A new age was coming. Chieftain Mulberry XIV’s scholars had said so, but not when, how, or what it would change. The current date was New Moon VI of 967 in the 2nd Age. I am a beaver. I am currently nameless. The beaver chieftain (Chieftain’s Mulberry XIV) would assign all beaver citizens a title at a different assigned date. I was on my way there now, but it could take many days to get to the beaver capital, Centre Of Thy Beaver Society. The rest of our cities were simply called Beaver Territory I, or Beaver Territory V, and so on and so on.

I was coming from Beaver Territory XXVII.We are the main creators of transportation related things. We had a large workshop in my home village centre. There we made carts, boats, rafts, and saddles for deer riders. We had some of the best vehicles existent but were very far away from Centre Of Thy Beaver Society.

I was going to arrive at Beaver Territory XV today, according to the map that a squirrel messenger had given to me today. I had also brought some standard supplies like a fire starting kit, knife, a length of grass rope, some food rations, a small raft, and a paddle. I had started in the section of the Northern Creek near XXVII and then paddled and drifted downstream for a while. Now I was stuck because the river had became too shallow.

I got out of my brush-grade raft and pulled it out of the creek  along with my supplies using my teeth to pull on the rope to get it out of the water in case this happened. I put the raft atop of my head and had continued with my journey along the river. Then I put the raft back into the water and continued drifting downstream. I floated for a couple of seconds before I  saw a figure move out of the corner of my eye. I turned around to see what it was and felt my heart start to beat faster. There in front of me was a gang of bandit rats. The rats, or Sewer Dwellers as they were sometimes called were a tribe consisting of mostly rats. They traded more stone than all of the other tribes combined. They were vicious and had a poorly developed government system with little sense of order at all. There were many gangs of them and many tribes had tried to get them to conform to the more common way of life. They had refused every time. Their economy was also made up of stealing and they had been allied with a few times when serious brute force was needed to put something in order.