The Green: Plight of the Nifara

THE PLIGHT OF THE NIFARA:



“Give me a land of boughs in leaf,
A land of trees that stand;
Where trees are fallen there is grief;
I love no leafless land.”
-A.E. Housman-



Once long ago the Nifara were a proud, free race living in peace among farmlands of barley and orchards of olives and grapes. This harmony was shattered by the coming of the Garsag: a fierce brutal people who spat at emissaries and reveled in the gore of their enemies. The Garsag warlords stormed through lands of the Nifara bringing fire and slaughter wherever they went. Armies of the Nifarite tried to resist but defeat followed defeat and the Garsag had swallowed up much of what had once been the Nifarite realm. Some cities resisted the Garsag and met with horrible fates. Men were slaughtered and the Woman and children were sold into slavery. Other cities bought the fierce warlords off for a time but they eventually could not pay the exorbitant fees and were sold into slavery anyway. The Nifara were pushed ever further off their farmlands and fertile plains and up into mountain retreats.

Finally, the Nifara gathered their chieftains for one last battle, a gamble, a throw of the dice…. the gamble failed. Although the Nifarites fought bravely and almost broke the Garsag line, they were to few and the Garsag to many. The Nifarite survivors, few and defeated, limped and crawled back to the mountain fortress to prepare for siege and the inevitable annihilation of their race. They had many woman as well as the very young and very old held up in the fortress and they knew they could not last long before starvation set in.

One of the old caretakers of the fortress, a Sombrian Sage proposed a dreadful way out. Deep below, in the caverns and tunnels below the fortress was a massive door, very old and ancient, sealed with glyphs and warnings. The ancient scrolls agreed with the inscriptions in the chamber that the door led to other worlds, places, or dimensions. The inscriptions also read that the door, once it was opened, could unleash horrors upon the world only whispered and dreamed about.

The Nifara, in there plight, argued over the door and what to do, but in the end they had no choice at all….the gates were their only hope. The Sombrians worked day an night to unlock the seals along with minors and workmen while the Nifira gathered and packed food and supplies. Their time in the land of barely and olives had come to an end.

After three days the seals were broke and the gate was opened and a great chill filled the chamber. A long tunnel led into the black darkness and the Nifara, old men, women children, the last of the Nifirite, began the great descent. No one remembered the journey well except for the darkness, chill, and strange unearthly noises. There were many windings and crossing passages. No-one marked time, some said the journey took weeks, others months. Eventually their light sources, always inadequate, began to expire, as did their food. Soon, they all expected to expire and many contemplated suicide. Then, one day they found another gate, a gate that was open. Through this gate they came into more natural caves and found fresh pools of water and eventually a stream and from this stream light. The Nifira walked into a world beyond their wildest dreams, a world of waterfalls and growth, a natural paradise….a green world.

They found that when they emerged from the caverns only two thirds of their number were present, the rest had succumbed to exhaustion, starvation, or something else in the dark world of the gates. The weary, hungry, wayfarers tried to move down out of the mountains into a land of vast trees. The going was hard, almost impossible for the old and young. The land was cut with huge crevices and covered in jungle. Longing to leave the Gates behind them they found what seem like an ancient road or path leading out of the mountains. Overhead, huge grandfather trees began to fill the skies. The remaining Nifara came to the edge of a cliff that overlooked the green expanse below them. Here they began to build shelters and called the place Newhome.

From Newhome the Nifara struggled to survive. They found that while they slept insects scorpions and snakes would draw near and many grew sick or died from poisonous bites. Food was always a problem for the surviving Nifara were farmers and not experience hunters. Men began to go out on foraging expeditions but their success at bagging game was marginal and the dangers were great. They found that they could go along the steps, but as they descended into the great trees the going was very wet and marshy and their progress was soon halted.

At this point Veria, teenage girl stepped forth and requested to go with the hunters. Her father had been a hunter but had been killed by the Garsag but she had learned much of the hunting arts from him. The men thought that taking a young girl with them was ridiculous and left her behind. Veria began to slip away from the village and hunt in the ravines alone. Rather than chasing game Veria climbed trees with low lying branches and waited quietly for game to come to her. One day Veria returned with great news. Not far from the camp she had slain two enormous deer: a buck and a doe. The village rushed to the spot and as she said there were two deer both of them enormous in size far bigger than any deer the Nifara had known of before. More remarkably both had been slain by a single arrow a piece. There was much rejoicing and feasting that night and when the hunters returned with no game they were amazed at the deer. From that point on the hunters listened to Veria and began to adjust their hunting methods.

As the Nifara continued to struggle they began to notice little men watching them from the trees. At first they thought this their imagination, but then the sightings increased and more stories about the tree children began to surface. Any time one would attempt to approach the tree children would vanish.