Four questions

Preface

Four questions is a piece of Player Created Fiction written by Herko Kerghans as one of his many Caldari tales. Originally published in the EVE-online forums [1].

Four questions

Hum… The curious type, aren’t you? Sure, you can ask… but if you want answers, you will have to drink. After all, what good is knowledge without experience? Yes… one gulp does kill Intakis for sure, but Gallentes should survive one glass... maybe... No risk, no reward.

Deal? Very well... To your health my friend.

He he… Yes, hak'len is strong. Here, have some water… it will help you quench it… now, ask away.

Where does it come from? Interesting you phrased it that way… Well, originally it wasn’t called hak’len, but kresh. Yes, kresh, like the tree so abundant in Caldari Prime. The liquor is made by fermenting the red grapes in much the same way as many other beverages. Ironic, isn’t it? We jump through galaxies but still it's the soil's essence what lightens our hearts.

Kresh adapted itself very well to many planets through The Forge and Lonetrek, although hak’len from Caldari Prime is unanimously considered the very best. The flavour of home, sort to speak… whether that’s taste or nostalgia, I’ll leave it for you to decide.

Why the change of name? Hum… Feeling brave today, aren’t you? Another answer, another shot. Here… one... two... three. Again, to your health my new friend.

The change of name… you see, kresh is deeply rooted in Caldari lore. The origin of the liquor is lost in time, but even before the liquor came the tea, which goes by the same name. Some say its our oldest tradition, the only one remaining from our ancient past. Whatever the case, it’s made with the leafs of kresh, and only those trained in the art can prepare it. In the wrong amounts, its poisonous. Death in a hot cup.

It’s drank only in three occasions. You taste it first along with your class mates when you turn 14, as a sign of leaving childhood behind. Yes, of course I drank it, the same as every Caldari you know, the ones raised inside the State at least. Can’t be described… The taste of mortality, if you wish. We drink it at funerals, as a reminder of the thin line we will all soon cross … And it is drank at the Meetings of Reasoning.

Yes… the fabled Meetings… no, they are no myth I assure you, but they happen so seldom, sometimes generations apart, that it’s no wonder many outsiders tend to think it’s something that never really happens. But they do. What goes insides nobody knows, except for the fact that the world tends to change rather violently after them, and because in the Meeting the CEOs drink tea.

Now, for such an extraordinary event, an extraordinary man exists. If for outsiders the Meetings of Reasoning are almost a myth, the Tea Master is surely a ghost. A man whose sole purpose in life is to serve the State in that particular occasion, which may very well never happen in his entire life, and never seeks anything else… I guess its safe to say no other member of Caldari society is held in deepest respect.

Hakkilen was the Tea Master during the Exodus to The Forge, and he brought with him the kresh from Caldari Prime. Kresh adapted amazingly well in what is today New Caldari… but since then, both the tea and the liquor were named after the one who transplanted our roots to a new home. New Caldari’s hak’len is by far the very best... after Caldari Prime's, that is.

One more question, indeed? Your... thirst for knowlede is remarkable. Of course I will held my end of the bargain.

Here you go... to your health, my friend.

Ah, finally you ask what you really wanted to know... why is the liquor sacred to us fighter pilots? Why do we drink it before every battle? I think I’ll answer you both for the same price… I’m feeling like you deserve a 25% discount for your courage.

And again... kind of a bad pun really. No, of course it is not something as superficial... the reasons are deep, as everything we do. It helps us remember that we are cowards.

Yes, cowards. You see, after we turned our backs to our home, after we fled from you to this corner of space, most of us took to tatoo “Haak-kin k’len” on the back of our neck. You can obviously...

Why are you so pale? Trouble breathing? Well… hak’len will do that to you, my friend. Paralize your nervous system and choke you to death. C’mon… don’t give me that angry look… I said Gallentes could perhaps survive one gulp… but surely not three in a row. Don’t worry, death will be slow enough to allow me to fulfill my part of the bargain.

Now, where were we? Yes, Haak-kin k’len. A bad pun. You can obviously hear the fonetic similarity with the liquor’s name, even if your are struggling to breathe your last. It’s what Toba shouted as he plunged forward, his final transmision, his last words. The legacy every Caldari strives to uphold.

Haak-kin k’len.

In Caldari, “We will return”.