With "Roots Is All Evil", I was able to tell a short history of a location through brief vignettes interwoven with a singular theme. In that case, it was the cautionary tale being told by the host of the campsite. With "Totem", I took that idea of structure from "Roots Is All Evil" and applied where I had been most afraid to go... the pre-history of this place. Here, instead of a campsite and a curious story, the focal points are a cave and a totem. As you can see, this stuff never leaves my head.
Now currently this is the earliest in time which I have explored insofar as historical record. I can place rough time periods to what first appears here though that I'll leave for the reader to recognize. I have tried to follow geographic history for this region where appropriate for that all too often as well determines migratory patterns of man and beast. However early this story does appear, it is recognized in the initial scene that there are, or were, others and thus these here, while they represent the beginnings of the occupancy of this cave hinted at in the stories "The Witch of Pitt's Junction" and "Kachina", there is evidence this is not the first example of humans entering this valley. I happen to know of a shard of carved ivory broken up on one of the upper creeks that argues an earlier pathfinder.
These are early though. On the timelines I have built up for these Tales, some of the characters presented in the earliest vignettes reach back to the days of specifically fluted flint tips. In fact, the overall timeline for this particular story, runs at least 14,000 years ending some years before a socially disturbed trapper seeks refuge in this cave having stolen four katsina from the Hopi a hundred miles or so distant.
Throughout this Tale of 2,409 words, one thing remains constant and that is the evolution of what was seen in "Kachina" and "The Witch of Pitt's Junction". Where in those Tales, it is a sculptured of hammered gold sheets, it was not always so. This Tale races evolution through its many forms, or enough to allow for nearly unlimited license to mine, ending in this golden monstrosity from the figuring shaped from feces and mud mixed with urine and blood and adorned with horrors too intimate to mention it began as.
I finished this Tale on July 4, 2019. It was the 12th story finishes for this year and I was pretty much at halfway through the year. I was a bit ahead of where I had planned to be but I had no plans to enjoy any rest. I was kind of on a roll right at this point and every free moment my mind was able to get away, I was where I needed to be.
One really nice thing about "Totem", outside of providing some extremely disturbing imagery to open the game, is that it, like "Roots Is All Evil", is also able to be harvested multiple times before it is even near bare. In fact, I allow for legend to build within this Tale that has recognizable consequences at one point. This gives basis for needing to build further on the character here referenced, one Carver of Wood, and the history behind his legend. I even have an entire span glossed over in vague reference, having had to find a word appropriate to represent the number "ten-thousand" in years. That was fun... but again, if ever I complain I don't have anything to write, that means only that I'm not paying attention to what is waiting to be written.
Oh, and I told ya you'd get the shit joke! By the way, when considering the bulk of these stories placed in temporal order, this Tale, "Totem", is the very first of them all. That means the very first line anyone would read if they were starting these Tales from the earliest occurring, the first line they would read is the full expression that titles this post. Yup, gotta keep it classy...
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