Sailing stones gather no moss

I'm back! Though the exams aren't over yet and there is still some work ahead of me, I decided to come back to my blog and give it a bit of a makeover.

The other reason for this and the upcoming entries is that I accumulated a lot of ideas over the past month and I don't want to loose them. Thus, I'll gradually try to improve my posting rate over the next two weeks.

Here is a quick one, that came to me while I was customizing my template.

I've found the new title photo on Julia's tumblr. It pictures the phenomena known as Sailing Stones. Here's what wikipedia has to say on the subject:

"a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in several places around the Death Valley, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable. The force behind their movement is not understood and is the subject of research."

Awesome?! Hell yes, but it get's even creepier:

"Speed is an unknown variable. Since these stones are rarely transported and nobody has witnessed the movement, the speeds at which the rocks travel are not known."

That's right, nobody has ever witnessed it, even though there were many attempts to observe or record the stones movements.

For me it sounds like:

The Secret of the Sailing Stones

Long time ago, a powerful being of unknown origin ripped the veil of time and space, entering the material plane. Scholars still argue about the origin of the being and it's impact on the world. Some say it was a god, others claim it was a demon and few claim it was neither. Though the dilemma has long been labeled as impossible to solve, it is agreed that those long gone events were the source of an ancient legend, that a Great Evil has been turned into stone and than shattered into a million pieces, so that it could never regain it's power.

To this day, magicians and foolish merchants embark into the Clay Desert to collect blocks of black stone-metal. The stones are said to move in mysterious ways drawing strange shapes on the surface of the desert. Many have died in search of the moving Death Stones (as they are often called) and it is said that some men have been found crushed in their sleep by stones that moved overnight, while others, blinded with greed, chased a single stone for days using up supplies left for the journey back.

In common speech the material from the stones is known as Death Metal. It is rumored that it can produce blades that can cut through steel as if it was flesh. However, few such weapons exist as it is widely believed that Death Metal is cursed and any weapon made out of it will eventually betray it's wielder and get him killed. Stories about slabs of the material disappearing over night, or weapons moving on their own only strengthen the fear and prejudice against anyone in possession of such artifact. It is a common saying that "No man can wield death itself and live".