Special: Texts of the Jewels - What Happened When the Skies Fell

Toward the beginning of our journey together, Tira, Bash, and Peter found an ancient text that pointed them to the four Jewels of Edelenn, cities of learning that contained more information to help fight against a growing evil in the world of Vardalon.

The second Jewel was the city of Ebendele, a major port city in the geographically diverse country of Muwaka. There the friends discovered What Happened When the Skies Fell, a written form of a verbally transmitted story.

This special episode provides the text in a standalone format for easy reference. Here's the text:

What happened when the skies fell  

Once, long ago, Crow and Butterfly were the best of friends, but they were not as you know them now.  

Crow loved her beautiful white feathers and her voice, which was sweet and delicate. With her song she could bring things to life, and turn ideas into reality. One day, eight singers overheard her as she sang, and they begged her to teach them the power of her song. Flattered, she agreed, and taught them how to shape their thoughts into that which could be felt. So these eight became the true singers, powerful men and women who had the power to shape the world.  

Butterfly was ugly but very strong. He used to fly about looking for new things to learn, but only rarely would anyone talk with him. As Butterfly traveled the world one day, he saw Crow teaching the singers, and stopped to listen. Enthralled with the sound of beauty, he sat and listened. When Crow was done with her teaching, she was quite tired, so Butterfly offered to fly her home. She agreed in spite of Butterfly’s ugliness, and after that service, they became good friends.  

After they formed their friendship, Butterfly and Crow were flying through the skies one day when they saw two figures fighting. A figure of light wrestled with a figure of darkness. As they fought, their voices rang out in song, a song that twisted and fought along with them. At last the dark figure won, breaking the light figure into pieces, but in the process he exerted himself so much that he, too, split into pieces. Many innumerable pieces were small and rained down onto the world below, but both split into four large pieces each and began to fall quickly.  

Saddened by the destruction, Butterfly guided the glowing pieces of light down to the land, helping to set them in place without further damage. Two he placed in lands of ice, one he guided to the islands of the rising sun to the east, and one he settled in Daween of the setting sun.  

Crow was also distraught, but was more affected by the song of the dark figure, which she considered sweeter. So she guided the pieces of the dark one down, though where these ended up is lost to time. 

Once the great pieces were in place, they glowed for a short time, and the essence of their beings lingered long enough to pronounce a curse each. The being of the light pillars cursed Crow for aiding the dark being, reducing her sweet song to a pitiful croak and turning her feathers black. The being of the dark pillars cursed Butterfly for being strong enough to preserve the remnants of his foe; he would now be short of life, prey to all birds, and delicate. 

But they also both had just enough energy for a blessing as well. To Crow, the dark figure gave a wisdom and cleverness greater than all other birds. And to Butterfly, the light figure granted a beauty above all others of its kind, as payment for his service. As the light of the pillar-like pieces died, the true singers moved to comfort them, each falling asleep at the foot of each.  

And so these things are to this day. Now you know, my child, how the Crow came to croak in her black feathers, and Butterfly came to bring such beauty to the world in spite of his shortness of life.

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We used an excellent Battlebards music track. If you like what you hear, check them out at battlebards.com. If you sign up for a Prime account, be sure to use our special code, stack, and you'll get a 20% discount on your subscription.

Here are the sound effects we used in this episode:

• Nature Claimed Ruins - The Raven City - Score Music, by Raphael Bellamy

And now, on with the show-- we're excited to tell a story with you.