Gudmundur and the Comet

Gudmundur was one-thousand one-hundred eleven years old, centuries past the time when he thought time would eventually catch up to him. Instead the great tortoise endured growing ever more wise and introspective, which consequently made him largely aloof to events and occurrences around him. 

Gudmundur adored the earth and whenever he could, he would climb to a mountain peak or mesa and marvel at the landscape. He would often lament the curve of the earth because it hid what he might otherwise see. So he walked.

Gudmundar became a great traveler of living worlds throughout the centuries and was fascinated with large picturesque canyons, wide gilded savannahs, and high mountain ranges sketched on the horizon; watching as over time the world grew and changed.

One year Gudmundur awoke to the fact that something had constructed an observation tower on his shell. He never saw the original master of the tower but in the centuries since Gudmundar knew there had been other observatory keepers but none stayed long, maybe fifty or sixty years.

It occurred to Gudnundar that these tower dwellers also enjoyed seeing the growing world as he did but as he discovered, their interest seemed also to lie in the stars.

Gudmundur was now having dreams; he never knew about them, he did not know of any others of his kind and therefore was surprised when he experienced is first one. The dreams had different backdrops like he was always on different worlds, one wickedly hot and covered in sand while another world seemed pock marked with rifts like claw marks across the land. In every instance Gudmundur saw the comet. Like an icy jewel in the sky the comet streaked across all worlds and planes alike. Gudmundur was compelled to follow its course.

The comet was an omen, Gudmundur dreamt, somewhere there was a man on the moon, a drow, a red child, and a paragon who would see this comet …