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vision came, as expected. The Ponderer's quill lightly brushed the parchment. Liquill ("The Bodyguard") watched the Ponderer from the grasses behind. The Ponderer's own eyes were unfocused, and staring off into the distance. His strokes of the quill almost robotic in the automatic flowing to the parchment. Over time (how much, unknown, as timekeeping devices were unknown in this sector of the world), the Ponderer finished his work on the parchment. The vision now gone, the Ponderer picked himself up, slowly at first, as if getting out of a daze, and decidedly more hurried. The Bodyguard, silent as ever, fell behind the Ponderer as they took the long hike back once more to the village.

When the Ponderer arrived at his village, most of the men of the village were already gathered near the Meeting Hut ("Arliq"). The women rounded up the last of the children, and all were seated in the Meeting Hut. The Bodyguard disappeared into the ranks, and the Ponderer placed his parchment upon the Ceremonial Log ("Glaj"). A Man of Rank ("Ofk") silenced the loud Meeting Hut, and then reseated himself. The Ponderer surveyed the group.

A few moments later the Ponderer cleared his throat. The vision, as written on the parchment, was read out loud, slowly, deliberately at first, slowly gaining volume, tempo, and force.

On a world very much like our own, a Man, not of rank or noble house sat in front of a Changing Parchment. His fingers flew over a similar parchment covered in moving bumps. His task was to put together the first story for a book of parchments. This book was to be as everchanging as the parchment he used, and this book was to occupy no physical space at all, but exist in a nether region between physical space. He waited, and a story came. He wrote that story, nursing it and helping it grow. His book was to be filled with lots of odd, weird, great, and indifferent stories, but he wanted this first one to be special, so he wrote it, and edited, and rewrote, looking for the right words, the right expressions, and the right tone. He searched the Galaxies looking for the right setting. He searched the infinite realm of time, space, and probability to find the right characters. He searched his own creativity for the right plot. In all, he felt it would be a very good story to start his "book" with. His story spoke of other worlds, other civilizations, other types of society with other types of language. When the time came, he added and changed, building a world of wonders, gazing into the cosmos. His story would tell a tale, like many before it, and the many to come after it, and he was proud.

When the Ponderer finished, the room was as quiet as when he started. The Ponderer placed the parchment into the Book of Knowledge ("Bahiar"). He walked out and home, and went to sleep. The people murmered as people are prone to do, but in the end, the men of rank went home with their wives and children. The men not of rank took their wives and children home, the leftover scraggle also worked their way to the shared huts they used, and life returned to normal in the village, unaffected, for fiction is stranger than the truth, and as far as they knew, their world was still cubed, the universe still revolved around their moon, and nothing had changed.