Well the vibe coming off of this public newsboard just isn't very fun at
all. So you know what? I think we need a little story to liven things
up.

Gather around dearies, it's story time!

Once, long ago, there were numerous sloths and lesser dragons in Achaea.

...well, literal sloths. Not all the lazy people around today, real
sloths. What with the three toes and the sleeping and...well, you get
the idea.

So there were many of each, and it was good.

...okay, so there were more sloths than dragons. And it wasn't really
good because it was uncomfortably hot that month. And a lot of the
sloths had hangnails in all three fingers, ALL THREE FINGERS! And every
limb too! Not one nail was intact. It wasn't good at all. In fact, it
may have been terrible.

Anyway, there were a decent amount of both species, and situations of
the time were...decent. Peace between, the two entities existed,
although it was often strained by adventurers of lore.

A number of adventurers once caused the great sloth migration of Achaea.
This coincides with the great dragon extinction of Achaea, but there
were more sloths than dragons. History tends to record those that are
more populous.

And so the final catalysts of this breakup, migration, and extinction
were three adventurers. Timothy the Bard, William the Warrior, and
Christopher the Sage. This is not to imply that any of them were bardic,
warriorlike, or possessed sagelike knowledge, they just thought the
titles looked pretty.

Long ago, deep in the forests of the Aalen, a number of sloths lived in
slothiness, slothing around slothily. Everything was very slothy. Peter
the sloth lived slothily with his slothy wife, Matilda the sloth. Peter
and Matilda had two slothy children, Gunter and Samantha. They were a
very slothly family, living in their slothish community. Everyone there
had a very slothy time.

This all continued very well and slothily, until one day...

Peter the sloth had set out slothily that day towards the general store
just down the street for food. Two hours into his trek, he was a third
of the way there, and then tragedy struck.

Not that he saw any of it. He was asleep. If he had been awake, he would
have seen an army of lesser dragons ravaging all of the homes in the
trees, decimating the workplaces, and razing the stores. Most of the
population was, luckily, outside, having falling asleep on the way to
work hours ago. There were still the unfortunates of the village who
were living in the homes at that moment. Poor unfortunates.

After those who were caught a-napping finally awake, they were greeted
with utter grief at their misfortune.

...yes, worse misfortune than the omni-perpetual hangnail. THeir town
mascot had died in the assault. Such a shame, Slothy the Sloth had yet
so much to live for.

Upon his awakening, Peter surveyed the destruction and let out a yawn of
sheer terror.

Peter cried out, "This is a traaaaw-"

At this point he yawned.

Peter continued, "...aahvasty we cannot accept! The draaaaw (another
yawn) aahgons have discovered our peaceful toooow (seeing a pattern?)
wwwn and I call on all of you for a migraaaaayshun!"

The sloths yawned in a very elated nature at this news. Very slothily.

Peter the sloth declaims, "I call on you my remaining breeaaaahthern,
let us move qui...move qui..."

Peter then fell silent as he simultaneously fell asleep. A number of the
other sloths had done so as well, and more were going by the minute, but
the message was clear. Slowly, the great and inexorable hoarde moved
north.

...after a brief nap or two. Anyway, far on the other side of the
forest, a much quicker adventure was taking place with the three
adventurous adventurers. How adventurous was their current adventure?

Well, Timothy and William were fighting over a bag of bean. Christopher
was hiding two more bags behind his back, chuckling with glee. But then,
all of a sudden, dragons swooped down from the sky to steal every bag of
beans!

Christopher shouted, "To arms!"
Timothy shouted, "To arms!"
William shouted, "Pillage the women, rape the village, loot the food!"

But the dragons were already gone. Finding this to be a tragedy on level
with the dirtying of almighty Spoon. That side, they wanted revenge. And
beans. So onwards they trekked, to the south, towards the direction of
the dragons' flight, towards the mountains of doom! Onwards they
trekked, boldly, stridently, quickly! Very quickly as compared to the
sloths.

Speaking of the sloths, while the adventurers adventured for many days
and nights, the sloths slothed slothily along. Unfortunately, their pace
was slow, at best. They finally reached the Prelatorian Highway, where a
conveinently placed sloth crossing sign guaranteed their safe passage.
Unfortunately for the lone wagon driver on the road that day, their
progress was very...slow.

"Oh come on! Move it!" cried the driver in dismay.

"Sloth sloth," slothed the sloths, as they continued on their way.

This event of sloth crossing road, oddly enough, is the origin of the
joke, "Why did the humgii cross the road? To get to the other side!"

And so the sloths slothed north, and the adventurers adventured north.

Sloth sloths, sloth!
Adventure adventurers, adventure!

And so the adventurers finally came upon the mountain of doom, whereupon
they entered bravely. There, they did see the assorted lesser dragons of
Achaea. Enjoying a nice meal consisting of soap! There were no utensils
present, they were eating the soup like dogs. Timothy and Christopher,
they refined sense offended by the lack of grace and utensils, fled like
scared girls. William, being made of sterner stuff, brandished his
artifact of artificial might!

It was...SPOON!

He grabbed a bowl of soup from the cruel claws of the venomous dragons,
and began to eat ravenously. The dragons, stunned by this startling
development of sophistication, promptly exploded. Yudhishthira, the
straggler of the lesser dragon clique, finally straggled in, surveyed
the destruction, eeped, straggled out, and straggled to Polyargos.

Straggle Yudhishthira, straggle!
Adventure adventurers, adventure!
Sloth sloths, sloth!

And how did the sloths turn out in their migration? Well, to the wagon
driver's relief, they had almost finished crossing the highway. Soon he
could continue onwards!

A few hours later, they settled an area of the Northern Ithmia that
became known as Hashan. Eventually they came to look more like the
mortals we see wandering around everyday. The sloth-like nature
continues as a tradition to this very day.

THE END...?

Wasn't that lovely?

-Master of Fabrication, Kuntar Semshan

Penned by my hand on the 13th of Scarlatan, in the year 416 AF.