It’s often said that half the modern world is derived from bayzel. They’re a crutch, but a necessary one. One that has inspired hope in an age hidden from prosperity by a veil of domesticated despair.
Under their leaves we’ve seen dead languages revived, forgotten civilizations unearthed, revelations of philosopher kings of old told anew in the public square. The conquest of Drawt was written an epic until Terrhaven of Botanica discovered a sealed account of his slave empire under a bayzel.
But, for all that they’ve propped up the modern scholarly world, little is known about the true nature of the Bayzelis Vetus. What fulfills their predisposition for secrets?
Many of my peers posit it as a matter of composition–everything from their false inner shells to the complex weave of their root system screams HIDE SOMETHING IN ME. It’s a design filled with so much entropy, so many random gaping cavities with seemingly no purpose, that I so dearly want to agree.
I suppose it’s because I don’t that I’m writing you all thusly. For one, if their cryptic nature is solely a function of structure, why must they die when we recover their secrets?
The Botanicum records few bayzel living longer than a week post-extraction. It’s not for a lack of effort: transplants into rich soil, replacements with sealed letters of state secrets, even sacrificial rituals of vitality have shown little-to-no effect in slowing their inevitable death.
Perhaps the only exception came from the Icemen of Mirden, who found relative success suspending looted bayzel in cryostasis chambers of everfrozen glacial matter. An excerpt of their report was added to the Botanicum:
Among the groups of despoiled bayzel exposed to our everfrozen ice, we note two statistically significant findings of worth.
First, we report a prolonged lifespan in bayzel suspended in glacial matter. Those in cryo lasted, on average, five days longer than the control.
Second, the survival capability of a bayzel post-extraction is inversely proportional to the relative importance of its bound secret. The trees found with secrets of great import--such as [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]--wilted beyond recognition merely a day after being suspended in ice. Interestingly, the bayzel to wilt the fastest was hiding a cookbook dating back two millenia under its roots.
It’s abundantly clear that bayzel hold a dependence on the secrets they hold–one that seems to be a function of remembrance if not grandeur. For the sake of intrigue, let’s frame this in another light.
Bayzel understand what secrets are. They can interact with them, draw power from them, and know when they’ve been lost. Bayzel hold not just a dependence on secrets, but a spiritual connection of sorts whose language we’ve long forgotten to speak.
My contemporaries overwhelmingly believe that this bond is learned, pointing towards the several recorded cases of individual bayzel with no known secrets tied to them.
To that, I ask how can we truly be certain they are empty? It’s nigh impossible to prove these bayzel hide nothing, for who knows what they themselves consider a secret with respect to their obscure spiritual power? Instead, I ask that we look at what we do understand–their structure.
The “false inner shells” of bayzel are a known phenomenon that has long been purported as evidence towards the composition theory. After all, why else would a tree need a hollow shell inside it?
To answer that, I ask that we look at these shells not as a matter of necessity, but of causality. What causes the hollow interior of bayzel? The key lies hidden in the pattern, or lack thereof, of their geographic spread.
Bayzel proliferate in irregular intervals. They are seldom found among their peers, instead favoring the company of a forest of normal plantlife. It’s not uncommon to see a single bayzel in a sea of oak.
But, how do they get there? They have no seeds, no clear receptacle for reproduction, no evolutionary purpose for all that we know. Yet, somehow and someway they appear and survive amidst this uncertainty. If anything, they thrive on it!
I believe the answer is simple: they’re always there. At least, part of them is. Bayzel are a parasitic existence, one that feeds off of other trees to catapult itself into the living world. The hollow shells are not functional. Rather, they are the byproduct of a cannibalistic mode of creation, the drained remnants of trees who once had people confide in them. It’s the act of holding a secret itself that transforms normal plant matter into bayzel.
That is how they exist surrounded by thousands of foreign entities. That is how they can appear anywhere from the frozen tundras of Mirden to the lush jungles of Alma. That is how they have subverted hundreds of years of scholarly intrigue.
It is with this understanding that I petition the Scholarium for mercy. I ask that we weigh our intrinsic curiosity against the sanctity of life so unique. Secrecy is the impetus for their creation and in severing that connection we leave them bastards of cause. What reason is there to understand the past if doing so spoils the wonders of the present?
To be clear, I don’t ask for clemency solely on the basis of conservation. The world is vast, the species inside it vaster. I too understand there is little intrinsic value in preserving bayzel when they are seldom important in life but so valuable in death. But, I ask yet again if there is not more to the story.
Even under my theory, there is much to explore. For one, why are we unable to spawn more bayzel? Over several centuries, many have tried to place secrets of varying grandeur underneath and inside nearly every variety of tree. Yet, the Botanicum has no records of newly-made bayzel. Perhaps their existence necessitates chance, perhaps they are built on higher powers we no longer understand, perhaps this theory holds no bearing on reality. Regardless, it’s clear there is much to learn.
There is value in understanding what drives bayzel towards the hidden secrets of the world. Each tree holds much to be recovered, yet I can’t help but wonder if we can learn more by denying their gifts. We stunt our comprehension of the world by clinging to small treasures, minute realizations, meaningless steps towards retrieving the wisdom of our forefathers.
It’s unclear what understanding of existence has been lost over time, leaving us in the shadow of our ancestors. Nor is it clear how we lost that understanding altogether. What is clear is that relying on bayzel will never bring us back to the glory of the past. I believe this is what separates the scholars of today from the giants of yore.
We yearn so dearly to remember the greatness of yesterday that we ignore what may be built today. At best, we pioneer an age of search and discovery, of knowledge and glory. At worst, we lay floundering in an age of ill-advised nostalgia.
Bayzel are the purest form of hope, the very lifeblood driving our belief that the old world may one day be revived anew. Yet, they also inspire complacency. What mysteries of the world do we refuse to see as we relentlessly hunt down secrets in bayzel?
So, I ask you scholars of the new world to think of what may be. I ask you to belay thoughts of conquest, of glory, of naive curiosity. I ask you to search for a deeper spirit of inquiry–one guided not in insecurity of the past, but in inspiration for the future.
We must look away from what bayzel we have left, for even ancient wonders of the world are naught in the face of our folly.
~ ~ ~
Letter from Krath of Botanica to the Unified Council of Scholars.
Dated 97 BRM.
Recovered from bayzel.
Author Notes:
I really wanted to capture an intellectually curious but somewhat pedantic tone in this story. I tried not to make it too convoluted, especially given that it’s relatively short and I’m introducing a ton of new terms/locations in this world, so I hope it wasn’t too bad. This story was also completely in first person, being that it is a letter, but I’m going to write in different perspectives/styles in the next few additions to this collection. Hope you liked it!