Nth Society Writing Competition - Imagine the World, My Entry

Thank you, Maxpixel

Xeno

Xeno scampered through the woods and hills surrounding the little cluster of huts that someday would become a whole new village. Being still small and relatively defenseless, the boy was careful to stay close, where the little community’s few hunters kept the land cleared of the more dangerous enemies. Not all of them were mobs, either. Their greatest threat often came from other people seeking to prey on the goods of honest, hardworking folk. And the Young make for easy pickings.

The boy spied a mushroom that was an ingredient to make a cure for poisons and adjusted his course to pick it. It was his fourth Agaric. Alarin, their potionmaster, would be happy. He put the spotted mushroom into his pack alongside the various other ingredients and small materials that he’d harvested that morning. His pack was almost full, and getting heavy, so he turned back toward the encampment to drop off the products of his labors. He kept his child’s short hunting spear held ready as he traveled, in case he should flush any small game. Not only were the meat and skins important as materials, but the more hunting experience he could gain, the sooner he would be able to train as a fighter.

Still too Young and weak to fight anything bigger than a rabbit, and too inexperienced to be a tradesman, Xeno’s job was to gather materials and food items to help support his small community. In this way, the Elders’ time could be freed up for the more demanding work.

Everybody had a job to do here, to contribute to the success of them all. Since no one person could do everything, everybody was dependent on the cooperation of everyone else to provide those goods or services that they couldn’t acquire for themselves. And everyone had their own skills to trade on.

Xeno reached the encampment and stopped at each of the houses to drop off items of his harvest to those who could make the most use of them. He returned to his own house last of all, where his woodworker parents - a bowyer and a carpenter - practiced their crafts.

As he put the feathers from the birds he’d killed into a basket to be made into fletches for arrows, he listened as his father spoke to Carl, their blacksmith, about needing to make a trip into the City for some supplies. Because the population of their little wilderness outpost was so small, there were still many goods that they couldn’t provide themselves, and it was necessary to travel to the City to trade for them.

“Xeno,” his father called, and the boy’s heart leaped with hope, “ready the horses and the cart for a trip to sell.” He saw the boy’s excitement and added. “Ready yourself, as well, then. You can come along.”

Xeno hurried to do as he was bid.

Xeno rode in the cart with Carl driving and his father and Ajax, their best fighter, riding horseback alongside them. The back of the cart was loaded to bursting with the raw materials collected for trade in the City. You could find anything there was to be had in the shops and markets of the City, but their population had stripped bare the surrounding countryside.

At last, they crested a large hill, and the peaks and spires of the City came into view. Xeno caught his first ever glimpse of the eccentrically sprawling metropolis, and was struck with awe. This civilization, this wonder of achievement created by generations of cooperative effort, was the true legacy of them all.