Eliza’s Notes - 04: Age of Revolution
It took quite some time, but society was finally able to recover from the damage it did to itself after the volcano. Another ten generations of kings since Rorozak V, and breakdown into a few different nations that warred with each other, and from there the people began to change the shackles of their own system. I’m not sure exactly how I want to say how it happened, other than the system simply got too big to sustain itself.
As the population recovered it continued growing again, and continued expanding. It expanded all across the continent, and with it the unified empire breaking down into smaller states of government, then in turn those breaking off into their own countries. Countries fought, countries grew, countries shrank, as a vy for power started, the smaller areas wanting more power themselves and arguing with each other about who owned what land. Amidst all this, as people became more isolated from each other, new ideas formed, and new cultures spread. Differing ideas, differing opinions, differing ways of treating people and differing ways of reacting to what was happening. As different individual countries tried different ways of living to try to make their specific setting better, ideas drifted and traveled along, bringing the ultimate idea that rose from all of it: revolution.
Not any one specific revolution, as we would refer to it. Smaller, more isolated revolutions. Revolutions of ideas, revolutions of thought. A revolution of idea to increase efficiency and profit in trade lead to increased ship travel, leading in turn to a revolution of living and the rise in port towns and industry of ship construction. In turn, this led to a revolution of exploration, with people finally deciding to venture forth and see what else was out there, what more resources could be found, and finally travel to the new world of the north continent.
The land of the north is vast, and once people realized just how truly scaled differently the continent we began on is compared to it everyone wanted to flock to it. Seemingly endless in resources, the revolution of behavior moved to the new world, people staking their claims, and using the vast expanse to start living how they wanted, no longer listening to and being subject to the rules of the nation they came from. It was a fresh start, just what was needed to wipe the slate clean after the stall the world entered from the volcano.
The land to the north also brought a surprise I wasn’t expecting: goblins. The Evreux, a nomadic, diminutive race on Aughylia, existed here on Vaudios in the mainlands. But they didn’t just exist here, no, they thrived here. To a casual observer it may seem as if they were just as nomadic here, but, as I have met with them and learned from them, the truth of the matter is they have a vast underground network of roads and rails, spanning all around the world. There’s no way they could have built so much in the time since escaping if they were transported here with the rest of us, so they must have originally come from here and themselves sent colonists to Aughylia sometime in the past. Perhaps, as warlynxes are found all over here as well, and have clearly been trained and domesticated by the Evreux as pack animals.
Learning more than that from them has been… difficult. Their language is a strange mishmash of compound words, and is as much cipher as it is speech. Many of them have begun picking up our vocabulary from meetings with other humans, and will tend to speak with others in their language but with our wordset, which lends to a basic understanding of what they’re trying to portray but still just as dizzying to try and follow. What I have been able to figure out from them is, while their underground rail network is vast, they live very simply on the land because they don’t want to make the mistakes of their past. They once had large cities, it seems, but had some massive population collapse, and over time dismantled what they had to live more simple lives. Once I gain some better grasp of their language I should be able to learn more.
It is surprisingly easy for me to travel now, though. As people spread all around, the world, they lose familiarity of each other. Most everyone is a stranger, and few will remember the strangers for very long. And there's so many people about, with so many people coming and going, that there's hardly any chance for them to meet the same stranger over and over. I've entered a city from the same port multiple times, in a relatively short period of time, and every time I've met different people at the docks. And so with so many people around once more, there's hardly any chance of some random person remembering that they met this old woman ten, twenty, or thirty years earlier and them finding it so strange that I'm still alive.
Sure, I suppose for me as well it's difficult to remember so many faces as well. I've all but forgotten the faces of my friends and family from when I was young, but at my age that can be expected I suppose. Humans aren't supposed to live as long as I am, of course, it's no surprise that the brain has to just expel information to make more room. That's why I keep these records, so my brain doesn't have to.
Date posted: 01 April, 2016 Tags: elizas_notes writing
« 2016 Book Blitz - February: Spiral Island 1 | Eliza’s Notes - 05: Age of Attunement »