“To the first I will gladly do, I shall tell you of the legends and history of my people as well, if you would like to hear it. However, the second will prove to be difficult if not impossible. We have found no other living souls other than the mad ones deeper below us, and below that there is nothing but the void. Outside is nothing but the dead land, which you have seen. It is possible that there are other gods among the stars, but we have no way of contacting them other than through unreliable prayer and meditation.”
“We would love to hear all of your stories, and since you are our host, we would not want to show you any disrespect by refusing. However, perhaps Mark and I could take a look around this place later? We might be able to find devices which we could use,” Max responded.
“My realm is your realm,” Bill offered.
“Good, then I will begin our tale,” Max paused momentarily to collect his thoughts and build up some drama. “Mark and I are brothers. We and twenty six others essentially lived our lives frozen in time, going from world to world in a star ship whose name we cannot recall. For many years at a time, of us would be frozen, only being thawed as needed by our ship for repairs and maintenance, until we arrived at our destination. We would all be thawed, deliver our cargo, and pick up another cargo for another world. We would spend a fraction of time unfrozen, exploring a small bit of the world we had stopped at, only to return to our unnatural stasis for another several years, likely to not return to that world for a very long time,” Max paused to drink.
“That was how life went for the twenty eight of us. We were very close, closer than the bonds of family. We were the only people that mattered in our worlds. Normals who did not travel among the stars would come and go, never lasting in their lives more than one or two of our stops.
“Then something happened. Our ship broke and could not fix itself or wake us to help it. It collided with this world. When my brother and I awoke four hundred years had passed. Our twenty six crewmates had turned to dust and were long since gone. Hopefully they did not awaken within their chamber to find themselves imprisoned, to die quickly at a slow pace,” Max stopped, giving Mark an opening to continue. “So we left our dead ship and came here in search of help so that we may be rescued and reunited with the other space faring peoples.”