It took several months before the child began experimenting with the Totem magic. His first attempts were clumsy poorly carved totems, while these tests and experiments did produce results they were clumsy.

The early attempts fascinated the Child. The ways that different forms carved onto the totems, the variations between different living entities, even the intent of the totem all played a role in the end product. The power of the crafter, the Child, also played a large role and thus early attempts were near useless. Little better than trinkets or toys.

Almost a year after the first time the Child made a totem, he had his first fairly significant success from an experiment. A stylized serpent carving imbued with the soul of crops and a small snake, with the intent to improve the yield of the land. This first success was at first overlooked, the only reason it was eventually discovered was the fact that the people of the tribe noted a difference in the groundcover. In an area near the Child's home, the ground was more vibrant and more alive, the grass grew with greater health and flowers and the like would grow like weeds.

After discovering and analyzing the totem that was successful, the Child began to make strides in his understanding of the field. It seemed as though each Totem needed a focus, a purpose for lack of a better term. Each totem needed to have a portion that represented an animal. Beyond this there had to be a common thread between the soul imbued within the totem, the carvings on the totem, and the purpose of the totem.

Having made this discovery the Child began to focus on a single creature at first, he eventually decided for numerous reasons that his focus would be reptiles, more specifically serpents. He thought long and hard on the symbolism of serpents and consulted with the elders. He worked long and hard to master what he could of totems made with a focus on serpents. Totems that increased fertility, like the first he had made. Totems that enhanced the natural cycles of the world. Totems that could aid with time keeping, and totems that could affect water.

These totems did much for the tribe, they increased crop yield and health, they made the land fertile. In time the Child moved onto different totems. Ones that combined many things, or ones that were rooted more in a concept than a physical thing. Totems of the sky and the sea and even magic.

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In time the Child grew old. He had by this point become the chieftain of the tribe on account of his many successes and the many things he and his totems had done for the tribe.

With age is said to come wisdom. This was certainly true for the Child at least. His craft had only expanded with age and each year had brought new discoveries and masterpieces. His totems had elevated the tribe to a height never before seen, at least in living memory.

Yet he had regrets.

He had never been able to find a successor, one capable of being taught this magic. He did not know if it was even possible. It seemed as though it would be, but he had yet to do so.

Regardless, he was old. He had dedicated many years to the tribe and to his craft, decades of his life. He had lived far longer than any other and had seen his family pass into whatever lay beyond. He saw the changing of the tribe brought about by the relentless march of time. He after living for so many years was tired and frail.

It was of little surprise to him when he at last collapsed. He knew he was nearing the end of his life, he had done much for the tribe, for his people. Yet he was tired, the years weighed on him, the deaths of many friends and all the family he had known. He had outlived his mentors and all those of his generation.

It was more spiritual than any physical flaw. The tiredness he felt came about as a result of his age. He was nearing the point where a human would no longer be capable of going past. His time was coming.

So it was on his deathbed that the Child and the Serpent met one last time. He had never, after the second meeting, gone searching for the serpent. He cared far too deeply about the tribe. Yet now, at the end of his time it came to him for the first time. They met in dreams.

It was a half remembered, half imagined thing. The nature of dreams and the nature of the serpents abode combined to create something all but incomprehensible to the Child. It was beyond him. The Child's life and experiences took form in the dream playing out around him. It was as his memories passed the second meeting between the two that the serpent revealed itself to the Child.

“And so a cycle comes to an end. As you can see you are measured by moments that have passed by. The memories which became immortal, eternal. A child bound in chains of duty willingly accepted. A cycle ends. A cycle begins.”

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Having spoken, the serpent seemed to fade back into the dream. The dream continued for sometime before it passed into a nightmare. He saw his fears laid out before him, imagined insecurities took form to tear at him. Dark visions of fire and suffering and steel took the place of where the serpent had been.

As this vision ended the Child saw at last. He saw what the serpent had meant. He saw the cycle of his life, the web of his purpose. He saw all he had been, all he might’ve been, and many things he could be. He saw the change that might yet come.

When he woke, he made his choice. He acted.

With a feeble body fueled more by magic and will than flesh, the Child began his work. He had been shown the final form his magic could take. The last ritual and spell any practitioner of totem craft could perform. It was a ritual that would allow him to watch over the tribe for so long as it endured.

He needed many things: many totems, a circle to connect the totems, many souls to fuel it, and significance which was a weight and value.

The Child abdicated his position as chief and began his last working. In his home he made the circle. A series of connected concentric circles with smaller circles written within their perimeters. The outside circle was the largest, inscribed into the soil with the bounty of nature and filled with the bounty of nature as well. It had the most circles within it, one for each decade of the Child's life. To show the magic his life and nature.

The second circle was smaller. It was written in ink, and at each of the cardinal points there was a smaller circle. One circle for each direction to show that his life was one of discovery, to show the magic the way, as a compass does an explorer.

The third circle was engraved in the world with magic. It was forged of dreams, wonder, and all the unreal in the experience of the Child's life. In its border were three circles. Each of these circles intersected the line between the center of the formation and a place where the Child had encountered the serpent. This circle was to show the magic the intent of the ritual, to show it the cyclic nature of the world and the Child.

The final circle, the one in the center, was made of blood. It was a complete, uninterrupted circle, pure like the dreams of a child. It seemed to hum with power. This circle was to connect the circle to the nature of Child, to bind his soul and life to the magic.

The four circles were connected by simple channels. The circles seemed to roil with power. They seemed in a sense alive and eager. Though why this was the Child could not say. The circle done, the Child turned his attention to the totems. The ritual required a great many totems to be completed. They were in no way simple or easy to create.

for the spots laid out in the outer circle, the smaller empty circle, the Child made totems that represented the passage of time and ageing. These outer totems were carved from wood, each tree they were made out of were located by the shamans, each tree a decade older than the last. The totems to show the passage of time were carved in such a way that each represented the fact that while they were each separate they were all part of the same whole.

The four totems for the circle of ink were far simpler. They were formed of quartz. The one in the east was carved in white quartz to show a sunrise. The one in the west to show a sunset. The north and south were filled with carvings of the moon at each extreme.

The third set of totems were made of magic. They were formed to show the times when the Child met the serpent. Each was placed in the circle corresponding to their meeting. These totems were the most complex and powerful that the Child had ever made. They were representations of events that shaped the Child's life and the ritual itself. They were the origin of the magic and the intent.

in the center was the child's last totem. It was remarkable only in the fact that it was blank. The totem in the center of the final circle was less of a totem than something that would be a totem, a blank slate. The totem was made of the very best materials the Child could find. It was made to be the centerpiece of the ritual, where the power would congregate.

Finally done with the preparations for the ritual the Child at last began.

Setting himself back-to-back with the centermost totem, he activated the ritual. Using all he had learned over the course of his life he sacrificed his body and the impact he had on the tribe. All his actions would be forgotten, his identity erased. Without a body the Child's soul and consciousness were all that remained.

Taking all of his power, all the power he had gained from the sacrifice, and what power the ritual circle summoned, the Child activated the spell.

The ritual, the magic, took control of the Child's soul and superimposed it over the blank totem in the center. This done, the circles shifted, becoming unreal, and flowed like water towards the blank totem. The ritual proceeded until at last the magic faded away. In the center stood a new totem, one unlike any of the component ones.

The resultant totem was of a serpent. One encompassing the body of a genderless, featureless human. The serpent was made of an unknowable material that seemed to reflect light in unexplainable ways at times. The Human was made of a wood like substance that seemed in a limited way alive, growing and dying and vanishing.

The tribe, while unable to remember where the totem had come from, recognized its power. It seemed to shift randomly, but it always benefited the tribe.

From the totem the being that had once been the Child watched over its people.