The Cunning Comper: Vol. 1

Said to be a tapestry woven by Master Sanhaj Compore himself. Its content is short and odd, generally taken as a fiction that never happened.

This tapestry is said to have been woven by the Masters of the Night-Wind hero Sanhaj Compore himself. Its content is short and strange, often dismissed by elder shamans of the tribe as a jest—like the countless jests this cunning hero once made, this one too carries a dark color like moonlit night. Some say it is the silk he used; others that he ground obsidian and black-colored mussel shells into powder to dye such spirit. Long, long ago, among the Masters of the Night-Wind, there was a born villain named Compore. Compore always loved fraud, theft, and clever plunder, and so was infamous in the tribe—yet he had an honest younger brother named Sanhaj.

In that ancient age the Lord of the Crossroads still walked among humans, granting the six tribes the gifts of sleep or death, guiding their road to the land of the underworld, fusing souls into the black great river. He was lord of the Night Realm—both "Doctor Papa" and "Dream Mama." Legend says he built a brew-hut at the end of the black river; drink the mushroom wine he brewed there and you could learn anyone's fate from dreams.

"If I had such power, would I not, like the Masters' prophets, foretell fate and know the truth beneath the world?"

The villain's eyes rolled, and he thought thus, "If so, how much profit would secret knowledge and forbidden dreams bring me? How much could I bargain from them?"

Cunning Compore rubbed his palms and began a sly plan.