Getting Cultured I

by **Julius Starr** on December 18th, 2013, 12:24 am

2nd day of Winter, 513 AV
Alluvion Academy, 13th Bell

Oh, how long it had been since the last time Julius Starr had made the long trek up Tenten Peak to the Alluvion Academy.

He had been sixteen, like most Lhavitians, when he graduated from the Academy, vowing never to return. Oh, in his early years, the school was his escape from reality. He wasn't the son of a jeweler there, but a scholar, an explorer of knowledge. No Seeker in the city could match young Julius in his enthusiasm towards his study. Yet, as he grew older, and as he developed finer tastes for friendship and merriment, school lost his appeal. The desire to learn still remained, just not the desire to do so in such a formal environment.

Now, though, with most of his friends moved on in their lives, and his parents relinquishing him of their own care, Julius had felt the urge to return to the Academy. Whether he sought a nostalgia trip or a real experience in a new field, he was unsure; all he knew was that he was going through with it. Thus, in the waning days of Fall, he had sought out the right people and signed onto a class on Anthropology.

Hence why he stood outside the Academy this afternoon; he wished to delve into the culture of the world.

There were other classes better suited for Julius for sure; he could banter with the best of people, all the while making it sound wise and philosophical, and philtering was only one step above mixology, at least in Julius' eyes. Yet anthropology seem to fit more. Religion had always been his passion, and every culture recognized the gods; some loved them, some despised them, yet all believed. Logic would state, then, that to better understand the worship of the gods, he needed to understand the people who worshiped them.

At least, this was the response Julius had formulated should his instructor ask of his presence in the class.

Julius nodded in greeting at Laera, the Eth who he had been referred to for all Academy inquiries. "Where might I find the Anthropology class?" Julius asked softly,

"Down the hall, second door on the left."

Julius nodded again, bowing shallowly as he made his exit. Though he hadn't graced these halls in years, his feet moved smoothly across the carpet, knowing exactly where to go. He ran his hands along the stone wall lifting it only when pattern was broken by a maple door. He stopped at the door Laera referred him to, an ornate, maple door with a brass knob. He gripped it with his hand, feeling the cool, metallic touch to his skin. Was he ready?

The answer was obvious; he entered the room, closing the door behind him softly.

by **Julius Starr** on December 20th, 2013, 1:12 am

A dozen pairs of eyes stared at Julius.

The desks provided for the students formed a semi-circle around the teacher, all filled with people except for a desk in the very center. Stepping forward, the man took in his fellow classmates out of the corner of his eye, looking at none of them directly. They all looked normal enough, native born Lhavitians all seeking to learn about the outside world. They watched him, trying to figure him out, just as he was doing himself. No words were spoken, barely a sound made except the shuffling of his feet across the wood.

Julius sat down just as the instructor rose to his feet.

Weathered best described the man who stood in front of the roaring fire. His faced was wrinkled, like a gnarled oak that grew on the mountainside. Ancient had covered his entire body, yet he still was a sight to his eyes. His skin, for example, was tan, whereas many native Lhavitians were pale, and his eyes . . . they were nothing like he had seen before, a shade of blue that no star in the sky could ever hope to attain. It complimented his silver beard and gray hair; with these eyes, he wasn't just some old man, but an old man who knew great things.

He stared at Julius for a moment, sizing him up with those sapphire gems, before he looked past him, to the rest of the class. His voice was as rugged as his visage, yet soft at the same time; Julius almost had to lean forward to hear the words he spoke. "Greetings, young ones. I welcome you all to Anthropology. My name is Nyolt." He bowed at this, inclining his small frame to the crowd. He continued speaking as he returned to his full height. "I've been an instructor at the Alluvion Academy for six years now, come Spring. Before that, I traveled the world as a Seeker, always in search of lost knowledge. Before that, I was the son of a Svefran fisherman and an Inartan glassblower, a child who always wanted to understand the world around him. Before that . . . well, the gods know what I was, not I."

He paused again, looking around the crowd. Lifting his hand up, he pointed a single, gnarled finger towards a girl at the end of the row. "You, tell me your name, and a little about yourself. Then, we'll go around the circle."

The girl, a small, brunette lass with coarse cotton, stood up. She bit her lip for a moment in nervousness, but then she spoke to Nyolt and to her classmates. "My name is Lyn. I'm a waitress at the Skyglass Restaurant. Um, I was born to a healer and a laborer at the shipyards." She sat down quickly, and the next student, a bald man wearing silk robes stood. And so it went down the row, with each student giving a little insight into them.

"My name is Vuris, Acolyte to the Shinya, son of two Shinya Protectors who protected the city before me."

"Name's Sarak. I work as an apprentice blacksmith at the Touch of Fire, but my parents were a miner and Sun Maiden, the Taiyang."

"My parents, who were tailors peddling their wares in the Azure Market, named me Nysima. I'm a dancer for the Ethereal Ballet at the Opera House."

Soon it was Julius' turn. He had sat there, as the others introduced themselves, formulating his response. So far, he had heard the accounts of those high in the social hierarchy, and others who stood at the same level as him. Some accounts were prestigious, some parents big names in the city; others wouldn't have gotten a second glance from him in the city streets. This classroom held representatives from all walks of life in the city. Was that Nyolt's point?

Julius didn't dwell on it long, for the student to his right had taken her seat, and he was up next. Rising gracefully from his seat, Julius set his hands on the wood beneath him as he spoke. "My name is Julius Starr, born to a father who loved his jewels and a mother her stars above. Though my name shines, I dwell in the shadows, specifically behind the bar at the Scholar's Demise." Julius returned to his seat, proud of his choice of words; it had definitely been the most eloquent of everyone thus far, not that it mattered much; this Nyolt didn't seem like one for eloquence, unless it was found in some old tome or from the lips of a foreigner.

A few others to Julius' left introduced themselves as well, and then the floor was all Nyolt's again. The old man looked around, waiting, watching. "Alright then," he said softly. "Now what did you just learn?"

The man to his left raised his hand, and when Nyolt acknowledged him, he blurted out. "I learned where all the beautiful women here work so I can visit them later." The males in the room laughed, including Julius; even Nyolt grinned a little, but he shook his head regardless.

"No . . . well, yes, but no. Look a little deeper."

Look Julius did, too. He looked to his left at the jokester, with his beak of a nose and greasy hair. He looked to his right at the ballet dancer, with her luscious blond hair and deep emerald eyes. He saw the Shinya, the blacksmith, the waitress, even the Seeker in the front of the room. Seeing was easy for Julius, but comprehending all that he saw was difficult, else he wouldn't have come here; anthropology was nothing more than looking deeper with the eyes.

"I see Lhavit's culture, boys and girls, sitting all around you. Look at your surroundings, at the classroom we sit in; this tells us that the city appreciates a good education, and even provide it to their citizens. Now look at the citizens themselves; I see countless professions represented here, from a simple bartender to a protector of the city. This tells you several things. One, education is accessible to all, not just a certain portion of the population. Two, the citizens, despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, all sit as equals in the same room. No segregated classes by your class. Now look even closer at the citizens. Note the facial cues, the skin tone, the eye color. Note how we are all the same, yet we all are different. Look and see culture reveal itself to you."

Nyolt gestures to the room around him. "This is why you are here, my children! You all wish to understand the world around you; thus, I implore you to look. Turn your eyes away from the horizon, away from the knights in their walled city or the the horse lords on their Sea of Grass. Before you can understand lands far away, you must understand your homeland. You must understand Lhavit, how it operates, how it lives. Most of you, if not all, have grown up in this city, so you know a lot of it; in fact, though none of you have lived half as long as I, you've lived in this city longer. Thus, this season I won't be teaching you the culture of Lhavit. Instead, I'll be using this city to teach you culture. Teach you how to recognize the foundations of cultures. Teach you how to break up society into sections for better comprehension. This season, you'll soon understand the concept of culture. And then?

Then you can look back to your horizons, where ever they may lie."

Silence in the room; Nyolt had hooked them all. Even Julius was mesmerized by the words, and he didn't even have a desire to leave the city. If he had doubted his decision to return to school, it had dissipated now; Julius wasn't going anywhere until he learned from this wizened man. Nyolt tapped his desk as he leaned against it.

"Now, let real lesson begin. Someone tell me the basic principle that Lhavit was founded on, over five hundred years ago." And with that, they had truly begun.

by **Julius Starr** on December 21st, 2013, 6:55 pm

"Beauty" the ballet dancer replied immediately, off to Julius' right. He glanced over at her, as she sat with her hands in her lap. Yes, she would value beauty, with all the glamour her profession prided itself on. Still, she answered far more quickly than Julius ever would have; he had barely even heard the question, let alone comprehended it, and she had always spouted off a logical question.

Whether Nyolt believed this question was logical as well, Julius could not discern; his face could've been carved from stone the way he looked at the woman, not that any stonemason, even a master in the craft, could ever capture the creases and lines on his face. He was frozen in place as he dissected the answer, a scholar pondering over the concept. And then he nodded once, speaking to the class as a whole. "Never just give me an answer in this class, students. Explain the answer to me, as if I was a young child on your lap, begging for a story."

While Julius envisioned baby Nyolt, with his silver goatee and mole on an infant's visage, the girl replied. "I mean, look around the city. Lhavitians hold beauty to a high degree here, with all of the lavish parties and exuberant festivals. The Skyglass is majestic to behold, as is the Ethaefal who grace us with their presence. Lhavit is beautiful, and beautiful is Lhavit." And with that, the dancer fell silent again.

Again Nyolt fell into a brooding silence, if only for the few ticks it took him to analyze it all. When he spoke, he spoke with a gentleness and warmth that highlighted his appreciation for the girl's attempt at the question. "There are many in this world that find a sword forged with Isurian steel is beautiful, as well; it too shimmers in the light. Yet if I were to ask an Isur why they made their weapons and their tools with the metal, he would not answer beauty, but durability and reliability. Thus, in a sense, Lhavit's culture prides itself on beauty, but it was not founded on it." To the right, the blacksmith nodded his head in approval.

As Julius absorbed the man's words, images of the Skyglass buildings around the city were evoked in his head. He had seen them just as often as he had seen the sun or the stars, seen them shimmer and glow countless times over the years. He thought they were beautiful as well, but a little voice told him there was more to it. Suddenly, he was brooding on words spoken at history lectures a decade past. He remembered the lectures on the Valterrian, on the initial years, when Lhavitians were nothing more than tribals huddling by fires, hoping they didn't freeze in the night. He could see an answer forming in his mind, but he just couldn't put his finger to it.

A voice, far to Julius' left, broke his train of thought. "Knowledge, Master Nyolt, knowledge. The founders of the city feared that the knowledge of the world would be lost forever, so they devoted this city to retain the knowledge of the world they had lost to the Valterrian. This would eventually evolve into maintaining knowledge all over the world, from all time periods, not just the lost knowledge."

Another pause, another nod. "Knowledge and learning is a forefront on Lhavit's culture, for sure; I'm one who knows first hand how devoted its citizens are to the cause. But this, this is too specific. When the cataclysm struck, the original Lhavitians banded together for a common goal, a goal that itself would eventually include knowledge. Broaden your minds, and you'll see the principle that Lhavitians held in the initial years after the Valterrian. One can even say that this same principle rang true in all of society, all over the world."

"Survival."

It took Julius a moment to realize that it was him who spoke out. He felt the eyes of his classmates watching him, saw Nyolt pondering over his answer. Pause, nod, and for the first time, a smile that creased his face even more. "Yes, survival. Explain why it was so important."

"I mean, this entire city represents a people's desire to survive this new, dangerous world that they found themselves in. You see it in the Architecture, the land, even the people. What started as some tribals living in the mountain, led by to Ethaefal, has grown into a city known for its beauty and knowledge; had the founders not survived, though, Lhavit could have never grown like it has."

Nyolt picked up right where Julius left off, no pause needed. "Well put, mister Starr. To further emphasize the point being made, I drawn again on the example of craftsmanship. Just as the Isurian Steel is used for durability, Skyglass has been wielded by the Lhavitians for centuries for the same reason. Oh, it looks beautiful in the Sun light, but you don't understand true beauty until you sit within those buildings when Zulrav attempts to blow you off the mountainside. Skyglass was a gift to our people by the goddess Zintila so we would use it to survive. And so we have." Nyolt looks around the room. "The Lhavitians were gifted with another tool for survival by another goddess. Anyone care to take a guess?"

There was a pause in the room, broken by the Shinya Acolyte. "Could it be the Okomo?"

"Right you are. Caiyha gifted us those amazing creatures to make our lives just a little bit easier. These mountains were difficult to navigate on foot, and the goddess saw the predicament we were in. Without it, survival would've been difficult, maybe even impossible." Nyolt gestured off into the distance, to the city of Lhavit, maybe to the horizons beyond. "And thus is the concept of culture, students. You take an overall trend, spice it up with a few unique quirks, and then you live it."

***

Julius pondered over the man's words as he left the Alluvion Academy. The lesson had been short and sweet after that. Nyolt had told them what to expect for the rest of the season, what topics they would be covering in their studies. He had also encouraged them all to research their own ideas and topics to cover, because it made teaching and learning interesting for everyone involved, including the instructor.

Walking down the path back to the city, Julius vowed he was going to hold the man true to his word. He had so many questions, and only a season to get them answered. Oh, Nyolt would know Julius Starr by the end of this class, for sure.

Whether that was good or bad, time would only tell.

by **Trickster** on January 7th, 2014, 1:40 am

Sorry for the wait! Here are your Treats!

~♪♫

Julius Starr

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Anthropology	2
Philosophy	1
Rhetoric	1
Observation	3

Lores

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Notes :