EPTThe rice cooks though, and then I eat it.
There are a lot of different settings, blah blah. And then I do drink water, however it all tastes the same to me regardless of water-quality (filteration, etc.) so it's just cooking water that I am primarily concerned with. Whatever other malformations may appear in the Atlanta water is present in the ice from my ice maker, and I should never drink water without ice (lest my taste buds weaken and I am not longer capable to endure the spicy food).
Thus since there is always ice in my water, and plenty of it, the concern of water quality is primarily with the rice cooker (a Japanese rice cooker--I suspect this is the wisest choice--although this one is Zojiroshi so there is cause to be suspicious). Still, the Amazon review is quite high.
Anyway, to my story.
Today a great tragedy befell the Monk-tribe Zofulu Marga of the Westrail Glacier. We are a clan of Monks dating back to the inception of Sanctuary, when the Great Angel Salcerian first birthed the land we call home. Though legend tells of the formation of continents, the true content is lost to time. We are uncertain where the future will lead, as we are the past and its tributaries.
Yet, the Legendary Monk-tribe of the Westrail Glacier persists against the odds, sometimes conforming to the whiles of time, and yet not so often; we stick to our ways, such as they are. And though the youth sometimes find themselves straying from our ancestral land, we suspect it is an adventurousness takes them that is present in all young possessed of talent. These wayward youth comprise our great heroes ofter than corpses, and this World is a hard place, so the journeys of these youth are respected or at least taken in stride. Rites of passage some say, while others are more skeptical. Should we abandon the ancient traditions, our society succumbing to the whiles of a supposedly ever-changing world.
Or, alternatively, do we trust in the wisdom carried us forth from time unknown? Do we persist in the slow evolution characterizes our ancient culture?
Second Brother Kree was not the conservative his father is.
The youngest Kree, he lived in the shadow of a brother who gained fame and fortune, renown throughout the land. An epic warrior, the splitting image of his father, and a royal and well-respected line the Kree have always been. And yet, perhaps owing to some fault with the mother, Second Brother Kree was taller than his brother, and yet also more slender. He took to the distant travels and not to arms. While his peers toiled in the fields, prepared the battlements; sparred and quarreled, young Kree stood alone. He peered into the Mysts as our Seers sometimes do.
He never showed magickal aptitude--or, if he was aware that he was possessed of such gifts, Young Kree knew to hide them. The Seers, and the path of a Seer is not one suited to a boy of Second Brother Kree's temperaments. The utmost discipline and the utmost reserve is required from any Seer candidate, and Kree had never encountered either term.
Kree was a wild boy, with long legs fit to be a Scout. Perceptive, tenacious, true. Yet the gifts of a Seer are rare, and even one lacking in the fundamental disciplines, if he has the gifts, he is expected--required-- to face the trials. And so Kree, if he discovered his gifts early, Kree knew to hide them.
I suspect, though I have hidden this knowledge from the family, that Kree knew of his gifts. A playmate and constant companion, a family friend once disappeared while they sat by the bank capturing Snap Jaws. The companion was found to have slipped on the embankment near a whirlpool. His body was caught in a rare swift current and borne under. He emerged in afternoon of the same day, and was hoisted upon the backs of a Scouting party. He arrived at the monastery to be buried that evening, and all the family was in attendance. As was Second Brother Kree.
And yet, I sensed something amiss. The two boys played by the river day after day--permitted because of their size and their youth. Neither boy was expected to be a Warrior, Scout, or Monk of the order.
Second Brother Kree died today, after taking a hundred lives.
He transformed at some point. An inexplicable metamorphosis took him. It seems he had all the talents to be a High Seer. His innate connection to the Water element would have afforded him almost certain success in the trials. And yet, young Kree never made an attempt.
Kree must have seen something in the shadow of the mountain. The ridges encircling our land must have held some hidden temptation that beckoned him. In his adolescence there was a strange fire kindled in his eyes, or maybe a darkness overtook his heart. The changes were evident, and yet overlooked on account of Kree's lacking talent. Perhaps he was disgruntled. His character made him an unreliable scout, and he would never be a warrior, and certainly not a monk.
From a high family, and yet of such minute talent, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Kree would find a bad end.
And yet he had hidden something from us. Kree was of far greater ability than anyone had imagined. It took only the impetus of some malevolent outsider to transform this potential into something truly to be feared.
And so it happened one night that Kree was not to be found.
When we saw him again he was Spirit then, and flesh no more. As though a great convening of dark spirits moved inside the boy, he changed. A dark power possessed him, transforming him completely, altering his structure from within. Today, the man who once was Second Brother Kree could not be recognized with any mortal vision. Only the memories of our Seers and their perceiving the eternal could provide the truth to his identity.
Kree moved like a dust devil, his figure comprised a sand. Like the treacherous terrain in the Jungle Highlands, any who drew near were drawn in, suffocated. Many died while our arrows pierced him and our metal swords passed through him in vain. Only a barrage of fire could harden him, melt, condense the sands into a reflective liquid sheen, and then when he hardened, we could break him. And so it was that we shattered him, at last into a million pieces, divided and tossed into the river where the swift current would carry each away to a resting place where once more the world would subsume him.
