It was said that upon the Earth laid a wound, slowly turning to a scar. A great rift of seemingly endless depth, stretching wide and long as an ocean. It was said this rift, The Great Canyon, was the core of all power and energy on Earth. It was said that this rift was oozing its inner on Earth, this ooze told to be the source of all energy.
One mighty and powerful Entity, Guilian had sieged The Great Canyon, knowing that no energy or inner was oozing from the Canyon. That it was merely a great wide rift. Earth was bountiful of energy, oozing from all living, and yet the humans had not figured it out. They were in desperate need of energy. Burning off old scraps and dirty oil. Guilian gave them energy from The Great Canyon, and The Great Canyon only. Told them the tale of the oozing inner, and the importance of the rift. He kept the humans from figuring it out by making them fight each other. He instigated wars among the bloodlines, keeping the humans distracted and reliant. Soon all the humans were fighting and polluting, killing and destroying each other over the rights to administer little patches of the rift. Guilian was treated as the God he always wanted to be, but that he never was.
Among the humans, a small awareness grew. Here and there a human saw behind the trickery. Understood that the rift made no difference, and that if Guilian could do it, so could humans. A small whisper was heard, it spoke of the deceitful ways of Guilian, and the uselessness of The Great Canyon. Those humans saw how The Great Canyon was tearing apart humanity, they saw how many lives were sacrificed for this mirage, how much pollution and destruction this rift was causing. Their hate and anger grew, hate and anger toward Guilian, toward the generals leading their armies, toward all those people who wouldn’t look behind the trickery and finally toward the rift itself. Among these spread humans with awareness a need to do something, to stop Guilian, to destroy the rift grew, rapidly and fiercely. All though these humans were not many, they were determined to take down the rift and stop the endless wars and scam for power. Armed with shovels they took to the edges of the rift, alone or in small groups they began the enormous task of burying the rift, one shovel full of dirt at a time. Some of the groups worked together and build digging machines, covering more ground. The name The 100 Diggers soon merged, no one knew from where.
Guilian saw these humans, The 100 Diggers that worked steadily at the edge to bury the rift, to stop the wars and killing. He laughed to himself, as he proclaimed to the world; see how important this rift is, people are trying to bury it in fear of its true power. He laughed as he opened the first Edge Tours, where on guided busses his servants could see the madmen for themselves, to be reminded of the power of The Great Canyon and Guilian. The more Guilian mocked The 100 Diggers, the more determined and focused they got. The harder they worked, the more isolated they became.
And so for years, for decades, The 100 Diggers worked on the edge, burying The Great Canyon. Some gave up, new ones joined, some grew too old, some died from the work. Once in awhile Guilian pushed, beat or killed a digger, so the myth of the importance of The 100 Diggers could live on, fueling the illusion of a real power struggle over the rift.
Among The 100 Diggers was a young man. A troublesome young man. A lazy young man with a sharp wit. While the others were digging, this young man was sitting in the sun under a tree, daydreaming. He knew, much like the others, that the rift had no special powers, and that Guilian only held knowledge, not magic, and so he did not understand what the digging was for. He asked, and got no answer, merely ridicule. Shied by his peers for his laziness, his fear of compliance, he grew silent of his thoughts. Too often shut up or mocked, he stop speaking his wit. Instead he pondered. He noticed how a few others like him had stopped digging and talking, and so he went to them. They like him did not understand the digging.
There in the shade of a tree he met the old man, Lore. Lore did not speak, but simply showed the young man how to coil from copper the ancient shapes, and derive energy from the soil. The young man, uplifted with this new skill, ran to the edge, eager to show The 100 diggers how to coil and derive energy, but no one listened, no one looked. He tried poking a few, they scruffled at him, told him they were busy saving the world, burying the horrible rift that caused so much suffering and death. They turned their backs to him, calling him lazy and stupid, pointed out that if it was that easy, it would have been done already. The young man walked away, he went to those sitting under the trees, a few of them took time to notice and learn.
As a small group of people with this new skill and knowledge left the world behind, found themselves a small patch on Earth and began their own living, The 100 diggers, Guilian, The Great Canyon and the system of trickery and power rolled on. For 1000s and 1000s of years, Guilian lied, humans fought each others in wars, The 100 Diggers dug for their futile cause, the rift laid as big and wide as it always had been.
Among the stories told by the humans living in this scam was the story of the Young Lazy Man, who foolishly thought himself to be as powerful as Guilian, had led innocent people off into the mercy of the wilderness. A crazy man, they said. A dangerous man with dangerous thoughts.
Skab Dig 