The Great Beneath, Volume I
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:35 am
My first memory as I climbed from the Well was of the cold. Dark, cold, calm. I remember I was floating somewhere deep, equidistant between the surface and the bottom of wherever I was. As I awoke, still healing from my injuries, I thought it was the Well I dreamt of. Upon awakening a second time after running afoul of a particularly difficult scar, I realized I was mistaken.
The Well is warm, but distant. It cradles, but releases its children easily. Almost forcefully. As I spent my first night in Risenholm, I dreamt again. I felt the cold. I felt the comfort. I slept in the embrace of a parent, a sibling, a comrade, a lover. I felt safe. I felt wanted. Drifting in sensation and emotion, I slept like a child after a carefree day of play and food and friends. It was so different from that of the Well. I felt like I was home.
My second night was vastly different. The visions I saw I remember vividly. I marched through a marsh, humid and wet, laying beast and monster low. The battle raged for an eternity, and all through it I remembered the cold and the comfort I experienced the night before. I longed for it. I felt alone.
As the tide of monsters petered out, I found myself before a cave. Cool mist poured from its mouth, and I felt a pull. I entered. Inside I found a vast table filled with wine and spirit, glittering silverware piled high with fish and crustacean and seaweed, gold coins scattered across its wet surface, silk tapestries hanging from the cave walls, and even more treasure in chests pressed to the sides of the feasting hall. I ate my fill, took as much as I could carry, and woke up with a hollow ache in my heart.
My third night I was gifted with the conclusion to my visions, and armed with a new purpose in my strange new life. I stood at the apex of a long, wide stairwell which spiraled down into a deep, frigid darkness. The walls of the tower were odd, and as I descended I realized that while I was most assuredly inside the structure, I could see the exterior borders of arrowslits and window sills. Yet the stairwell I walked remained unhindered by the odd construction. The walls themselves were slick with rainwater, or perhaps the crashing of tides. I couldn’t tell, as there was no weather inside the tower, yet I could taste the salt on the air.
The lower I descended into the tower, the darker became. I realized soon I would be blind, and made to reach for a torch, only to discover my hands were full with a small ornate metal chest that jingled every step. Treasure. Perhaps the bounty I’d taken from the cave before? I paused to rest the chest on the stair and light a torch, but as the flint struck stone, I was overcome with an oppressive sensation of wrongness. I looked for the chest, and found it had become smaller. In a panic, I dropped the torch and leapt for the chest, clutching it close to my breast. T’was not from greed I clung to the treasure, but guilt. What did I have to be guilty for? I couldn’t imagine. The torch tumbled into the abyss below and I stood, still clutching my haul, and continued my way down into the dark.
I expected to worry for my footing, or what monsters might lay in wait for me, or what traps might have been laid to protect the depths. I expected fear. What I felt was that same embrace from my first dream. Cold, calm, dark. Safety. Home. I continued, emboldened.
When my foot hit water I stopped. Smelling of salt and fish and kelp, hearing a roaring tide yet feeling no movement, I knew I was where I was meant to be. The chest in my hands had ballooned to impossible proportions, the kinds only feasible in the distorted reality of dreams. I opened the lid and tipped it towards the still, deep waters that filled the remainder of the tower. Glittering gold and silver and sparkling jewels poured into the salty waters below. I felt complete.
My task complete, I turned to ascend and found I had traveled barely a few vertical feet. Counting my way up, I ended at the door on the number seventeen. At seventeen steps, I found purpose. I found love. I found family. I found home.
I returned to the surface and turned to view the tower I’d just explored, only to find a humble pile of azure brick, caked in salt and seaweed and slime, and a single upside down wooden door perfectly arranged on top.
Content with my adventure and embolden with new purpose, I turned my back to my home and awoke.
-Seventeen Thistle, Knight-errant of One-Hundred Azure Tower
“May He rest in the dark and the cold, disturbed by neither flame nor sun.”
The Well is warm, but distant. It cradles, but releases its children easily. Almost forcefully. As I spent my first night in Risenholm, I dreamt again. I felt the cold. I felt the comfort. I slept in the embrace of a parent, a sibling, a comrade, a lover. I felt safe. I felt wanted. Drifting in sensation and emotion, I slept like a child after a carefree day of play and food and friends. It was so different from that of the Well. I felt like I was home.
My second night was vastly different. The visions I saw I remember vividly. I marched through a marsh, humid and wet, laying beast and monster low. The battle raged for an eternity, and all through it I remembered the cold and the comfort I experienced the night before. I longed for it. I felt alone.
As the tide of monsters petered out, I found myself before a cave. Cool mist poured from its mouth, and I felt a pull. I entered. Inside I found a vast table filled with wine and spirit, glittering silverware piled high with fish and crustacean and seaweed, gold coins scattered across its wet surface, silk tapestries hanging from the cave walls, and even more treasure in chests pressed to the sides of the feasting hall. I ate my fill, took as much as I could carry, and woke up with a hollow ache in my heart.
My third night I was gifted with the conclusion to my visions, and armed with a new purpose in my strange new life. I stood at the apex of a long, wide stairwell which spiraled down into a deep, frigid darkness. The walls of the tower were odd, and as I descended I realized that while I was most assuredly inside the structure, I could see the exterior borders of arrowslits and window sills. Yet the stairwell I walked remained unhindered by the odd construction. The walls themselves were slick with rainwater, or perhaps the crashing of tides. I couldn’t tell, as there was no weather inside the tower, yet I could taste the salt on the air.
The lower I descended into the tower, the darker became. I realized soon I would be blind, and made to reach for a torch, only to discover my hands were full with a small ornate metal chest that jingled every step. Treasure. Perhaps the bounty I’d taken from the cave before? I paused to rest the chest on the stair and light a torch, but as the flint struck stone, I was overcome with an oppressive sensation of wrongness. I looked for the chest, and found it had become smaller. In a panic, I dropped the torch and leapt for the chest, clutching it close to my breast. T’was not from greed I clung to the treasure, but guilt. What did I have to be guilty for? I couldn’t imagine. The torch tumbled into the abyss below and I stood, still clutching my haul, and continued my way down into the dark.
I expected to worry for my footing, or what monsters might lay in wait for me, or what traps might have been laid to protect the depths. I expected fear. What I felt was that same embrace from my first dream. Cold, calm, dark. Safety. Home. I continued, emboldened.
When my foot hit water I stopped. Smelling of salt and fish and kelp, hearing a roaring tide yet feeling no movement, I knew I was where I was meant to be. The chest in my hands had ballooned to impossible proportions, the kinds only feasible in the distorted reality of dreams. I opened the lid and tipped it towards the still, deep waters that filled the remainder of the tower. Glittering gold and silver and sparkling jewels poured into the salty waters below. I felt complete.
My task complete, I turned to ascend and found I had traveled barely a few vertical feet. Counting my way up, I ended at the door on the number seventeen. At seventeen steps, I found purpose. I found love. I found family. I found home.
I returned to the surface and turned to view the tower I’d just explored, only to find a humble pile of azure brick, caked in salt and seaweed and slime, and a single upside down wooden door perfectly arranged on top.
Content with my adventure and embolden with new purpose, I turned my back to my home and awoke.
-Seventeen Thistle, Knight-errant of One-Hundred Azure Tower
“May He rest in the dark and the cold, disturbed by neither flame nor sun.”