16, September, 1875
To whom it may concern;
I, in preparation for my ventures into the earth's soggy underbelly, took it upon myself to continuously write this diary as a two-fold piece of documentation: One to serve selfishly as a reminder of past ruminations, the other to log the tribulations leading to my unfortunate but all too plausible demise. But a biography by definition requires a once live, once flesh, once named individual, otherwise it would pass as fiction, and after so much tumult experienced in a life, that would truly be a fate... not nearly worse or as close to death, but certainly disappointing.
So I reveal that I by birth am named Hera Rottenwald (pronounced "rote-en-vald" though the obvious tends to maintain popularity despite my vain attempts to reverse it), daughter of Helen and Richard of the same family. By trade, I write verse, by necessity, I break legs at various establishments; in an effort to boost my abilities in the former, and eliminate my dependence on the latter, I embark upon a ship to explore the wide Unterzee as a prolific captain of the Neath. After budgeting my expenses economically for well over a year, subsisting off of the most paltry of nourishment humanly possible as an ascetic dedicated in entirety to her art, I finally acquiesced the capital to purchase a Limpet, her crew, and initial supplies. I only say purchased in a loose sense, as a personal friend of mine, one Ganymede Koch, persuaded a Disavowed Mariner to charitably sell his poor steamer at discount for fear of not selling it at all, and he happily took the meager collections of echoes, amber, and kind encouragements I could give him. Thus came I by the beautiful, newly christened, Apocryphal Cannon, barely on the water and already worn like the rags of a tomb-colonist.
Her crew bared an equally rugged look about them, though I previously heard about how the zailors of Wolfstack maintained more the consistency of a Clay-Man than a fleshy one, I still felt a bit of shock seeing these hardy men and women storming about on deck. I fear I will never know the names of all my crew, partly because my ability to associate names and faces still lacks any real effectiveness since my childhood days, partly because they will likely die before either becomes relevant to my interests. The one I did remember, not the name but their existence, the Relenting Bo-sun, I knew beforehand as a reliable Zeeman. I called him as such because he would often abdicate his position almost immediately if I began even a minor tirade against him, his soul consisted of less firm stuff than that of the other crewman, but his nerves consisted of the toughest steel in the stress of crisis. No matter what I can imagine happening, I expect always relying on him for support in the situations relating more toward that of the Zee and combat, while I focus more on keeping up morale and handling diplomacy.
My initial plan for entrepreneurship lies in the boredom of the tomb-colonies, primarily Venderblight, as their desire for excitement drives them to drinking copious liters of mushroom wine per day. Thus, the law of supply and demand states that the obvious answer to prosperity ought to be in the wine trade, so I ask the Bo-sun to point us northbound toward colonies.
We leave in just 30 minutes, and I must attend to the last minute preparations with the Admiralty and the rest of the crew, thus we shall continue more anon. Until then... aufweidersehen.
17, September, 1875
It's only been about 7 hours but I feel an urgent desire to write what I've seen. The Zee is so... strange. I only ever saw it from Wolfstack where the ships constantly stirred the waters and disturbed them. But out here... it's calm.
Just calm
The Zee is an eternal plain of basalt stretched along infinity, coated in black-emerald lacquer and fluid in the consistency of slime, or so it seems until it laps the sides of the ship where it breaks more like real water. I scooped up a cup of the stuff, simply to check its taste, and it tasted like salt and sulfur mixed in a metallic faucet water, truly something unexpected. I wonder if someone has yet to sell Zee water as a miracle tonic? If not, I could attempt to extract customer interest with some flowery words and abuse legal terminology to avoid culpability for any possible side effects they may encounter... but I prefer the constables never open a(nother) file on me in the foreseeable future.
The rest of the crew seems to take this silence well for the most part, the lights of London still sparkle faintly in the fog; when we stop seeing those, then begins the true adventure, and the true terror.
I asked the engines to be cut for the purposes of observing the serenity and darkness. When only the lapping of the waves, the muttering of zailors, and your own breathing separates you from the sheer senselessness what lies beyond your own body, you feel overwhelmed by the weight of the universe crushing the your sense of self. Naught seven hours had passed and I believe I could pull enough material for the next two decades.
I only hope I live that long...
19 September, 1875
We encountered a swarm of rabid zee-bats just a few minutes ago, and I still shake with force of recoil from all the shooting. When I initially saw the swarm, I anticipated little, expecting them to disperse once the light shined into the black mass of winged mammals, and I was gravely mistaken. They flocked like, well, moths I suppose, and began tearing into the ship's boards and hull, taking some of the food left on deck from the stocks. The zailors reacted faster than I did, immediately jumping to the Leadbeatter cannon and grabbing some of the rifles on hand. After coming to my senses, I too joined in the fray with a repeater I bought for such an occasion. We set about firing into the largest concentrations of the furry beasts, a cheeky zailor even packing some nails into the cap of a shell before firing it with the cannon. The rodents fell in droves, some in my hair unfortunately, thrashing about before they died which simultaneous gave me a terrible fright and ruined my innocent hairdo.
After some fighting, the disgusting creatures fled from the volleys, sensing they'd lost enough fellows already. Feeling particularly vexed by this most heinous offense, I demanded the d_able things get thrown in the pot for cooking. The zailors gasped with shock, as if I committed blasphemy! As it turned out, it was because I did.
"What has them in a twist?" I asked the Bo-sun
"Yer askin' 'em to eat scared animals is what yer doin'. Bats is sacred to Salt, n' Salt ain't somethin' yous wanna set off easy."
He went on to explain the three Gods of the Zee that zailors feared and revered: Stone, Storm, and Salt. He explained them as such:
Stone represented Healing, Strength, and Vitality. They most associated her with the solid earth of the Neath, hence the name, and her blessing meant good health.
Storm represented Rage, Violence, and War. Where he reigned, conflict followed inevitably. He threw his fits in the roof of the cave, and most associate him with the weather of the Neath, whenever it rarely occurs.
Salt represented the East, Mysteries, and Farewells. As befitting of its domain, the God itself was a searing enigma ill defined by human comprehension like describing colour to a blind man. Few things could I ascertain about this deity, but that meant I joined in the majority.
After this little theology lesson, I elected to cook them regardless; if they wished to cost me twenty echoes for ruining my hair, they would spare me twenty echoes for a good zailing's worth of rations. The crew protested in their hesitance to carry out orders, and I can still hear lamentations from the superstitious dunces, so you'll excuse me while I berate them a bit for their procrastination.
21 September, 1875
Good lord is Venderblight dull. When one hears "Tomb Colonies," one might expect something of at least morbid intrigue. Unfortunately, not so with this disgusting leper colony. (I apologize for the previous statement, my bitterness overtook my good sense, I mean the people no offense or ill will)
If one describes cities as bustling, then I would describe Venderblight as shuffling. Instead of walking around, they shuffle around. They don't walk to the store, they shuffle there. Nobody here takes a leisurely walk, rather, they duel to the death. They actually do that a lot, because dying is awfully difficult in the colonies, so they have ample opportunity to practice.
After offloading the shipment of mushroom wine and receiving payment, I allowed for shore-leave, and began wandering the city to take in the dusty air. The architecture varies wildly from street to street, as do the people. Though not my strong suite, I detected marked differences between the styles of construction besides the traditional British copied off London, some oriental, some Mesoamerican, a few I could not tell but they looked ancient Middle Eastern in nature. Most of the people I met simply coughed a greeting or stumbled on past without giving me a second thought, they seemed to have more on their mind than common courtesy could curtail.
After the walk I grew hungry, and searched for anything that would not taste of dust for lunch. I stumbled upon some heavenly smells emanating from a cramped little hole-in-the-wall apartment turned kitchen called "The Vengeance of Jonah" and took a look inside. The owner himself, the Bandaged Poisonner, greeted me, showing to my seat, preparing the table, and generally acting as my waiter. It appeared cozy enough; like the rest of the city, a fine layer of dust coated most of the furniture, which itself was likely older than me, however it added to the sense of amicable familiarity of the restaurant, like no piece lacked a story to it. He made chit-chat, more so talked my ear off to be honest, about his extensive list of customers, above and below ground. He went on for seemingly hours, though none of his anecdotes ever bored, all before he even stepped in the kitchen (Business was terribly slow). When he actually began cooking, olfactory Elysium ensued. Scents familiar to most Neathers floated through the restaurant, zzoup, muttersalt, and mushroom wine I all detected, but wild, fantastical derived from no flora or fauna I knew intermingled with others. Inhaling the fumes made me dream of uncharted lands of the Elder Continent, surrounded by life I thought totally impossible, animals and plants of incomprehensible features so unlike my own I could naught but believe this was no longer Earth.
At last the food arrived and... words fail me. Shall I compare it to a summer's day? No, no summer day was or ever will be as bright and vibrant as the taste of the vegetables that lined the plate. What of the feeling of overwhelming vigor when one conquers and destroys their adversaries utterly? It still fails to describe the thickness and richness of the meat, whatever animal it came from. How about that particular tone of melancholy where man contemplates its own existence to emerge with renewed purpose in their life? But lacking the subtle nuance of flavors in the sauce that tastefully lay in neat zig-zags on the meal, such a statement cannot adequately describe such beauty. I do not know much about cooking styles, but it conformed to no country I knew of, not even Neath-dwelling ones. I took more and more bites, each smaller, attempting to savor the glorious food I knew would not last, and as the last crumbs accumulated on the plate, I burst into tears, lamenting the loss of such magnificence. I paid extra and left with salty streams down my cheeks.
The crew believed the god Salt had overtaken me, and were preparing to perform a ritual when I explained that it was simply something I ate. The Relenting Bo-sun asked what could cause such sorrow, and I explained that sorrow constituted the lesser part of it, more so joy than anything else.
"Appreciate what you had," I explained to the Bo-sun, "Love what remains, even if it is only the memory."
6 October, 1875
I apologize for my infrequency in writing, but very little of note happened in the last two weeks. We ferried wine back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth to Venderblight, generally for awful pay, I barely make a profit after including the cost of coke and supplies. On the other hand, I became well acquainted with the sisters on Hunter's Keep after an incident forced us to land. Very amicable folks, if a bit strange. They tell fantastically enthralling stories, I find myself drawn to the Keep every time we pass by to speak with them.
I grow tired of the Tomb-Colonies and their overly familiar route, but I overheard of a fortuitous little entrepreneurial opportunity in the Iron Republic. Well, actually, an insane captain jabbered about it in the Blind Helmsmen before some constables dragged him away, but he gave quite the description of the place. Apparently, one of the markets there gives a good price for bales of parabola-linen, one simply needs to find it among the total chaos of the principality. The route I planned out goes through the Cumean Canal, Iron Republic, and back again passing by Mutton Island for some drinks at the Cock and Magpie. From what I hear, the Admiralty always hungers for reports on Republic, assuming they are legible. But, really, what is the worst that could happen in a place liberated from all laws?
Knowing the Iron Republic, I will be eating those words... maybe literally.
14 October, 1875
Endlich! Jemand da versteht Deutsch im diese Höhle!
In fact, many hundreds of people spoke a great many different languages. The Cumean Canal slopes down from the surface, nearly a mile above, made of dozens of gates and pools, surely more impressive than any other recorded engineering project. Though a seemingly perfect place for a commercial center, non exists besides the most basic of provisions shop which disappointed me quite greatly as I was hoping to buy some authentic German sausage. I tire of trout, and bats.
Some ships operated black markets and taverns, and generally one could always expect to bump into someone playing the Great Game... poorly if you did bump into them. I enjoyed the company of a number of Austrian radicals looking to investigate the governments of Neath on one of the ships, The Empress' Own Tug, when a particular man came to my attention across the galley. He did not seem inebriated, though he slurred his words like a proper drunkard. Apparently, he took offense at some jab toward his less than Herculean height by a Cigar-smoking Gambler, and offered to shoot him in the eye if he refused to fold his cards. The Gambler conceded, the man won a few echoes, and exited the boat. I heard shots ring out from the dock, no doubt the short man, and investigated. In his frustration, he kept shooting at a buoy off the in the distance, and kept hitting his target as I could hear the bullet ricochets echoing from the waters. At this point I also noticed that the pistol was of the Royal Military's arsenal.
I struck up conversation, "You're a good shot with that thing."
"Love, I've trained the best shots in her majesty's army with both revolvers and cannons, there isn't nothing I can't hit from a reasonable distance."
"Artillery eh? You're good with larger caliber guns, maybe deck guns?"
"Madame you jest! My main experience might be on land, but if it uses powder to fire a projectile from a shell, I can hit anything with it, mark my words!"
"I get the impression you happen to be between work, mind signing onto my ship in the meantime?"
He considered it carefully, "Not quite my level of expertise, but easy work's better than none. I'll do it, so long as I'm appropriately compensated."
We shook on it like civilized folk and he returned with me to the ship. There I gave him the simple task of feeling out the Leadbeater and firing off a few good shots at a target of his choice as we pulled out of the dock. Five times he fired and five times it hit in the exact same place despite the movement of the ship and the bobbing of the waves. The last time it went off mark ever so slightly and an especially sardonic zailor made snide quip about the man not seeing over the railing, which set the man off on a tirade. The Compensating Artilleryman, as I chose to call him, berated the zailor for the indignities he suffers at the hand of such unrepentant scoundrels, and that he as a proper veteran of no less than sixteen wars and military campaigns deserves no scorn from a lowbrow dockhand. I later asked about his storied career and he described each and every minor march he had been on, including the Crimean War, the Boshin War, and the Campaign of '68; a rather suspiciously broad repertoire for a man of supposedly thirty-nine. However, his skills speak for themselves, so I elect to maintain a constant suspicion about it and concern myself too much with the past.
For now though, my new Gunnery Officer is integrating quite nicely into the crew, and it's also quite good that he fits into the hallways very comfortably. (With this statement, I will also be locking away this journal for fear of the hell the Compensating Artilleryman would cause should he find this.) Now we're off to the Iron Republic, where the only rule of law is the abolishing of all laws.
Sounds like a grand old time.
31 February, 0 BC
God abandoned this sinful world for the hell we made on Earth, and we hide underground to seek refuge from his hateful gaze.
ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL
ALL MANNER OF THING SHALL BE WELL
21 October, 1875
I wish not to go back to the Iron Republic.
We are returning to London at the greatest possible speed and we will not be going out for at least a while. That damnable and completely literal hellhole has certainly broken my resolve to head into the farther shores of the Zee, if they are anything even remotely similar to this land of paradox and madness. I have no earthly idea when or how I acquired it, but we now possess around five consignments of darkdrop coffee, so I suppose we will profit from this venture. Unfortunately, we remain spiritually inferior thanks to the palpable insanity on display. For now, this ship will stick to safer shipping lanes until I can understand how the pinky finger on my left and right hands switched.
23 October, 1875
Per the request of the crew, we docked at Mutton Island to have drinks at the Cock and Magpie. The Compensating Artilleryman protested that we could practically spit at London and that docking would waste fuel; I personally believe that he still harbors some resentment for when we walked through the parade of giraffe men (or were they enormous gibbons?) in the Iron Republic. He did calm down when I gave him permission to hunt the auroral meglopses swimming in the harbor with the deck gun while the rest of the crew went ashore. The Relenting Bo'sun showed vehement hesitance on leaving the ship, claiming he needed to do an assessment of the ship's condition while no-one was aboard.
I heard a few travel writers describe Mutton Island as "quintessential British countryside in the Neath," silly yes, but I found it true. The people spoke with thick cockney accents and behaved so very politely to neighbor and stranger alike. The Cock and Magpie was the most quintessentially British of the whole village, songs would go up that I last recalled hearing on the surface in a pub my father frequented. Fortunately, a fresh batch of the classic rubbery lumps just arrived fresh from the kitchen and we all received one extra on the house. Lucky for me as these are rather expensive for pub food, especially when you plan to feed a shipful of hungry zailors with a taste for traditional cuisine. As the name suggested, they were rather chewy, I do not know if they simply overcook the meat or if they use the cartilage in the lumps, they might use a completely unknown flesh altogether, stranger things exist in the Neath. They do taste utterly delicious, despite their unappetizing title, every man gobbled their share in a minute and I barely succeeded in dissuading them from ordering seconds at my generous and unwilling expense. Well, except for one, however I fed him enough cider that four men had to carry him as he sang a garbled Drownie song all the way to his quarters, stopping in between verses to tell off a coquettish Lorn-fluke mistress. The Relenting Bosun assured me that this happened most times he stopped off a Mutton Island.
After lunch, I tried to walk off some of the weight by roaming the hills in the center of the island for exercise. The lights of London flushed with sickly yellow radiance, like the color of fool's gold in a mine, but the Zee glowed like dull jade trapped under obsidian; an eternally still sheet stirred only gently by the passing ships and Zee-beasts breaching the surface. The lack of wind in the Neath makes it a very pleasant temperature for long sleeved clothes, only in those infernally warm summers when the mushrooms begin spreading their spores.
That is to say, usual lack of wind in the Neath.
I cannot say with absolute certainty, but I trust my own skin and memory of the surface enough to say that felt something on the back of my neck that I did not experience in more than a decade. A breeze, faint like the brush of a feather, glided across my back and put my hairs on end. I turned myself toward the source of draft and saw a small cave meekly whistling in the hillside. The wind died down when I approached it, but I swear to Storm I heard it say "it lies... and hungers..." before it stopped. Appropriately shaken, I made my way back to the village, before an even more curious sight captured my focus.
A torch light and crowd of dark figures marched on the side of the ridge on the north side of the Island, coming from the village. With my interest piqued at what these honest Englishmen could be doing with such a sinister-looking procession, I hurried to the ridge to shadow them. All of them had already scaled the road to the top by the time I got there, so I merely needed to climb the rocky slope. Now, I would pay an entire cargo hold worth of scintillack to know where a bunch of Lowlanders learned mountain climbing because whatever path they used, I could not find for the life of me! So after half an hour of struggling up the incline like a lame billygoat, I reached the top where I hid behind a larger stone.
The villagers stood in a semi-circle around a Feathered Priest, stripped naked except for the headdress, who lead the rites in screechy voice in front of a great bonfire. He flitted between English and some other languages that seemed ancient in tone, presenting in order: a cob of corn, a clay tablet, and a jug. I have no idea what he said when he held the corn, but the tablet and jug did contain some snippets of Demotic referring to the New Kingdom and inelegant Cuneiform. The primary words I understood included "the Drowned Man," "Well," and many utterances of "North" in various tongues. The solemn ceremony continued in frightful austere manner until they reached some endpoint, then they all gathered around one member of the congregation, picked them up, and threw them off the edge of the cliff into the inky blackness below, all in near total silence. The man never even uttered a whimper... And like that, they dispersed, walking down the cliffside road. By this time I departed with upmost stealth, I had no intention to overstay my welcome.
I strolled back to the hamlet, trying to behave like I did not just see some form of neo-pagan human sacrifice, tentatively skipping along and whistling a broken tune. I gave a smile and a gritted "how-do-you-do?" to the pleasant folks; I assume that they either had no idea of their neighbor's activities, or learned to suppress their secrets better than me. I gathered every one of my crewmen immediately and undocked with all haste. The zailors naturally protested, a Volatile Stoker demanded an answer right then or he would mutiny. I was unsure of the scale or extent of the Mutton Island citizens' participation in the rituals so it would be remiss of me to indict the whole County of conspiracy, but my trust in them evaporated. Still, to expose this scene of cultish madness without requisite evidence would either cause incredible terror and paranoia in the crew, or it would make a mockery of me. So I elucidated that we needed to arrive before evening (or whatever counts for nightfall in a place with no notion of day or night) so that they need not sleep more on the ship. They accepted this with discontent muttering, and returned to their duties regardless. When he found me alone, the Bo'sun reported that the ship was in top condition and that he found nothing out of the ordinary.
"By the way cap'n, didya see what the fuss was about on the hilltop?"
"Yes, up close."
"Goes t' show that ev'n the model folk got sum peculiarities about them," he whispered in a common apprehension between us. The look in his eye of unease and dread spoke volumes. He left whistling a broken tune with an awkward skip in his step.
From now on, we will be avoiding Mutton Island in the future, and any stops will be short and the crew must remain in the village; if that barbarism is what they do to their own kin, then I dismay at what they would do with me...
20 November, 1875
Again, please forgive me for my lack of writing, but the tedium forbids me from elaborating on my journeys. I should say quickly what became of my Iron Republic expedition. The money from selling the darkdrop coffee was enough to buy myself a quant and very agreeable flat on Hollow Street, though I exercised my silver tongue intensively to barter a good price for the cargo. For whatever reason, merchants seem wary of buying cargo that came from a city that results when you give a mental asylum jurisdiction over the laws of physics. Funny enough, the report I submitted to the Admiralty went over poorly after it caught fire and burned off the wig of the Director of the Survey Office. Thankfully, they at least paid me for my time with some Echoes and coal.
Ever since then, I changed my route from Venderblight to Gaider's Mourn, as wine sells a little better there and I do not go out of my way too much to get there. In spite of its reputation as a hive of scum and villainy, the nature of its precarious place and construction make it one of the most impressive architectural achievements I ever saw. It sits atop several stalagmites the size of small mountains, connected by a number of rickety bridges, cottages built into and on the sheer cliff-faces. The great heights of the town above the water meant that no path lead up to the shaky streets, rather, cranes like those used to lift cargo in Wolfstack would hoist ships all the way up to level of the port using hooks attached to various points on the ship. It perturbed me at first when the winches raised the Cannon up to the Mourn, the ropes creaking with stress the whole time as we twisted and bowed slightly thanks to the uneven pull of the cranes; a ship belongs in the water for God's sake! (However, thanks to our elevated position, I found a few scratches sustained during our voyage that needed patching once we reached the top.) I remained uneasy in the village, and I discovered I might suffer from a slight case of Acrophobia, and I spent most of the time gripping onto anything solid. After a while, I got used to the place, but I still manage to find trouble there, such as what happened earlier today.
The Relenting Bo'sun warned me to keep my head down when walking about the Mourn, the pirates would throw a man down to the rocks if someone so much as gestured in their general direction. I still wanted to snoop about and look for some delicious shreds of information that I could relay to the Admiralty, they would pay highly for any intelligence about the movements of pirates in the Corsair's Forest. The Arrant limpet earned the most traffic of all the pubs in the town, and I brought some of my men with me to act as camouflage while I worked. As the zailors boasted and sang, I laughed and whistled along with them, but I kept a keen ear and a quick pen to jot every minor detail to "drop the eaves" as they say. I must say, I will never trust one of these marine marauders with private affairs, half of London would know all about it within half an hour!
After some pleasant subterfuge I stepped outside to take in the air (the bar reeked of sweat and tobacco) and the view. The panorama stunned me with its magnificence; the mists that flowed around the stalactites of the Forest like lazy currents of water, the false stars twinkling above as if someone stuck diamonds in coal, the evanescent radiance of London and the Mountain of Light in the west and south like competing sunsets. When one stands on the edge of cliff, hundreds of feet above the Zee, peering into the constricting darkness and attempting to divine some meaning in the madness of this vicious and spectacular world... you lose yourself to it. You collapse with tears in your eyes, unable to find any idea in your mind as to why. A certain part of you inside your soul tries to break out, and your body can only express it through an overwhelming well of tears, not even those of sadness, but rather of awe. Such a sensation came over me, and once it passed, I remembered what the zailors said of Salt. I whispered an impromptu litany; I felt it appropriate.
Unfortunately, I may not be as stealthy as I thought, for seven rather discontented zailors followed me to this spot. If you remember from the very first entry in this journal, I'm quite experienced with knocking a few heads around, and I've faced tougher than some half-bit, drunken sea raiders. I kept myself backed up against the open rock and made sure that the pirates' backs faced the wide zee. One of them, an Inebriated Freebooter, came up to me and asked,
"You finks you is clevur do ya? Finks you can sneak 'round 'ere and muck wif us?"
I responded, "Heaven knows that anybody would look like Socrates when standing next to you!"
Quite befuddled, he just asked, "So-crates?"
His mate got annoyed and unsheathed a Mongolian style sabre and brought it down on top of me. Lucky for me, he probably swiped the weapon off an officer stationed on a Khanate ship in a raid, because he clearly knew nothing about swordsmanship. He telegraphed his strikes like he tried to send the bible through wire, so I dodged his strike, grabbed his hand, and jammed my elbow into his nose. He let go of the sword, but by now his friends already brought out their armaments.
Now that I held the sabre, I could keep them at bay with the greater reach, slashing at their wrists and parrying attacks. One succeeded in making it past my blade, and I responded by giving him a firm kick in the chest that sent him sprawling backwards into her comrade. As they landed on the boards, the rotting planks gave way and the two plummeted down to the black abyss of the Zee. The remaining five roared with the fury of Achilles himself and descended upon me with savage abandon, my defense began to shatter under the weight of their unceasing strikes. I was almost sure one would sufficiently stun me long enough for them to throw me to the bound sharks with along with their former friends. A knife sliced the back of my sword hand and I dropped my guard, and I saw the tip of a sharp object approaching my face with terrifying speed.
A shot knocked the dagger out of the grasp of the pirate, and everyone looked to the source of the bullet. Low and behold, the Compensating Artilleryman stood at the edge of the walkway with his revolver aimed at my assailants, a wisp of smoke wafting from the barrel, plus two more of my crew standing with him.
"You know the drill lads, leave the nice lady alone and you get to keep yourselves wholesome."
They elected to walk away, knowing they met their match from my shipmates. I ran over to the Artilleryman a shook his hand vigorously, telling him thank you at least twenty times in both English and German, and I may have said I would name my firstborn child after him. He said not to fret about it and that he simply enjoyed acting as the Perseus to my Andromeda, though he did accept my offer of a pay raise. We returned to the ship right away, clearly we outstayed our welcome a while ago, and after a roll call of the crew, the winches let us down to the Zee. However, the trip did bare some fruit, as I heard of a tantalizing opportunity with less than legal prospects. Apparently, some d_ed genius developed a way of trapping sunlight in a box through some weird combination of mirrors, allowing folks to bring down the heavenly radiance to the Neath without blowing a hole in the roof. I overheard a few scallywags laughing off the tales of smuggler bringing these boxes down to a place called the Isle of Cats, somewhere in the southern Zee. I think I ought to pay a visit to that island, I am an ailurophile after all...
The Artilleryman reported that I indeed promised to name my firstborn child after him. Pity, I always wanted a girl and his name simply sounds strange for a lady.
21 November, 1875
B_dy pirates! They deserve the stocks, every single one!
Those scoundrels in Gaider's Mourn ought to see the gallows, I hope that some Woodes Rogers type comes back to handle these recreants! But, I digress. Now, allow me to expound upon you my first story about pirates at Zee, so listen well.
As we left the foot of the stalactite, we only proceeded at half speed to keep from slamming into the other stalactites. We whiled away about a day and a night trying to extradite ourselves from the Corsair's Forest, all the while some lookouts suggested that they saw lights following us. I thought nothing of it at the time, I assumed that it might be a hallucination from the unease most people feel at Zee. As it happens I am a fool and committed a fool's error.
Once the Cannon departed from the Forest, we brought the engines to full speed, when suddenly a shell sailed over the ship and landed in water ahead of us. Everybody directed their attention to behind us, and we discovered that a vessel flying the jolly roger followed us all the way from the Mourn; no doubt those vagrants from the gang that attacked me from the pub. The Relenting Bo-sun sprang into action and rang the alarm, ordering around the zailors like a military commander (including the Artilleryman, who surprisingly followed without any protests whatsoever), and generally took the reins of command out of my hands. I wanted to intervene and order my crew like the Captain I supposedly was, but the Bo-sun so effectively ran the ship, I thought I would probably get in the way of him. He brought us to a halt and then engaged the reverse, sending us right into the pirates. Another shot flew right across our hull, skipping along the left side and leaving a nasty dent, but we kept charging backwards like a reversed bull. The Cannon crashed into pirate ship, rocking both, and we exchanged some small arms fire with b_ers. Got one right in the left eye socket, I am proud to say.
The Cannon sailed behind the ship, and the Bo-sun ordered all engines forward and the guns aimed on the aft of the enemy. The Compensating Artilleryman finally had his opportunity to display his skills, and he aimed that cannon with an almost artistic precision. The Leadbeater sang like a broken grandfather clock, and the round tunneled right into the backside of the pirates, eliminating their engines.
"Her Majesty's finest sends their regards!" he bellowed with a nationalistic zeal one would expect from the military.
Now dead in the water, we backed out of the their range of fire as they desperately tried to turn the bow around and acquire a firing solution on us, to no avail. The Artilleryman sent shell after shell into the aft, the last one apparently catching the munitions storage as the whole craft exploded into a mess of metal and wood, the impact sending most of us reeling. The driftwood coated the surface of the Zee like the Sargasso Sea, but we saw none of the crew, probably for the better. The crew gave a resounding "hurrah!" at the sight of the sinking cruiser, which quickly died out when I asked for a damage report and ordered everyone back to their stations.
We did not leave the encounter empty handed thankfully, a few crates bobbed on the surface, almost as if it wished for us to pick it up and so we did. Breaking the airtight seals on the boxes, we found some bales of parabola linen that the vagrants most likely stole from some unfortunate merchants. I heard of the qualities and stories of fabric woven from flax that grows on a river of nightmares, the unnaturally light weight of the material, its strangely florescent luster. It feels softer and smoother to the touch than normal linen, almost the quality of silk, but it primarily draws you in with the unique patterns inherent in the fibers; if you let your eyes wander while looking at it, specifically if you focus your vision on the distance, you start to see a strange jungle-like forest, wreathed in icy tendrils of hazy... something. The important part is that they sell for sixty echoes a bale in Wolfstack, so I will eat well that night.
Unfortunately, this whole affair put a damper on my interest in the sunlight trade the late corsairs spoke of, I prefer not to do business with people willing to kill me at the drop of a hat. Of course, I at least have a dashing Zee Story to tell the folks in the Blind Helmsman, so I think I can certainly call myself a true zailor now.
27 November, 1875
Standing on solid ground for more than a few hours feels a little strange after spending two months on deck.
Oh God... I just realized, I've been at this for two months now! It feels like eons since I bought that rust bucket!
Well, I suppose time flies when you sufficiently distract yourself with work, but I feel like a true zailor now, if only because I reek of saltwater and smoke. The folks on the docks and the Blind Helmsmen also treat me with a modicum more of respect; some of whom I speak with more often even call me 'Captain', imagine that! Recently, I spent my past two days in London speaking with everyone I could expect to know about sunlight trade: academics, scoundrels, and the odd veiled question directed at Admiralty staff. My best information came from a Benthic professor I remember as the Disquieting Intellectual, she worked in the department of Neath Colonization and Engineering and dealt with some of the more hair-raising aspects of life down in the dark.
While she expounded on her expedition to the Savior's Rocks and how some of crew fell prey to the webs of the sorrow spiders, I quickly shifted the conversation and broached the subject of devices used to capture and preserve light that she may be familiar with. One of her colleagues actually made the prototype for the mirrorcatch box, and eventually suffered the consequences for it. The Admiralty strictly regulates the use of mirrorcatch boxes by the public due to serious public health concerns regarding sunlight addiction to Neath-dwellers, as extended time spent in the darkness underground can acclimate one to the lack of light, and when exposed to direct sunlight they suffer delusions, nausea, lethargy, and in extreme cases, death. It can also result in extreme addiction even with less than three seconds of direct contact, as she described that her former fellow would often elope with sunlight they used for experiments for his own pleasure, and one day, he simply disappeared in a waft of smoke.
What a wonderful and enticing world we lived in.
Anyway, because of this the Ministry of Public Decency will have words with anybody they catch using the devices, so most simply take to the islands of the Neath where the rule of law lessens. I asked the Intellectual about where her Department acquires the boxes for research, however most of the ones in their possession were the ones initially built by her colleague and those lay under strict lock and key. In a strange twist of fate, a pirate ship captured a vessel carrying one of these boxes, and since then, homemade versions have been reverse engineered from the original. She professed innocence to anything more about the acquisition of this item of contraband, I suspect because she did not want the Constables interested in her knowledge of black market dealings if I was arrested. Thus, I turned to my less scrupulous contacts with the Cheery Man, who explained that while they controlled the sunlight trade in London, most of their boxes came east from the Salt Steppes. The Khanate, possibly in order to undermine the position of London, manufactures these boxes and sells them quite cheaply, both in Khan's Glory and Khan's Shadow. I did promise not to intrude on their market now that I had the information to do so, a promise I most certainly intend to keep. Contrary to the proverb, there is indeed honor among thieves, enforced at the end of knife. Now armed with the knowledge to penetrate this secretive market, I just need to make some friends on the Isle of Cats, and buy the boxes from the Khanate.
And this, children, is how I became a sunlight smuggler.
19 December, 1875
Oh, my name was Captain Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed!
Oh, my name was Captain Kidd, as I sailed!
My name was Captain Kidd and God's laws I did forbid,
And so wickedly I did as I sailed, as I sailed.
My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed.
I feel like my next narrative poem ought to focus on a pirate in the late 16th century, living the life of scurvy dog in the Caribbean. Swashbuckling adventure! High seas drama! Dysentery! It would sell like indulgences outside of a bordello, assuming I can have it published.
My stay in the Isle of Cats reminds me of historical records of the Republic of Nassau and seventeenth century Canton, all the bustling in the docks and alehouses lends credence to this place being the center of illegal activities in Neath. I specifically ordered the crew to keep less than ten echoes in the coin purses and keep their hands on them at all times, yet we still lost a total of twenty-seven echoes from theft (Twenty-seven echoes that are not coming out of my pocket, unless under threat of mutiny). The Compensating Artilleryman took offense to the whole island on principle and the Relenting Bo'sun did his best to keep the stout man's rage from boiling over. I promised him a short stay, just to take in the town, and secretly to find where one goes to sell sunlight for a good price. A very kind man with an impressively sparse ledger asked if I would like to bribe him in order to avoid my name going into said ledger, an offer which I very graciously accepted. Say what you will about corruption, I certainly appreciate its straightforwardness.
The pubs burst with life and color, folks of all different stripes gather round and enjoy the pleasures of ill-gotten gains and goods. Immaculate paintings of roses lined the walls, in fact, much of the Isle of Cats focused on a rose theme, I doubt I saw a single cat in my entire time here. It was quite curious why there were nuns walking through this den of scum and villainy posed some very strange questions I need answers for, and lips loosened by alcohol tell many secrets. I sat down with a some nice zailors and a nun, enjoying their company and feeding them more and more rounds of beer. Once they became appropriately inebriated, I steered our discussions from the fluctuations of the quantity of trade vessels traveling to the Carnelian Coast to a more poignant conversation about the nature of the Isle. Some man referred to as the King established this place as a laissez-faire haven for any kind of industry, though it was obvious that he intended it as a pirate's paradise. No one disputed the power of the King, and although most activities went unregulated by his lackeys, no man with an interest in living came to head with him when he expanded his enterprises, and his blessing or seal of approval was of top priority to anyone looking to grow in the Isle. Notably, the King's greatest source of income came from the most illegal business of all, red honey. While prisoner's honey comes from bees that consume the nectar of the exile's rose and then are set upon prisoners, red honey is much the same process, but it uses a specialized strain of the rose. Moreover, the unwilling subjects that suffered the fate of their memories being harvested are of a more specific sort. Supposedly, this yields much more powerful honey with a deep crimson hue (as one would expect with something named red honey, but you can never know in the Neath) that London so deeply objects to, it is not even illegal in the common sense. The nuns in the Crimson Abbey tend to the hives and the roses, while agents known as the Cat's Claw search for good subjects to harvest memories from, and then distribute.
However, not everyone partook in such reveling, one woman in the corner of room sipped her ale with a distant concern, like she functioned on automatic, not even aware of herself. I sat next to her and it took five minutes before she noticed me, staring blankly at face and muttering to herself. I asked her why she looked as if she saw a ghost, gently coaxing information out of her.
"The gardens, oh God, the garden..."
"The gardens in the Abbey? You've seen it?"
"Seen it?! I left them there! For what? Money? The King's interest? How could I have done that to them. The way they screamed, it rings like the bells of judgment..."
"Left who?"
"My crew... I... they said it would be simple... I needed the echoes and they were dishonest and mutinous and... and... You understand don't you?"
"Um, eh, yes."
"No, you can't, not unless you saw the bees crawling all over them, in their eyes and noses. Salt save them, and me."
I was thoroughly shaken by this unfortunate soul, and decided to wrap up my business here as quick as I could. Wandering the island, I found several places that advertised sunlight sipping in the establishment, and every one I spoke to confirmed that they always need more sunlight to keep up with demand. Pleased with my reconnaissance of the island, I returned to the Cannon and made headcount. Thankfully, everyone returned safe and sound, and we departed soon after. My mind keeps drifting back to thoughts of the poor captain and her crew, their shrieks echoing in my head as if I heard them myself at the Abbey. I considered how dearly I held on to my own memories, the good and the bad, and how I could not bear to lose them just so that someone else could partake in them. The Bo'sun commented on how I looked deeply concerned about something, because the man knows me so very well. I fear for what I might dream tonight, and I have yet to go to bed despite it being the middle of the night.
23 December, 1875
I desperately want to know who saw a gigantic mushroom growing out of the zee and thought, "Yes, I would like to live on that and expand society there."
I ask because the residents of the Uttershroom gave no adequate answer to the origins of their colony. For context, the Uttershroom is an utterly massive fungus in the middle of the Myceligeae Zee that houses a small town on top of it. The Myceligeae tends to be difficult to navigate due to underwater mushroom caps scraping against the bottom of the ship, and large fungal spore fogs obscuring your view, sometimes even grabbing onto the hull and growing on the deck. The overgrown wreck of the Miko close to the Uttershroom reminds captains the dangers of zailing through the Zee, and I took caution and ran at half engine. In my spare time, I sometimes read some of the more extraordinary scientific papers published (Usually by the Benthics, the absolute madmen.) and one actually pertained to the fungal hamlet. The author claimed that all fungal life in the Neath derives from one source, that source being the Uttershroom, which he justified through the sheer enormity of the fungus and the similarities between it and the wide variety of other fungal life in the Neath. I later read in the paper that he shot a man who disagreed with him on the subject. Mushrooms are a very serious topic in the Neath.
Once arriving on the... I hesitate to call it shore, more like an excavated fungal grotto? Irrelevant, at the makeshift dock, we climbed the ladders to the shroom cap, and mingled with the residents. I would describe the folks there as docile, their schedules defined by years of routine. Few visitors come to the Uttershroom on account of not much of interest being in the area unless one is a mycologist. Come to think of it, I know a surprising amount of mycologists, so maybe people don't frequent often because it is dreadfully dull most of the time. The cap of the mushroom and its plentiful flesh provides food, shelter, and drinks while supporting a minor ecosystem. The locals speak of the Uttershroom in very strange terms, referring to it as "Mother" and describing their harvesting of fungal material as the cap "providing for them." I asked about how many of them leave home and every time they gave me a very queer look as if I asked them about their favorite tasting color, they seemed unaware of the possibility. Whatever their fungal-centric lifestyle entails, it makes them rather off-putting.
We stayed in the village for the most part as the fauna on the outskirts tends to be somewhat dangerous. Most notable of the creatures are Blemigans, purple semi-intelligent mushrooms with mischievous personalities. Zailors tell tales of the beasts stowing away in ships and propagating on nearby islands when the ships dock, though apparently, their skills as secretaries is immense. The locals do trade supplies for prisoner's honey, and sometimes they will simply give the trader a Blemigan with no extra charge, and most of these end up drowning in salt water because no one wants them. Most other animals on the Uttershroom are not as amicable as these violet stalks of annoyance, hence the populous stays close to the security of their squalid manors. Researchers do have some interest in the specimens from the wilderness of the cap, and captured creatures sell well with university staff.
Toward the end of my stay, the Uttershroom began to expel its spores, and the close proximity to the village made the air a thick mushroom stew. I could barely see a foot in front of me, and it almost felt taxing to move through the viscous fog. However, the locals did not mind the fungal smog, mostly lamenting that they couldn't see very well or that it was irritating to constantly call out for somebody without seeing them. They informed me that the Uttershroom ejects spores about every month, and it typically brings a series of respiratory problems for the people. Many people had an extra room in their house that had no windows and one door where they would bring children and the elderly to keep them from suffering too much due to the spores. When I suggested that it might be prudent to either place them on a ship until the sporing is over, they could not seem to comprehend leaving the Uttershroom. One said, and I quote, "Mother would never let us leave, even for a little while. She's afraid we might run off and not come back."
Because the air had gotten unbearable, I cut our visit short, and brought everyone back to the ship. A few hours later, I felt like the hearing in my left ear was off, and I asked the zailor with the most medical experience to take a look. He pulled a tiny blue-violet mushroom out of my ear, apparently it caught a hold in my inner ear and grew out of there.
For health concerns, we will not be returning to the Uttershroom for a long while.
I write this the next morning, I had terrible dream about a mushroom growing all over my body and in myself, until I transformed into a Blemigan. I will have to ask if that is their actual life-cycle, but I know for sure that the Uttershroom can go to the Iron Republic for all I care!
25 December, 1875
Merry Christmas!
I actually prepared for this occasion a brought a Christmas tree for this expedition. Unfortunately, because bringing live trees to the Neath costs an exorbitant amount of money, I improvised and banged together a green pine tree out of scrap metal which did the trick. The crew seemed to find it a cute gesture, but they appreciated the feast we had even more. Recently, I feel as though everybody has been on edge much more. The zee becomes far more treacherous and terrifying as you sail farther from London, many of the more far out islands tend to be less inhabited and full of strange creatures. Some of my friends in the Admiralty's Territorial Security Department occasionally let slip a few details about plans to colonize the outer islands of the Zee, but these are a bit far off and the Admiralty tends to have its hands full with internal struggles and the Khanate pushing the definition of "non-aggression" every day.
Strangest have been the absolutely gigantic crabs that roam the farther in the Zee, they confound me to no end. Most are about the size of the ship, if not larger, and the poke out of the water like huge boulders of red. Some of the older ones with barnacles and algae growing on them occasionally will seem like a small atoll revealed by low tide, and suddenly the pincers come out of the water and we go full speed in the other direction of the d_able things. They have given us a scare more than once, and they do not taste all that delectable.
The loneliness of the Zee has been getting to some zailors, but that is natural for everyone who goes to Zee for a long time. Even the older zailors feel zeesick, and the darkness around us can sometimes feel suffocating. Scholars in the University debate on the nature of reality in the Neath, and one of the more eccentric theories is that darkness here is not simply the absence of light, but a physical force that changes reality within it, elucidating why this cavern is so bizarre. Whatever the cause, we keep the light on while sailing, it comforts the zailors against the sheer blackness that grows as one travels the outlying waters. We should hopefully reach land within a week, my nerves have begun to wear thin.
Author's notes: Well I broke my previous promise pretty quickly, sorry about that. My workload became a bit overbearing in the past two weeks, but everything should definitely be fine now. On the other hand, we're finally done with the first chapter of Hera Rottenwald's story! What will happen to our heroine next chapter? Tune in next time to see...
One more thing. If any of you lovely readers are American and of voting age (really it's worth doing this even if you aren't in that demographic), I highly suggest that you research "net neutrality" and then call your federal representatives. Right now we're on the cusp of losing our basic rights relating to the internet and the only way we can stop it is if we take action. It's your choice, I'm just trying to spread the word.