it eventually came to a conclusion with a swift, “And here we stand now.” from the Traveler.

Before the end of the first day's light, he had dug a latrine from the earth behind one of the trees, so that he could continue telling his tale whether he or the minstrel were required to heed the call of nature. His sack of rations was entirely depleted, and his stomach grew sore with need. As the sun began to break the horizon on what would have been the fourth day however, the Traveler took a deep breath and sighed contentedly.

“Through wartime and the peaceful years I have seen, so too could this have happened to a simple piece of metal, born so long ago that its creator is lost in history's fog and its original purpose is neither remembered nor relevant. It is a good analogy, and I only hope that I will remember it in the years after I have left this land. Perhaps...”

The Traveler took pause, but for only a moment. Perhaps it dimly registered that he was speaking to nobody, and the calculations it took to come to this realization caused his considerations to come to an abrupt halt.

For in truth, the minstrel had come to realize that the story itself was of such little particular note that it wasn't worth his time. Before the first full night of discourse, the minstrel had picked up his lute and pack, and had kindly explained to the Traveler that he must be back onto the trail now, and muttered a small and dishonest wish of safety and good tidings to the Traveler for his time. And then he grudgingly wandered off into the distance while the Traveler briefly acknowledged his disappearance and then continued to speak of his Analogy further. For the next two days, the Traveler had prattled on as though the brook itself were his audience.

The pause ended and the Traveler continued. “...one day I will be able to use it to understand the beginning with greater clarity.” It was not the best note to end on, but the Traveler seemed satisfied with it. He picked up his own pack, looked down to the road where a group of carriages were crossing nearby, and he went to join them on foot. Before he lost sight of the brook and the two trees however, the Traveler took a second to bow in respect and thank the minstrel for his time as well. The custom of wanderer and story complete, the Traveler continued down the road to whatever awaited him next.

[Letho]

JUDGMENT TIME

First off, I have to say that I didn’t know what to expect from this quest when I claimed it. It was clear that it had something to do with analogies and indirect introduction of the actual story, but I was really (and pleasantly) surprised when I realized that the entire story was riddled with analogies. It’s definitely different and unique and I’m really sorry that it didn’t achieve the 10 post minimum to get the rubric and be eligible for full exp. I will give some general commentary though.

The story itself is quite intriguing, but the beginning of the entire thread was a bit too abrupt. You said it yourself in your judging form that there was little character development here, and while a story can make do without that development sometimes, what it can’t do without is character in general. Traveler, though a truly unique character, should have had some sentiments about all the traveling, the world, the stories, despite the fact that he’s practically a soul that jumps from one body to another (not an accurate description, I know, but the concept is the same). You should try showing more of this, even within the analogy. Personifying the item within the analogy might achieve though, albeit in a rather direct way.

Also, it ended too fast for my liking so you should maybe work on your pacing. You got me hooked on the stories and the even that the Traveler/item went through and I wanted to read more. I understand that there could be no conclusion to the story since the story is still going, but I wanted a bit more on the entire subject.

On the flip side, I think it’s great that somebody is working “outside the box” and though usually I like my fantasy stories more real, I really liked this one. Describing each new world by drawing a comparison between it and the events around the reforged item is definitely a novelty and a great way to stand out from the crowd. Technically, your writing is clean and flows good, though sometimes I would like to see more of it (and maybe some finesse in it as well), especially when dealing with certain situations and their descriptions.

All in all, this was a really good short story, distinguishing itself mostly with the unique presentation but also the quality. I’d definitely like to read more about Traveler, analogies or no analogies involved.


SPOILS: Traveler receives 200 EXP and 50 GP

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP added!