Aunty Teinyhr's Minmatar Fiction Corner

Ourumur


Ourumur is a word carved thousands of years ago on a cliffside in the Sobaki Desert.

Its original meaning has been lost to time, but linguists and armchair archaeologists have later theorized it to mean “nothing”, owing in part to the complete scarcity of resources and the remoteness of the location where it was found. No settlements are known to have existed near it, nor have surveys carried around the area found any signs of such within a reasonable travel distance from the carving, even with modern transports methods.

Ever since its rediscovery some fifty years ago it has been the subject of human curiosity - who carved the word, and why? What does it really mean? Given what is now known of the area, prevailing theory is that the carving is the work of a lone hermit, most probably a Vherokior shaman on a spirit quest. How they eked out a living in the area with no stable water or food supply is a mystery, though it is possible the area could have been slightly more hospitable thousands of years ago when the word was carved - no geological evidence of that has been found yet, however.

Similarly perplexing is the word itself, if indeed it has been carved by a Vherokior shaman, why does it not then correspond with any known linguistics of modern or ancient Vherokior languages? It is possible that the word came to him or her in a shamanistic vision, and if so, then the word is indeed indecipherable to anyone but the person who wrote it.

Altough worn-down by sands, wind and time, the carving still exists. Its exact location has been kept secret from the public in an effort to preserve it for thousands of years to come, and also to prevent foolhardy wannabe-explorers getting lost in the desert.

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