A Missive to the People of Naidax

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Shyriath
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A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Shyriath »

(OOC: A bit of filler material while I'm working on "Unsealing" and some other things. This dates from before the present time, but twenty or thirty years after the events of "Unsealing".)
A message from the Shining Council to all:

O people who live in the light of the Beacon of Naidax, we of the Council, who were each in our time chosen from among you to serve and guide you, bring you greetings.

We have listened, o people, and to our shock and our sorrow we have been hearing, with ever more frequency, the words of intemperance, blasphemy, and (yes!) even insanity, spoken in our tunnels. Terrible enough it was to know that our siblings of the other Beacons had become susceptible to such influences, but we would never have imagined the time would come when they would pass our own gates. We know, of course, that most of you stand firm, walls of stone in the face of their darkness, but tendrils of that darkness have crept in amongst us. Our vigil must be unceasing. To all of you, therefore, we offer this statement, for the encouragement of those who have turned away from the lies, and for the redemption of those who have fallen prey to them.

It cannot be denied that the Sealing Away has been undone. Out of due and prudent caution this Council for many cycles resisted the notion, but this was only until accounts could be obtained from reputable sources rather than from whispers and speculation. Rumor is ever the enemy of truth, and must be countered at every turn. We had sent envoys to our siblings in Ezhku, who guided them to the Great Gate, and they saw the path clear to the World Outside.

Nonetheless, it is self-evident that this discovery means less than some make it to be.

All faithful people know that the Sealing Away was for our own protection. The Voices of the World, knowing of the troubles to come, called the Shapers to the World Inside to breathe life into the caverns; they instructed the Shapers in their work; they chastised the Shapers for the abuse of their powers, and broke them; they eased the pain of our ancestors, and reconciled us to the World Inside; and when at last the Catastrophe came, the Voices in their pain gave up a mighty shout, and the passages between the Inside and the Outside were severed, so that we would be spared. It is self-evident that this is our place, and the Voices made it so for us. It is for this reason that when our Clocks show the correct hours we sing the Songs, to honor them and remember what has happened.

It has been suggested that, the passage to the World Outside being clear again, the words of the Song of Return have been fulfilled. Although it is without question that, as prophecy states, there will come a day when we go forth again and reunite the Inside and the Outside, the mere existence of a known passage should not be taken as a sign that this is the proper time. The Song tells of a glorious return to a restored world, a holy march into beneficent lands. It is our understanding that those who pass the Gate must take extreme measures merely to survive. We have heard of young men and women, impatient with the teachings of their elders, slipping out of the Gate out of boredom and curiosity. Is this the Time of Return that we have been promised? An ignominious dribble of the dissatisfied, into a world so harsh that it cannot yet have recovered from the Catastrophe? Surely not.

But more disturbing yet is the news that our siblings of the other Beacons have failed to recognize the nature of these events. They allowed their people to leave the light of their Beacons and wander unhindered into the World Outside, even before they knew whether the rumors of a passage were true; and now they profane the Song of Return, shuffling in and out of the future paradise as if touring a interesting cave.

Worst of all, we have confirmed to be true a common rumor. We would not have believed it, had it not been told also to us by our siblings in Ezhku, but it appears that the unwisest of the intruders into the World Outside have begun building permanent settlements there. O people, the arrogance of this drives us nearly to despair. No doubt the harshness of the Outside will consume them all, but what of the rest of us? When the True Return comes, will there be an unspoiled place awaiting us? And how the Voices must look upon us with disgust, for shunning their gift! The tremor that brought down the Cave of Nine Needles forty days ago surely is the rumble of their displeasure.

O people, as the guardians of Naidax, we your Council can be neither silent nor permissive on this matter. Those who seek out the World Outside endanger our past, our present, and our future. We warn all those who live in the light of our Beacon not to be lured into blasphemy. There will be those that spread fables and lies to ensnare you, speaking of wide unclaimed lands, strange sights. Some will speak of hints of the presence of other peoples living in the Outside; vehicles seen distantly moving across water or in the air, debris of civilization. The absurdity of this, in and of itself, shows the falseness of their claims.

We know, o people, that the majority of you will not be taken in. Nonetheless, in order to discourage the spread of wild notions among the gullible, the Council hereby orders the following:

-The Gate-watch is hereby authorized to question those entering or leaving the light of the Beacon of Naidax as to whether they have been to the World Outside, whether they intend to go, or whether they intend that others should be incited to do so; and if the answer is in the affirmative, or is negative but suspected to be false, the Gate-watch shall detain the answerer for judgement by this Council. The official representatives of other Beacons shall be exempt from this provision.

-The Beacon-watch is hereby authorized to seek out those within the light of the Beacon of Naidax who speak of having gone to the World Outside, of intending to go, or of inciting others to do so, and to detain them for judgement by this Council. Furthermore, the Beacon-watch is authorized to obtain information from the citizenry that might lead to the detention of such individuals. The official representatives of other Beacons shall be exempt from this provision.

-Those who have been judged by this Council to be guilty of having gone to the World Outside, of intending to go, or of inciting others to do so, shall be given an opportunity to redeem themselves by refraining, in thought, word and deed, from doing so again. Those who refuse, or who accept but then persist in their course, shall be considered an irredeemable danger to this Beacon and to all the Deep Singers, and will be removed.

-The Shining Council shall immediately send forth representatives to our siblings of the other Beacons, to persuade them of the importance of this matter, and to adopt measures similar to those given here. We shall also propose, most emphatically, that all known passages to the Great Gate be sealed again, and that explosives be made available from the Cache for this purpose. Those who have settled Outside shall have the choice of returning to their homes, or else of being cut off, left in the wastes to die.

Engraved copies of this missive shall be made available in all public places, and it shall furthermore be announced verbally, in its entirety, once daily in those same places, so that none will be unaware of it.

May the Voices have mercy on us all.
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Scott Alexander »

OOC: I'm thinking of sending a Drachumvelin to negotiate with the Kennerext over maybe investigating the Colony, since the Kennerext should know enough about caves and the underground to run into them. Is it reasonable to imagine a Drachumvelin showing up in the caves one day and asking to speak to the Shining Council, or would this be an unimaginable society-transforming event so I should wait until you're more established in the world?

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

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(OOC: By the time of the present day, receiving a foreign emmisary in Kennerext would be okay; a very very important and unusual event, possibly even an unprecedented one, but not unexpected. The kind of people who would be actually dissatisfied with it have been dissatisfied with so much for so long that they're not going to be paid much attention to. However, from the story-writing perspective, there's a lot of things that no one knows about Kennerext but me, and knowing where to go and who to talk to and what things will be like involves a lot of details that I haven't established in public yet. Aside from Unsealed, and hinting at some of the other things through blurbs like this missive, I was going to release a bunch of them in the form of brief reports.

Thinking about it, this might be a good opportunity to do it another way. Present-day Kennerext has probably had some low-level contact with the outside world by now, just about enough to make other powers aware they're there and vice-versa, but only the barest of official communication. Information is probably difficult to come by. Would it make sense, maybe, for someone to be sent on a mission that was as much fact-finding as it was diplomacy? Along the lines of, "We have here some cave-dwellers who haven't been fully drawn into Archipelago and who might be useful, but that's all we know, so let's send someone to find out about them and who to talk to and reel them in"? And then the resulting RP could reveal things in a more organic fashion. Would you be interested in doing that? If so, let me know; there's probably some details I would have to PM you to start off with.)
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by ari »

Awww, they're so conflicted, it's cute :)
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Scott Alexander »

Let's do a short story where a Drachumvelin expedition goes in search of them, meets some, and then half the expedition returns to Drachumve with their findings and the other half hires a native guide and goes in search of some of the deeper and further Beacons, then vanishes mysteriously (for me to use for my own plans later).

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

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The few. The proud. The Tarotl.

They had lore from ancient Raikoth that not even the priests possessed. Memories of how once it had been the Tarotl who had traveled from city to city in the depths of winter, bearing important news or calls to battle. Of how it had been the Tarotl who had civilized Lirikoth, trudging from city to city and colony town to colony town with books and messages.

And three of them had been in Drachumphan when the disaster struck. And they had reconstituted something of their old order, with the same passwords and the same oaths, and given their loyalty to Omi Oitherion, who had turned them to a purpose more glorious than any they had served since the world was young. It was they who would seek out new lands and bring them into the Archipelago, the new World Government.

The decades just before Year One had been exciting times. Steamships were the most advanced technology their industry could support, and so it was on their paddlewheeler that they had first explored the seas west of Drachumve, landing at the haunted isle of Dromosker just long enough to meet with the sinister En Lugal and take some Askerr hostages to learn the Drachumvelin language. As the expedition set sail back to Drachumphan, a storm blew it off course onto an entirely new continent, where it landed in the Soviet Republic of Col. A small group of social scientists from the capital, Ivanov, shared enough knowledge of pre-apocalyptic languages with the Drachumvelin that they had been able to communicate and invite a young diplomat, Braginsky, to return north with them.

Then there had been the next expedition, the first one to cross the western ocean. After five weeks of travel, they had reached the vast and fabulously wealthy island of Aryasht, from which they were conveyed across a narrow straight to the court of the Emperor of Aryapur, an absolute monarch straight out of the Bronze Age. He had showered them with gifts and sent several of his courtiers back to Drachumve, as well as telling of rumors of a strange valley to their west which no man had ever entered, but which the Drachumvelin explorers might find interesting. Anxious to return home before the winter storms, they left the valley for future trips, instead impressing the Autokrator with the many exotic trade items the Emperor of Aryasht had given them.

As the ice began to recede, the Northeast Passage to Lant had become navigable, and they were disoriented to find a people who ignored their trade goods and instead inspected the machinery of their ship, reverse-engineering it with their eyes as if feasting on its strange technology. Two years later, a small fleet of Lantian steamships arrived at Drachumve and began bartering for whatever knowledge was available, until the Lantian industrial base outstripped Drachumve's own. The Tarotl didn't notice; they were too busy using Resplendence as a base to explore the Eorlasian Isles beyond being first driven away and then finally grudgingly accepted by the strange Favored.

And so gradually, the dark fog that covered the map had receded, and the world became known and its peoples one.

But there had always been rumors that the second-largest of the isles of Eorlas was not quite as uninhabited as it seemed. The few Favored who hunted or prospected its shores brought back to their kinsmen the warning to stay away from the caves. When these rumors began to include a name - Kennerixt - the Autokrator became interested enough to sponsor and expedition.

And so the Tarotl sailed out, one more time. There were eighty of them on board the ship Grandfather of Storms, bought from the shipyards of Lant like so much of the Drachumvelin navy these days. They had provisions and weapons and enough trade goods to barter with an army. They had experts in pre-apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic languages, and a few experts in communication without a common language at all. There was not a spelunker among them; it was plausible that the Kennerixt dwelt around the mouths of caves, but it was silly to think they would be any deeper than that.

The ship landed in south-eastern coast of the island, just north of Real Diamond. A few of the hardier explorers went around looking for cave entrances; the others set up a base camp near the coast. Nothing to do now but look and wait...

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

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Night fell over the World Outside. The burning star that lit the day had dipped once more below the horizon, and its innumerable cousins winked on one by one to brighten the night.

Antil Xen had been sheltering in a hollow beneath the roots of a large oak tree. It was not the most inconspicuous of hiding places; the soil in this particular area was thin, and the few trees that grew at all here tended toward a stunted, scrubby look. The large, healthy tree stuck out like a sore thumb. But she had not been able to find any cave openings last night, and the days were longer in this season, so she had taken what she could find.

She had been up for an hour or so, packing away her belongings and occasionally creeping to the entrance of the hollow to check on the progress of the sun. It seemed dark enough now to set out. Antil struggled into her traveling clothes, gathered up her pack and her staff, and emerged cautiously from the hollow.

The figure that emerged was short, its head scarcely four feet off the ground, although its stance was somewhat bent; not in the manner of one under a heavy load, but because of the very curvature of its spine. Most of Antil's body was concealed by a sort of long-sleeved robe of gray-dyed cloth. It was expensive, by the standards of her people. It had only been a few years ago that a group of enterprising individuals had learned how to harvest the hair from some of the more docile surface creatures for clothing. But it was better protection from the elements of the World Outside than woven laka-moss strands, and more durable.

Beneath a wide, conical hat made of strips of metal welded together was a face; it was a human one, but nonetheless a very different one, narrow and long, with skin so pale as to be nearly pure white. The scout's eyes were large, with wide pupils and pale irises, and her nose was small and flat; a pair of large ears were folded beneath the hat like bat's wings. A pair of thick, dark goggles hung around her neck.

She strode out with a heavy pack slung over her shoulder, and a long, hollow metal staff in one hand.

-----

Scouting the World Outside was an honorable and well-paid profession, but a difficult one. The Deep Singers were not used to the hazards and difficulties posed by the Sun, the open air, by animals, or by unfamiliar sorts of terrain, and although navigation and mapping were somewhat simplified by being less three-dimensional than that in cave systems they were different enough that it required a certain amount of expertise to become skilled with them. Antil Xen was one of the few scouts with enough of these skills to be regularly sent into the deeper wilderness. As well, she was one of the few people who had had any experience at all with Outsiders, however brief. On this particular occasion, that would be important.

The land south of Xalt was thickly forested, but barely inhabited. Beyond a certain distance south of the home mountains, the Outside became uncomfortably hot in the long-day season. But there were always scouts and seekers of fortune wandering through the area, and several of them had reported the presence of a sea vessel and a large party of Outsiders on the coast southwest of the Beacon.

The Deep Singers had met a few Outsiders before, usually around Xalt itself. Mostly they had crossed the sea from the south, as individuals rather than groups; they were generally avoided if well away from the Beacon or important resources. The ones who wandered closer were treated with wary politeness, or as much that could be conveyed to people who could not speak Taxnim, but were carefully watched. Only a few, usually traders of some flavor or another, had established any sort of acquaintance. But the presence of a large force of them was an entirely new development. Xalt's Shining Council had been thrown into confusion, and a messenger had been dispatched along the newly-finished rail line to Ezhku to seek advice from the Overcouncil, but it had been belatedly realized that some more immediate response would be required. Antil, therefore, had been sent to search for the landing party, and to attempt to discern their motives.

She hadn't been told how far she was supposed to go in doing so, and the fact worried her.

-----

Finding the encampment proved not to be incredibly hard. The coast here was rocky, and often edged with cliffs, which while excellent for the Deep Singers's purposes were generally not friendly to ships. But there was a small river that cut down through the land on its way to the sea, leaving a steep valley or canyon that was easily accessed by water and easily defensible; from her vantage point on the cliff that formed the valley's northern border, she could see the sea vessel anchored just beyond the river mouth. And there, down below and slightly inland, some kind of encampment; it was established enough that they had likely been here a few days already. A number of temporary shelters. Lots of supplies coming ashore; the crates were stacked high. It occurred to Antil that, even though there were many people about, the supplies seemed excessive. Were they coming for a long-term stay?

She glanced at the eastern sky. She had spent too much time watching; the light of the Sun would be peeking over the horizon before too long. She would have to shelter again for the day before making her next move.

Moving quietly away from the cliff edge and inland, she entered a largestand of pine and looked around carefully. After several minutes, she spotted a scattering of smooth white stones nestled in among the bed of needles littering the ground, and examined their placement carefully from several angles; then she set out in a different direction. Finally, she reached a boulder deep among the trees, and walked around its base. On the other side, there was a narrow space where the boulder's bottom did not quite meet the uneven ground; she took off her pack and hat, pushed them through, and then carefully wriggled through herself, dragging her staff behind her.

Once inside, she sat up, grinning. The passage was one she had discovered herself on a previous expedition; it led down to the base of the cliff. A shelter for the day and a path to the encampment, all in one place.

Replacing her hat, pack, and staff, Antil strolled confidently into the darkness, down an easy slope toward a larger chamber, clicking her tongue occasionally. Once there, she set down her pack. She remembered there being a smooth spot on the floor to lie down on-

"Would you look at this place?"

The unfamiliar syllables of an alien tongue echoed up from the passages below. Antil froze.

"Right near the camp, too. This place is riddled with holes."

"Be quiet, will you? If one of those folks is around, they can probably hear you."

There was the distant reflection of a moving light from the passage to the valley floor. Antil squinted, then scooped up her pack and hurried back toward the way she had come in. Wedging herself behind a low ridge of rock, she opened the pack and removed a slim metal dart, and inserted it into the end of her hollow staff; then she rested the staff on top of the rock and kept the end of it near her mouth. Strange, that light was still getting brighter-

A sharp, focused beam forced its way into the chamber. Antil gasped as it stabbed painfully into her eyes, and dropped the staff, fumbling for her goggles. The light turned toward her, and she yelped and covered her face with her hand. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the afterimage of the dreadful light; her eyes burned, and were watering so badly that tears were running down her face.

"Ach! Aralta nax vayant hin! Dashte! Vaya hin!" Antil shouted. Sinking to the floor, she groaned, "Vayant hin. Kunnarath ener!"
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Scott Alexander »

The woman was not exactly a prisoner, or anything. She was just tied up so she wouldn't leave.

"Narahaka quin shemlotsi mekraiska?" asked Ante, one of the linguists. Then she shook her head. "Subject doesn't speak a West-Keltian derived language, or she would've at least recognized some of that. "Viekää minut johtajanne...nope, nothing Lantish either."

"Man, take a look at her skin," said Dor. "Paler than...paler than you, Koli." Koli elbowed him; he was one of the twenty or thirty percent of Raikothlin stock who were more or less affected by albinism. "Must have spent pretty much her whole life in those caves." He handed her some food and water. She looked at them distrustfully.

"We are going to play with puppets!" said Yyone, the expert in non-verbal communication. She held up a pale, bedraggled puppet that looked noticeably like the captive woman. Yyone pointed to the woman, then to the puppet, just to make sure she was understood.

A puppet of a Drachumvelin expeditionary appeared behind the puppet of the woman. The woman wandered into an overturned barrel - apparently representing a cave - and the Drachumvelin followed. On the other side of the overturned barrel was a small model of a city. The woman and her Drachumvelin follower ended up inside the city.

Yyone looked at the woman and gave an exaggerated look of questioning. The woman nodded enthusiastically.

"I say she knows we want her to lead us back to her people," said Yyone. "Go for it."

"Or she's going to lead us right into an ambush, or into the maw of one of those giant carnivorous moles you keep hearing about." said Dor.

"Never heard of any giant carnivorous moles," said Ante, "and besides, we have guns. Anyone who tries to ambush us will get a nasty surprise."

Very carefully, Dor released the woman's bonds, holding her only by a sort of leash attached to a bracelet. "Sorry about this," he said, even though he knew she couldn't understand. "I'll apologize properly once I know your language, but we've got to figure out where you people are coming from."

"Lead the way," said Yyone. "But I've got a bad feeling about this."

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Harvey »

Would this be the time or the place for the Favored expedition to show up, or should we handle that elsewhere?

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Shyriath »

My base attitude is along the lines of "the more, the merrier", so I don't mind at all. The main thing will be coordinating between three parties instead of two... not that there's been much yet that needed coordinating, but you never know.

Besides, there's the potential for considerable entertainment when you have two expeditions that don't entirely trust one another being led by a guide who probably won't trust either of them.

Edit: It just occurred to me that what you probably meant there was, "Should I jump in now or later?" I'll be posting something either tonight or tomorrow; it would probably work out best if you could wait until I've done that, but otherwise I don't see a reason why the Favored couldn't show up right afterwards. In the next post I'll be including a few OOC notes as to things everyone should be aware of if they have to write about Antil's behavior.
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Shyriath »

Antil was somewhat offended at the idea of being kept attached to someone all the time, but she supposed it was better than being unable to go anywhere at all.

Even though not as harsh on her eyes as the focused beams that had been used in the cave, the artificial lights in the encampment were nonetheless very bright, and she had been forced to look at everything through a severe squint. Now that her hands were free, Antil pointed at her goggles, which had been laid on a nearby table for examination, and then tapped her face next to her eyes; then, with exaggerated slowness, she reached out and took and goggles and, with some relief, put them on.

She looked at her captors thoughtfully. Like the other few Outsiders she'd seen, they were quite tall, particularly the males; and they spoke very loudly. Her ears kept folding up whenever they tried talking to her. They were strange, and somewhat annoying, but they didn't seem hostile, as such. She could only wonder what the collection of boxy things was at the other end of the barrel the woman had used in her pantomime, but she supposed it was their way of representing a settlement. And it was obvious enough that they wanted her to lead them there.

She didn't know how many people they intended to bring along, but... perhaps, if there were just some. Even with those... things (they looked like projectile weapons of some kind) they wouldn't get good range in the twists and turns of the passages, when they got to the caves.

Antil glanced out the entrance to the shelter. The sun was well up. How did they expect to get any traveling done now?

She waved her hand at the sky outside, and used her free hand to pantomime something rising up, then brought it around in a slow arc so that it sank behind the edge of the table. She began speaking, somewhat hesitantly and rather quietly, not so much a whisper as the sort of subdued speech one might use in a library or a temple. "Er. Aralta... aralta Hethilax-Anes vayant hin. Nul shier..." She had pointed at the barrel and the city at this point, but she trailed off. It was clear that they weren't quite following her, although the one who seemed to be called Ante looked very thoughtful. Antil wished she could recall any of the words that she'd heard the other Outsiders using.

Ante said, after a few moments, "A few words of that sounded a bit familiar. There were a few pre-Apocalypse southern Benacian isolate languages... that first word might have been "light". Not my specialty, but I think Esti has studied them. If her language is descended from one of them, he might be able to interpret it."

"You might want to go get him," Dor advised. "The sooner we can understand her, the better."

Ante hurried outside, and everyone else sat in uncomfortable silence. Antil took the opportunity to examine the food and drink she'd been given. One of the food items appeared to be some kind of meat, or at least she assumed it was; meat was a precious rarity in the diet of the Deep Singers, but even she could see that this particular example was shriveled and dried up. The skepticism on her face was obvious enough that Dor felt moved to say, "We call that jerky. Jurr-kee."

Koli muttered, "You sound ridiculous."

Antil looked at the object again. "Cherki," she said. After some thought, she sat it on the table. She had to assume it was edible, but it didn't look at all appetizing. At least the drink was just water; she sipped at it nervously.

Ante returned with a middle-aged man. She indicated Antil's diminutive figure. "That's her, Esti."

Esti sat down on a chair in front of Antil. "Can we get her to say what she said before?"

This took several attempts, but finally a repetition of the arcing motion she had made with her hand produced a reaction. "Er. Aralta Hethilax-Anes vayant hin?"

"That was it!" said Ante.

Esti's eyes widened. "I think you were right. That sounds a lot like one of the Insular languages. Either there was a migration or the Apocalypse must have shifted things around quite a bit; the languages were originally near the tropics, and we're up near the Arctic Circle here." He paused to think. "Something about... bright light? Give me some time here, we'll need to narrow down the differences."

He leaned toward Antil. {Can you understand me?}

Antil looked shocked. {How is? The words -????- as past-echoes. Old are?}

Esti had been listening carefully, and adjusted his speech somewhat. {I did not understand everything you said. You say I'm using archaic words?}

{It is so. As in stories.}

{I will try to learn to speak properly, then, but I will need your help. What was it you said before about a light-source?}

{The Great Light. The light is too bright. If those people want to travel, they would do best to wait. Do they not know this?}


Esti's brows furrowed. {What is the Great Light?}

Antil's expression mingled exasperation with pity. She pointed outdoors. {There. What greater light is there?}

Esti blinked. {You mean the Sun?}

{The what?}

{Sun.}


Antil looked a bit nervous. {I do not know that word.}

"Esti," Dor said, "What is she saying?"

"Hmm?" Esti said. "Oh. She doesn't want to travel with the sun is up... at least, I think that's what she means. She calls it the... 'Great Light'. Or 'light-source', maybe that would be a better way of translating hethil. Aralta, that's more like our word 'light'-"

"Esti!"

"Ah. Right. Well, anyway, she doesn't want to be out in the daytime."

Dor frowned. "I'm not fond of that idea."

"She might be nocturnal," Koli said. "The hat and the goggles look like things you'd want if you were someone who didn't like sunlight but might get trapped out in it... and she'd probably sunburn easily, with that skin."

Esti said, "We may as well wait until nightfall. If she's that worried about it, taking her wishes into account might buy us some goodwill."

"And, completely coincidentally, it'll give you time to satisfy your linguistic urges?"

The linguist grinned. "As it so happens."

Dor sighed. "I suppose we'd better discuss it with the others."

(OOC: This was actually going to involve the start of the trek to Xalt as well, but I want to give Harvey time to bring the Favored in if he likes. I just realized that he said elsewhere that he'd be away for a week, but since I think Scott said something similar there shouldn't be too much unnecessary hold-up anyway.

I have to apologize in advance, incidentally. It's been a very long time since I did roleplaying of this kind, or indeed of any kind, but the RP messageboards I used to frequent had an unwritten but fairly strict rule against doing things with other peoples' characters, and the only reason that worked was that there were only a few of us and we talked by IM all the time to plan out exactly what we would do. I've watched some of the grappling that's happened over the same issues here in Archipelago, so I know that the hands-off approach isn't going to work here; but since I'm not used to handling other characters without conferencing, I may find it hard to strike the balance, and I may also pester you with questions to aid me in the striking.

That said, here's few points to keep in mind for other people handling Antil:

-Antil will, if forced, travel in the daytime, but even with her protective gear she's going to be pretty miserable and her exposed skin is going to get burned after too long. I wouldn't make her, if I were you.

-Deep Singers speak softly, both from sensitive hearing and to avoid unnecessary echoing in their caves. Antil will shout out of surprise or pain, but otherwise won't generally raise her voice much above what most people consider normal speaking volume. By the same token, she will find most outsiders to be quite loud enough as it is, and prolonged bouts of yelling or shouting will cause her physical discomfort.

-She's not happy with the idea of being restrained, but she gets that her current captors, while not trusting, are treating her much better than they could be doing. But she doesn't entirely trust them, either, and her willingness to bring them near Xalt is going to drop with any increase in the number individuals who want to go at once (this would include the Favored, when they show up). For a variety of reasons, Deep Singers tend more toward assassination than military actions for their violence, but they're bright enough not to want a large force of strangers in their settlement. If the expeditions give her too much reason to be distrustful, she'll lead them in a completely different direction.

-Antil will be generally civil, and even agreeable should those around her merit it, but she has a tendency toward bluntness. She will keep her mouth shut to avoid giving offense, but if she decides to communicate an idea, generally she won't go very far out of her way to make the idea more sophisticated or palatable, though she may be careful to qualify where something is just her own opinion. For example, she might say "no" or "I don't think so", but would be far less likely to say "it's possible that instead..." unless she seriously meant it.
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Scott Alexander »

[Harvey doesn't seem to be getting involved here, so I'll go next].
It was late when they had finally decided what to do. Dor, Ante and Esti would accompany the woman...Antil...to her city, bearing gifts and the words of the Autokrator. The rest would stay at their base and await the expedition's return.

Antil seemed - well, she seemed relieved. Now that Esti had found a common language, she was chatting away. Being the prisoner of scary but apparently well-meaning foreigners was less unpleasant than being the prisoner of mysterious uncommunicative giants.

The moon had long since risen when Antil agreed to guide them into the caves where her people made their home. She was muttering about the Lesser Light and she seemed to move through the darkness with a natural grace that her captors could not match.

"I bet she could get away from us if she really wanted," muttered Ante.

"Why should she?" asked Dor. "At this rate, she can just lead us right into the maw of a giant mole, and be laughing all the way home."

"Shut up," said Ante. "I already said there aren't any giant carnivorous moles."

"I think," said Esti..."I think she's trustworthy. She hasn't heard of any outsiders who could speak anything like her language before. I think...she's too intrigued to kill us right now."

They came to a boulder. At first it seemed like Antil had just disappeared. After a second, it became clear that there was a small opening just beneath the boulder, one that didn't look nearly big enough for a man to crawl through.

"Who's first?" asked Dor.

Esti shook his head, stuck a leg through the opening, wiggled around a bit, wiggled around some more, and eventually climbed out in disgust. Some noises came through the opening.

"She's saying..." said Esti. "Damn. She's saying 'head first'"

With much difficulty and cursing, the three of them made it into the cavern along with their packs. Each took out a headlamp and turned it on. Antil looked ready to complain, but thought better of it. She smiled a little at her captors' discomfort - not malicious, just amused.

Dor sighed. "Lead the way," he said.
[OOC: I've made this very short and boring because I want to leave it up to you what happens next. I'm thinking she leads them into Xalt, but I don't want to profane the sanctity of one of the Beacons without asking you first. Get them into Xalt (or into the maw of a giant mole, if that's more in character for a Deep Singer) and I'll take it from there.]

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Shyriath »

(OOC: I was originally going to make a more impressive post than this, but I managed to accidentally navigate away from the page in the middle of typing it. So, instead, this. It gets us to Xalt, anyway.)
The path they took involved many twists and turns, and occasionally some hunching over or crawling where the ceiling was low. The three other expedition members found themselves getting more amused looks from Antil than they cared for. But least it was topographically easy; such slopes as there were were gentle, and little climbing was involved.

In truth, the journey could have been much easier. Antil hadn't told them, but there were other passages to Xalt: some straighter, some with less distance between the passage entrance and the gates. She had picked this route for its scenery, so that she could show it off, and partly to avoid letting them get too good an idea of where Xalt was relative to the surface. But getting to watch the otherwise competent Outsiders in such discomfiture was an extra bonus.

Nonetheless, the route was very impressive. One was home to hundreds of thousands of some kind of glowing beetle, so that when the lamps were off they felt surrounded by stars; another was lined with a layer of white crystals, and reflected light back at them with dazzling brilliance; yet another included an rushing underground river, spanned by a stone bridge.

At last, they came to a more civilized passage, with an unnaturally smooth floor, and Antil led them down it. At first it was unlit, and bare of decoration other than a continuous strip of carved symbols at what would be chest-height for one of the woman's kind, but soon they began to see, hanging from hooks that had been hammered at intervals into the stone walls, lamps emitting a dim, warm glow. The three expedition members turned off their headlamps; the light was entirely bright enough to see by.

Dor paused to inspect one of the lamps. Its outer surface consisted of panes of a brown glass, or perhaps a smoky quartz, in a bronze frame; inside it was a small glass vessel shining with a distinctive red-orange light. An unobtrusive wire ran from the lamp into a sort of pipe that ran along the wall.

He rejoined the group. "The lights inside sort of look like neon. But whatever's in them, they're definitely electric lamps. These people must be getting power from somewhere."

Antil gave them an odd look. {Our lights are that interesting?}

Esti replied, {We did not know you had powered lights like this.}

{Even we need some light to see by. ...I should warn you, we are coming up on the Gate of Reaches. Once past it, we will be in Xalt. I suspect you will be getting an escort of guards, so you might want to avoid wandering off to examine things.}

Esti blinked. {Would they be that suspicious of us?}

{The Watch is always suspicious; it's their job.} Antil's expression was faintly cynical. {It saves them from having to think. But in this case, they would have a point. Remember that I was sent to investigate you, not to bring any of you back; they wouldn't be expecting you. I will help keep them calm, but... try not to give them reasons to be annoyed.}

Esti nodded woodenly, and conveyed this advice to Dor and Ante.

In subdued silence, they continued along the corridor, until at last they came to a metal door with two armored guards with spears standing to either side of it. It appeared to be a relatively minor entrance; the guards wore the bored expressions of those not expecting to see anyone, though these turned into pop-eyed astonishment at the sight of three Outsiders being led toward them.

{Stop there! Who are you?} called one. He peered at Antil. {Scout Xen? We were told to watch for you. Who are these?}

{Visitors,} Antil replied. {Send a messenger ahead to the Council saying I have returned, and that I have brought Outsiders who wish to speak with them.}

The guard stared for a moment, then went over to the wall next to the door; he rang a small bell next to it. Leaning up to the hole, he held a whispered conversation with someone on the other side. There was a clanking noise, and then the door swung open. There were two more guards beyond it, and once the travellers were through it, it was pulled shut and locked again. The room on this side appeared to be a small rest area; there were benches and a table.

One of the guards said, {Rest yourselves for now. We will take you further when the Council has summoned you.}

They sat there, under the intense gaze of the Watch, for some fifteen minutes before a quartet of other guards came for them; these wore armor like their brethren, but engraved with a curious glyph surrounded by stylized rays of light. One of them inclined his head to Antil. {We will be escorting you and the... guests, Scout Xen. Do they understand us?}

{That one does.} Antil nodded to Esti, who attempted to look friendly. Either he succeeded, or failed in such a way as to be nonthreatening, for the guard simply gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

He said, {We will be escorting you to the chambers of the Shining Council that governs this Beacon. The Council has agreed to see you, and has asked for you to present yourselves at your earliest convenience. Shall we go?}
(OOC: Scott, if you need an idea of the layout of Xalt, the response I gave to Adelene's "Questionnaire for Avana's Journal" ought to be of assistance, although a few parts of it deal with things that are a bit further in the future than what's happening here. To get to the Council Chambers, they'll pass northeast through some moss-farming caves and then into the Beacon Hall, and the Council Chambers are a short distance north from there.)
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Scott Alexander »

By a road obscure and lonely
Haunted by ill angels only
Where an eidolon named Night
On its black throne reigns upright
I have reached this land but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule
A wild weird clime
That lieth, sublime
Out of space
Out of time


Fragments of old songs played through Esti's head as he marched through the city called Xalt. It was like nothing he had ever experienced in reality, and so he turned to myths. There were myths of a hollow world, and bright happy continents beneath solid rock, but there were continents here, only caves - and little brightness, for as miraculous as it was to have light at all in these depths, it was much lower than even the cloudiest day in Drachumve would have been. There were other myths, of a place of torture deep under the earth where the unrighteous went when they died, but the people here did not seem in torment. They seemed perfectly adapted to their environs, like a fish in a river or a bird in the air. They seemed neither more than human nor less than human, just different, in an astoundingly natural sort of way.

Then they entered the Beacon Hall, and all thought ceased under a looming feeling of disorientation and awe. What was this place? How could people like this have existed, completely undetected? This wasn't just a new people to bring under the Archipelago, this was a new world.

(from beside the party, Antil watched the faces of her (former?) captors go from wonder to shock to awe as they grew closer to the Council Chambers. Maybe her people didn't have the strange technologies of the Outsiders, maybe they were small and not very good with sunlight, but she reckoned that nowhere in the world was there anything to compare to a real Beacon Hall in all its glory.)

***

Tales of the court in the house of the dead, where the dead judged the dead to decide their eternal fate. That image drawn from myth was the closest Esti could come to the Council Chamber. Row after row of pale, misshapen faces in a building that would put any above ground to shame, one that must have been hewn for centuries, since when his own people were still living in fallout shelters. This must be as old as Oldest-bar he thought to himself. And then, What knowledge must these people have kept, that everyone else has lost?

He had been preparing a speech, but he knew it wasn't going to come out right. The pressure of this building, so vast and foreign it almost bore into his skin. The foreignness of the language, where even the things he could communicate at all came out sounding as out of place as ancient Raikothin would to a Drachumvelin. He coughed a few times in obvious discomfort, then began.

"Uh...Shining Council of the Deep Singers" - and here he was insanely grateful to Antil for briefing him about a little of this place's politics beforehand - "I greet you in the name of the peoples of the Outside, and of their Autokrator, Omi Oitherion.

Your people, like ours, tell stories of the cataclysm that destroyed the surface world a long time ago. Your people escaped by coming into these caves. Our people were not so lucky. Most were caught off guard, and perished. A few, through foreknowledge or good luck, survived. Since then many years have passed, and we have tried to rebuild our civilizations. Some lands have succeeded. Others have failed, and collapsed into barbarity. And the many different, uh, I guess you would call them Beacons - of our people have come to realize that civilization is a precious thing, and that despite all our other differences, it's something that unites us and must be preserved at all cost.

The strongest...uh, leader? King? Chief?...of the surface people, Omi Oitherion, has dedicated his life to seeking out all those who have survived the cataclysm with their humanity intact - those who still, after everything, strive for something greater, for a peaceful world founded on reason and justice. He has gathered them to meet in the far off Beacon of Drachumphan, and they have agreed to form a Shining Council, much like yours, of all the tribes and Beacons of the world. They call themselves the Archipelago, which means a group of connected islands, because they are islands of civilization in an ocean of darkness.

We have been charged by the Archipelago with finding other civilized people, and inviting them to Drachumphan to learn from them and teach them, and give them their rightful position in the running of the world. We plead with you to send representatives of the Deep Singers to our party, who wait outside the entrance to Xalt, so they may return with us to Drachumphan and become part of this Archipelago."

The councillors just listened, for a while, and then began to talk to each other in their singsong voices, far too quickly for Esti to even hope to understand. Another image from myth came into his head: the King of the Dead, with Authi Kalirion kneeling before him. Your petition is just, he told the princeling, but surely you know no one leaves the land of the dead alive?
OOC: Sorry this has taken so long.

I am thinking that Esti, Dor, and Ante stay in Xalt. Maybe the Kennerextith are afraid to let any foreigner who has seen the way to Xalt go back to foreign lands that could invade them. Maybe they've decided they need some people to interrogate so that they're not completely clueless about the outside world.

We can then take this up again in the "present", with the Kennerextith maybe negotiating some kind of agreement with Galinomai. As part of it, the three of them (and maybe their children by Kennerextith mates?) are returned to Arborvine, and serve as a bridge between the two nations.

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Shyriath »

OOC: I think this will work well. I've been talking with Adelene off and on about Antil Xen becoming pen pals with her character Avana, who she met in the course of the Collaborative Interaction contest (which would have taken place several years after the events in this thread), and eventually Antil will move on to become a translator and native expert on the outside world, but a potential pitfall there is that she has to learn to read and write in (at the very least) the trade language. I had discussed some possibilities with Adelene, but it would be all be a bit more natural (and convenient) if there were people already around to learn from. These three would fit the bill nicely.

What the Council is going to try here, because they would prefer a voluntary arrangement if at all possible, is to set up an exchange of hostages: they will send three Deep Singers to return to Drachumphan with the main party, and to guarantee their safety will require that three party members (Esti, Ante, and Dor being the obvious choices) remain in Xalt. Aside from letting the party technically complete their mission and get Xalt a source of information on the Outside, it would serve some useful political purposes, which will be mentioned in the dialogue below.

Incidentally, on interbreeding: I hadn't had the time to get around to posting this in the Report to the Symposium thread yet; but despite the extensive changes made to them, Deep Singers are indeed generally compatible with humans on a genetic level, in that fertile offspring will result. There are two things to remember there, though. The first is that Deep Singers are considerably smaller than the human average, so a mixed-breed fetus is likely to be of a size somewhere between the two. A human female could carry a mixed child to term and give birth without particular concern, but the same might or might not be true of a Deep Singer female. I've never been sure what the state of medical science is in Kennerext, but a C-section might have to be performed. The second, which could be much more serious, is that because the most extensive modifications to their biology involves the eyes, and those modifications might not mesh well with unmodified human eyes, mixed children may be more likely to develop abnormal vision or blindness.

The murmuring of the councilors continued for quite some time. Esti glanced at Antil, who was watching the proceedings with the taut expression of one who is worried about what they hear, but aren't allowed to do or say anything. He could see her jaw working.

At last, the murmur quieted, and the foreman of the Council tapped his staff of office against the little bell attached to his podium to signal that he would speak.

"Heralds of the... Atokrator," he said, hesitating at the unfamiliar word, "Your request puts us in a difficult position. Know that we here bear no ill will to you, or to the Beacons of the world, or to this Arxepelako; and as you tell it, your purpose here is a good and worthy one. Speaking for Xalt, and only for Xalt, we do not oppose your mission. But there are many Beacons, of which Xalt is only one, and only the Illuminating Council in Ezhku speaks for them all. And many on that council, I must tell you, would not feel as we do. Here, on the edge of the sea, we have seen traders and other Outsiders, albeit rarely, and we are used to the idea of them, but the great Beacons of the mountains are far inland, many days even by railcar. Most have never been Outside nor seen an Outsider, and many have no wish to."

The foreman paused to collect his thoughts, and continued, "There will be some, even here, who say that we should have nothing to do with you, or with other Outsiders. But there is an adage among us: 'Things done cannot be undone, as liquids mixed cannot be unmixed.' Ever since the first traders appeared here, we have known what it would mean. Having met the world, we must deal with it, because now we know it is there, and it knows of us. You have come to us speaking of peace and civilization; were we to turn you aside, and shut out the world, even to await the word of the Illuminating Council (for it would be long in coming), it would only leave the way open for others to come, perhaps speaking of less friendly things. We cannot overstep certain bounds, but we believe it serves both your cause and our own welfare to do what we can.

"What we offer you, therefore, is this. We cannot authorize the entry of Kennerext, the Beacon-Gathering, into the Arxepelako; but we are willing to send representatives with your party, for the purposes of learning more of this offer, and as a gesture of goodwill. We can then inform the Illuminating Council of what we have done, and ask them to suspend discussion on the matter until our representatives return, so that their report can be delivered in person. Their debate will be heated, and very lengthy, but if it begins with firsthand information the results may prove more... well-founded than if it began immediately."

The foreman leaned forward slightly, his expression stern. "However, there is something we must ask of you in turn. We cannot be too trusting, regardless of your purpose here; the way of wisdom is caution. Nor can we send our people away, and place them into the power of unknown hands, without surety. The other Beacons, should they see us behave so, would call us out as rash and untrustworthy, and perhaps they would be right to do so. There must be a gesture from you, and this would be the way of it: however many of us we send to return with your party, to stay in this place Diraxumfan, an equal number of your party must stay in Xalt. This would fulfill the demands of propriety, and ensure that both sides are treated well."

Esti's voice had become hoarse as he finished translating these last words for Dor and Ante. There was a brief silence, as if everyone were too stunned to speak, and then he asked the foreman, "May we convey this offer to the rest of our party?"

"We will carry correspondence to them, if you wish to write it, but we would... prefer that the three of you stay here until a decision is made." The councilors looked uncomfortable at the veiled threat, and the foreman most of all. "The members of your party that would eventually remain... we do not require that they be you. If it is decided that others should be sent, they may be sent here, and then those of you that would go may go. But you, at least," he added, addressing Esti, "would be a logical choice. You understand our tongue; and for our part, those of us that we send to your party would be people who have had occasion to try to learn the trade language. There are not many of them, and fewer still know more than a handful of words, but it would be the best chance for communication."

"And... merely for information, if the party chooses not to accept such an exchange at all?"

"Then we would inform them that they would be required to depart our lands. You three would remain with us for a time, perhaps several months, but once we were certain of their departure we could negotiate with a trading vessel to return you to a more familiar land. We do not intend to be cruel. But that is the price; if some of you do not remain with us, we will not send representatives with your party."

Esti finished translating this, and silence fell once again.
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Adelene »

Shyriath wrote:The first is that Deep Singers are considerably smaller than the human average, so a mixed-breed fetus is likely to be of a size somewhere between the two.
Not necessarily. From what I understand about ligers and tigons (the difference between the two being the gender/species combinations of the parents), size is significantly determined by hormones produced by the mother while the fetus is developing; tigons, with lion mothers, are no bigger than their parents and somewhat prone to dwarfism, while ligers, with tiger mothers, are the largest of big cats, since they can skip both tiger genetic size inhibitions and lion fetal-environment hormonal size inhibitions. A Deep Singer/normal human hybrid with a Deep Singer mother could actually be smaller than either, if the size difference is caused by the right things. (Doesn't mean your average Deep Singer woman is going to be interested in being the guinea pig who finds that out, tho.)

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Re: A Missive to the People of Naidax

Post by Shyriath »

Didn't know that... well, that gives the idea the potential of being less hazardous, at any rate.
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