Hilles-Vosch Testament

when my father looked upon the world that sprawled beneath him, he wondered what the purpose of this all was. i wondered too. i beheld the depths and came back stronger. if you cannot stand them, then you were too weak for us. this task requires blood: the blood of those you love. there can be no sacrifice spared. this is the importance of our position on this feeble world...

-Hilles-Vosch Testament, Paragraph iii.

The Hilles-Vosch Testament is an eighty paragraph long religious working devised by Eudoria Hilles and Penitence Vosch in 1750. In modern nights, the Hilles-Vosch Testament serves as the holy book for the Tyme Circle Church.

Purpose

The Hilles-Vosch Testament, recorded on what is almost certainly the skin of a Theri, was intended to warn the people who intruded upon Hiloak Mountain land that they were entangling with something they could not understand. The desperate, frantic tone of the Testament is almost unbearably frantic by the thirty-fifth paragraph; by paragraph sixty-five, the Testament has devolved into anguished scribblings and frequent underlinings/circlings.
The document outlines methods of worship to stop the attempts of creatures living in "another dusk, atop our own" as they tried to manifest themselves in the world.
Several of these methods claim to be heard from the mouth of one "Croakwhisper". The seventy-eighth paragraph is simply the name Croakwhisper written twenty-seven times.

Document Structure

References

The Hilles-Vosch Testament makes repeated reference to the supposed "Word of Brigidiah Young", but no such document is known to exist.

Publication Status

The Hilles-Vosch Testament is illegal to possess in either its original or reproduced forms.

Historical Details

Legacy

While the Hilles-Vosch Testament was intended as a warning, it has instead become the keystone of the Tyme Circle cult. Notably, Tyme Circle members living in Hiloak provinces have been able to enact various sacrifices every ten years to prevent the "other dusk" from rising.
In 2011, the final intended victim of one such sacrifice ("and you shall weep for the child, even as the child is cut apart at the joints warm and wriggling, and the second child shall be buried in the dirt alive, and the third shall be thrown from the mountaintops, and the fourth devoured by beasts, and the fifth sunk in deep waters, and the sixth's heart and lungs cut from their living flesh and devoured quivering") actually survived after biting off the finger of one of the cultists who held her down. As a result, the massacre of 2011 took place, resulting in dozens of fatalities all across the Hiloak region, and perhaps hundreds through the whole mountain range.

Read the Document

Hilles-Vosch Testament

I. This is the true and sworn testament of those two so called Penitence Vosch and Eudoria Hilles who did so venture into a place beyond the pines and discovered what ails the town of Skelleyville. Heed the words, lest you have no suitable recourse. Beyond the pines lurk that which would seize and destroy us and as such we must be ready to face it.
II. Thus it is important to understand centrally that neither woman did aspire to discover this accursed place. Instead they had endeavored to complete the task of gathering fire wood. Once in the forest they did discover a path that wound sharply down hill and they did follow it for the path was clear.
III. By this path did they discover the land beyond the pines which possessed a mirror image of Skelleyville. This mirror image proved a sirens call and of course they could not help but return to said mirror in order to uncover what it held within for the sake of their own betterment.
IV. First, the Mayoral Estate: here they did discover rotting wood and rotting food in equal measure. Signs of life disturbed wreckage which still felt warm to touch and looked steaming to the quiet eye. Blood did stain the floors. Metal hung from roofing fixtures and did deposit rust upon the floors. Quite disturbed, the explorers moved to leave, but behind them the door not only shut itself but had then locked itself.
V. In this circumstance there can be no blame cast upon them for having ventured into that only passage forward: descending down an open stair well provided the only manner of escape. There came to pass that no light accompanied them as they ventured ever down and the stairway itself extended out impossibly. By this measure their fear is thus entirely within reason. You must understand I did not have a choice but to carry forward, despite the hideous fear which sunk into my spine.
VI- In these depths we happened upon skulls which resembled our own kind, smoothed so clean no marks lingered upon them. Penitence expressed for the third time a desire to leave. She had not yet accepted nor understood how we were utterly lost in this deep place beyond our world. But it came to pass that we did pass into the sun again, though here the sun appeared as if filtered through a thin sheet of cloth.

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Medium

Vellum / Skin

Location

Hiloak Mountain Lands

Authors

• Eudoria Hilles
• Penitence Vosch