A paradise on a mountaintop sends its youth out one gate and, months or years later, welcomes them at another -- after a journey that tests their mettle and morality.
The utopia on the mountain is the height of civilization. The abundant crops grow in land so fertile that only the most basic tending is required; the citizens of the land spend their time studying the arts and philosophies. Each pursues whatever interests him or her the most; citizens show art in the town square while debaters compare theories in the shade of nearby awnings. This perfection is surrounded by an unmountable wall on sides; only two gates exist -- one on the south and one on the north.
Every New Year's night, all the children who are 16 are taken to the south gate. In a brief ceremony, they're given a machairi dagger, warm leather boots and seven days' worth of food. Then they're sent out into the world, down the road that snakes around paradise's gates.
On the road are the Seven Cities: Akkad, Enlil, Eridu, Eshunna, Kisurra, Nippur and Shuruppak. In each, lost souls toil to fulfill their needs and waste their spare time chasing desires. Between the cities are wild and primal forests, deep and fast rivers and treacherous deserts. In each live fantastic beasts, each focused on devouring the foolish and unwary.
Those who circle all of paradise and return to the north gate find that, no matter how long they've been gone, they re-enter on New Year's Eve, exactly one year after they left and exactly one year older. Time flows differently outside the city walls -- for some, they spend just months traveling along the road. Others tarry in the cities or the wilderness, and take decades -- sometimes centuries -- to finish the trip. Others never do -- they're devoured by beasts or resigned to live lives of dignified sin in the cities or fiefdoms.
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