[center][h1]OYUNA[/h1][/center]
[color=khaki]Somewhere on the ocean bottom, there slept a village known to its residents as Gabung. They were a people who had built homes out of the graveyard of fish, coral and mud the seas had left behind. They had lived simply, milling around the odd god relic sticking out of the ground with odd symbols and odd lights. Then came a day where the sun grew up, and the winds grew strong, and a bunch of seeds got blown into their waste pile, and they feasted on the rot so they could also grow up and put the entire village to sleep.[/color]

[b][i]I did not say that the sun grew up[/i][/b][color=khaki], said the rock. [/color][b][i]Don’t be rude about gods. Do you want them to ruin you?[/i][/b]

[color=khaki]‘[b]I am already ruined by the actions of a god, so I don’t think it matters.[/b]’ With a heavy sigh, Oyuna, who was already squatting to listen to this rock, shifted to sit cross-legged by her tablets. ‘[b]Thank you for telling me, Obstinacy.[/b]’[/color]

[b][i]It is [/i]Patron[i] of Obstinacy[/i][/b][color=khaki], huffed the rock with no lungs to huff with. [/color][b][i]What are you doing?[/i][/b]

[color=khaki]‘[b]If I am to rot away in slumber until I die, then I will spend my final days completing my life’s work.[/b]’ Oyuna traced the stiff grooves in the soft clay, painstakingly etched with the pointed, spiral shells that littered the sea floor. ‘[b]I refuse to let this all be for nothing. I [i]refuse[/i].[/b]’

The sun shone brightly. The distant murmur of people at work and play continued. It was unfair how nothing seemed out of place in this dream world.[/color]

[b][i]It does not have to be.[/i][/b] 

[color=khaki]‘[b]I do not wish to make a pact with you either. Do you think I have not heard the stories? Deals with your kind rarely have a happy ending.[/b]’[/color]

[b][i]And is a happy ending what you want? Will you be satisfied with the live you lived, never knowing of what could have been? Ignorant of the truth that you failed to understand?[/i][/b][color=khaki] Her tablets vanished, replaced by the towering golem that haunted her even in her dreams. Oyuna’s protest died in her throat as the inscriptions on its surface lit up with an otherworldly light. [/color][b][i]You are a persistent mortal who slaved away most of your life for a goal that no one around you believed in.[/i][/b]

[color=khaki]‘[b]You do not have to gloat.[/b]’[/color]

[b][i]I speak only truth. I told you of what has befallen your tribe and you thought not of your loved ones, or your life, but of the golem which has yielded nothing to you in spite of your efforts. You have spirit, Oyuna Erdene, and I do not think you will throw this chance away for a reason as unimaginative as fear.[/i][/b] 

[color=khaki]The golem’s light shone all the while. So close, and yet [i]still[/i] out of reach. The rock did not say anymore. The Patron must have known that it did not need to. Oyuna placed a hand on the surface of the golem.

‘[b]What would you have me do?[/b]’[/color]
[center][h3]~[/h3][/center]
[color=khaki]Somewhere on the ocean bottom, a woman roused from a deep slumber. She moved slowly, carefully, as she stretched her limbs. Rolled her neck. Rubbed her eyes. She found herself taken by a fervent hunger, so the first thing she did was fetch herself some water and scrounge for any food that hadn’t gone bad in the days past. The sun, the [i]real[/i] sun, shone merrily overhead.[/color]

[center][b][i]First, I would help you wake.[/i][/b][/center]
[color=khaki]The second thing she did was find the mushrooms.

Just as the Patron had said, they were clustered all over the community refuse pile, bright spots of gold carpeting the rotting rubbish they grew on. Spores, waves of dust-like dots, drifted off them in waves.

Setting fire to the pile had never felt so satifying.[/color]

[center][b][i]Once you have recovered your form, you may wake your fellow mortals.[/i][/b][/center]
[color=khaki]Then she went around the tribe grounds and began shaking everyone awake. Her parents, her brother, her aunts and uncles, and everyone else. They awoke weak, with stiff joints and ravenous hunger, but they awoke still and that was what was important. A fear that the woman hadn’t known melted away from her heart, replaced by a great relief. They had lost time, but that was a far sight better than losing lives.

Slowly, but surely, the tribe recovered. Picked themselves up off the ground and continued to mill about their lives. The woman who had awoken them, however, introduced something new to the tribe. Those strange, silly markings that they had known her to obsess over actually held meaning! There were lines to indicate the things they spoke of, to remind themselves of matters that needed remembering. There were other smaller lines too, to cover the more complicated sounds they made. It was a concept the elders struggled with, but the younger ones picked it up with enthusiasm, picking out shells with long, narrow spires to keep instead of burn. Some broke off the stem of thin reeds that insisted on growing out of the muddy, moist ground. They shaped clay into firmer, blocky shapes, set the tips of their shells or stems to soft clay.

And they wrote.[/color]

[center][b][i]Continue your work. Witness where it leads you.[/i][/b][/center]
[color=khaki]The woman, weeks later, found herself seated before her prized tablets, the ones that had much of the golem’s inscriptions copied onto their surface. She brushed loose sand off their surface. Pressed her fingers against etched stone.

Next to her, a rock rose through the ground, pushing through mud and dirt.[/color]

[center][color=khaki][i]‘[b]That’s all?[/b]’[/i][/color]
[b][i]That is all.[/i][/b][/center]
[color=khaki]The tablets were still incomprehensible to her. Script – because that was what they were called – with loops, and hard angles, and swerves, and strokes that spelled nothing but gibberish. The script that Gabung had picked up had borrowed select symbols from the golem’s script, but it was simply how her tribe had interpreted these symbols, not a true understanding of what they really were.

‘[b]So you [i]are[/i] real[/b],’ said Oyuna.[/color]

[b][i]And you are stubborn.[/i][/b] 

[color=khaki]It was jarring to receive Obstinacy’s thoughts here, outside of the Dreamscape. No longer did they echo in the surroundings. They felt more like impressions pressed against her head; feelings more than words.[/color]

[b][i]You should have accepted my offer. You will not find Patrons who handle their mortals so gently as I.[/i][/b] 

[color=khaki]Gabung had signs now. Words that they inscribed into the walls of their homes. Names. Oyuna felt a little swell of pride whenever she saw them. [i]She[/i] had started this. [i]She[/i] had figured it out. Had it not been for that sole compromise, the Gabung tribe might have wasted away in their slumber by now.[/color]

[b][i]Still, obstinacy is why I sought you out. I cannot condemn you for indulging in my domain. It is right as it is frustrating.[/i][/b]

[color=khaki]‘[b]Don’t worry[/b],’ said Oyuna. ‘[b]There are still plenty of opportunities for you to convince me into becoming your thrall. Between the Great Drain and the Frigid Eclipse, I am sure the gods are far from finished with bumbling around our land.[/b]’

Amusement wafted off Obstinacy.[/color]

[b][i]How right you are, child.[/i][/b]

[color=khaki]In the outskirts of the tribe grounds, in slow and steady movements, sand shifted.[/color]

[hr][hr][center][h1]ᦓ꠸᥅ꪀꪖ[/h1][/center]

[color=#e1ceff]Somewhere within the Dreamscape, Sirna... did not [i]sneeze[/i], for they had neither nose nor face to do so, but they did experience a brief surge of water splashing out of their waterfall.

[i]Hm. Must be the weather.[/i][/color]
[center][h2]~[/h2][/center]
[hider=ACTION LOG]
[b]OYUNA:[/b]
• The Patron of Obstinacy attempts to convince Oyuna to enter a pact with it: it would break her out of her lullaby shroom-induced slumber and she would be basically eternally obligated to do whatever it wants her to do (leaving out any mention of eternally, of course). Oyuna is not convinced.

• Oyuna manages to wake herself up by realising that she doesn't [i]have[/i] to understand the golem to discover something new; she can just cobble together something understandable from its inscriptions instead! The epiphany is enough to wake her up. She removes the shrooms, wakes everyone else up, and introduces script writing.

[indent]• The Gabung [ɢabuŋ] tribe now has a writing system.
• The eclipse happens. The Gabung tribe has since been very interested in the moon(s).[/indent]
• [b]SIRNA:[/b] Sirna has the abstract godly version of a sneeze. Someone out there must be thinking strongly about them.
[right]Conviction Balance: 7[/right][/hider]

[hider=Image reference for Gabung script][img]https://i.imgur.com/ZEPqQNg.png[/img][/hider]