FOUND A LAKE

A man was riding his horse through the forest. He was hunting in preparation for the cold season. There were several squirrels across the horses back that the man had successfully caught in his traps, and a pouch full of fruit.

The man had been tracking a deer for a while when he found a lake. It looked like no lake he had ever seen before. The water was almost clear enough to see all the way to the bottom. That wasn't uncommon for the lakes in the area. The presence of the large oddly shaped stones that were protruding from the water however, was sublime to say the least. They were jutting out in every direction some of them had strange symbols that the man didn't recognize.

He climbed down off of his horse and walked closer to the lake, mesmerized by what he was seeing. He noticed a few of the stones were close enough for him to jump across, so he grabbed an apple from his pouch and ate it on top of the furthest stone he was able to reach.

Staring out at the stones as he ate, the man wondered who could have shaped these stones, and why would they put them in the lake arranged in such a way.

After finishing the apple, the man decided to go for a swim. He already left everything he had with him on the horse so he just dove straight in. Once he was under water he could see that the oddly shaped rocks were all connected to each other with graceful arches about three body lengths away. He also noticed a rectangular hole in the base of one of the arches. He swam up to the surface to catch another breath before trying to reach the whole.

Glemm, the horse, was grazing in the meadow next to the lake, and the sun was high in the sky.

As he swam closer to the hole, the water remained clear, but the dancing shadows from all the stones overhead made it hard to see inside the hole. He began to swim into the hole for a better look when all of a sudden a light turned on inside of the cavernous arch. The light scared the breath out him, luckily the light allowed him to see an air-pocket inside the stone structure.

After he was done gasping for air, he noticed stairs on either side of him leading out of the water. He picked a side and climbed out just enough to peek down the hallway, but there was not a soul in site. He slowly started exploring the secret passageways one by one. Every time he turned into another corridor, lights would automatically turn on overhead.

After opening a few doors and taking a few turns he started to find some small rooms. the first few were completely empty, and the next handful of rooms each had a pile of unknown objects, but then he found one that seemed to be recently lived in. There was a platform hanging from the wall with some cushions that he assumed was for sleeping on. Small life-like images of people wearing strange clothes were hanging on the wall. a pile of similarly strange clothes were in a pile in the corner of the room.

next to the sleeping platform was another smaller one being used as a table. there was a cup with some sort of liquid inside, a few small sharp sticks, and a lot of paper. He had only seen paper in one other place before, and that was in Chief's hands, but Chief didn't have this much paper. He had seen Chief bring out one of the same four pieces of paper at ever village celebration since he was born.

Nobody except for Chief knew how to read the symbols on the papers. The elders often spoke of Chief's mother. She was the chief before Chief. It was always up to the current chief to pick whomever they felt would make the best leader to replace them, and teach them to read the papers. The symbols on the pages represented a different language than the one that the tribe spoke, so it was upto Chief to also interoperate the translation for the people.

Most of the papers on the table were covered front and back with symbols just like the ones on Chief's papers, and still many papers were blank. The man decided to bring all the papers back to Chief, so he wrapped them in a piece of the strange clothing from the corner, tied it around his waist, and continued exploring down the hall.

the rooms started to get bigger after a few more turns until the path entered a great hall bigger than any structure the man had ever seen. There were thousands of chairs all facing the same direction, and a long table in front of each row of chairs. They were all facing a single row of chairs and one more table, all raised higher than the rest on a large platform near the doorway he was standing in. Across this great hall he saw a few more doorways. He chose one at random and continued to scout the mysterious place.

As he went further he started to see hands painted on the wall, and they were all pointing in the direction he had just come from. He already knew what was back there so he continued on against the advise of the hands.

suddenly he came upon a stairwell that looked long enough to reach the surface. He began climbing the stairs. The walls were painted with red stripes that got thicker the more he climbed.

When he reached the top there was a door with a big red circle on it. inside that circle were three smaller green circles that intersected. He noticed a broken chain on the floor an that the door was ajar. With a slight push it swung right open and the sunlight flooded in.

The man stepped outside with the strange feeling one gets when they experience something seemingly unexplainable to them. Over the hill and across the meadow, Glemm picked his head up from the grass he was eating. The man whistled and Glemm broke into a trot across the field. He hopped on and rode home as fast as he could stopping only twice for the sake of Glemm.

When he reached the village he headed straight for Chief's hut, gaining the attention of every villager due to the strange cloth tied around his waist. By the time he reached the hut Chief was standing in the doorway welcoming him inside.

The inside of the hut was quite modestly furnished with only a cushion on the floor for sleeping, a few more cushions on the floor around the fireplace for Chief and his guests, and the four papers hanging on an otherwise blank wall.

Chief began speaking "Malin, welcome. you're back from your hunt early. this is not like you. And with such beautiful adornments. You must have quite the story to tell." Malin began to untie the fabric from around his waist as he said "Chief, I found a place like no other I've seen. I don't know what to make of any of it, and I'll be happy to share every moment of my story with you, but first I think you should have these." Malin unfolded the fabric and held out the stack of paper. Chief was visibly shaking as he accepted the paper from Malin. "You have done very well by me today as well as your tribe. Do you remember how to get back to this place?" Malin nodded his head in confirmation "Good. Go, and be with your wife and children. I need some time to read what I can of you have brought me, and to think about things. I will send for you, don’t stray too far until I do." Chief immediately sat down on one of the cushions, and began analyzing the information in front of him.

Malin was recounting his experience at the lake to his family for the seventh time when Elka came to the door. She was going from family to family to announce that Chief had declared this day a new feast-day, and that all tribe members were to be in attendance for supper. As soon as the door was closed Malin's entire family began cheering.

Later when Malin and his family arrived to the dining area he saw the entire stack of papers in front of Chief along with all four of the old papers. Chief stood up behind them with open arms and a beaming smile as soon as he spotted Malin. The whole village was there, about 400 people including the children. As Chief welcomed Malin and his family to the his own table the entire crowd fell silent. "My Family." Chief began speaking, voice booming over the silence of the tribe. I have gathered you all and named this day a feast-day for by the time the sun rises tomorrow, our world will forever be changed for the better, and it's all thanks to this man right here." As Chief held Malin's hand in the air, the entire tribe erupted in exalted cheers.

When the cheers started to die down, Chief began to speak again "The words on these papers and the place that they came from are the keys to both our past and our future. They speak of tools that will greatly help us in our daily tasks. They speak of navigation using the stars in the night sky. They speak of far off tribes of people just like us, and how to find them. Along with the original four papers, each chief passed down to the next a prophecy. They foretold that more papers, these papers would someday be found and help solve many of our problems. I stand before you a humble old man. I never believed I would be the Chief to read the lost papers. Truth be told I had my doubts that the lost papers would ever be found, however I did plan to pass on the prophecy to my successor anyway. I have chosen my successor already. I was just waiting for the next feast-day to share my decision with the whole tribe at once. Were this any other feast-day you would all know your new chief by now, however this is no ordinary feast-day. The prophecy has taken away my decision, and I gladly give it up to better serve you all. I instead am to take on a new task, and so are all of you. Each family is to choose a representative, and I am to make sure each one you of them learns how to read from the papers. Two years from this day, anyone who has successfully read more than two of the new papers to me in private will be invited to join a council that will choose my successor from within the counsel. The new chief will be decided by way of majority vote. Once every other year this council will meet to hear readings as a form of application into the counsel, and to vote whether to keep the current chief or replace them. I have greatly enjoyed the honor of having you all call me Chief for a while, but I'm tired, and that time is coming to an end. For those of you that may have forgotten my name before it was Chief, you and your parents knew me as Gabe. I would very much like you all to start calling me Gabe again starting tonight." With all of that having been said, the old chief sat down and began eating.

the entire tribe remained silent for a moment when a single voice shouted out "who was going to be your choice?" followed by resounding agreement of curiosity from the rest of the crowd. Gabe lifted his head from his plate "Well Hule of coarse. He consistently brings home the most food from the forests, he gets along with everyone, and would help anyone that needed it without thinking twice. these papers change everything though. they will change the way we get our food. They change where we thought we came from. these words will change everything we know about life, and how we live it. Yesterday I believed Hule to be the best leader among you. What happened today levels the playing field for everyone. Hule is still well liked and may be chosen by you to become chief, but I do hope whomever you choose it will be based on their plans to implement the knowledge gained from the papers." Gabe continued eating and a chatter grew over the crowd.

The rest of the night went on much like any other feast. There were Games being played, music being danced to, and many stories being told.

two years later, exactly 287 people had passed the reading test and were ready to vote for the new chief for the very first time. The counsel was electric with excitement. The ages of those in attendance ranged from five years old to one hundred and five years old. Each and every counsel member had a jar to represent them in the vote. Each and every counsel member also had one stone to represent their vote.

It didn't take long for the voting to finish, and when it did there were three obvious front runners. Gabe walked over and collected the three leading jars. One by one he dumped them out and counted the stones for the counsel to see."59, 60, 61, 62. That's sixty-two in favor of Hule!" the counsel cheered for Hule as Gabe dumped out the next jar and began counting again."58, 59, 60, 61, 62. That's another sixty-two in favor of Malin! you are both obviously pillars of our community, and we are all quite proud of you. But we still have one more jar." As the crowd cheered for the two men Gabe spilled the final jar. "60, 61, 62" Gabe stopped counting and the crowd was silent. He pushed the remaining stones from the uncounted pile to the counted pile and stood up to make the announcement. "Your new chief is Kloe!" the entire counsel exploded in hoots and hurrahs. A group of people lifted her above their heads and carried her over to the chief table. Food was served, music started playing, and the rest of the tribe joined the party.

when everyone started to quiet down while eating, Kloe decided it was a good time to speak as chief for the first time. She stood up and began speaking as loud as she could "Thank you all for the honor of accepting me as your first ever elected chief. I have to say though, I don't understand why you chose me. I understand why Hule would be a good choice. With the farm he is building, no one in the tribe will want for food ever again. I also see why Malin would make a good chief. He is learning from the papers how to work metals into all sorts of tools and has already begun to make everyone’s life easier. Surely these men have made much better use of the papers than I have. I haven't began building anything" Chief sat down and after a moment of silence a voice from the crowd yelled out "you built this counsel! you taught most of us how to read and understand the pages!" A hum of agreement floated through the tribe. As she looked out at the faces of her tribe, she realized it was true.