A Main Character

**Nibuia Chief High Priest**

In the last year of the reign of **king Sin-Magir of Isin**. Traders along the silk road had been raving about this new plant like substance discovered by Indo-Aryan Brahmin. They allege that it allows worshipers to communicate with their gods as humans would with one another. Such thinking used to be considered blasphemy, a crime punishable by death if judged by the Sumerian priesthood.

However a priest named Nibuia from the city of Eridu was determined to personally confirm these allegations, and to possess its power to reinstate the theocentric powers of antiquity. "Based on these clay tablets, our King is weakened, and our land has become victim to the invasion of colonizing armies only because we have allowed our gods to become as the mundane due to intellectual vanity caused by scientific materialism. If the testimonies of these merchants are true it must mean that the gods are hiding in the primordial vestiges of our newfound arrogance. As Chief Priest, I will speak with them to humble us unto their cosmic truth again!"

He approached the Scribes among him that unify under the King in the Ziggurat. "Legislators of the Divine Order, I have gathered you here today because a new charter is upon us. Eridu has always sought to restore the dominion of our King, and the self-sufficiency of the Principle and Lesser cities by way of violence to prove power by our connection with the gods. This shall be no longer. We have been brought a fruit from heaven by merchants of the East that shall physically manifest our gods to us who shall peacefully trample our invaders underfoot by the liberation of the Mind." At this time one language was still read and spoken by the people in the land of Sumer, but everyone was mostly bilingual and began assimilating to cultures and gods of surrounding lands because they had families of mixed ethnicity.

"Be prepared, in the cities where you reside to again begin bringing the first fruit offering of your crops as tribute although the colonizer slay the at first. Our Priests will speak directly with the Patron Deity to know how to defend your homes, and we shall overcome them to establish our borders again!" The Scribes among him screamed with the look of fear, and with a roar of celebratory confidence he had not seen in the temple in a very long time. Nibuia firstborn of his Father was eldest of four sons and two sisters, and would be appointed as first in line for succession upon his unexpected and untimely death.

It was important in Sumerian society for the Priesthood to be decided by the Patriarch, but when this could not be done by the will left by the Chief Priest would be decided by the King. Elected as chief by the King meant Nibiuia had warriors who ensured his safety and the nationwide enforcement of his decrees by law, but only insofar as he had the power to interpret the King's dreams and could unify the nation amidst its rebellions. This declaration, which he had full authority to make would surely reach the throne room of the King and made him very afraid when he thought of how his siblings would react . He demanded that the merchants be seized, and be put to death if they refused him the substance that they spoke about.

Eventually one of the red eyed of the South came before Nibuia and the Scribes with enough substance to fill both sides of his Camel, and of plenty variety. Voice in a formidable rasp the man spoke like that of a fire breathing dragon . "It is 'ere my Lord," Widely understood that substances consumed regarded as sacred was forbidden for none but high priests. Nibuia saw this as an opportunity to not only galvanize a revolution for a new symbolic order, but also as a submissive act to make peace with his siblibings. The red eyed Witch Doctor had a stench reeking of death. Reminded of the story of the Nakash from Eden, a place not too distant from where he currently sits in judgement, he knows that the transformation of the kingdom is imminent.

The substance called Soma came as a drink, an herb that is burned and inhaled as incense, and a meaty root that grew from the soil one would prepare and eat. In the Ziggurat, Nibuia gathered the Priesthood in the sanctuary considered holiest where Scribes are forbidden.

"This feast we have before us, is not a normal one my brothers and sisters. The gods revealed to us knowledge about the surrounding world because it was important for us to grow beyond our ignorance and to know what our world truly is, but it was never intended to relegate them to that which is inferior. To remind us of this, they have prepared a meal for us from the east that shall open our eyes as our First Mother and Father. As we partake of this meal, of which thou have prepared with your hands today. The amount of proportion between us are equal so none can claim having experienced deity by quantity, and none of us could have tolerance to resist its power having never been exposed to it. Let us open the floodgates. Nibuia drank, his brothers inhaled the incense, and his sisters ate of the root.