Decades ago,
Robert had been a lonely man, living off the land in the lower regions of the Westlands. No one ever came to bother him there; life
was peaceful. He had been blessed as a
child with a rare gift. He was able to
communicate with Mother Earth herself, and with this gift he was never truly alone. There was a large rock formation on his land;
quite elegant in the way is sparkled under the sunlight. He would often spend his evenings seated on
a small rock to watch the shining sparkles as the sun went down behind the
horizon.
One day, a
traveler wandered onto the land when Robert was on a routine trip to Town for a
hermit convention of sorts. The
traveler, whom, for reasons beyond our comprehension, was known as Phil, saw
the rock formation from a distance and was instantly mesmerized. When he moved closer to the rock, he could
see that a rather large deposit of gold caused the rock to sparkle. "Yippee," he cried as he whipped out a long
pickaxe, which he just happened to be carrying.
Robert returned
home several days later to find a small camp of ruffians gathered around his
rock. "What's going on here?" he fumed.
"Hey, quit your yappin'!"
yelled an elderly fellow who was lounging in a chair near a shabby looking
tent, "If yer gonna steak yer claim, do so quietly. Some of these here folk are tryin' ta get some sleep."
Robert wasn't very
familiar with the dialect that this vagrant was jabbering with, but he
understood what the man had said. What
he couldn't understand was what he was to steak his claim of. The sun was beginning to go down on the
horizon and from where Robert stood, he couldn't see his precious rock
formation to watch the sparkles in the sunset.
He moved through
the temporary camp until he could see the rock. Unfortunately, the rock wasn't
there. His jaw dropped as he stared at
what now lay in the spot where the rock was.
Several lanterns had been perched on sticks all around a large hole in
the ground. He stumbled towards the
edge of the hole, stuttering at the words he was trying to say. Phil, the vagabond traveler turned rich
millionaire, sat in a rather fluffy and comfortable looking chair near the edge
of the hole and watched as Robert fell to his knees in the dirt. "Is there something the matter, buddy?" he
called to Robert.
Robert stuttered
at some more words before finally asking the question, "What happened to my
rock?"
"And what rock
might that be then?" asked Phil, totally uninterested in what Robert was
mumbling about.
"The large rock
that was right here. I used to watch it
as it sparkled in the sunlight," said Robert.
"Oh that
rock," said Phil as he started to get defensive over what he had claimed for
himself, "What do you mean, your rock?"
"This was my
rock, I live on this land," argued Robert.
"I didn't see
your name on it," shot Phil with an angry scowl on his face.
To make a long
story short, Robert lost his rock.
Mother Earth was no help to him since she is helpless when it comes to
stopping people from doing things to her.
Robert was angered by the vagrants' behavior towards the being he had
grown to call his own mother. It was a
very traumatic experience for him, especially when he realized that everyone
was getting rich off of something he had considered his for nearly twenty
years.
He abandoned his
land and began to travel the countryside and eventually gathered many stories
relatable to life. Ten years later, he
began telling his stories to children around campfires in the towns he came
across in his travels. He even returned
several times to the town that had formed on the spot where his rock had once
stood: This Place.
One day, rather
late in January, Robert sat on a cold rock, surrounded by snow and shivering in
his dark cloak. He began to remember
some of his stories and he decided that somehow he should write them down and
make a book out of it. Well, as many
people know, thousands of bizarre ideas have been produced from minds that were
skewed by the cold, but not too many are actually taken literally.
Robert managed
to stand on his cold legs and wandered west to where a new town was beginning
to form. The town's founder, Eigen
Farmwick, was quite partial to the idea of naming the town after himself, and
that's precisely what happened. It was
in this town that Robert began to write his book.
The book was
long and full of lessons that people could use to base their lives upon. It was very influential for the people of
the new town and he began to see similarities between his book and a fabled
book that had existed before a time long ago, which he began to call "The Great
Beginning."
Mother Earth had
spent countless hour telling Robert stories of the past. She explained to him that the world had
suffered a tragedy resulting in widespread massacre and all out "banana
warfare," which is what she referred to it as.
The race that had inhabited the earth before The Great Beginning were
cruel, harmful, and uncaring about what they did to her.
During her time
of repair, she had forgotten much of the old world, though she did remember one
thing. There had been a book that
nearly every human being owned a copy of.
It was a rather silly book, but everyone seemed to have an affinity for
it. This book was called the Bible.
Robert, who had
yet to title his masterpiece, took it upon himself to give it the same name as
the Bible, hoping that it would have the same effect as it once had and that he
would be rich from the sales figures.
He hired a man
by the name of Will to work the printing machine that was designed to print the
cover of his book. The only problem
was that Will was illiterate, much like many of the other people of the lands. Will placed the letter stamps into the
machine that would print the covers, and began to stamp the thousands of covers
that Robert had asked for. When Will
had completed this task, Robert placed one of the covers onto the pages of his
book and jumped for joy.
When he was on
his feat again, he took another look at his book. Will had placed an extra letter into the printing machine by
mistake. Every single copy of his book
was not titled "The Bible" as expected.
Instead, each copy had an extra "b," and thus creating, "The
Bibble."
For a while,
Robert was angry about this error, but soon realized that he was the only one
who knew about the original book and it's title, and that no one would be the
wiser. His book was taken under the
pillows of the rich and used as pillows by the poor. He was happy; the people were happy.
As he became
older, Mother Earth slowly stopped talking to him. He became saddened by this and begged his mother to speak once
more. After almost two years of
silence, Mother Earth spoke, "Robert, my son," she said.
Robert sat up,
suddenly alarmed by the soft voice he hadn't heard in years. "Yes, mother," he responded.
"Robert, I have
a favour to ask of you," she continued.
"Anything," he
exclaimed.
"I've been
thinking a lot," explained the voice of Mother Earth, "and I've decided that I
want to know what happened to cause The Great Beginning. If there is a way to discover the truth,
please find it and tell me what happened."
Robert was on his feet in moments. "I'll do my best," he vowed, and set out on his quest.