The Sorrowful Needle

It towered in silence in the middle of the clearing. On the days when there were no clouds in the sky of Ferolia, it felt to him like it was going to stab into Cerenau at any moment. Elzebo sat down in his old chair and cleaned the ink jars on the porch of the house. Everybody was making the last preparations for the Nectar Festival and that meant lots of drunk clients and a lot of cheap business for the tattooing industry. But his mind was only focused on keeping up with his eyes, which were occupied climbing the mountainside of the Needle.

He remembered how Nana used to tell stories of how the Needle was older than everything around it - older than Rediemo, older than Ferolia, older than the Sylvan, older even than Nana. He took his pointy fingers and scrambled his dry hair. He was also getting old, he would be next in line for eldest in the family after his mother. But no matter how long his life had gone on, that spire had always been there. 

He would miss it whenever he was to part ways with life and leave his body behind. When the time was right, his sould would be cremated in the interior of the Redeemer and he would give new life to all Barenae. But he was certain of a single grim truth:

The Needle would still remain even after the death of Barenae.

Deep inside the section of Hadana, the tribes of the Jeber'zin decided to end their nomadic lifestyle and settle down. Little did they know that not long after a great Leviathan, swimming across the fabric of reality would collide with the wandering shards of Barenae. With vile intention and a habit to see red, its jaws attempted to consume the world. But as the Redeemer willed, it was not yet the time for its annihilation.

The planet blinked into a safe space, only briefly brushing the surface of Ferolia against the skin of the monster, tearing the forests and leaving behind a trophy of a retreat well executed: A spine of the monster's skin, a needle that tainted the earth around it and scarred Hadana, although it provided a new opportunity for the tribes to explore.

Worlds of Death and Thousands of Arrows

As the behemoth tore through space, a small object appeared on its periphery. It looked easy to swallow whole. It swam downwards, with its jaws open, as the planet became bigger before its eyes. But something fired back from it. It felt a shock on all of its body and a sting on the neck. The leviathan's hunger was replaced by a scream that the void of space absorbed in its entirety. The planet had disappeared and with it, a piece of its body.

On land, the blissful ignorance of the fact that a massive creature could have destroyed Barenae was quickly replaced by panicked eyes and the panic of the Jeber'zin. The old records speak of an enormous rock falling from the sky during a council of the tribes. The goblins had decided to renounce their old ways and start to form a new society, but the Needle had other plans. It destroyed everything it touched. Thousands were killed in the impact and the scattering of toxic dust that rose around it. Those fortunate enough to flee the dangerous radius could not return, as their memories had also been attacked. They wanted to forget. To leave that place for eternity.

Wounded Grass and Stitches of Bone

The pain coursed through the spine for years. The earth around the base splintered and revealed a deep well of toxic liquid. All life on the clearing wilted and the trees turned into rotten carcasses. The goblins buried their dead and abandoned the crash site, unknowingly carrying the mark of the Needle. Many died days and weeks later to illness, although fortunately, it did not spread through the rest of Hadana.

With the animals dead and the population unsure of how to deal with the disaster, the area was considered to be too contaminated to be habitable, so the center of Hadana became unreachable by foot. Any person riding an aerial mount could scout the area, although the visibility was greatly impaired by the dense smoke that had formed on the clearing and its surroundings. Only thorned vines grew across the ground, where insects and mutated toads took hold of the Needle's domains, while the Jeber'zin managed to overcome their differences in their common interest to push the corruption back.

Wells of Ill and Brands of Friendship

As the mist faded with the decades, the Goblin clans of Hadana, now under the flag of the Kunin'zin, composed a spell to incinerate the air around the Needle and purify the toxins. Even with the combined force of the best casters of all of the tribes, it wouldn't have been enough if not for the Sylvan Light, that finally decided to show up and channel the first blaze into the arcane circle.

The magic began to spark into an infernal torrent. The fire could be seen from all the section of Ku'Bani. As the pillar of flame rose, the Needle stayed and resisted defiantly. But the danger of the atmosphere faded. They could return to their lands and honor their ancestors.

The inhabitants of Barenae eventually came to a silent agreement with the monument, figuring out how to use the environment properly and how to turn the barren waste into a place worth living in. And as time passed, people took the Needle for granted, forgetting the start of its existence, but still honoring the Dead and their deeds every day.

SummerCamp 2021 Prompt #7: An area, or geographical landmark, wrapped in myth, legend, or supersticion.

Alternative Name(s)

Zaharsda, Spear of Doom, Mt.Needle, The Seamstress

Type

Mountain / Hill

The Boons of the Needle

The mist was lifted and the Needle's outskirts were colonized. However, the Spear is surrounded by wells of toxic liquids of various natures. If properly caught with glass containers, these make for very powerful venom and acidic components, which the Kunin'zin sell to the appropriate professionals or utilize to erode the environment to excavate as they see fit.

Centuries of living under the Needle have hardened the citizens there. The Hadana goblins are known for having extremely tough skin, almost shell-like, that has pointy sections which help them climb trees and attach to big animals.

The mutated creatures that inhabit the Needle have also been sometimes turned better through the years and under the careful treatment of the goblins there. The Ink farms are tended to in a careful manner and its material is one of the best for high-quality government documents or precise arcane incantations.

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The Seamstress

The Needle was chosen alongside another 10 landmarks of Ferolia to compose an annual categorization of individuals around divination and personality definitions.

People of the Needle (or Tailors), born between the 11th of Erze and the 11th of Nida, are known to be hardworking, perfectionists, and very wary of changes. They are practical, but they have a big heart and an optimistic outlook.

This horoscope has begun to gain interest from other parts of Barenae, where each shard has started to nominate some of their own landmarks to compose new divination schemes.