Chapter 1 — The Quest
I am Nuo, the Unbegun
the silence before stars learned to burn.
And thus begins the Sixteenth Wandering of the Unbegun.
Chennai.
Now, children.
Chennai.
A glorious city.
Beaches.
Malls.
Food.
Traffic.
Heat.
Humanity packed into every available square metre.
And much more.
How do I know?
Children.
I lived there.
Once.
The council looks up.
College?
Yes.
My first one.
ICAT.
So this is another college story?
Negative.
The council closes the file.
Different era.
Important chronology.
This happened years after ICAT.
Some years before Manipal.
But
after NIT Calicut.
The council rearranges several increasingly complicated timeline cards.
Understood?
Good.
Because the Unbegun Cinematic Universe is no longer responsible for viewers who skipped earlier installments.
Now.
By this point
Hex had moved.
The council recognizes the name immediately.
Ah.
Hex.
Former best friend.
Social Interaction Department.
Logistics Department.
Dota teammate.
Man capable of resolving situations Nuo preferred not to acknowledge existed.
Yes.
That Hex.
And where had he moved?
Children.
Chennai.
Convenient.
Very.
Now you may assume
Nuo missed his best friend.
Perhaps months had passed.
Perhaps the heart yearned.
Perhaps he wanted to sit beside Hex again,
reminisce,
talk about old tournaments,
laugh about NIT,
remember the days when Optic Myst Gaming ruled Kerala
Children.
Absolutely not.
The council groans.
Of course not.
This was not a noble pilgrimage.
No sentimental reunion.
No:
I must cross state lines to reconnect with an old friend.
I had a far more spiritually developed motive.
Weed.
Silence.
The council nods.
There it is.
Children.
Nuo needed pot.
That was the quest.
Not enlightenment.
Not friendship.
Not nostalgia.
Not Chennai.
Cannabis.
The council opens the quest log.
OBJECTIVE:
Acquire weed.
DESTINATION:
Chennai.
CONTACT:
Hex.
MOTIVATION:
Dry.
Excellent.
Now.
Why travel twelve hours for weed?
Reasonable question.
Because back home
supply chain collapse.
The council becomes interested.
Dealer?
Caught.
Apparently.
Then
somehow escaped.
Then
fled the state.
Pause.
Children.
That sounds like a significantly more exciting story than mine.
Unfortunately,
it belongs to him.
The Archive only records what happened to Nuo.
The Dealer Cinematic Universe may publish its own spin off.
The council approves.
All I knew was:
Dealer gone.
Supply gone.
Nuo
dry.
And children,
dryness changes standards.
Normally,
perhaps one discusses quality.
Potency.
Smell.
Experience.
Whatever.
When supply exists,
humans become critics.
“This isn’t very good.”
“I’ve had better.”
Children.
When there is none?
Standards collapse.
Pot is pot.
The council nods.
Hex could supply.
Was it good?
No.
Low tier shit.
The sort of weed that probably looked apologetic for existing.
Did I care?
Absolutely not.
Because again
dry.
Children.
A thirsty man does not demand imported mineral water.
He sees puddle and begins negotiating with immune system.
The council objects to the comparison.
Fine.
But principle stands.
Hex had weed.
I did not.
Hex lived in Chennai.
Therefore
Chennai.
The council looks at the map.
This was your entire travel plan?
Yes.
Children.
Cities have been conquered for less.
Maybe.
Do not fact check the metaphor.
So the pilgrimage began.
Distance?
Not enormous by Unbegun standards.
We have had two day trains.
Mountain roads.
Cross state nonsense.
This?
Twelve hours.
The council pauses.
“Twelve hours” is still quite a journey.
Children.
After enough Indian travel,
twelve hours begins feeling like:
Nearby.
Especially when the ancient Fast Travel Method is available.
The council already knows.
Sleep.
Exactly.
Transportation?
Bus.
I boarded.
Probably found seat.
Settled.
And then
Fast Travel.
The council raises the sacred icon.
UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
Children.
One of humanity’s greatest inventions.
Other travellers must endure:
Road.
Traffic.
Stops.
Bad suspension.
People getting on.
People getting off.
Rest stops.
Night.
More road.
Nuo?
No.
I closed my eyes.
World
gone.
The council watches the loading screen.
One moment:
scenery moving outside.
The next
Chennai.
Twelve hours reduced to a biological cutscene.
Children.
Fast Travel is not glamorous.
But it works.
When consciousness returned,
the city had changed.
Language around me
Tamil.
Air
Chennai air.
Traffic
Chennai traffic.
And outside?
Hex.
The council smiles.
Waiting.
Because unlike my later solo Wanderings,
where arrival often meant figuring out what the hell came next,
this one had infrastructure.
Hex existed.
And as previously established
if Hex exists,
Nuo’s logistical burden decreases dramatically.
The bus had done its job.
Fast Travel had done its job.
Hex had located the arrival point.
Quest progression:
excellent.
Now.
There was one additional complication hanging over the entire country.
The council grows serious.
Money.
Specifically
the Great Demonetisation.
Children.
Some of you remember it.
Some of you may have only heard about it.
There was a period when India looked at a large chunk of the currency circulating through everyday life and essentially announced:
Those notes?
Not anymore.
The council pauses.
Chaos?
A reasonable summary.
High value notes that people had been using normally
suddenly became
problematic.
Old notes had to be exchanged or deposited under changing rules.
New notes existed,
but not in quantities matching humanity’s immediate desire to possess money.
ATMs?
Queues.
Banks?
Queues.
Cash?
Theoretically yours.
Practically
good luck.
Children.
This mattered.
A lot.
Because we existed in an unfortunate technological era.
Today?
You can walk into a tea stall with no cash.
Phone.
QR code.
Beep.
Tea.
Civilization.
Back then?
Children.
No.
Not in the everyday universal way it works now.
You could not simply solve every financial crisis by pointing a rectangle at another rectangle.
Cash still ruled vast portions of ordinary life.
And cash
was currently experiencing an existential crisis.
The council opens the financial system.
NUO:
Has money?
Perhaps.
CAN NUO ACCESS MONEY?
Questionable.
VALID NOTES AVAILABLE?
Sparse.
DIGITAL PAYMENT INFRASTRUCTURE?
Not yet omnipresent.
This sounds inconvenient.
Children.
Very.
Now add the objective.
Weed.
The council slowly closes the banking manual.
Ah.
Yes.
The black market economy is famously receptive to
Do not finish that sentence.
Fair.
No procedural details.
What matters is simply:
our quest required money.
Money existed in theory.
Money availability?
Complicated.
Children.
Demonetisation had created one of those bizarre moments where having rupees and being able to use rupees were temporarily separate concepts.
And Story Nuo?
Had crossed into Chennai precisely during this financial carnival.
Excellent timing.
The council applauds fate sarcastically.
So there we were.
Nuo.
Hex.
Chennai.
One ancient friendship.
One mediocre supply of pot somewhere within the city.
And one national monetary crisis making even simple transactions unnecessarily adventurous.
Children.
Perfect.
Now.
Did I think any of this qualified as a Wandering?
No.
Of course not.
Remember the era.
This was before Manipal.
Before Kasol.
Before the word had acquired meaning.
Nuo did not travel thinking:
Perhaps the universe will teach me something.
Children.
The universe could keep its lessons.
I wanted weed.
The council nods.
Honesty appreciated.
And perhaps that matters.
Because the Archive now contains Wanderings motivated by nearly everything.
Grief.
Curiosity.
Friendship.
Gaming.
Camera repair.
Zoo.
A phone call.
And now
dry spell.
The council reviews the roster.
Diverse.
I warned you.
The Unbegun Cinematic Universe has range.
There is no minimum nobility requirement.
A road does not ask why you stepped onto it.
It just
continues.
Present Nuo thought.
Story Nuo?
Where weed?
Correct.
Protect continuity.
So I climbed off the bus.
Perhaps stretched.
Perhaps looked like a creature recently revived after twelve hours of compressed travel.
Hex waited.
Best friend.
Old teammate.
My established supplier of social competence.
Children.
Was I happy to see him?
Probably.
I did care about Hex.
We were best friends.
But let us not rewrite motive.
If Hex had moved to Chennai without access to weed?
Would this exact pilgrimage have happened?
The council looks at Nuo.
Unclear.
Exactly.
Friendship may have sweetened the journey.
Agriculture caused it.
The council writes this honestly.
And Chennai?
Familiar.
That makes this Wandering different too.
I wasn’t entering an unknown city.
This place already had history with me.
ICAT.
Old roads.
Old memories.
A former version of myself.
But I wasn’t returning for them.
Children.
That would be too poetic.
I returned because my dealer had apparently gone through an action film subplot and vanished from the state.
The council laughs.
Thus
Hex.
Thus
bus.
Thus
Chennai.
And now,
with the Fast Travel Method complete,
the real quest could begin.
The council opens the file.
WANDERING SIXTEEN:
CHENNAI.
TIME PERIOD:
After NIT.
Before Manipal.
DESTINATION FAMILIARITY:
Former home.
PRIMARY QUEST:
Weed.
QUALITY EXPECTATION:
Low.
DESPERATION:
High enough.
BEST FRIEND:
Available.
NATIONAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM:
Temporarily annoying.
CHANCES OF A SIMPLE WEEKEND:
The council looks at Nuo.
Do not.
Fair.
We do not foreshadow.
For now
arrival.
Hex outside the bus.
Chennai around me.
The city I already knew
waiting for a version of Nuo who no longer lived there.
Children.
And in my head
one objective.
Pot.
The council sighs.
Beautiful.
Profound.
Truly the stuff memoirs are made of.
And yet
here we are.
Because years later,
this stupid little supply run would return to the Archive
and demand a number.
Sixteen.
Chennai.
But Story Nuo knew none of that.
He woke from Fast Travel,
saw Hex,
probably smiled,
and stepped into the city.
Quest active.
Thus concludes Chapter One.
The Familiar City.
The First College That Is Completely Irrelevant To This Story.
The Timeline Placement.
The Return Of Hex.
The Dealer Who Apparently Escaped His Own Crime Thriller.
The Great Dry Spell.
The Low Tier Weed.
The Twelve Hour Pilgrimage.
The Ancient Fast Travel Method.
The Great Demonetisation.
The Crisis Of Money That Exists But Cannot Be Acquired.
And
Chennai.
Children.
I did not travel twelve hours because I missed my best friend.
Let history remain honest.
I travelled twelve hours because my dealer disappeared
and Hex had weed.
Not good weed.
But weed.
And when you’re dry?
The council nods.
Pot is pot.
And so begins
the Sixteenth Wandering of the Unbegun.
Chennai.
