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Description
When the nine living gods formed what they believed was the perfect world, they built a great gold tower that overshadowed the violet forests named V’Jola. From above, eight of the gods studied numbers to find perfection within themselves, forgetting about life below. The ninth, Ooderlan, walked among V’Jola, watching each dark green leaf and violet petal that flew in the cool breeze. But other than the wind, and her own creaking and heaving footsteps, there was no sound. It was a silent forest.
So, she set off to the heart of the forest, where the trees guarded an opening where closed, resting flowers grew between grass. She sat amongst the flowers and dug her own roots within the ground to connect to the trees around her. Then, Ooderlan snapped off one of her wooden fingers to form a flute. From the instrument, she breathed out a song that made the sleeping flowers open their vibrant cyan petals to the morning light. The music, like the breeze, blew in every direction, flowing between the cracks of the ancient trees and echoing into the forests. It made the still purple blanketed mists dance. The song brought sound and all the mute animals that heard it, followed it to the heart of the forest, where she rested.
Among the animals that were the first to hear it, was a snake, who curiously hung from one of her branches and so when she finished the song, she gave the flute to them.
The living god then made a drum from one of her hollowed out limbs and played a second song. The beat and the rhythm made V’Jola shake, the trees swayed and the rivers churned. The commotion caught the attention of a family of bears. The god was touched by the playfulness of one of the cubs who came to nibble at her feet and decided to give the drum to them.
For her third song, Ooderlan made a lute, with the strings being from her own hair. The sharp sounds of plucking strings travelled deep and high within the forests. The sound cut through the gaps between the leaves of the trees, attracting a group of apes to travel down them and follow the song. When the god saw them, she immediately knew that the lute was meant for their fingers and thumbs.

Each animal that had possession of an instrument took it back to their homes when the night came. Each attempted to mimic the songs of Ooderlan. The snake spent days breathing into the flute until the pitch was perfect. The curious cub beat on the drum until their rhythm matched what they heard. The apes shared the lute amongst each other until they learned the different strings. Then, each animal shared their music with their kin and quickly thereafter, more instruments were created. And when more instruments were made, so too were new songs. Then each animal wrote words and stories that went with the music. They even found words for themselves. The snakes named themselves erpentoa, the bears were the rahr and the apes, human.

The other gods saw what Ooderlan’s songs had done and summoned her to council within their tower.

‘There is no place for sentience in animals,’ One of the gods said, ‘They have now become unpredictable values within the equation.’

Ooderlan was defiant, ‘You all scutter about in this tower, forgetting our true purpose. We are gods, we are to breathe life into our worlds. We are not meant to pursue an unreachable perfection. It will lead to your destruction.’

‘No, Ooderlan, your own deviations have led to your destruction.’

The eight gods focussed their rage and turned it into flames that seared onto Ooderlan. She screamed as the fire ignited the wood that was her body. She tried to resist their power but all she could do was flail her arms as she became ash among the gold floor. The eight gods were pleased with themselves and prepared discussions on how they would deal with the sentient animals.
But what they did not know, is that the sound of Ooderlan’s screams had travelled down the tower and across V’Jola. All the trees heard the cries of their mother. In collective grief and rage, their roots grew far and around the base of the tower. The gold pillar shook and at first the gods thought nothing of it. Then it heaved and suddenly the gods were sliding across the floors, colliding with the walls and the roof. The trees in unison, used their strength to dislodged the base of the tower within the earth and brought it down into V’Jola. There was one final note as the tower collapsed, a great explosion, as all the powers kept within the home of the gods reacted. All eight gods perished.

V’jola is no longer quiet. It is rich with the hymns of birds, singing one of the three songs of Ooderlan. The erpentoa, rahr and humans all tell her tale through music and story. It is said that all sound is the echo of Ooderlan.

Whilst inside the fallen, now overgrown gold tower, there is nothing but the bones of dead gods and silence.