Personal System Calendar: Year 00015, Day 1-28, Month VIII: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6859, 1st to 28th day of the 8th Month
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A Beastfolks First Impressions of Maya
Back in Maya Village, the Beastfolk had settled comfortably into Zone 3 and Zone 4 by now. They'd come to accept the lives they'd been given here. Their old Chiefdom, the Eastern Beastmen Tribe, no longer existed. They'd lost loved ones in the battle that ended it, and now they were scattered, with no way of knowing whether the rest of their people had even survived.
It would naturally take time, likely a long time, for them to settle fully into this new rhythm of life as they healed from the wounds they carried, whether it was physical or emotional. The physical wounds, at least, would mend on their own schedule. The emotional ones, grief chief among them, would take far longer still. But what they'd experienced here in the village since their arrival was something none of them had proper words for.
Of course the shock was very real, since the village was nothing like what they'd been taught to expect, nothing like what they'd once blindly believed. Some of them had actually seen humanity at its very worst, so there was truth to those old stories and lessons, that has been generally passed down from one clan to the next.
But here, they weren't treated any differently from anyone else, whether they were human, Beastman, or dwarf. They were met with respect. Some villagers even approached them freely, admiring their fur, their wings, their height, their size, not as curiosities, but as simply who they were.
Humans here seemed genuinely willing to include them in the life of the village. Stranger still, some humans and Beastfolk who'd lived here far longer than they as newcomers had, more than once, invited them to something the humans called an investigative research: watching bees. It was more than once, in fact, since they'd turned it down the first few times before finally growing curious enough to be roped into it.
The humans, along with their Lokoroko kin, seemed almost giddy over the discovery that these bees were quietly pollinating the village's crops. It was a strange thing to witness, humans finding this much wonder in watching insects, especially since nothing like it had ever existed back where they'd come from. It felt abstract, it was new to their senses entirely. It wasn't weird, exactly, not in any real sense of the word. They understood the purpose behind it well enough. But to celebrate something so trivial, to find real joy in it, that was utterly new to them.
None of their kin in the EBT had ever farmed. They foraged the forest alongside their hunters. Farming their own food, or domesticating the beasts of the forest to help with daily life, had simply never occurred to them as something worth trying. So things like watching bees seemed very complicated to them, even advanced, but it planted the thought that something like farming could actually be done, and done well. They even found themselves thinking some accidents might have been prevented if they'd considered farming their own food sooner, especially for the Beastmen among them who weren't meat eaters. One of the chief reasons was that foraging carried no shortage of danger with it.
None of their kin in the EBT had ever farmed. They foraged the forest alongside their hunters. Farming their own food, or domesticating the beasts of the forest to help with daily life, had simply never occurred to them as something worth trying. So things like watching bees seemed very complicated to them, even advanced, but it planted the thought that something like farming could actually be done, and done well. They even found themselves thinking some accidents might have been prevented if they'd considered farming their own food sooner, especially for the Beastmen among them who weren't meat eaters. One of the chief reasons was that foraging carried no shortage of danger with it.
One of the things that made them fearful of the village, just like everyone who was new here, were the massive beasts. Some soared overhead, like the Mighty Peregrine Eagles, creatures they'd only ever heard about in old folklore. These eagles had their own perching spots too, atop massive tree posts built specifically for them. Here, alongside the fearsome Grimfangs, these beasts roamed freely through the village, some even living within Zone 3 itself, having taken a liking to the Beastmen there, or so the older residents of the zone claimed. It was only recently that they'd grown desensitized to it all.
Another remarkable thing about the village's bond with its beasts was that they even saw warriors riding these giants, soldiers sworn to protect Maya who had become their riders in turn. It was something some of the Beastmen warrior clans had only ever known from legend, that great warriors from their clans who existed in the past could do similar feats by forming real bonds with beasts and ride them into battle. Seeing it firsthand now, humans and Beastmen alike mounted atop them, made those old stories feel that much more real.
Another fact that struck them as remarkable was that even their fellow Beastmen from the Kotoko and Lokoroko clans, the longest-settled Beastfolk here, had been welcomed into the village's own defense force. Together they formed mixed patrols of humans and Beastfolk, each assigned specific areas to watch. Some moved through their own territory in Zone 3, while others manned the walls, which had only recently been expanded and finished. The speed of the village's construction alone left them stunned.
When they'd first arrived, they'd seen the last remnants of the old wooden palisade still standing at Zone 3's border. Not long after, it had been torn down to make way for expansion, and now the entire village stood ringed in massive stone walls instead, with Zone 3 significantly expanded, as if they were expecting more to come.
They'd also seen the outsiders, the humans called merchants, visitors, and travelers, passing through to trade or simply to enjoy what the village had to offer. Trade itself was a concept they only partly understood, it was closer in spirit to bartering as they knew it, minus any use of currency.
The village also seemed to accept goods bartered straight from their own hunts, especially produce that had already been processed: beast meat, leathers, hides, herbs gathered from the forest. In exchange, the village paid in human coin, a strange concept in itself. These shiny metals, pulled from the earth, apparently carried real value to humans. Those same metals didn't have much value to the Beastfolk, even though they saw them abundantly in nature, so they'd simply never cared for them before.
It was actually something even the older Beastfolk here had only recently begun to accept, so it was no longer bartering in spirit. It was closer to humans actively buying their goods with money, while dressing it up as bartering since the Beastmen didn't yet understand the concept themselves. That also meant they could use these human coins to buy whatever they needed elsewhere in the village, something that didn't exist within Zone 3 itself, where they simply bartered among themselves instead. The village sent merchants to actually come here and buy their goods, ermmm, trade with them.
Because not every Beastman understood any of this, it didn't mean they were clueless of such human traditions. It actually varied from clan to clan, tribe to tribe. It could be summarized this way: some had simply never spent enough time around humans to pick any of it up. It might be that a few of the older generation had seen glimpses of it before, but never truly understood it, so it was never passed down in their oral teachings. Others may have only heard stories from the older generation without ever witnessing it firsthand. For most of them, all of this was entirely new.
Another new concept they had recently come across was that there were places here called schools, where humans and Beastfolk alike came to learn. It was comparable to their own tradition of passing down knowledge and history, only far more structured, with a great deal more woven into it. The value of money, among other things, was taught in these places.
They'd learned that Beastfolk children from the Lokoroko and Kotoko had already been sent to attend, and that adults were welcome to learn alongside them. Some of the children who'd gone said they hoped to see a similar school built one day within Zone 3 itself, something shaped specifically around Beastfolk needs.
It was a lovely thought, but the more rigid structure already built within Zone 3 would likely take a long time to accommodate something like it. For the older generation especially, it might even feel like an intrusion on their way of life, their traditions and culture, if something like that took root here. Though the idea itself was well-meaning, opinions on it were still likely to be put to a vote. That said, no one outright rejected it either. Beastmen already living among humans in the other zones had, for the most part, already accepted changes like this one.
Even the more traditionalist and conservative among the Beastfolk accepted it too, in their own way. They genuinely believed it was a good thing for those who wanted it. But as much as possible, they preferred to keep their own old ways separate from these newer ones.
Once, the head of the village's warriors passed through the zone to witness the state of the recently arrived Beastfolk, not long after returning from a journey to some distant human land. They saw him only briefly, but it was enough to know, at a glance, that he was powerful, on par with the handful of others in the village that they could feel that same weight from, even if they themselves hadn't seen those others yet. Older Beastfolk residents that had seen these powerful beings, though, said they were comparable either to the great Beastmen warriors of legend, or to their shamans and priests.
This human's name, they learned, was August. Among the Kotoko warrior clan especially, he was spoken of with deep admiration and respect, both as a warrior and as a man. Feared, revered, and already written into the village's own history, taught in that place called school. He was, as they came to learn more of him, the sole surviving resident of the old Maya Village, the one thread connecting the village that once was to the one now standing in its place.
Of course, how could they forget, among the other things that greeted them when they first arrived at the gates of Maya Village. They were fascinated, too, by the elusive dwarves apparently living within Mount Apomayon, elusive in the sense that dwarves as a people rarely came down from their mountains at all. A mountain the village itself had given them the honor of naming and calling home as its residents. The dwarves had been allowed to make it their home, and now they served as its stewards. Older Beastfolk residents said the mountain doubled as the village's last bastion, somewhere to retreat if every other defense ever failed, a place to shelter the young, the sick, and the elderly until the danger passed.
For now, they were still finding their place here. Most of them were slowly accepting this new way of life and beginning the process of becoming full villagers, currently underway in what the village called the vetting process. It existed, they'd been told, so that anyone who chose to stay would truly belong here, rather than being forced into it by circumstance alone.
Older Beastfolk residents said this wasn't typical of humans elsewhere, that most simply didn't bother with something like this at all, one of the many things they'd come to learn about human customs in general. Mostly from attending that place called school, where they'd learned that most other human settlements simply accepted migrants without any process like this at all. But Maya did, in a way that went well beyond anything they'd heard of happening in other human territories.
In time, the village would grow larger still, its Beastfolk population growing right alongside it. For now, though, these newest arrivals remained temporary villagers, still working out where exactly they fit.
One idea seemed to hold true for everyone who chose to live here, something like a collective, unspoken understanding shared by all of them: no one should be useless.
It wasn't enforced by the village itself, not officially, but it was frowned upon and quietly discouraged all the same. It had become its own kind of social rule among the residents here, one you'd surely be judged for breaking.
Everyone was expected to contribute to the village's wellbeing in whatever way suited them. It didn't matter what form that took, hunting, foraging, or eventually joining the security division, something they'd be eligible for in three years' time, a fairly new rule as they understood it.
They could just as easily share their own knowledge of healing and other skills instead. There was no shortage of ways to contribute. They simply needed to find the one that fit them.
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The Dwarves of Maya
As for the dwarves of Mount Apomayon, they'd truly found their calling here. Their numbers stayed small, with only a single birth since their arrival. They'd already sent word out to their dwarven kin elsewhere, hoping some might be convinced to join them. Especially those dwarves who'd set out on their own journeys, just as the first dwarves here once had, searching for a mountain to call their own.
They hoped their kin might send a few of those wanderers their way. One method of attracting them was simply writing letters describing their own experiences here. It might have seemed far-fetched from the reader's point of view, but they didn't need to lie or embellish what they'd experienced here. Dwarves weren't liars. It wasn't in their nature, and they were, if anything, prideful and boastful among their own kind. So even if what they wrote seemed unbelievable at first, that same disbelief tended to work in their favor. Curiosity had a way of driving people toward exactly this kind of thing, unbelievable or not, and it might be enough to entice a few of them to come investigate, or simply move here outright.
In those letters, they described how well the village had treated them. The local ale, in their own words, was simply excellent. They'd even petitioned the Elder Council at one point to let them open a tavern inside the mountain itself, though the council had turned the request down, worried it might keep the dwarves too isolated from the rest of the village if they never had reason to come down.
So instead, they made the trip down the mountain themselves from time to time, usually once their own work within it was finished for the day. It was no great worry to them either way, since the humans had entrusted them with stewardship of both the mountain and the fortress built into its gateway. Their future here felt secure.
That, more or less, was the substance of the letters they'd sent to their fellow kin.
As part of that same arrangement, the village had asked the dwarves to expand the fortress further, enough to shelter the entire village in a true emergency. They'd agreed without question, since it sounded like something that might happen eventually. They were even a little surprised at the humans' foresight, that they'd thought to plan for something like this so far ahead of time.
In return for letting them dwell in the mountain, and even giving them the right to name it, they shared whatever they uncovered while digging and extracting resources from the mountain: gems, cobbled stone, chunks of raw stone, and whatever else came off its inner walls. They were also occasionally asked to teach human blacksmiths a trick or two of their own craft, to further sharpen the village's own skills, something they were more than happy to do in exchange for a few barrels of the finest liquor the village could produce. Ahem.
Plenty of dwarves would have gladly spent their days doing nothing but smithing, but their current numbers were still too few to properly staff everything the mountain required. That was part of the reason they kept trying to lure, ahem, entice, those wandering dwarves to come here in the first place.
A handful of humans who'd taken a genuine interest in mining and mountain life had already stepped in to help fill the gap. Still, it was better to have their own kind fill the rest of it. Dwarves seemed to instinctively know what to do here, as if it had been written into their very blood, while humans still needed time to properly acclimate to the environment.
Even so, the dwarves never drove those humans away, which would have been characteristic of their kind in other circumstances. If anything, the bond between the two peoples had only grown stronger because of it.
Also, in one of those letters: the village provided for most of their needs in exchange for the resources they gave in return, food included, leaving them free to focus on their work. What surprised them most was that the village never asked them to farm their own food, or even to buy it themselves. They'd assumed, at first, that the humans might expect them to farm the mountain's caverns for their own sustenance as well, but that never happened.
In light of everything they'd witnessed and experienced firsthand, living in a human village that had given them an entire mountain to call their own, they sometimes wondered aloud whether other human settlements were anything like this.
One of the older, grumpier dwarves answered that question by bonking the one who'd asked it square on the head, snapping at him not to compare this village to the greedy sort of humans found elsewhere.
As a result, their opinion of Maya sat about as high as it could go, without embellishment, and they'd already written to friends and any dwarves who'd recently come of age, urging them to come live here instead.
So, in the end, both peoples, Beastfolk and dwarf alike, had come away with the same impression of the village: a deeply favorable one, the kind their own people could genuinely see themselves living alongside for good.