The land was barren. The ground was drier than a dried curuba. The Qhapaq Inka was worried.
It had been nearly seven months since the last rain had fallen on the plains of the Urubamba Valley, and with the Feast of the Inti Huacas less than two months away, Atahualpa, delirious from his lack of sleep and constant coca chewing, was desperate to appease the gods.
The land needed to be quenched. The maukas and ullucos needed to be harvested.
Ticci Viracocha, the high priest and childhood friend of the Supreme King had come before Atahualpa three days earlier with a proposition, one that had initially struck The Exalted One as implausible and foolhardy -- the ramblings of a confused priest with a face full of tattoos. Since then though, with every passing hour and every discarded coca leaf, Atahualpa had grown desperate, knowing that Feast of the Inti Huacas had take place without incident for the last five-hundred years.
The Supreme King was not prepared to let The Feast fail under his rule, a rule that had seen the kingdom more than double in size through a process of creative agricultural advancements and multiple campaigns of systematic villager slaughter. Nothing made The Inka more proud than to talk about his kingdom's agricultural advancements -- nothing, that is, except for the slaughters. The Qhapaq Inka could talk about the slaughters for an entire moon cycle.
And now Viricocha stood before him with this ridiculous proposal, one that he would normally dismiss without consideration, and yet here The Inka was, slowly nodding his peacock-headressed head! Here The Inka was, dipping a peacock feather in berry ink and affixing his royal seal (a fiery peacock) to the parchment the high priest laid in front of him! He rested a hand on his pet peacock that sat by his side.
The plan would have to work. The empire depended on it.
Groups would be assembled -- dancing groups -- rain dancing groups -- groups that would be dancing to illicit rain -- rain that would fall from the sky.
Civilization's first dance-off was about to begin.
