“ Every now and again, the region encounters a dense blue fog. Every now and again, things disappear into the fog never to be seen again and things appear out of it from other places or world. It seems the fog is the material form of some minor diety charged with moving things around the universe to balance cosmic forces.”
“ Saril had a dream. To open a library in the windswept wastes of Naarish, so that the people of the many villages and towns spread over the hundreds of leagues of desert could discover the joys of his books. For a whole year he kept his library open, but alas, almost no one came.
That is when Saril came up with his new idea. If people didn't travel to read his books, he would travel to them! Saril closed his library, hired a team of twelve camels, loaded up the beasts with all of his books and proceeded to invent the first nomadic library.
Now children and adults alike, looked forward to hearing the bells of Saril's camels as he entered their villages, as he tirelessly traversed the deserts in a long circuitous route, visiting every village and town he came across, in turn. It came to pas that Saril's traveling library came to some fame, and that is how the folk of Naarish became literate.
A word of warning though. Naarish has only six thousand volumes. He deals with those that lose or steal his tomes quite 'harshly', by bypassing the town or village which was responsible for losing one of his books for that calendar year.”
“ A small band of squirrels seems to be fighting high up in a tree over a shiny nut-sized object. Can you retrieve the prize without scaring the squirrels into running off with it? If they do, can you manage to chase them down?”
