The Byrgenwerth Missive
(Extract from The Nightmare Sea: A Tale of Yharnam.)
By JackSkyandCosmos
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a work of fanfiction, written to pay tribute to the video game Bloodborne and the visionary author H.P. Lovecraft. I in no way seek financial gain from it, and the settings, concepts, and some of the characters within remain the intellectual property of From Software and Sony Entertainment.
Dear Master,
I hope this letter (very likely my last) finds you as well as can be expected. I know the growths on your neck and back cause you such anguish, and that the balms I gladly rubbed about those hideous augmentations provide little comfort. Please know that my latest, brilliant discovery will soon make such earthly pains but an irrelevance.
You must know that it was with great reluctance I left Byrgenwerth. You have been as a father to me, and much more besides. I pray that you do not think I have followed that vulgar megalomaniac "L.", who I dare not name in full- although I fear that is what you must suspect.
No, I have not left to join his Church of heretics, but I must confess I now know your line of enquiry into our transcendental awakening to be well intentioned, but- dare I say it, Master- false. Our cosmic evolution will not come from the cultivation of eyes ("ocular transcendence" as you call it). Nor will it come from the degenerate consumption of refined yet tainted blood, as "L." and his acolytes hold true.
Rather, the path to humanity's next childhood will come from the place of our original evolution: the bottomless sea!
In Yharnam, the Choir's latest propaganda extols that they have had an "epiphany". My fellow students who live within the city proper tell me they now shout it from the very rooftops at great rallies, and chant it at their communion. They state: "The Sky and the Cosmos are One!".
I can report most accurately that they are only half correct- a more righteous statement would read "The Sea and the Cosmos are One!".
I know for so many, many nights you would sit at your telescope in the lunarium, gazing into the cosmic void and searching for answers… So many times I would accompany you, seated at your knee, assisting you to map the celestial bodies above. But I have discovered, in methods that I will shortly disclose, that you would have been better to point your lens the other way, towards the unexplored ocean deep, where the answers truly lie…
My discovery started when I found a secret within the prohibited records concerning the fishing hamlet of Innsmouth… oh Master, you must not be angry- I know reading those old accounts is strictly forbidden, but I was oh so desperate to impress you with my studious enquiries into the cosmos! Thus, on one night when we were together, when I was sure you were asleep, I crept over your slumbering form and did take them from your personal chest… But I am sure you will forgive me when you discover the absolution that was borne of my treachery!
Although the bulk of the records had long been seized by the Healing Church and taken to Yharnam for Choral research, what I had was enough to spark within my young mind a great realisation. Before expiring under interrogation, a dying Innsmouth priest called a curse down upon Byrgenworth, by the wrath of the one they call the Cosmic Mother (recorded in our Zoological Encyclopedia under designation Kos-M). I rechecked the translation: he did this in the present tense! Do you see what this means, Master? The Cosmic Mother still lives on other planes!
To confirm my hypothesis, I went to Innsmouth myself. Oh, I know it is also forbidden in the extreme, and I had to fool the Healing Church militias who were dismantling the place, but you know how persuasive I can be, Master…
You will be pleased to hear than within the village proper very few structures are left. Your influence still extends that far in the Church's upper echelons at least, and the Choir have agreed to raise the whole area to the ground. I was lucky to find the lighthouse still standing- engineers from the Church workshop were due to demolish it the very next day!
I ascended its claustrophobic, mossy stairway to the summit, searching for answers. I must confess when I surveyed the demolished village from my high vantage point in the lighthouse's lamp-room I nearly gave up all hope- there was no evidence remaining of the actions you so regret, or that Kos-M or any of the other "studies" ever existed at all…
I turned to examine the great lens which was the central feature of the lighthouse. I was briefly overcome with a sense of immense melancholy that no lamp would ever illuminate its sparkling panes of glass ever again. Out of sheer curiosity I placed my own hand-lantern in its centre, and angled the lens out towards the open ocean. I thought of the villager who once have must operated the boom, and how that unfortunate peasant still came much closer to evolution than our greatest scholars have achieved, at least thus far...
As the lightbeam hit the choppy waves out at sea, I fancied I saw the horizon shimmer. The waters seemed to part, and in the portal that remained I saw another world, and a flash of white movement… In that very instant I heard her song for the first time, the call of the Cosmic Mother, reaching out to me across the dimensional void.
I knew I did not have much time to reach her. The next day the Church militia would reduce the lighthouse to dust, and my route to salvation would be terminated. Thus I made with great haste to return to Byrgenwerth.
I waited until the other students were a-slumber and then crept out of the dorm. I sequestered a small rowing boat from the plaza quayside and pulled out across the serene surface of the Great Lake, under a moon as full as a ripe breast. So bright was its luminescence that the stars themselves had retired in deference!
In the hour just before the dawn I made open water by way of the sea-inlet, which by the good fates was open to the ocean. I quickly located the aperture where the lighthouse-beam split reality asunder, and with almost no trepidation piloted my tiny craft into the frothing waters within.
I found myself in a thick white fog on a calmer sea, and heard the song of the Cosmic Mother summoning me. I wept tears of joy as I followed her siren's call. If only I could describe it, Master, but all words seem to fail to embody that seductive transmission. It was as if my soul were a harp and her emissions the fingers of the most skillful player the world has ever known.
Eventually I followed the beautiful sound to this islet, a rocky outpost in the middle of an unknown sea. Here I was graced with the divine presence for the first time, and she is a sight to behold more cosmically perfect than even the Healing Church's evocative sermons can describe. A perfect being, part aquatic invertebrate and part beautiful humanoid. And Master, when she came to me she made a most touching gesture to show benign intent and to seduce me further, why- she had taken the form of your face!
I have been on the islet for many moons now, and I have communed with her on many occasions. I bear fruit from these blessed connections, and she gains great comfort from these gifts- for she has suffered great loss, and they act as surrogates. I raise them as my own on this hallowed rock in this dreamer's sea.
You must not be jealous of my interactions with the divine, Master, for just as you were a Father to me where I had none, she is my Cosmic Mother, and I am thus the child of the cosmos. When I have produced sufficient gifts, she will grant me the evolution that we have sought for all Mankind.. I will be given more eyes than you ever thought possible, Master, and when my ascension is complete I will return for you.
While you wait for that blessed day, remember that the cosmos is near. Know that I am both in the moonlight right above your head, and just beneath the waves of the lake outside your window.
When I have transcended, I will return to you, Master, and we will become one. Imagine it: the three of us traversing the endless cosmos, the endless sea, accepting of all that there is, and can be.
Your faithful student,
R.