With tired eyes, the old dog watched a small group of Gembounds file into the bone room. Only a few of them had come, most of them seemed to know each other. A small, young looking bird had soared in making a bunch of racket, to which the Lorekeeper scowled and hissed, "Quiet down, you nitwit!" With a huff, Lorekeeper shifted slightly and propped herself up on her front paws, gazing out at the small group. Well... enough time had elapsed that the Lorekeeper was certain no one else was coming for the story. She may as well start now.
"Ahh... You have come to hear another story... Well... I suppose they call me the Lorekeeper for... a very good reason..." The old dog wheezed, drawing her wrinkled lips back in a wry smile. As if she hadn't been expecting a group of them to show up. Why else was she propped up before a crowd? "Yes... This story... I call it... The Caution of the Makers... This story was told to me by my old friend... May his soul rest in eternal slumber..."
Her eyes grew distant, soft even, for a moment before widening and fixing back on the group, that mischievous smile ever present. "A long time ago... they made something. That is why... they called themselves the Makers... The Makers created all kinds of things in the cave. They made the great city under the stars... And the treasures you find scattered in the tunnels... They carved the faces in the rock and their words in the wall... You have seen it... The carving..." Her nose slowly turned towards the entrance of the tunnel, which connected to Orion which in turn connected to the tunnel housing the carvings. Surely they had seen it, she was told great effort had gone into restoring it. "Yes, the Makers forged a great many things in this cave... Some of them wildly magnificent... others... grievously unfortunate... This is a cautionary tale of the wicked things one can create if they are not careful enough." Her eyes twinkled dangerously.
"The Makers had made their great city... and the treasures... and the carvings, and the words... and they kept making things and making them better. But one day... They made all that they could make, and there was nothing new left for them... They still had enough materials to make more things... Only they did not know what. They sat... And they pondered... And they discussed among themselves, what could they possibly make... And One of them suddenly spoke... 'We have made the things we need, have we not?' And the rest of them said 'Yes.'... The One said, 'We have made the things we do not need, have we not?" And the rest said 'Yes.'... The One said, 'We have made things that serve a function, and things that are only beautiful, and there is enough of those things for each of us, isn't there?' The rest of them became impatient... nodding and answering 'Yes. What are you trying to say?'"
"Well, the One gazed smartly upon his companions... He was a devious one, and he wanted more than what they made of this life... He was a mastermind, perhaps, the leader of them all... He said, 'Why don't we make more of us, so that we will need to make more things?' And the rest of them, they had never thought of this before... They looked among themselves and then they looked at the One and said, 'We will make more of us, then we will make more things for them, but then once we have made all the things for the new ones, then what?' And the One scoffed and said... 'Then we keep making more of us, and we will spread further through the cave, and it will all be ours.'"
"The rest of them spoke quietly over the idea... They knew what they made was theirs... They never considered ownership of the whole cave... but when the One said that it could all be theirs, suddenly they didn't care only about making things... They wanted to own everything too. So they nodded, and they set to work making more of them... The first few things they made were bad, because they made them for the first time. They couldn't speak, or see, or breathe. But the One was getting frustrated that the others were failing... He said, 'You must not try to make it exactly like us, for we are unique, and powerful, and you will fail. You must not make it too much, only just so.' So the Makers made something that was not like them. It wasn't as powerful as them. It couldn't make things like they did. But it could speak, and see, and breathe. It was alive."
"When the alive thing first opened its eyes, it looked at the Makers and asked, 'What am I?' ...And the One said, 'You are our creation.' The alive thing understood this, and started to walk, and it started to live... Then it heard the Makers speak, and it heard their names... so it turned to the One and said, 'What is my name?' The One smiled. 'That is the first thing I will make for you. Your name is Mine.' And Mine loved its name, and continued to live... Then it saw the Makers eat food, and looked to the One and said, 'What do I eat?' And the One said, 'This is the second thing I will make for you, it is food, this is what you eat.' So the One gave Mine the food it made and Mine was happy. Then, at the end of the day, Mine saw all the Makers go back to their homes to sleep, but Mine didn't know where it slept... so it looked to the One and asked, 'Where do I sleep?' And the One put together some rocks and showed it to Mine. 'This is the third thing I will make for you, it is your home. You will sleep and live here.' So Mine went into its home and slept, and it felt safe and warm. It knew that the Makers made everything for it and it was grateful, and it wanted to be able to make things for others so that it could make them feel as happy as it was right now. The next day, Mine went to the One and said, 'How do I make things like you do?' But the One didn't smile... He looked angry and said, 'You do not make things. It is not your purpose.' And Mine was confused, because the purpose of the Makers was to make, and Mine had received everything the Makers did, so why did it not share their purpose? 'Then what is my purpose?' Mine asked. 'Your purpose is to do what we tell you to do, not to make.' The One responded."
"Mine did not like this answer. It wanted to make things and make others happy. 'I do not want to do this.' It said, and this made the One very angry. He raised his voice and shouted, 'You are being selfish. I have done nothing but make things for you. I made your name, and your food, and your home. I have made you, and called you Mine, and Mine means that you belong to me so you must do what I tell you to do!' But Mine didn't like this at all. Mine felt like it had been tricked, and it was never given a choice of whether it wanted the Makers to make things for it, they only gave it the things it needed and expected obedience without asking Mine if that was what it wanted... This made Mine feel angry, so like the One, it raised its voice and shouted back, 'This is not fair, I want to be equal to the Makers!' Then the One hit Mine. And Mine did what the One did, it attacked the One out of anger and confusion. It didn't mean to hurt the One. But suddenly the rest of the Makers had come and pulled Mine away."
"The One was furious. 'How dare you!' He yelled. 'I made you, you are Mine! You are selfish, wanting things you were not meant for! You are violent, attacking your Maker! You are a monster! Monsters have no place here with us, so you must be unmade!' Mine knew what this meant... Being unmade was the opposite if being made, but Mine liked being alive too much. It was angry and sad and afraid of being unmade. So it attacked the Makers... and then it ran away, as far as it could... and when the Makers could see it no more it hid in the shadows. Mine had come to hate the Makers... especially the One. They wanted to unmake it... and so... Mine would unmake them..." Her voice dropped, foreboding, gritty and lavish with tension.
"With Mine free in the caves, the Makers lived in fear. They thought Mine to be a heartless, selfish monster that only hated them. It hid around corners and would steal a Maker away if they wandered too far, and no one would see that Maker again... Until a few days later... And they would find the Maker on the ground, without their head. Mine would lurk in the darkness, and it would growl and when the Makers turned to look, they would only see the flash of its gleaming eyes before it lunged for them. But they came to knew the most telltale sign of Mine's presence... It was things that Mine tried to make, and left for the Makers to see. But Mine didn't make things like they did. It made things out of the Makers. It made piles of bones, and drawings of the Makers out of their blood. It forged effigies of the Makers in order to mock their practice, and they regretted telling Mine that it could not make like them, because now look at the awful things it was making! Finally, the Makers became so afraid that they turned to the One, they said, 'Help us, please, we are terrified of Mine! We don't know how to unmake it and now it is unmaking us. You thought to make Mine, so you must unmake it!' The One sat and considered this, he hated Mine because it was the first thing the Makers made that they did not like, it was a smear on their otherwise flawless collection of creations, so he agreed to unmake it. 'Very well. I will find Mine and unmake it, but you must promise to follow my rules more closely next time. I told you not to make it with the same powers as us, and now it can make. The next thing we make, you must be sure that it cannot make as well.' He said arrogantly, as if he was not the reason that Mine hated. But the others were so afraid, they just nodded and said, 'Yes, we will follow your rules more closely!' So the One went to hunt down Mine and unmake it for good."
"It was hard to tell where he should start looking first, so the One brought another Maker with him when he searched. He sent the Maker out into the darkness, then he heard the growl, and saw the flashing eyes. The One ran and hid, then when he came back, the Maker had been made into terrifying scarecrow, staked on a long stick in front of the darkness. 'Mine, I know you are here.' The One said boldly. 'Come out, and I will give you everything you wanted.' The offer was tempting. But what the One didn't know was that Mine had learned to make so well, that like the Makers, it could make others like it. And it made for them, and it made them happy. So Mine didn't need the Makers anymore. Mine spoke from the darkness and it told the One this, and then it said, 'We are happy now, and we want you to be happy, so lets make a deal. We will live in one half of the cave and we will not harm your Makers anymore, and you will live in the other half, in your great city, and you will not try to unmake us.'"
"When the One heard this, he was astounded. He didn't think Mine could make others like the Makers did, and he thought it was amazing... And as with all things they make, the Makers still believed that Mine belonged to them. They still wanted to rule the whole cave, so this deal wouldn't work. But the One lied. He said, 'Yes, we will make this deal. Come meet us where the darkness begins with you and all the things you made, and we will forgive you, and you forgive us, and we will all live in peace.' Mine agreed, because this was all it had ever wanted. So the next day, the Makers went to the darkness, and Mine appeared with all the things it made. They came together to speak the vows of peace... But Mine was tricked once more."
"Suddenly, the Makers took out weapons and attacked all the things Mine made. They killed them and destroyed them. It was chaos, and when it was done, the Makers had unmade everything that Mine made... But there was so much destruction, they couldn't tell if Mine was among them. 'Yes, I saw one of us stab Mine in the throat.' Said some of them. 'No, I saw Mine flee into the dark.' Said others... Nobody knew if Mine was dead... but the One rose and he said, 'It does not matter. We have unmade everything so that we can make them anew... We will make new creatures and they will take over the cave. They will make like Mine did, but they will belong to us.' He declared."
"And so it was that they were never attacked by Mine again... The Makers went and made new creatures... but instead of being powerful like Mine... they were subservient. They were allowed to make, so long as the things they made belonged to the Makers as well... They took over the caves and everything in the caves belonged to the Makers... The great ones... But there are always ones like Mine. You see, we beasts were... regarded as such... Monsters... We were disdained... Hated... Warned against... They wanted to do us away, and they wanted to make an example of us... And so they contrived a tale to warn the others of us... What could become of us... What we could do."
Her eyes grew wide and on the breast of her words was a reverent gasp. Then her expression creased into itself. Her eyes narrowed, and her smile returned. "Some say... Mine still lives... It haunts these caves, and it hates... It hates the Makers... And it hates the ones the Makers made..." Her voice trailed off with a nonchalant shrug. "Ahh... But I am certain that it is no more than a myth... Now, leave me to rest my tired lungs... I am so tired." The Lorekeeper uttered a tired chuckle and finally slid onto her stomach, lowering her maw to the ground.
![[Image: tyr3VzL.png]](http://i.imgur.com/tyr3VzL.png)