Mahan, Fire Fork Countries, Qali
Spenya, the thirty-fourth day of Enerin, 1149

It seemed like time passed in a blink, and it's already the last day of the first month of the new year. Life and work needed in the early spring made Donghae momentarily shelve his plans for an expedition into the Far Reach.

Majority of the Mahan farmsteads have started clearing fields as soon as the thaw was out, and furrowing the earth in preparation of the planting season. Donghae was made busy going around the hamlet as request for repairs kept pouring in, at least it did around mid-month. Then it trickled down towards the end of the month, affording Donghae a chance to breathe and make preparations for his travel to the Far Reach.

Which included applying for insurance in the event he encounters harm during the journey, or fail to come back. He hied off to the nearest insurance trade center, months before he planned to travel.

He had decided to start traveling when the allday season is about to end. Granted there were roadside inns he could shelter in for the night, he also couldn't risk being out in the day when the sun would be too hot for travel. At least with the daytime-nightime season, he can take rest outside under the stars, or take advantage of the evening cool to travel and use the daytime to rest wherever he can lay his head on.

But he would have to be smart about it. Traveling to the Far Reach from Mahan will already take about two months, a month shy of when the allnight would start and then he'd definitely have problems. Not if he wants to scale the mountain ridge in what would be frigid weather sans the dark. Of course he knows the stories of the lost expeditions, but with Mum's help plotting the seasons further north, he reckoned he had the schedule down pat, and just knew he'd be able to make it back.

It was rather difficult to convince the people at the insurance office.

The appraisers looked at each other, perplexed.

"Sorry, we can't insure you for a journey like that." One of them said, apologetic.

"And why not?" Donghae demanded. 

"Messeur, please understand. You are going into the Far Reach, where none has ever come back."

"But which is why you can grant me the insurance - I will come back." Sometimes Donghae has a childlike insistence about the things he is convinced to be true, never mind if there was paltry evidence to back it up.

The appraisers looked at each other again. It was beginning to amuse Donghae that they both looked like bobble dolls with the way they kept swiveling their heads at each other to consult with every single little thing.

"Messeur, this office already has a policy to outright deny granting insurance related to hazardous travel. If it were a travel within the vicinity or inter-island for business, migration, or leisure, we can cover that. But hazardous occupations, sports or travel are not - the risk is just too great," the appraiser to the right politely explained to him.

So, Donghae thinks later outside of the insurance office, that didn't go well. He briefly wonders if he should leave without securing some form of insurance. Maybe the Chois, Tarda Lorde for precious stones, can assist, but they were his last option.

Why is he going into the Far Reach again? He wanted to go there to seek help from the god-race, to eliminate the blight that's been weakening their land litanies, reducing their harvest every year. If they could not find a cure in the next two years, the farmstead will dry up and their food stores depleted. As it stands now, they only have three years worth of grain stored, only fit for Qalini consumption and some of the farm animals which subsist on it but for those which rely on grass or fodder, they will eventually die out. Which means a further reduction on food supply.

None in their world could offer a solution. It is time to seek help from the god-race, the Ginu.

Nodding to himself, he headed in the direction of the temple of their land-gods, the Yutabuhen. Perhaps the wise masters would be amenable to assisting him, considering his cause would somewhat fall in their balwart.

Donghae briefly admired the trio of statues at the center of the plaza outside the temple. Their elders have always taught them that these are the Ginu for the animal-doctor, the ground-inspector, and the science-officer.

Animal-doctor predictively has the tupian and the kemba round him. The ground inspector had on a funny round hat, kneeling as if inspecting the ground. It is the science-officer that forever baffles him - they don't have an equivalent for the word "science", which the elders intone as the "knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation". But their knowledge of the natural world are already imbedded in their litanies, and certainly does not change with experiments nor observation.

Donghae amended his thoughts - he does personally modify his litanies for mechanics whenever he encounters a new behavior on his work with flying stones. What he observes as a new behavior, though, is not necessarily something new - a quick consultation with a master or an elder tells him he just didn't have access to those litanies yet, but now that he had made the observation, the master or elder would teach him about that set of litanies. In which a new set of knowledge is opened up for him just because he succeeded in observing or experimenting with current behaviors that manifest in his work. So maybe this was the job of the science-officer - to discover some new knowledge that got passed to the Qalini in the form of litanies.

As usual, he briefly bowed at the statues, before proceeding to the temple, where Master Zosano was already waiting from the open doors of the Yutabuhen.

"Ah Donghae, it has been a long time since you have visited the temple, my boy," the Master warmly greeted him, accepting Donghae's customary greeting of a hug and the kiss on both cheeks, as was accorded all masters.

"Apologies, Master, as the Hinyerobuhan litanies has overtaken my life."

"Of course, it was I who recommended that you get to apprentice under the tool workers once we determined your aptitude lay in that field, as compared to your brother Donghwa who has the ability to work the land." Master nodded, recalling the paths these brothers have taken. "So what has come up, that you are visiting the Yutabuhen?"

Master guided him inside the temple, the inside decorated with islands of discussion booths - desks and enclosures occupied by masters and visiting masters, elders, apprentices and workers like him in serious discussion. The booths were occasionally divided by a shelf or two which housed thick tomes of written works by the Masters, an aid to their oral litanies. Master Zosano found an empty booth and they both sat before Donghae recounted the purpose of his visit.

Master Zosano listened keenly. "That is a noble endeavor, Donghae. I only wonder why we have not thought of it before. The land litanies we know are sorely lacking of the knowledge on how to completely eradicate it, not just burning crops or isolating infested plants. We have already sent word to the Pati and the Pavor, if they have other land litanies. Everything they sent back is what we already have, even less, so if there was anything in the land litanies that could help, it should have been in ours." Master Zosano made a helpless gesture around the room, books and masters and all.

"But it's a dangerous quest. And the Ginu have long cut themselves off from us," Master Zosano continued. "I would even go so far as to speculate that those who have disappeared in the Far Reach didn't return not because they couldn't, but because they were not allowed to."

Talk of the Ginu, even after a millenia, is still a sensitive topic. Of course the Qalini is familiar with the night between the stars - that place in the Far Reach said to be the doorway to the Ginu. And yes, none have returned, but everyone thought it was because it was a futile journey in the first place. 

Because whatever lies within the Far Reach is yet to be discovered. It is alluded to as the most difficult area to reach in their known world, being at a high altitude and sporting the worst weather throughout the year. Countries that border it all around the northern reach only see this landmass so high the summit is never visible through the thick bank of dark clouds that hover it, even at the height of the allday season, with frequent lightning strikes that those who live near it are convinced there is a perpetual ion storm inside of it. Many have tried to go on an adventure into this unknown area but none have returned. Or maybe because going there is already arduous, it can only be expected that it is another arduous journey out back to the known world.

"Master, we call it the night between the stars - how would we know that the stars can be seen from there if someone somehow did not pass the knowledge to us?" Donghae asked. "We all know that the Ginu never called it that way - as I recall, they call it the 'wormhole' - a decidedly unromantic term compared to what we've named the doorway to the god-race."

Master's eyes widened. Because they had gotten used to calling the place inside Far Reach that way, most of them had failed to see why it would be called that in the first place. But not this kid. Not this naive child. Or is he really naive?

"Did you think that? Or did someone ask of you?"

Donghae sighed. It was nothing but a dream, really, that started when he was six, which he relegated to his overexcitement when Grampa Kangin gifted him with the book from his Great Granma Cordana. It was nothing but a diary of her younger self, really, but what excited the boy was her descriptions of places and events so vivid it was as if he was going on an adventure himself.

It was only at the end of the tome did he realize his great granma was talking about an adventure into the Far Reach, had even described the three Sky Islands that could be found there, and how the sky in the allnight was so clear one could see the stars and the said doorway to the Ginu. But when he asked Grampa Kangin if Cordana had gone to the Far Reach and come back, Grampa just laughed, saying Cordana never left their village at that age, and the adventure she wrote of may just be from her imagination.

But he had checked the dates of the diary entries - they were written when Cordana was but fourteen. Though not yet considered an adult, she would already be old enough to travel to other countries. But she had married late, in her twenties, and Grampa Kangin was young when she had died, it being said that she never fully recovered from an illness that befell her when she was fourteen and continued on until she was sixteen.

Donghae thought it coincided too much with the last entry she had on the diary, of going into the between. An only child, the family had despaired about her getting married and having kids, more so when she started becoming a lore-apprentice. But of course, Great Grampa Jinki from one of the Fire Forks country came and they fell in love and the rest is history. 

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