“Ah, it is good to see you awake this fine day,” he somewhat enthusiastically exclaimed. “Come, it is time for the morning bounty,” Philbert held open the curtain and gestured Mark and Max to exit.
Once again they witnessed the food items fall from the hatches in the wall into bowls. This apparent spontaneous generation of sustenance provoked Mark to ask a question of Philbert.
“Do you ever wonder where those hatches lead to?” he heretically asked.
“Occasionally. Once one tried to find out where the led to by climbing into it and down it quite a ways. However, it was thought that this greatly angered the House Gods, for he was never seen from nor heard from again. Where they lead is not important to us; only that the Gods continue to bless us by sending an abundant supply of food,” Philbert politely replied. “Although it is believed that the House Gods themselves reside in their Green City on this world behind those hatches for a few obvious reasons.”
The menu this time included a whitish liquid inside a clear conical container. Mark watched as Philbert bit off the tip of the container and drank the contents. Following his example, Mark did the same.
“This tastes not unlike milk,” Mark noted.
Curious, Max also took a cone of this milk substance, and also nodded in agreement.
After a time, while they were finishing the last of the meal, Philbert broke the silence.
“Chief Bill told me of your interest in hearing of our legends and other events of a divine nature,” Philbert started. “I would be pleased if you would like to hear them,” he strongly suggested. Philbert was a man who like to tell his stories. Not receiving negative feedback from either Mark nor Max, he continued.
“These tales have been passed down through the generations after the chaos fell upon our world. They have been passed solely through oral training the entire time, and are still perfectly intact as they were when they were first created by those present when the chaos came.
“First I shall start with the beginning of the world, the most logical point. Since you are the guides, I cannot assume that you know our traditions and legends in entirety. It was even spoken that the guides would know nothing of our present culture or even past so that they could see with an unbiased eye at where we went wrong and how to change things in the present.
“In the beginning, this world was unpopulated, and the House Gods decided to restructure it according to their whims. However, the new world was merely an empty shell of existence, much like that of a child before life is struck into them, and like a corpse of the old after life has left them. So the House Gods decided to populate this world. Its veins soon flowed with millions of people, each a unique individual, although they were all very similar.