How To Build An Ancient Civilization

How To Build An Ancient Civilization

by Gilgamesh, Hammurabi, Sargon and Ashurbanipal

Hello, Hammurabi here. Actually all of our names-all four of us really hard to spell, especially because it’s hieroglyphs. So Sargon will be referred to as Gon, I will be called Ham, Gilgamesh is Gill, and Ashurbanipal will be called Pal. If you are a slave and any one of us is still alive, GIVE US THE BOOK NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you are reading this to multiple people and know the ending, no spoilers! blah blah blah blah blah blah slave blah law blah. Now if you are a curious person with a knack of farming and getting into trouble, continue reading. The safe word is flaming top hat.

What  is the safe word?

...

You really don’t know?

..........................z.z...zzzzzzzzzz

huh? You’re still here? OK I’ll let you read.

My name is Hethope. I don’t have much time. First off, these tablets have nothing to do with building an ancient civilization. I used that first little thing to try to bore you to death. Where to start..... I suppose I’ll tell you the whole story.  It all started when I born. My father and mother were pretty good people. They both they had two weird habits. First of all, I was never allowed outside. I had a tutor come daily to teach me everything. Second of all, they both were obsessed with crystals. To a degree of insanity. Their dream was to demolish the house, hire hundreds of slaves, and get them to rebuild the house. Using only crystals. So anyway the first ten years of my life were pretty fine, just going to rituals and other stuff. But when I was 11, my parents gave my tutor a hat for his birthday. Now, to be fair, it was expensive, and fashionable. But my parent’s obsession with crystals and their ideas about gift design had crossed. Which is why my tutor was surprised when he got a crystal hat. He put it on, tested it out, and thanked my parents for the gift. He left the house (as he was just finished teaching me) and took off on the long journey to climb the hill that separated his house from ours. But as he just got on the of top the hill, Zap! a crisp. I always thought lightning could only zap trees. I guess I was wrong.

A couple of months later, I was walking up the hill, and as I reached the top, I saw that same crystal hat sitting on a pile of ash. This is the wrong time to say it, but i have to describe my parents at some point. My dad is bald, wears flax robes, and is very old. He’s 45!!!! My mother is 25 years old and wears flax as well. I picked up the crystal hat, dusted it off, and put it on in memory of my beloved tutor. Then, I heard a voice. No, I’m not insane. The first thing it said was “H-hello?” A million thoughts popped into head, and brain tried to say them all at once, so I said “wdh arp rgwfd thyjg!” To which the hat responded, “Pardon me, I have no idea what you are saying. I have to go. I apologize.”

“Wait!”
“What? Do you have a problem? Tell me your coordinates.”
“Problem? I’m alive.”
“Are you lost?”
“No. Who are you?”
“The 911 response team. Do you have an emergency?”
“911? Who are you?”
“We help you if you have an emergency.”
“Why are you in a hat?”
“Prank callers are not allowed.”
“What’s a prank caller?”
“I have to hang up.”
The monotone voice was replaced with a buzz. “Hello?”
“Harry! I’m in labor!”
“What?”
“Who ARE YOU?!?!?!”
“Hethope.”
“Goodbye, Hethope!”
Another buzz.
“Kids, is your refrigerator running? Better go catch it!”
“What?!”
Yet another buzz.
“Hello? What’s the safe word? Hint: It’s flaming top hat.”
“Flaming top hat?”
“Yes... My plan is coming together...I will travel through time using crystals. So what if I ruin history by creating a gap in my time with every other time?--at least I’ll get to see some dinosaurs.”
“What happens if you ruin history is that you will no longer exist.”
“That was a rhetorical question.”
“How are you in a hat?”
“What do you mean--how am I in a hat?”
“I’m currently wearing a hat and you appear to be speaking to me through it.”
“Is the hat crystal perchance?”
“What do you think? I’m talking to you through a headdress?”
“No. I think you’re talking to me through a crystal hat.”
“Another excellent example of a rhetorical question.”
“So what do you think happened?”
“I think that my tutor was wearing this hat, he was zapped by lightning, and it’s extremely stupid for me to be wearing this hat. For one thing, it’s extremely heavy, as it is made out of crystal.”
“It’s made out of crystal?”
“I believe we’ve been through this before.”
“Just say yes or no.”
“Well, I hinted that it was crystal, and then I felt sorry for you and came right out and directly said that it was crystal, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide, my Dear Hammurabi.”
“So you’re saying yes.”
“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Well, I’m not 100% sure. I did send a monkey in. Wait. I’m going through.”
“What are you going thr-”
“WHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”
“Ow! My head!”

I stopped talking, mainly because a boot had landed on my head. The scientist had gone through his time machine, the portal of which apparently ended inside of my hat. I took the hat off and he jumped out. Very unpleasant.

“By Jove, I think I’ve done it!”
“Who’s Jove?”
“It’s just a phrase. Don’t worry about that. I can’t believe I’m here. Look at you! You’re--you’re.... Well, I don’t know how to say this, but you are fabulously prehistoric!”
“Who are you, you name calling, head-stomping, strangely dressed man?”
“My name is Will. And yours?”
“Some call me...Heth.”

We had a wonderful conversation, at the end of which I realized that since he was smart enough to build a time machine then he could probably make some other inventions and potentially give us a huge amount of gold. We went to the city and told the king of Will’s humungous knowledge of many things, and the king instantly rejected him.
I was upset. Since everything was changing I decided to go where the fertile land was and Will would think of some invention that would allow me to farm way faster so we be all right. I got Will to start building a house and as he was building he was telling me how to farm.
“You put your right foot in you put your right foot out,
You put your right foot in and you shake it all about----.”
Oops. Wrong conversation. We were talking about early human culture as well. After he told me how to do it all, it was pretty easy, except since he was pretty busy building the house, I had to use whatever objects I could find lying around. I tilled the ground with a stick-- well, more of a twig. I then found some pig poop. It was digusting process but I managed to fertilize the whole area without also fertilizing it with my own vomit. Then I repeatedly stabbed the ground with my stick to make holes for the seeds. Then I found a sunflower and planted the seeds in the holes I had made. I found a pond nearby and using Will’s boot as a container I watered the seeds.
Will and I settled back into the house that he had made and I created a spear out of the stick I had been using for farming. We had previously agreed that Will would do all the hunting and I would do the farming and gathering. Will had caught a rabbit and killed it. We collected a bunch of sticks and leaves and hit two rocks together repeatedly until we got a spark then finally we had a fire. We roasted the rabbit over the fire and ate it then we slept poorly in the house that Will built with no beds.
The next day we found a bunch of straw and made beds (Hallelujah!). We found some berries and Will ate them first to make sure they weren’t poisonous. He started foaming at the mouth and making odd gestures with his hands. I decided not to have any berries. I discovered later the berries were not poisonous or harmful; just foamy. It seems Will had choked on one. At the time it was happening it looked as though he was going crazy. I did what any smart person would do and whacked him on the head with a stick. Will did not seem to appreciate my help and tried to take the stick away. I thought he wanted to whack me so I thought it best to whack him repeatedly in the head with a stick. He passed out after a while and many hits later.
Since Will was unconscious I had to do the hunting. I found a deer and tempted it with berries. As it got closer I stabbed it with a spear. It was surprisingly hard to drag back. I felt a pang of guilt every time I had to pull it forward. I then found some more straw, made a pile of it, and put the deer on it and then, using the two rocks, set fire to the straw. The one problem to my plan was that I had to wait until all the fire had died out until I could eat it. Will woke up around the fire died, instinctively found the stick, and hit me repeatedly with it. Ouch.
I woke up in a small fragile wooden cage with Will glaring at me and the spear beside him. We stared at each other for a while. He asked me why I had hit him so many times with the stick and I said there were two reasons: First, I told him it was extremely hard to knock him out and therefore required many hits. Second, I said he was foaming at the mouth and making gestures which made me think the berries were very dangerous. He agreed those were reasonable reasons but he should be able to carry the spear from now on.
We continued to survive for the next three months but then winter came and we were starving. We realized we needed to move back to the city in order to survive. We met with the king and he thought the property we had built was beautiful and he bought it from us. We lived off that money for two years. But as time passed we had less and less money. One day we were officially bankrupt but I had the brilliant idea to sell the crystal hat. Because we had done nothing for two years we were not in peak physical condition. It took five hours to climb the hill. As I reached for the crystal hat I realized that Will coming into my time would ruin the entire time space continuum. I told Will this and apparently the crystal hat heard as well. Then boom there went the space time continuum.