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Dwelling
Prologue: The Edge of the World

Prologue: The Edge of the World

It was getting pretty cramped. Over the course of her life the Edge of the World seemed to creep up on here more and more. She remembered the past fondly. Floating in an infinite space, not a care in the world. Until she touched the Edge. She had felt herself growing stronger and reached out to distant sounds she sometimes heard. And then she reached the Edge, it’s smooth walls circling all around her. She still remembers how she felt that first time, giddy with excitement. Something new! Something to investigate and interact with! But after patting the Edge for ages, feeling for an opening she found nothing but uniform smoothness. And it was closing up on her. The Edge of the World was pretty far away the first time, even with both arms outstretched she couldn’t reach both sides. And now it was closing up on her. Just as she started to be able to move her arms and legs more, the Edge had shrunk. Now she couldn’t even stretch out anymore. It was closing up on her. There was barely any void left to float in, just herself pressed into a ball by the ever-shrinking Edge. She wondered about her future. If the Edge keeps closing up, then what would happen to her? It scared her. She pushed against the Edge, trying to push it away as she had tried so many times before.

CRACK

The last remnants of void in which she floated streamed out of the hole in the Edge of the World. Terrified she tried to fix the hole, plug it up. She hadn’t tried to break the world! She just didn’t want to get squashed by the Edge! But when she tried to grab the shards of the Edge and put them back into place she just kept breaking more pieces of. As she fumbled with the pieces her face began to sting in the brightness from beyond the Edge. She crawled out of the world and she felt… Roughness. “This must be the true Edge of the World” she thought, crawling over the roughness. “How big must it be for me to be able to move so far.”

A small draft blew across her back. She shuddered elated in the first time she had truly felt cold, and opened her eyes. The brightness from beyond the Edge burned her eyes and made her yelp in pain. But in the short amount of time before she shut her eyes she had seen. She had seen wonders beyond her imagination. The True Edge of the World! Gray and rough, stretching for what seemed to be an infinite amount of her height. Flickering sources of brightness attached to the walls, smooth orbs covering the bottom of the Edge, and a hole. A hole! Another hole in the Edge of the World! Even more space to explore! She stared at the hole. Instead of the thin Edge that had surrounded her first World this hole seemed to be… Deep. The Edge of the World must be incredibly thick. But her attention was focussed on the creature sitting next to the hole. It was massive, at least three or four times her size. But instead of feeling scared the felt reassured. The creature looked familiar. She stared at her hands. Four fingers with small claws at the end of them, covered in pale scales, still dripping void. Just like the creature. It had arms and legs and a tail just like her, just without the void. He must have been out in this world for ages if all of his void has vanished. And he was so big! She wanted to be bigger as well. How long would it take for her to grow to the creatures size? How long until she filled this World as well? A sudden rumble in her belly interrupted her thoughts. Empty. She knew she needed to fill herself, but with what? The only things around here were the smooth orbs, the Edge of the World and the remnants of her old World. If she could float here as well then she might have been able to reach the brightness, but she seemed to be stuck to one side of the Edge. Glumly she crawled back to her old world and hugged the remains of the Edge. She could never forget. The feeling of breaking the Edge of the World, stretching out and seeing the World beyond the World. So much space here, filled with shapes and textures and brightness. But the old World had been her home for so long. She opened her mouth and started eating her former Edge of the World.

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At the entrance of the cave, a kobold was lying asleep against the wall until a sudden crunch woke him up. Rurui looked around the room and saw a hatchling munching on the remainders of its egg. A small smile crossed his face as he yelled into the tunnel.

“Chief! The first of the eggs has hatched!”

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