The Summer was good in camp - lots of food, lumber and good family times. However, the winter was coming and it was getting near the time when we move South, to Winter Camp with Fish to help us survive. Uncle had been searching further North and found another source of rocks. He had also been thinking that we should stay at Summer Camp all year round. There was much talking that night ... finally the Elders agreed to stay until the first Snow. Uncle was very happy with this decision and wished them luck. The children followed him out of the village with shouts of "wait, take me, take me" and "where are you off too?".
Uncle (or N'uncle as the children called him) returned many cycles later with news from studying nature - he was talking about God, rocks and standing stones. He had also found another traveler ... the people just called him Jr. Jr was quickly accepted into the family, especially when he produced a detailed bark of the island that we had been living on for time without memory. There was some discussion about where Jr came from, but as we understood what he said, we decided that he must be one of us.
N'uncle prayed and our summers were wet and our winters clear. He also mumbled something about foes and walls, but the children just thought that he had been hitting the rice wine a little hard. That cycle, there was strife in the village as some discussed the many faces of the one God as seen in nature and others argued that it was a race of immortal Gods. It was not really settled between one God and many Gods - what was decided was that the race of man was not similar to the race of God.
Later than cycle N'uncle ran into the village with a burning bush. Everyone fell about laughing thinking that he had just discovered fire :grin: But no, he had returned with the truth about God / Gods. There was only one God and there shall be no other Gods before him. N'uncle planted the bush in the square and declared that, henceforth, Summer Camp would be the holy city of Judaism.
He further commanded a great work to celebrate this occasion and the wise men decided on a nice set of standing stones. There was some grumbling about having to make standing stones from scratch (what, like glue the sand together?) but news from a family heading North was that they had just decided to settle and there was stone near them - they called their camp site Camp Rock.
There was much dragging of stones from Camp Rock to Summer Camp ... enough for a few wags to quib this was more like a concentration camp instead of a fun summer camp. While this was taking place, Jr wandered into town carrying a 'something' containing water and another containing some foul smelly liquid. He honoured the now extinguished bush with the water bowl (that is what he called it) but didn't offer to share dishonourable foul stuff. And so, after that strange visit, the people started to move out of camp into surrounding villages while also keeping food in these bowls ... meanwhile, the great standing stone drag continued with much effort. Finally, the people could really celebrate ...
N'uncle dropped in to see these standing stones and was very concerned that the people had placed them in the shadow of a mountain. These stones were set up to forecast the seasons, position of the sun and the moon, etc and with the stones placed in the mountain shadow, N'uncle was going to have difficulty forecasting the seasons and the like. The people accepted the challenge to move it but said that they would do it in their own time.
N'uncle also shared with us the benefits of gathering fruit from the cows that had been wandering to Summer Camp's West. Naturally, there was much discussion about how you gather fruit from cows, but N'uncle just waved that issue away. He also had news of a strange red stain on the water to our North East. He had no information about this strange event but did point out that this information was part of the map that the locals had provided us and a tile that none of The People had every actually seen.
Jr returned with more news (and a joke). He handed around a strange slimy creature that he called a fish. He said that this was good for a day, but he did say that he would show us how to get more. He quibbed that he could give us a fish to feed us for a day, but if he taught us to fish, he would lose a client. We didn't really understand what a 'client' was but he wandered off laughing anyway.
N'uncle ran into Summer Camp later than cycle with news that the red stain had spread. He had been standing on the hill, overlooking the North East when he heard strange voices and saw (what he thought were) people working fishing boats. The were bare chested and had red and white cloth tied around their heads. He waved and called thinking that we had found a trading partner for our cows, rice and stone. The next he knew was that an stone whizzed past his head, angry words and gestures were exchanged. He later admitted that he didn't think these strange people to the North East would ever trade with us. He also mentioned that they called themselves the Rapping Knees or Shopping Peas ... or something like that.
N'uncle was still worried about the Yapping Tees ... but was cheered up with the children shared a joke with him. Firstly, they asked him to pull their fingers. When he did so, they burped or farted, then fell about laughing, saying that they could direct their wind ... N'uncle had been trying to teach them that they couldn't direct the wind, but they could harness it with sails. He thought it was a very good joke and promised not to tell Jr about it.
He started another teaching with the children about moving mountains and small stones, but these kids were from Camp Rock and knew all about rocks, stones, pebbles, gravel, etc etc. N'uncle said later that he actually learnt things he didn't know from the children ... naturally, this made the Mothers laugh. Jr later joined N'uncle in a large tribal con-flab where a new concept was being discussed. They said that war with the Sniping Bees was inevitable and wanted to tribe to introduce the concept of forced labour for captured people. This didn't seem fair until N'uncle pointed out that, in death, all things are fair. And so it was that the tribe tentatively flirted with slavery.
At this time, war looked likely and so people were searching for some more advanced weapons - more advanced that really really big rocks dropped from a great height (Camp Rock was still working on this one) or great clubs of wood. The first endeavour proved fruitless in this search with rice cushes, cow teeth and the like not proving very reliable (or effective). It was during this search that Summer Camp heard that the people in Camp Rock had been building a huge rock launch ramp (well, that is what they called it) to get across to the Ripping Seas. They were told to stop this silliness and ordered to pay costs for the lost production.
The problem of visiting the red stain had been weighing on N'uncle's mind and he proposed floating wood, instead of rock launch platforms. This seemed slightly easier as the people had no trouble with this concept ... after all, it was just an extension of a game that the children play. However, there was some concern with how travelers in the floating wood crafts would get home as the sea typically didn't have many land marks. Jr solved this one by suggesting a fire in a high tower ...
And so travelers were sent out to scout the lands of the Lapping Hees while the people at home continued the search for better weapons. They had found some wondrous beasts that ran like the wind, thundering over the plains but as we couldn't catch them, and if we did catch them, it wasn't know how we could hit others over the head with such a beast, they weren't considered further. A Thunder School was established to keep an eye on these creatures to learn their ways and to see if we could pasture them like we had the cows. Further searches for weapons finally yielded results when someone noticed that that some rocks glowed hot when placed in the beacon fire. It was thought that we could throw these hot rocks but Jr finally showed the true power of this new material when he hit it with a hammer.
At the same time, one of the traveling sailors returned with news that the Klip-on-ese also had access to this metal ... it was decided that we had to stop them gaining access to this advanced weaponry. The women folk also started telling stories about a baby that was found in the rushes at this time. They named him Moses and this child started to tell stories about the cities of two loves. No one listened much to these stories as we didn't know that we were being held back by a lack of wisdom. Moses also talked about how God looks upon his people, give gifts to his people and gives his people peace ... people got confused about this later topic because of the threatened war soon to come so Moses when back to talking about two cities. He finally managed to gain true glory and people started to write to their friends about these concepts. He later moved to Thunder School where he founded a following (of sorts) for his teaching about the two cities. Everyone continued loving their one true God but they accepted his followers for the additional battle training they could also teach.
While these religious discussions were taking place, raging between the settlements, Jr reported that the Japanese (he had scouted one of their villages and learnt how to pronounce their name) had sent a family in a boat to our island with the aim of starting a settlement here. There was much anger at this development - first they don't want to trade with us, and now they invade us. Jr also reported the first loss of this was, we lost a boat trying to drive off the Japanese. Fortunately, another was in the area to finish the destruction.
And thus the people left their innocent state - was proper was joined with the Japanese. Big plans were started to stop their access to metal while we also stopped their ability to cause us further harm.