To anyone exploring the layout of Agama, Bruma seemed both at home and at odds with the rest of the city. In Bruma itself, large dwellings made of cooked mud and rammed earth similar to adobe stood tall like termite mounds built for human-sized insects, but these structures were not so crude to be lacking in the eaves, windows, and amenities found in more modern structures much in the same way a lot of Agama's older architecture mimicked the dome shaped roofs and stacked building layout of these dwellings. These domed towers of cooked brick are actually Brume dens, and their sizes varied depending on the ancestry of the builders.
When a new Brume family begins, they construct what would one day be the foundation of a much greater familiar structure. As each child grows into their own family, they build atop that initial structure, the den growing outward and upward as each offspring ages into their own family. The base of a Brume den plays home to elders too wizened to raise any more children, but their presence at the base meant many of the new generation often learned from the family leaders. Staircases on the exterior to allow access to dens without entering the main hall were growing in vogue since Agama's repopulation though, but there were still many dens where tradition beat out convenience, and for that reason today, a slender young lizard child in glasses ran into the open doorway of the den's lowest structure calling for her grandfather.
"Jahjah! Jahjah! Maya got in a fight at school AGAIN!" the young Brume called out, perhaps a little too proud to be the snitch as she runs up to the curved chair her jahjah was resting in to tug at his sleeve and point.
"Be quiet Ani!" a squatter, younger agama grumbled as she shuffled into the room, bearing few scuffs from the confrontation but cradling a small creature in a much rougher state in her claws. A mix between a pangolin, hedgehog, and lizard, the cowering little mammalian was shaking enough that its glowing rainbow quills emitted a small clatter, Maya trying to pet with the grain to comfort it but still showing a defiant face to her sister and jahjah. "Guri had it coming! She was plucking my Krysquil's crystals! She didn't even do it right so now they're useless..."
The older lizard man adjusted his sitting position to look at his two granddaughters and then eying the spots where the Krysquil had been hurt. Maya quickly fished into her pockets to produce the scales that were removed, their glow gone and only the movement of the den's magitech lighting through them even giving them any color. "I got 'em back though."
"Hm... take that to your Sahso and she might still get magic from them yet." he mutters.
"Yeah, but they'll just be stones! You can't even use those for magic production, they're only good as magic relays!" Ani chirps, the little studious lizard girl proud of her knowledge of her mother's talent. Maya sputters her tongue at her sister for being so cheery at emphasizing the lessened utility of the quills.
Their grandfather ignored the childish squabbling as he motions for Maya to come closer with her Krysquil, looking over the creature with a familiarity grown from years working with the creatures. "You must stop taking your little pet with you to school. The crystals it produces are too valuable to be lost! Our relationship with the Krysquils is the only reason the humans let us have so much of Agama."
"That's dumb. These are our homes, they're not gonna take them away if we forget how to harvest Krysquil crystals!" Maya shouts.
"Maybe not anymore, but there is no more powerful crystal than one grown from a Krysquil's back, so each one must be treated like a treasure and harvested only with the ancient ways." The old man replies, scratching the little creature's neck to make it titter before letting Maya have it back.
"Tell that to Guri, she's the one who was breaking them off!"
"Was she a human girl? They're always trying to figure out how us Brume do it," the old man chuckles.
"No, Jahjah! She's a Brume!" Maya calls out.
Ani injects herself back into the discussion, "Maya started the fight! She said there's no way a toad like Guri could be a Brume and pinched her face!"
Maya slaps Ani as she grows flustered, trying to think of a lie but blurting out, "Guri's always picking on everyone else! I was just giving her back all she's done to the other kids!"
The grandfather let the two sisters squabble and roughhouse for a bit as more details spilled out, the Guri name already familiar as one that was passed down through man generations of one of the largest dens of Bruma, but he seized on the odd insult Maya had thrown her way. "Ah, but a toad can be a Brume just the same as a frog or a lizard can be!"
Maya shoves Ani aside as the two look at their much louder jahjah. Maya's mouth twists as she admits "Well, she was really more of a fat newt... I was trying to upset her."
"But picking on your fellow Brume is no good either!" their jahjah proclaims, turning his seat to look at the girls square on now. "We are all Brume, the word even means Together in the dying tongue, just like Bruma means any place we come together."
Ani's eyes lit up behind her large glasses, "They didn't teach us that yet, jahjah! Tell me more!"
"They don't teach us much history at school," Maya scoffs, "Besides world stuff. They don't even want us going out there but we have to learn about America and Russia instead of our home!"
"Well then, my dears, let me teach you a very important part of Brume history, about how we came to be one kind made of many..."
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Back when the jungle was young and the trees still had not grown to reach the sky, they were three peoples who tied their lives to it. The Brushcrawlers moved on their bellies and fed on the plants that were as low as them, the land their companion and their speed second to none. The Barkclimbers took to the walls of our forest, these furry beasts scaling the trees and feasting on fresh fruits as they looked across the sky they called their own. The Rivermovers bathed in the waters of the jungle at all times of day, able to push through its powerful current and never needing the air above to survive.
The Brushcrawlers, Barkclimbers, and Rivermovers all knew of each other and fought as often as they worked together, a life of survival meaning each one had something the others wished to take but at the same time something unique to give. It was life as nature built it, nothing deeper than a fly caught in the beak of a bird or a drinking deer snapped up by the crocodile in the water.
But the jungles of Agama are full of magic, and that magic came to be in the form of the Krysquils. Our earliest of early ancestors fashioned their beautiful scales into jewelry and decorations, but when the magical powers of the quills were discovered, the jungle became a battlefield. The fight for survival instead became a battle for the Krysquils, and the incredible might of the magical crystals was married with weaponry and bloodshed. The rivers were poisoned, the bark was torn down, the brush was lit aflame... had all three of these early peoples kept fighting with these magics they barely understood, the jungle would soon be gone, and they with them.
They say the very soul of Agama ached at this bloodshed and war, and the Krysquils acted as its will, bringing about a change none could have expected. When the Barkclimbers, Brushcrawlers, and Rivermovers awoke the next day to continue their battles, they were shocked to find their enemy no longer existed, and neither did their ally. No longer could you recognize the Barkclimber by its hair, for all of them now had hair. No longer could a Rivermover prove its power by swimming, for all now could swim through the water's flow with ease. No longer were the Brushcrawlers unique in their scales, as all of them now had them, be they smooth or sharp or rough. These warring peoples were now brought together as one kind, and none would dare raise their weapons against their own. Together they were Brume, and as Brume, no matter how the hair or scales align, they were together.
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"Wow..." Ani says, sitting back and running her claws through her hair, "So even the frogs and salamanders have scales?"
"I coulda told you that," Maya laughs, but she didn't elaborate because the last thing she needed was Ani learning that a few had come off Guri's smooth skin in the little schoolyard scuffle. "So we all just stopped fighting just because we couldn't tell each other apart?"
"If you believe the old stories, yes." A new masculine voice cut in, the girls turning to see their father.
"Jahso!" they say in time, springing up to welcome their father with a hug that he returned with only a stiff pat to each girl's back, his eyes glaring at his own father through his glasses.
"Do not fill the girl's heads with superstitions, Jahso, Agama is a land of technology, not fables," he says, pulling Ani in closer, "Ani especially shouldn't be hearing these old stories. She's the smartest in her class and its girls like her who will build our bridge to the outer world."
The grandfather laughs at his son's seriousness, "Ani will be a bright light, but she will be even brighter if she knows her own people!"
"What about me?" Maya cuts in.
"Ha, the world will be scared of my little Maya if she keeps getting into scraps," her father chuckles, bending down to grab her cheek and tug at it playfully.
"Hey! I'm not going to sit around and let people be jerks! I would fought all the Barkclimbers and Rivermovers and Brushcrawlers no matter whose side I was on!"
The girl's jahjah laughs again, "You took an interesting lesson from the tale! No no, you must remember the soul of Agama wanted peace between us when we made the Brume, so be kind to your them for we are all family!"
Maya begins walking away as her jahso and jahjah begins discussing the values of moving forward and acknowledging the past, the little agama looking at the Krysquil in her hands again. "So you guys turned us all into Brume, huh? Maybe you can give me more muscles next time Guri starts being a jerk again!"
The little creature looks at its owner blankly before resting its nuzzle on her arm and closing its eyes, Maya laughing as she scampers off to her room to wonder about this strange supposed history of her people and what more her jahso didn't want her to know about the old ways...
