I found him amidst the rubbles of the once proud city of Grete. That city, you've probably heard a lot or read from your books, – that is if you're doing your studies a bit seriously – was once an abundant city of the western Antolan Peninsula. And a bit proud that is. Big businesses were sprouting like the golden Ganymede mushrooms. I mean really. If you've ever seen one, you'd be surprised how those towers exactly resembles them besides the fact that those poisonous terrestrial fungi does not grow around this side of the land. And a rare species at that. The city was prosperous in any way possible. Travelers tell of magnificent castles and skyscrapers. Of lush gardens and an efficient waterworks that runs abundantly around the city. Of wide and peaceful streets battered everyday by carriages run not by horses but by some other means that only them could have known. Because you see, the people there were not too friendly with outsiders, or passing travelers. They consider anyone outside the city a threat to the peace and abundance they were enjoying. Beautiful but proud people. They think they were the direct descendants of their gods. They think that Grete was the center of the creation of the world. And that all the people outside the Gretian border are scraps, toys, or experimental creations. And personally, I think, these were the things that eventually lured the city into its ultimate demise.
The city perished after the Great Fire almost wiped out the whole of the peninsula. I never knew about that until our small caravan made it to Grete. At first I thought there was a war. Like y'know bombs and those modern warfare we've never heard of in the olden days. It was totally devastating. Think of a huge boulder that came falling from the skies as huge as the M'ka mountains. And think of some huge cannons commissioned to blast those bugger off. Supposedly those cannons did their jobs as they were suppose to do and hit the boulder straight at its center. The debris that it could have created came falling into those unfortunate buildings and houses and the impact created such huge fires that leave the city unable to call for help. It was as if everything happened spontaneously. Terrible terrible thing really. The air smelled of sulfur or concentrated ash. Once in a while, I half-expected to see red-skinned devils. Because y'see, the place was more like hell, only doused by the gods for whatever reasons only their arrogant selves knew.
There was this story that have been passed down at taverns among drunk patrons and travelers. It amused me a a lot that I retell them to other people most often with my own version. The original story tells of a giant who have eaten a whole field of those humongous root tubers that grow only around the Antolan peninsula. It goes by the name namusch but it's popularly known as kasak among the Noram speakers. So it was said that the giant was so hungry that he uprooted all the tubers planted in a field belonging to a religious peasant. Of course the peasant was devastated upon seeing the field devoid of the precious tubers he was supposedly planning to sell in the nearby town on the next market day. His wife was so saddened by what happened that she refused to eat her meal that evening and fallen gravely ill. He was angry, of course. He readied himself for a little killing to be done but failed to identify who's the lucky subject. Their sole source of income was gone and now, he doesn't know how to replace all those lost tubers and sustain a food in the table for him, his wife and his 3 children.
And so he called the attention of the seven-headed god of lightning Chimera by sacrificing a kid from his small herd of goats. In his little stone altar, it was said that he burned the kid, bowed his head to the ground and calling out his grievance to his god. He was so angry that blood ran out his lips out of cursing. He asked not of food or a way to replant another batch of tubers but an appropriate decapitation or ultimate humiliation to whoever ransacked his field.
The vengeful god heard the peasant's prayers and the tears reached him like an acid - corrosive and full of hate. He learned the deeds of the voracious giant. Don't know how gods did it exactly but they just did. And so the god Chimera, the great god of the high Nadir mountains descended the earth and found the giant comfortably sitting in a huge boulder in a hill overlooking most of the lands that was part of the Antolan peninsula. I'm thinking of a very much contented giant whose belly protruded out its gigantic frame, rubbing it gently while conveniently picking its teeth. Chimera produced a huge bolt. The biggest he had ever created and struck it immediately to the unsuspecting giant. But before the bolt reached him in a split of a second, the giant farted as if he had never farted before – the result of eating too much gas-inducing tubers. Gas and lightning bolt was never a good combination as you might have suspected. And that – as they say – started the Great Fire we knew today.
Of course, there was a little truth to that story, if there was anything at all. The fact is, no one really did know how and where the Great Fire started. I think it's one of those simple mysteries. Y'know like oops, I've messed with nature. And the devastating effect was so fast everything vanished before you can even say sorry.
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