(OOC:
In orange will be written what an un-named dwarf from a distant future witnessed.
My dorf, Spriggans, left a message hidden somewhere.
The future orange dwarf has discovered the messages.
In
purple are the "incantations", and their translations, when available, are written
stroked.
End of OOC)
I am Urist the Explorer.
On the year 26 (by the New Calendar Countings), I ventured into the cursed abandonned village called FishHeads.
There, amongst the remains of countless fish carcasses I found, engraved on the green glass walls of a flooded empty room, the last testimony of Spriggans the Fish-despiser.
My mind is deteriorating as I'm discovering the magnitude of his revelations !
I need to write down this testimony before I forget it. Here is the transcription as I recall it :
Winter has come !Last time, when I wrote my autumn report. I was free. This is no longer the case. Now I am trapped forever.
Doomed to endure the Sea for eternity...
I just finished up dropping the huge pillar into magma when I heard un-natural sounds coming from the surface.
I immediately walked outside to the piers in direction of said sounds.
The first thing I noticed was the gapping abyss my engineering skills created :
The King would be proud ! This never-ending gap goes for miles and miles, and leads directly into the magma Sea !
Looking back at it, if things went differently, I could have pumped magma up, created a dump zone or a sacrificial pit.
I won't have time to do any of these now, as I'm sealed away from the Surface...
I slowly walked along the fishing docks, towards the waves-sounding voices.
What a mess this place was !
Aquatic creatures were bred in large quantities by the Fish-Folks. They were now everywhere !
(And this is only a tiny portion of the Village)
Following the noise, I finally found it originated from an opening, on a wall near the fishing docks and the roaring Sea.
I never saw this opening before. There was a room behind it. I sneaked in.
It looked like a primordial temple, dedicated to some long forgotten God, got built in this room...
I assume the Fishdwarves built it somehow without me noticing.
This strange place had it all.
Aquariums filled with strange creatures.
Statues of Gigantic Squids.
There were also many pedestals, displaying either rotten dead Fish, or a bunch of bone figurines (of a group of dwarves prosternating before a Gigantic Squid).
I recall that the scene represented by the bone figurines scared me deeply.
At the room's center were two sets of stairs...
One of them went up, towards the goulish noises.
The other one went
down. Which was very strange, as I was already at Sea Level.
It meant that this stairs went
underwater.
I peeked a look downstairs.
It looked like the Fish-people built what appears to be a Green Glass Box,
under-water !
I assumed, at first, its purpose was to look at aquatic wildlife. A large aquarium, if you will...
But the statues, the figurines of Aquatic beings, and the fish dead corpses in the room convinced me this box served another purpose...
More-over, there was a Glass Door in the underwater room... Leading to the Sea ! I noticed it was operated by mechanisms.
What could be its purpose ??
And then... All went wrong !
I was too focused on the Glass Room.
I did not hear the Fish-Dwarves behind me.
They grabbed me, and pulled me upstairs by force.
The primordial Temple had an upstairs. It was oddly shaped, and even more gruesome than the other floors !
The weird sounds I heard were coming from a set of crude Instruments the dwarves probably built long ago.
The dwarves - who I can at this point safely call
"Cultists" - were all gathered in a circle, around two freakish sea creatures.
These creatures,
looked remotely dwarven, while still having the characteristics of the ugly Horseshoe Crabs I know of.
Someone carried me inside the Circle, near the two disgusting creatures. I was too scared. I could not fight back.
The Fish Cult Leader, whose name I recall to be Jamotonous, moved inside the circle by my side.
He raised his arms upwards. The villagers did the same.
Some villagers began playing a crude rythm on the decaying instruments.
Thunder could be heard in the distance.
All at once, the cultists toned what appeared to be an incantation.
"Ii'aahsss !""iggnn fffsh 'ess'isrrr !!""ikkm thh' fffsh rvrrr !!"The meaning of this summon, I had no idea of at the time.
Back then, I could not understand
how it was dwarvenly possible to produce such a horrible sound.
It started raining.
I was scared to the bones.
I would have run if I could.
I would have run back all the way to the mountain homes, leaving this hellish village for good.
But this sonority stired so much fright into my soul that my feet refused to carry my body.
...
The ceremony continued.
The instruments quickened. The Cultists guttural incantations got louder.
"IGGNN FFFSH 'ESS'ISRRR !!""IKKM THH' FFFSH RVRRR !!""AAH I'A !"The sun disappeared. Rain intensified. Lighting bolts scratched the sky !
The waves peaks reached the pier !
The horseshoe monstrosities started to undulate rhythmically.
I know I should have been affraid there. But, for some reasons, I felt calm and confident now.
The Sea did not scare me this time.
I started to feel
different.
Eventually, lighting ended, and rainfall stopped.
The instruments started slowing down and the incantations got less loud.
"Ii'aahsss...." Spriggans...."iggnn fffsh 'ess'isrrr..." Be gone fish despiser..."... ikkm thh' fffsh rvrrr !" ... become the fish lover !I believe I got a glimpse of understanding some of them. But I cannot be sure.
The fish-folk calmed down.
The ceremony was over.
Three Cultists walked towards me. They grabbed me, and the two horseshoe crabs.
They moved us downstairs. Inside the Green Glass Box, below the primordial Temple.
And then...
They locked me inside ! Alongside the monstrosities !
Luckily, the beasts were quiet, and did not attack me.
I tried to walk, but my legs lacked energy.
I was wondering if I was getting punished.
Maybe the Cultists were just trying to scare me.
They needed me.
They would surely free me soon.
...
Some time passed.
The repulsing beasts began producing sounds :
"IIig' aaarr ! IIig' aaarr !" Bring water ! Bring water !I heard a clicking sound, and to my horror,
the outside Glass Door opened !Sea water started pouring into the room !
I swam to the stairs, but the hatchdoor was locked !
Soon, the room was filled entirely, I held my breath.
Water pressure stopped, I desperately swam to the outside door.
But the door closed before I could escape.
Unless a miracle happened I would drown soon...
A Miracle happened.
I did not drown.
I...
I could breathe underwater !!Gazing at the swimming horshoecrabs men, I slowly started to understand.
I believe my body knew it all along, but my mind was refusing the Truth.
The ceremony.... The reunification with water...
I did not get punished.
I got rewarded !
After this sentence, it appears from the wear of the engravings that a large amount of time have spanned. Several decades if not centuries...
The last inscriptions of Spriggans appear to be much, much, much more recent.
The time has come.
Finally,
the Glass Door has been opened.
It means that The Last Cultist, who remained alone on the Surface, has at last pulled the Lever.
Unlike us, he will never breathe under the Sea... We must praise his sacrifice.
We crossed the Door. We ventured outside ! Free to roam the depths at last !
The Ocean was littered with Green Glass Temples. All of them were built over the years by the SeaFolks.
Our temple was just the first of many.
Just like ours, the other temples' doors have been opened.
Their inhabitants, the once-dwarves who have been
rewarded, have been set free.
I see the other villagers swimming by my side.
"Kk'm ! Jiihh thh' fffsh rvrrr !!" Come ! Join the Fish Lover !Our water-adapted bodies are strong. We are numerous now.
The time has come to leave FishHeads.
The time has come.
...... !
Spring has arrived on the Calendar !
Author
Topic: Fishheads - A Succession Fishing Village - 47.05 (Read 30407 times)