Dark Ages in the Jungle

To those that love happy endings out of tragic tails of woe, now might consider being encouraged that a small group of Vaux survived. Such optimism should be saved for a later time, because things were to get much worse before they would get better. The Kru’ll jungle was known far and wide for its dangers and showed no pity and no mercy to the civilized foreigners from the Forsaken Lands.

The Vaux came from a culture of enlightened sophistication, prosperity, eccentric differences, and the graceful advancements that come when freedom and equal opportunity is available to all its people. They were not prepared for the lifestyle of the alien environment. The next twenty five years were a brutal learning curve, which saw their numbers dwindle down from 73, upon arrival, to 39; claimed by the jungle in one way or another.

Life was not the only thing that was lost. No one person knows everything about an entire civilization and the Vaux are no exception. Obviously the loss of their home, records, and everything that filled their lives back in the Forsaken Lands was gone forever to them. Even worse; however, was the amount of people that had knowledge and capability were no more. All the accumulated wisdom and maturation that is naturally passed from one generation, kind enough to share it down to the next for the betterment of all, was truncated or just gone. Of those that were barely surviving, only fragments and parsed knowledge survived of their once inspiring and industrious people.

Fortunately there were a few varieties of professions in their group that would prove useful in starting over in the “dark ages” they had been reduced to. In addition, there were some common threads that every Vaux knew. Their language, both audible, written and visual would continue on. Their primary teachings would continue as well; the core of their culture and something mesmerized by each individual in its entirety as part of their education. Likewise, their form of martial arts, ceremony, and dance was also known by every Vaux. Their customs only lived on from the memories of those that remained and would have to be modified to fit their new reality.

Hope finally arrived when they left the floor level of the jungle for the canopy. While nowhere near the beautiful and serene architecture of their past, their treehouse structures still had the thumbprint of Vauxian design now mixed with an organic sensibility because of what they learned from the local wildlife; their primary teachers. As their lives lifted up into the tree tops, so did their ability to focus on repairing their broken culture.

Decisions were made by these first couple of generations which would ripple down to the next, where the latter would never know the difference from what is from what was. The scars and trauma of the past directed many of their new approaches, skewing their true ways.

Their teachings were no longer written down, but instead tattooed on the bodies of every individual. This was a huge accomplishment and is the hallmark of their current status on literature. Perhaps one day they will have the time, energy and resources to begin anew with the concept of archives of collected knowledge and experiences stored in a library. Speaking became subordinate to their sign language, on the basis of noise in the jungle could lure predator’s attention or hinder one’s ability to recognize a change in the natural environments sounds. In addition, whereas prior it was common for a Vaux to know all the primary languages of Helias, now only Vauxian would be taught. In short, there were very few things about their old ways that were not evolved, modified, or lost. And their new lifestyle in the jungles added many new ways of life that would have never came about otherwise.

In addition, the original elders of the group made the choice to eliminate all teachings of the existence of gods. They also taught nothing of what life, or the world, was like outside their isolated community. The inquisition and Arbiters became twisted nightmarish bedtime stories. All this was done to protect the younger generations. From henceforth, the Vaux would no longer try and save the world and help others overcome malevolence, bondage and suffering. Instead, they would create their own utopia apart from it.

This way of life would eventually and unexpectedly change though for one unassuming and kindly Vaux seven generations later (after 170 years since the Nocta Inquisition, their numbers have risen to 97), when a young baby boy was born named Gonyaul’vaux.