Cylara nibbled on the tip of her diamond scepter nervously. Her golden,
sleeveless robe swayed as she paced her already cluttered office. The
contest ended in just two days. As a newly immortalized building
goddess, she felt she was hardly worth noticing, and yet she felt this was the
chance to gain the recognition she craved. She dreamed of the chance of
a promotion, and the recognition, this contest would provide, instead
of continuing on as a third-rate goddess. If only she'd known what she
was getting into when she accepted the job. Attention had to be paid to
the minutest detail. Even worse, if you wanted to get anywhere you had
to be good at creating.
She thought back to the day of her promotion. There were so many texts
to read, so many newly acquired creation skills to learn and master. It
was overwhelming. She had been assigned a mentor, someone to help make
the transition from mortality to godhood easier. Unless she asked the
appropriate questions, and it was difficult to know which questions to
ask, her mentor could hardly help. Cylara remembered the difficulty
she'd had getting a portion of her town created so that it could be
reviewed by a World Room Editor. The way she had to struggle and work through
the troubles of creating a road just perfectly, and not just one road
but many of them - all similar, yet each with distinctly different
features.
She grinned when she thought of the poor mail imps, whose services she
abused horribly. They had carried so many letters to her mentor, Master
World Builder Gorn, continually asking the various questions that arose
as she delved deeper into the world of creation.
"Dear Gorn,
What about all these doors!? Roads aren't supposed to have doors, yet
they keep coming back!"
Or
"Gorn,
It's been awhile since I wrote you. I figured I'd send all my questions
at once. How do you decide what level to make the mobiles the players
will be fighting? How do you make mobiles wield their weapons when they
load? How do you turn a room with a mob, into a store?..."
"Gorn, How do you..."
It's a wonder he hadn't asked to be reassigned.
Cylara sighed and brought her mind back to the present. She was
currently experiencing builder's block, a condition she'd heard of frequently
but had never had the chance to experience. Creating even the simplest
bedroom had become an agonizing experience, where it had once brought
such a feeling of self-satisfaction and success. Now she worried and
fretted over the smallest details that had once come so easily. Cylara
would have dearly liked to blame the contest that the Director of World
Development, Ikuska, had foisted upon the immortal community, and yet her
problem had begun even before the contest had started.
The contest was really a brilliant idea on the part of the higher
immortals, in Cylara's opinion. It was designed to help motivate builders
who were faltering, to encourage the builders who were unsure of
themselves, to create a spirit of friendly competition amongst the builders,
and to generate many new places for mortals to explore and dwell in. The
challenge of the contest was to compete with the esteemed goddess
Ikuska in the ability to create a zone within a specified amount of time,
and create it well. No lackadaisical or half-hearted work would be
accepted in the competition.
Cylara sat at her dark walnut desk, setting her scepter down on its
polished surface. She pensively thought over the work she'd done so far,
and the work that still needed to be finished. Her castle was almost
completed. The furnishings of a few rooms remained, but the building
itself was done. The next step would be the inhabitants of the town and
their belongings. To get the entirety of their personalities and characters
thought out, and then to will them into existence. She rubbed her
temples slowly. Maybe it had been a mistake to become an immortal.
She thought back to the time she had been mortal. Her father had been a
kindly, older man with laughing blue eyes, who indulged her shamelessly.
He had given her the best of everything - the best clothes, the best
toys and, up until she was old enough to attend school, the best
nannies. He had sent her to one of the most prominent Healing Guilds in their
district. It had been in this guild where she'd had her first
encounters with the rich, the beautiful, and the polished members of her town.
While Cylara knew she couldn't compete with her fellow students in those
respects, she tried, and succeeded in besting them at their mutual
studies.
It was this competitive spirit that had eventually led her to become a
goddess. She had done amazingly well in her studies. So well, in fact,
that she'd attracted the notice of the headmaster of her guild. He had
encouraged her to succeed, and when she finally graduated with honors,
he introduced her to a High Priestess of one of the local abbeys. This
contact and his influence obtained an apprenticeship for her. It was
during this apprenticeship that she had petitioned the gods to grant her
immortality so she could create her dream. Cylara abruptly remembered
the book her father had given her on the day of her graduation. It
contained several quotes, but one in particular which stuck with her. "This
world is but a canvas to our imaginations" - Henry David Thoreau
As Cylara reflected on that quote, she realized immediately what her
problem was, and the reason for her builder's block. She had gotten so
caught up in the difficulties of the problems before her, so distracted
by her need to compete, that she'd lost sight of the reason she wanted
to create in the first place. She had lost sight of her dream and thus
failed to bring that dream to life. She had been so focused on gaining
recognition and praise for what she was doing that she'd forgotten why
she was doing it. Cylara smiled as she picked up her scepter and
translocated herself from her office to her unfinished castle. Now she could
create a dream to be proud of.
Epilogue
Cylara relaxed against the back of her delicate, wooden chair as she
surveyed her finished work. She had finally completed her castle, and the
finished product was far better than she'd ever allowed herself to
imagine it could be. Not in time to be considered for the competition,
admittedly, but she didn't consider that a bad thing. Her ambition had
gotten away with her and almost caused her to fail the one thing she wanted
to succeed in the most - her ability to make dreams become reality. She
smiled to herself, as she thought that if she continued to succeed in
her creation of dreams, eventually the recognition she desired would
find her. As long as she didn't lose sight of the dreams her time would
come.
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