Puffs of purple smoke left the old man's lips, he passed a pipe to a bearded fellow to his right, then spoke.

"The night without stars is the reason souls are lost. Without a guide, they wander aimlessly and the wells dry up. When the wells dry, our connections to the lands beyond close. Our land, infertile and disconnected, will drift into the final limbo and be forever forgotten."

Another bearded fellow inhaled the purple smoke too, then added.

“...what you are searching for is not answers, but means to escape the inevitable. The cycle will not continue forever, death is a necessity, not a choice. The only choice we can have is whether we make it in time to become one with the cradle, resign to never-ending disintegration of our shell or wander in limbo, forever.”

He passed a pipe to a scrawny, bald, and aged merchant.

“The wells know, what is the weight of your soul. Will it sink or float? Your schemes and games, prolong the inevitable, but the truth will always come on top. You see the rivers of creation as a maneuverable labyrinth, but it's an intricate set of sieves and funnels. Your soul has value, the lighter it is, the higher altitude it can reach. To force yourself to fly is to break the sieve... but that, can't be done forever. The nets grow thicker and the gaps grow tinier, all residual, heavy matter will sink back into the drainage.”

At last, a brown-haired woman with a horn received a pipe. She breathed in and started to cough uncontrollably.

“What determines the weight?” - She asked.

The pipe returned to an old man, who pondered for a while.

“That, we do not know. Once, I had a dream, where I saw a stone descend deep into the endless. The pressure crushed it until it became a compressed rock, then a diamond. The depths knew that the smaller it would be made, the deeper it would sink. It desired it, to drive that spirit into despair... but then, the unfathomable happened. The diamond would heat up until it shone brighter than the brightest star. It repulsed the darkness, its light forming a bubble that slowly, but steadily escaped the grasp of endless, until it shot out of the surface, disappearing far beyond the celestial meadows, far beyond my sight.”

The pipe was transferred to the bearded individual.

“...but that's a story of one star among billions, in my dream, I saw countless stones, descending into the endless. Many absorbed the cold and disappeared in depths so dark, that my eyes could no longer see their outlines. Many were like red-hot embers, but the heat alone was not enough to resurface, many sunk deeper, gradually losing their heat. Many burned with ardent passion, becoming hotter and hotter, but their weight pulled them down like an anchor. Many stones barely counterbalanced the fatal attraction, and became immovable points, forever stuck in the shallows.

The merchant was next.

“...then, in my dream, there were those, that became so heavy and devoid of light, that their presence consumed the endless itself. Those would become heavier and heavier, and often drag others down with them.”

The girl kept writing notes in her journal. She understood, If she wanted to create a bubble, there were different scenarios to avoid. She titled the page – The Critical Mass of a Soul.

An old man peeked at the girl, his eyes were judging even her smallest movements. The pipe was waiting, but Lily – such was her name – was too absorbed by her own thoughts. The merchant cleared his throat and Lily noticed.

“Sorry, sorry!” - She hastily inhaled the smoke, coughing a few times. - “You have no idea how much you helped me advance the theory of my studies.”

The old man received the pipe, he closed his eyes and held the smoke in his lungs for a considerable amount of time.

“Why are you trying to rewrite, what was always known? The structure of your words may change, but the truth will not.”

Lily lifted her pen and opened her mouth, ready to answer, but quickly came back to her senses. It was not her turn. The bearded man was next to speak.

“I see... a single ripple in the vast ocean, trying to dictate the waves.”

He passed the pipe to the merchant.

“...and it'll perish in the storm that is coming.”

Lily quickly took a puff... and it hit her. The chill, brisk air of the desert. The warmth of the fireplace. Coyote-like howling in a distance. The dark silhouettes of cacti. The vast, endless, and near-starless sky. Large canvas tents. Snorts and snores of cart-slugs. Good companionship and late-night conversations.

Shivers ran down her spine.

There was something magical about their meeting, something natural and primal, something that she desired to cherish forever. She just dropped her notebook, perhaps there was nothing to note after all.

“It's... because I don't want to forget... all that. It's too beautiful to be taken away, and it deserves to be seen and experienced by all spirits. I don't want... them to just go.”

The old man patiently waited for his turn, but intoxicated Lily just stared at the sky for minutes, in wondrous awe.

“Is it fair... was it our choice to leave the cradle? We were banished. Destined to seek the answers in the darkness, so many were lost... just because there was not enough light in their path.”

She gazed at the vast nothingness again, holding the pipe. - “I...” - Her eyes lowered, to a tobacco bowl. - “What was I?” - ...she was confused and lost, but she knew she was supposed to pass it to the old man.

The words started to blur and intermingle, Lily knew, that each of them was important, but her mind drifted far away. Stars above her ran across the sky at accelerating speed, until they became but smudges of light.