'The Dwellings of Wrong'
A supposed entrance to unknown things, exempt from the passage of time.
"There is a place in the arctic valleys of Treiach's "sun-right" pole. One of the furthest locations from the shore yet to be visited, there are grounds that none dare trek upon. The Khloqdahl1 speak of only silence coming from the caverns. The Alkoqhdahl1 never roam near it. And the Dahl b'ghon1 will shirk from any winds or snows blowing from it..."
—Dolh g'ner, eldest placewatcher of the Wrest khloqhdahl
The following is an exerpt from ex-translator Solthi's personal journal, following the cataclysmic failure of the cartographer guild's expedition deeper into the arctic valleys. The date is unmarked, as with most of her entries, but it would be safe to assume it to be after the aforementioned event.
Sol2
The Khloqdahl, who's culture and language revolve around song and voice, say the tunnels swallow sounds like a gluttonous beast. Unnatural silence befalling the air near it, echoes vanishing as if plucked from their throats, while their screams are smothered with any hope for peace of mind. And thusly call the place “The Dwellings of Wrong”.
The air feels thick and ancient, smelling of scents that the minds of the natives and non-natives alike fail to compartmentalize into anything familiar. Where the stone feels rotten, and the snow tastes dead and untouched by time.
The very physicality to the way one walks comes off as aberrant and perturbed, one feeling off balance and reeling as they wander close to even see it, Sending even the most surefooted trespassers collapsing as the sky reels and the valley rolls while their hearts sink into their stomachs like stone.
And the lights that sulk about at night, dimly lurking at the deepest parts of it, shine with a vibrant pallor glow that can only be described as unlike anything one could dream of, and would only encounter in the strangest of nightmares to be forgotten by waking's mercy...
Few have ventured to return alive, and speak of a realm touched by gods. Great beings to be feared, hated, idolized, and respected as one respects their executioner’s wicked blade pressed at their throat.
They pray against hopelessness that such ignoble deities and mortals do not exist. That the names reeling through their minds are but figments of their own thoughts diseased with fear. Rambling with a maddened haste of times when the eggs of now’s most ancient salbutamol3 were yet to be lain and the proud Salzar and Sallok that now so vainly seek to rule the planet and it's nature were but dumb automatons as they lurched and crawled through the stone and metal fog to listen to what cannot be heard.
Their feverish scrawling depicting things with heads of rotted cadavers sprawled upon spindly bases; of machines that pulsed and breathed, with hearts for engines and muscles for pistons; of shapes and structures that baffled the mind and crushed the spirit aroused to flee.
And of names to which the tongue jerks at in disgust and the lips dare not let it escape for fear of admitting to their existences, when the gut forces bile to the nose to keep one's mouth from speaking, and the heart skips beats to jostle the lungs of air to strangle out the voice. The eyes wrench away and the muscles will one to turn their gaze from the symbols they themselves will have scrawled as if seized by the hands of the unseen.
Yet the forbidden phonetics that should not be spoken will force themselves from one's lips like youthful parasites busting from their host in all of their festering awesomeness. Vile and putrid thoughts to be left unspoken until the end, when the mind gives it's all to reject its reality. When one caves in to the sweet delusion of ignorance, or falls to what they wish could only be a nightmare...
I was no witness to such horrors, but I have seen the results. I could not imagine what sorts of things would have rendered these of seasoned iron minds but wailing babes. They've faced things most wild and grotesque in their travels, the sort of matter I lack the gut to speak of in detail. Now they lay paranoid and sleepless, as I have since hearing their dreaded tales.
My mind wanders to that space beyond the crevasse they warned us of. The fear of it nothing compared to the deep curiosity lulling me to explore its darkest corners for the secrets that gnaw at the cartographers' sanity.
Would the cost of mind be worth the truths held? I reckon there to only be one way to find out...
thi
[1] The Khloqdahl are cave and valley dwelling mammals native to the cold climate of the ice cap, and are among the most socially and technologically advanced creatures to be found there. (not saying much considering even then they still use tools of smelted ore.) The Aloqhdahl being their much larger and more feral relatives. The Dahl b'ghon are very slow moving fish-like creatures that reside in the cave systems wrapping above and below, exhibiting some manner of intellect, but nothing is totally certain beyond the fact they do seem to be capable of using tools. [2] It is traditional of Vsteli decent to begin and end writing with what they regard to be the first and last parts of their name. The way they're written is intended to portray the writer's emotions before and after writing it. In this context (without font clues aside from header styles) she would start off writing it with timidity, but end off in roused curiosity. Habits she seemed to have carried over after migrating to Leton. [3] The salbutamol are considered to be among the oldest creatures on the planet, older than perhaps even the flora or sea itself as it is now. They are the hosts to the salzar race, each one an individual colony sustained and protected by its residents within.
-Guild of Cartography member, after expedition to the target location...
An Interesting article! I recommend adding in some line breaks to the "Sol" Section, as the lack of paragraphs makes it a little difficult to read. It's a great start for a first article!