Pantheon LARP

Something cold touches my skin. It is an unusual sensation. This freeze is a feeling I have never felt before. Is every feeling like this? I wonder to myself. What is it to feel? What is this rocky protusion I see moving? Is that me? I pause at the sheer wonder of it all. I wave my hand before my face for an immeasurable amount of time. How am I moving that? What else can I do? Where are all these questions from? When did they start? Slowly but surely I discover all my senses and mobile capabilities. I begin to move about. I attempt to walk but I have no measure of balance so I settle for a crawl. There is a puddle beside me. It confounds me. I touch it ever so carefully.

What is this? It moves when I touch it. Why does it do that? I allow the object to settle. In time it becomes reflective. I look into it. Is that me? Is that what I look like? I touch my face. I see the reflection touch its face. I feel the pressure in my face and finger. That is me.

It takes some time but I begin to walk about. I investigate my surroundings. What is all this? Who are all these people? Why don’t they move? Why don’t they look like me? I poke the bodies to no avail. I feel them but they make no response.

I begin to move at a more rapid pace now. I search desperately for movement. Movement means life. I have learned that much. Then suddenly my movement stops. I see another like me; it is hard and heavy. It too is cold. I begin to think on deeper things. What happened here? Who was that? Who am I?

Then for the first time something tickles the side of my head. It is sound, the first notable sound. Till now I heard nothing but the wind. This sounded as though it was directed at something. No, not something, it was directed toward me. A rumble begins in the center of me and a sound seeps out my face. I am certain it means nothing but the foreign sounds respond.

The sounds become louder, more energetic, and most importantly closer. This was my first interaction with life beyond my own. I knew there was life because there was movement.

At the time I was unaware of the meanings of the sounds I absorbed but now after some time my powers of speech improved greatly. The other life I met called himself Tawk. He told me I was like him. I was a stoneborn.

A great many days later we returned to the place where movement and reason first touched me. He told me it was something called a battle. He told me a battle is where disputes are solved when the stronger kills the weaker. He told me that I died here. Or at least my last cycle died here. "Us stoneborn can live forever if we are lucky enough. We have the tears of life swirling at our very core." Tawk pointed to his chest. "But sometimes our shell just can’t take anymore." His pointing motion turned to more of a knock. "So the good stuff inside us finds a new one." Tawk motioned to the lifeless but familiar stone beneath our feet. "This was you. But you wouldn’t remember that. The memories they live in the flesh; personality too. Yep for all intents and purposes this is your birthplace and his burial grounds."

I stayed with Tawk a while. He taught me a great deal. The day I left I asked him if there was anything I could do for him. He simply nodded and softly said, "Guide the new cycles through. Where ever you find them. We wondering elders are they only guides our people have."