Digging to the Cave

The clans moved into the Mountain, digging beneath its skin and carving out homes and warrens in the rock.

Some of them were afraid of the dark, and lept out of the Mountain so quickly that they tore new holes in it which let in the light, but were not enough that the inside burned like the plain outside. They could never find the ways in again and the holes they tore were too small to fit through the other way, so now they wander the bright face of the Mountain with skins dark and burned against its heat.

Some more were afraid of the work and of wasting away, so they held back, but the diggers were furious and closed off tunnels behind them, so the lazy ones could not follow. The shirkers became furious at this, and set up their own camps in the empty halls near the skin of the Mountain, where they fought each other as often as they fought the rubble barring the tunnels going further in.

Finally, the diggers came across a great cavern, with springs of water and mushrooms and shells and glowing crystals and rich metal veins, and they agreed that they had found their new home. And the two clans met in numbers for the first time, and held a great feast to celebrate their union and their new-found home in the cavern. But while they were feasting, there was a great Earthquake, and all the large tunnels suddenly collapsed, leaving only scattered holes letting in light from the outside.

One clan was angry, for they felt trapped and betrayed by the digging, and had wanted to be able to go back to the surface and the plain of night and day and twilight where they were free to roam, and blamed the earthquake on the other clan, who had suggested living in the Mountain. The other clan barely took notice, for they had never wanted to go back to wandering in circles balanced between two opposite destructions. And the chief of the trapped ones argued with the chief of the settled ones, and they both became so furious with the other for being stubborn stupid that they started fighting, and then their clans went to war as well.