Chapter 1 — The Quest
I am Nuo, the Unbegun
the silence before stars learned to burn.
And thus begins the Fourth Wandering of the Unbegun.
Now, children.
Kodaikanal was simple.
No heartbreak fuelled escape.
No philosophical pilgrimage.
No great search for meaning.
No cage door waiting to be opened.
The council leans forward.
A quest.
A noble one.
An ancient calling.
A mission worthy of five brave adventurers willing to risk time, money, dignity, and basic common sense.
The quest?
Mushrooms.
The council sighs.
The magical kind.
Children.
We had heard things.
Rumours.
Whispers passed between questionable people with suspicious confidence.
Mushrooms were supposedly like acid
but different.
More natural.
More connected to nature.
The council considers this.
Which, in hindsight,
does sound reasonable.
Mushrooms are,
after all,
considerably more natural than tiny squares of paper acquired through a tea shop transaction.
And Goa had introduced us to acid.
So naturally,
the next question became:
What else can make reality stop behaving?
The council buries its face.
Growth remained unavailable.
Now.
Who was “we”?
Excellent question.
The party had expanded.
First
Nuo.
The council nods.
Liability.
Second
Paul.
Human GPS.
Logistics department.
Keeper of common sense whenever available.
Third
Kosmo.
Climber of trees.
Finder of spots.
Man whose sentence,
“I know a place,”
should always be treated as both invitation and threat.
The council applauds.
Veterans of Goa.
But this time,
two new members joined the expedition.
Mith.
And Wing.
The council welcomes them.
Friends.
Good friends.
Friends who,
incidentally,
had also been invited to Goa.
The council turns slowly.
And declined.
Children.
They said they couldn’t come at the time.
A horrifying decision.
The audacity.
The regret.
Imagine being offered:
Acid.
Goa.
A half dead scooter.
A rave raid.
A giant banyan.
A mysterious ocean cryptid.
And Laia.
And responding:
“Can’t right now.”
The council boos.
History is unforgiving.
They had missed Goa.
But redemption was possible.
Kodaikanal awaited.
And so,
the party became five.
Nuo.
Paul.
Kosmo.
Mith.
Wing.
The council counts.
Five idiots.
One objective.
Acquire mushrooms.
Simple.
Except
transport.
The council leans forward.
Now, children.
Allow me to introduce someone important.
A machine.
A companion.
A glorious beast of metal.
My noble chariot.
Carlos.
The council pauses.
Carlos?
My car.
The council erupts.
YES.
I named my car Carlos.
Do you have a problem?
The council immediately sits down.
Good.
Carlos was magnificent.
To me.
History may contain other opinions.
But there was one issue.
Carlos was small.
Very small.
And we were five.
The council performs arithmetic.
Five humans.
One small car.
Supplies.
Luggage.
Presumably enough questionable decisions to require additional cargo capacity.
Something had to be done.
Enter
the Duke 390.
The council hears distant engine noise.
A noble metal steed.
Fast.
Loud.
Entirely too powerful for the general intelligence level of the expedition.
Perfect.
So the convoy would consist of:
Carlos.
And the Duke.
The council nods.
Now came the sacred ritual.
Seat allocation.
Who rides where?
Children.
This was solved using one of humanity’s oldest legal systems.
Dibs.
Paul called dibs on the car.
The council pauses.
That’s it?
That’s it.
No democratic vote.
No complex logistics.
No tribunal.
Dibs.
The council bangs the gavel.
Binding.
Now.
I obviously belonged in Carlos.
Why?
Several reasons.
One:
Carlos was my car.
The council nods.
Reasonable.
Two:
I did not know how to ride a bike.
Also reasonable.
Three:
even as a passenger on a bike,
I was considered a liability.
The council pauses.
There it is.
Children.
Some people contribute navigation.
Some contribute driving.
Some repair machines.
Some organize supplies.
I contributed a powerful uncertainty regarding whether I would remain alive.
The council applauds politely.
Every party has a role.
Therefore,
Nuo into Carlos.
Paul into Carlos.
Which left Mith.
Wing.
Kosmo.
And one remaining seat.
Who joined us?
Mith.
The council becomes interested.
Why Mith?
Children.
Because Mith had been selected for one sacred responsibility.
Driving my car.
The council pauses.
Your car?
Yes.
Carlos.
My noble chariot.
My beloved machine.
The vehicle legally and emotionally associated with me.
The council waits.
And I was not allowed to drive it to Kodaikanal.
The council erupts.
WHY?
I asked the same question.
The answer was roughly:
“No.”
More specifically:
“No, because you’re you.”
The council grows silent.
Children.
Devastating.
Cruel.
Unfair.
And
in hindsight
fair.
The council immediately applauds.
You have heard these archives.
Would you put this man behind the wheel for a mountain journey?
Exactly.
The prosecution rests.
Apparently my friends had assessed my historical relationship with self preservation
and concluded that allowing me control of several tonnes of moving machinery
would be strategically unsound.
I objected.
Probably.
Perhaps weakly.
Then I discovered what being banned from driving actually meant.
The council leans forward.
I got the back seat.
Children.
The back seat.
No steering.
No navigation.
No responsibility.
No need to monitor traffic.
No need to remain particularly useful.
I simply sat there.
Comfortably.
While the peasants in front managed transportation.
The council erupts.
PEASANTS?
Children.
Look at them.
Driving.
Navigating.
Monitoring roads.
Meanwhile,
I reclined in my royal carriage.
Occasionally,
a joint was passed backward.
The council sighs.
Occasionally,
vodka.
The council becomes more concerned.
And there I sat.
Receiving tribute.
A king.
No.
An emperor.
The council corrects the record.
A dependent.
Semantics.
Children.
There is a very specific freedom in being so consistently useless
that your friends stop expecting competence
and reduce your responsibilities to one fundamental objective:
Please survive.
The council nods.
And gods,
what an easy life.
No directions.
No mechanical duties.
No decision making.
Just sit in Carlos.
Exist.
Accept whatever is handed backward.
Try not to perish.
The council applauds.
Nuo had achieved his final form.
Now.
Wing and Kosmo took the Duke.
Which,
if you knew Kosmo,
made sense.
The man had climbed a banyan while on acid.
A motorcycle was practically conservative.
Wing joined him.
Mith took the driver’s seat of Carlos.
Paul beside him.
And I settled into the back like minor royalty being transported through his kingdom.
The council watches.
Five friends.
Two vehicles.
One mountain town.
One objective.
Mushrooms.
Children.
At this point,
I knew nothing of what Kodaikanal would become.
That’s important.
Goa had ended differently from how it began.
I had gone there chasing chemistry
and returned home carrying grief.
Bongo was gone.
The weight existed now.
The council grows quiet.
But I had not yet learned what that weight meant.
I did not understand that I would spend years carrying it.
I did not know roads would eventually become one of the ways I survived it.
I did not know that one day,
alone on a train to Kasol,
movement itself would begin to feel like medicine.
None of that existed yet.
The boy entering Carlos did not think:
Perhaps travel will help me.
The council shakes its head.
No.
He thought:
Mushrooms.
The council collapses.
Simple creature.
And perhaps that’s what makes Kodaikanal interesting now.
Present Nuo can look backward and see chronology.
Goa.
Then Kodaikanal.
Then eventually Kasol.
The shape of something forming.
But Old Nuo?
He had no map.
He was simply going somewhere with his friends
because there was supposedly something strange growing in the hills.
The Archivist existed now.
Barely.
The wanderer?
Still asleep.
The weight?
Very much awake.
And somewhere ahead,
Kodaikanal waited.
The council listens.
Misty hills.
Forests.
Cold air.
And somewhere,
allegedly,
magic mushrooms.
The quest marker appeared.
ACQUIRE MUSHROOMS.
PARTY SIZE: FIVE.
TRANSPORT:
CARLOS.
DUKE 390.
SURVIVAL PROBABILITY:
UNCLEAR.
The council nods solemnly.
Mith turned the key.
Carlos coughed alive.
My glorious chariot announcing himself to the morning.
Nearby,
the Duke roared.
Kosmo and Wing mounted their metal steed.
Paul settled in front.
I reclined in the back.
Children.
A procession of heroes.
If heroes travelled with joints,
vodka,
no plan beyond acquiring fungi,
and one passenger specifically prohibited from operating his own vehicle.
The council applauds.
Legends.
Carlos began to move.
The Duke pulled alongside.
For a moment,
we looked at each other through the windows.
Five idiots.
Smiling.
Ready.
And then the road opened ahead.
The council grows quiet.
I did not know it then,
but this was another one of those beginnings I would only recognize years later.
Not yet the Unbegun.
Not yet the solo wanderer.
Not yet the boy who would learn that sometimes you have to leave home just to remember how to breathe inside it.
Just Nuo.
In the back seat of his own car.
Being driven toward the mountains.
And so begins Kodaikanal.
The Fourth Wandering of the Unbegun.
The Mushroom Quest.
The Five Man Party.
Carlos and the Duke.
And one profoundly useless passenger enjoying the extraordinary luxury of having only one job.
Children.
Survive.
