Alathra: New Frontiers
A Worldbuilding, Geopolitical, Light Roleplay Server.
IP: play.alathramc.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/wfdNAYQv
Website: https://alathramc.com/index.htm
Alathra is one of the top searched and played world building server in the world! Maybe you are looking to join one of the grand towns and nations across Alathra. Maybe you want to start your own in undeveloped land. Perhaps your goal is to master trade and become a wealthy merchant. What about starting your own player-run guild, or starting a new religion? Maybe you just want to be a hermit and live alone on a mountain.
All of this is possible on Alathra because here players tell the story. Alathra is full of characters, nations, cultures, and organizations. Many battles and wars have been fought. There are heroes, there are villains, and plenty that fall somewhere in between. Will you make your mark on the history of Alathra? Start your journey today!
Key Features
Towny
Create towns and cities with your friends or join an existing one. With Towny you can claim areas to build safely and store your items. Start a large nation with sprawling cities or create a small farming village. The sky is the limit!
Lore, RP & Worldbuilding
One of the key gameplay aspects of Alathra is its lore, roleplay (RP) and geopolitics. The community is constantly creating captivating lore and RP including player-run organizations, events, and religions, as well as conflicts and wars. In Alathra you can create your own unique story, which is bound to intertwine with the stories of others.
Custom World
The map of Alathra is completely custom, designed from scratch using a combination of tools to encourage exploration trade and geopolitics. The world consists of continents separated by oceans and is divided into four temperature zones. Along with enhancements to vanilla biomes, the map also includes many new biomes such as red sand deserts, tropical beaches, calcite mountains, giant spruce forests, mangrove islands, prairies, steppes and more! There are also landmarks that can be found throughout the map including volcanoes, salt flats and underground rivers.
Custom Plugins
Alathra has its own dedicated team of developers who are consistently develop new plugins and features that give Alathra a unique feel that we guarantee you won't find on other servers. Some examples include lockpicking, a custom war system, character cards, medieval weapons, a fast travel port system, regional resources and so much more!
Movecraft
Movecraft is a plugin that allows you to create moveable ships, from small fishing boats to large Man o' Wars! Fill your ships with chests for trade or line them with cannons for war. The version of Movecraft Alathra uses is also specifically written and configured to allow for naval combat.
Brewing
The Brewery plugin allows you to create many different interesting brews as well as the many custom brews that have been made by players. Become your town's barkeeper! Experiment to see how many of hundreds of custom brews you can discover.

Looking to arrange a car ride for a relative from Boston to Cape Cod in a few weeks. Would like this to be as seamless as possible for the relative.
What car service would most recommend? Exploring Blacklane, JR Limo Car Service, Patriots Limousine, Blue Nile Livery, and a few others but am not from the area and unfamiliar with which may be best.

For the Democratic constituents in Legislative District 3who have been following the primary or trying to understand what’s going on in the run up to early voting, here’s the gist of it:
None of Column A’s candidates talk about the issues “relevant” to New Jersey, Legislative District 3, Salem nor Gloucester County.
Many of them are VERY vague WITHOUT a coherent plan to address them. Not a single candidate made any mentions of bringing Planned Parenthood to Legislative District 3 nor Gloucester County.
Both counties make up five counties without access to Planned Parenthood: Gloucester, Cumberland, Salem, Atlantic, and Cape May.
And they’ve been like that the whole time, which has made South Jersey a reproductive healthcare desert.
Even current Gloucester County commissioner Jim Jefferson supports the spending freeze, which will decimate future opportunities for growth in Gloucester County.
Incumbent Commissioner Jefferson didn’t even mention a plan to address the fentanyl crisis should it come to Gloucester County while seven counties declared a state of emergency (Bergen, Passaic, Essex, Monmouth, Ocean, Camden and Atlantic Counties).
However, Column B aka “The Good Democrats” have mentioned the issues relevant to New Jersey, such as the teachers shortage, healthcare, housing in New Jersey, and making the cost of raising kids more affordable.
Bob Fitzpatrick is one of the Assemblymen candidates who called for raising the minimum wage for teachers in New Jersey.
Mario DeSantis himself is a teacher, understands the issues firsthand and made time to talk to new voters who want a real vision for Legislative District 3.
And here’s the bottom line of the June 6th Primary: Please DO NOT waste your time voting for Column A, these candidates are atrocious. Our taxpayer dollars should be going towards establishing access to Planned Parenthood throughout the legislative district and Gloucester County.
IF Column A wins in the June primary, they WILL LOSE the general election in November 2023.
Column A’s candidates are so politically poisonous, they end up letting Republicans get in than just accepting that their time is over. That’s similarly how Legislative District 3 ended up with Ed Durr and Durr didn’t spend a whole lot of money on his campaign.
Therefore to prevent this, please vote for Column B during early voting or on June 6th if you want to have real representation in LD-3.
We only have ONE shot at this, so make your VOTE for Column B count.

Hi all! I’m looking for the best lobster roll on Cape Cod. I am in the Yarmouth area. Thanks!

first of all, sorry for the english, i'm using google translate.
practically, in some games the pc randomly decides to freeze and restart, initially it only happened with cod at startup but now it also happened with metal gear solid 5, in the past the pc restarted after closing the games but it hasn't happened for some time , in particular I have dump files that indicate "ntoskrnl.exe" and "dxgkrnl.sys" guilty, so the gpu I guess, but in the game I don't have any kind of problem, it often happens that I can play even for a week without having any kind problem, the benchmarks do not cause any type of crash, I tested the ram with memtest and no problem, I changed the psu but it gave the same problem even before the change, the temperatures are ok.
some advice?
specs
​
nvidia 2060 gpu
i5-9400 cpu
mobo PRIME Z390-A
ram 16gb 2400hz
psu 650w
​
thinking about it, I have a ssd with 22% life, is that possible? I excluded it because the error seems to refer to something else but I don't know, I'm not an expert
i've really tried everything, i've already reinstalled the gpu drivers the way it should, reinstalled the os and so many other things, i don't know how to fix
i had some undervolt in my cpu and gpu, however in the past several times i had the same problem in stock, so idk

Hello all. I have written here before about my job at Ultima Resort (1,2,3,4,5,6,7), though I know it has been a while, sorry about that. We were trapped for some time, my phone died pretty quickly, and I wasn’t able to recharge it again until the water receded. So, I haven’t really been able to write. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me get you up to date, then it will all make more sense.
I opened a door and peered into the closet, but the noise was quieter here, if anything. I shut the closet and continued down the hallway. The dripping had started out intermittent. The gentle plip, plip, plip was barely audible over the normal sounds of the hotel, and we had assumed it was related to the steady rain that had been drumming on the building for a few days, at that point. But the frequency of the dripping had been increasing steadily, and now was concerningly loud and constant. It was somehow audible from every corner of the hotel, and it was only a matter of time until the guests complained. They were already irritable because of the bad weather, which had kept them stuck indoors. As I passed a window, a flash of lightning lit the forest behind the hotel. The lights flickered ominously but it stayed on. The clap of thunder rattled the doors in their frames. I spotted Vincent hurrying towards me from down the hall. His face seemed pale.
“Well, did you find the leak?” I asked.
“Umm… you could say that,” he replied, uncomfortably, eyes shifting to the storm outside.
“What’s wrong?”
“It… well, you should just come see.”
I followed him down the hall to the ballroom where we had hosted the anniversary party some days back. It had been a nice event. Less deaths than I had expected. The hors d’oeuvres were pretty good. There was still a bit of smoke damage on the west wall, but we had cleaned it off as best as we could and the place looked presentable again, though I was now thinking we should put on a new coat of paint. It was hard to decide, when I wasn’t sure if the room would even be here next week. Vincent opened the door on the back wall and gestured me inside. This was new.
It was some sort of small storage cupboard, with dim lighting and a low ceiling. It was full of what looked like furniture, draped in white cloths for storage. I wondered what the furniture was made of, because the room had a strange fetid odor, that reminded me of rot and death. I covered my nose with my hand instinctively, but it did little to help. The small window in the back showed that the rain continued to fall outside, but it didn’t seem to be the source of the leak, as the floor around it was dry. Still, the leak must be in here, because the sound was louder than ever. I took a step forward, to get a better look at the room, but Vincent grabbed my arm and pulled me back, pointing towards the ceiling. I looked up to see a large dome light. It had a strange dark tint, and hardly any light made it through. But something else was coming from the dome. Drips fell in a steady rhythm, and as my eyes tracked them, I saw them splash into a widening puddle on the ground. The puddle was viscous and black, glimmering in the dim light. I looked back at Vincent.
“What is that?” I raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t really look like ordinary water to me.”
“I don’t know. Maybe… it is picking something up as it drips through from the roof?” he did not sound particularly convincing.
“Maybe,” I tried to play along. “Though, I am not sure I want to know what that could be. Did you check if it is coming from somewhere upstairs?”
“Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary on the floor above, and I can’t find any signs of a leak anywhere else.”
“Alright,” I backed out of the door and closed it behind us. “Well, I am sure whatever that is will work itself out.”
“What? We’re just going to leave it? Why did we even bother looking, then?” Vincent protested.
“I was worried it was a roof leak, something we needed to handle with routine maintenance. That does not seem to be the case,” I raised a questioning eyebrow. “Do you know how to fix whatever is going on in there?”
“No…”
“Me neither. In this place, when the ceiling is dripping black ichor, it is probably for a reason. I assume we’ll find out when one of our guests gets involved.”
Vincent opened his mouth, as if to protest, but even as he did, the sound of the phone at the desk echoed through the hotel. Vincent sighed,
“Alright, let’s go see what fresh hell awaits us today.”
I heard a small chuckle inside my head. I resisted the urge to ask Al what he knew. He answers were rarely helpful. He didn’t seem to lie, but he was often intentionally misleading, saying whatever he thought would elicit the most drama. I was tired of giving him the satisfaction. I was sure I could sense his disappointment when I refused to engage, but maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. I couldn’t blame Vincent for being apprehensive about what the guests’ inquiry might be. The three men had arrived to participate in some sort of golf event, but they been here for 3 days now and since it had poured every moment, the event was not taking place. The guests were very unhappy about this turn of events, and they had mostly been killing time by taking it out on us. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. The rich ones were always the most demanding, unused to being told ‘no’ even when the question was ‘has the rain stopped yet?’, and based on the Bugatti they had arrived in, these men were quite rich. I answered the phone on the desk, already suppressing a sigh.
“Ultima Resort, front desk, how can I help you?”
“You can come and open the bar,” the voice on the other end snapped. “It’s past noon and the sign says it should be available by now.”
“I apologize, sir. I’ll be right there.”
“You had better be. The service at this place is frankly astounding. Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone ever stays here. I have half a mind to leave a review warning people away.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I know your stay hasn’t been ideal, but please bear with us and we will do everything we can to make it right.”
“You can start by hanging up the phone and getting me my drink.”
The line went dead in my hand. I sighed and replaced the phone on the cradle.
“Let me guess, they wanted to give us a large tip and leave early?”
“Don’t quit your day job,” I chuckled. “You wouldn’t make it as a psychic. Come on, let’s go open the bar, before we have a mutiny on our hands.”
I grabbed the key to open the shutters from the desk and we headed into the dining room. Our three guests were standing around the locked bar, making a show of checking their watches. I struggled to keep my eyes from rolling. It was 12:03pm.
“You know,” Jack turned to the man next to him, but spoke loudly enough to be sure I could hear. “This reminds me of some of the dumps we stayed in before we made our fortune, you know? The little rat trap motels in the port towns we had to stay in.”
“The customer service certainly leaves something to be desired, for a 5-star resort,” his companion, Stewart, sniffed. “For the amount we are paying, I would expect better.”
I turned the lock, opening the bar. I let them vent; I didn’t particularly care if they left us a bad review, and I certainly couldn’t do anything with a good tip, so they were free to hate it here if they wanted. It mattered less to me than they could possibly imagine.
“Can you both hear that leak from your rooms?” the final man, Lesley, asked.
“Can we? I swear it is audible from everywhere in the hotel. There must be a dozen leaks in this old roof,” Jack laughed.
“It would explain that,” Stewart gestured to wet stain on the carpet across the room, oozing out from under a door I didn’t remember being there yesterday.
I glanced over to Vincent, he shrugged,
“I guess we’ve got a new connection to the ballroom. That’s kind of handy,” he said quietly to me, stepping behind the bar and reaching for the rum to pour; it was all they ever ordered.
“That’s another thing that reminds me of the old days,” Jack elbowed Lesley. “You would think a landlocked hotel would be drier than a yacht, but here we are. Maybe you should get out a mop, see if you remember how, Les.”
Lesley stiffened,
“I don’t do menial labor anymore, Cap.”
“Of course, of course,” Jack clapped Les on the shoulder. “Just a joke, mate. The usual, my good man,” he smiled at Vincent, who began pouring drinks.
As day transitioned into evening, I left the dining room in search of absorbent material, to put down on the leak that was spreading persistently into the dining room. I found some cat litter in a back closet, and it seemed like it would do, for now, so I returned and began spreading it over the growing stain. Jack at the bar looked up blearily, watching my work, before finally declaring,
“Oh, so it’s shit, then. That would at least explain the smell.”
“I think it smells more like a rotting carcass,” Stewart interjected.
He had a point there. Maybe I should get some baking soda from the kitchen.
“You know what?” Jack concluded. “Let’s get this next bottle to go. We’ll take it to our rooms for the night. I can’t stand the smell down here another minute.”
He grabbed the bottle from the bar, then he rose and led his friends out of the dining room. I couldn’t say I was sorry to see them go. Vincent circled out from around the bar and approached the soggy patch on the floor.
“So, is that the storage room?”
Now that we were alone, I risked turning the knob and I opened the door to see the same storage room we had entered earlier, though now the light fixture was pouring dark liquid onto the floor, the drip having turned into a deluge. I slammed the door again.
“Maybe we should get Manny,” I concluded.
Manny stood back, watching the ichor pour down like a waterfall. It was pooling around our shoes now, even standing outside the doorframe. He stroked his chin,
“How long has it been like this?”
“I don’t know,” I frowned. “It’s certainly sped up since we found it several hours ago. Any idea how we stop it?”
Manny closed his eyes for a moment, then frowned.
“I think, perhaps, that we should move the food and water from the kitchen, so they don’t get spoiled.”
“Move them where?” Vincent asked.
“To the top floor storage closet. It’ll be safest there. Come help me gather things up.”
“What, exactly, do you think is going to happen?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s just get to work, we probably don’t have much time.”
Manny turned and strode into the kitchen. Vincent hung back and tapped my shoulder,
“What does he know that we don’t?”
“I have no idea, honestly,” I shrugged, and Vincent headed off towards the kitchen. “Do you know?”
I kept my voice low, so the others didn’t hear.
Oh, are you speaking to me now? Al sniffed.
“Depends, are you going to say anything useful?”
Perhaps for a…
“If you say ‘for a price’ we can go back to not talking. I am not trading anything for this.”
I think you will find I am much more helpful if you are willing to make a trade.
“I categorically disagree with that statement.”
Fine, I could feel him scowling. I can give you a hint for free. Maybe try asking yourself what he’s hiding from you?
“Your free hint is that he is keeping secrets?” I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that true of all of us? That isn’t exactly helpful.”
Well then, perhaps you would like to make a trade?
“Why do I even bother?” I sighed and headed into the kitchen to join the others.
Vincent was helping Manny load food onto a rolling cart. The Chef was, fortunately, nowhere in sight.
“Grab another cart and start loading the soft drinks and bottled water onto it. We don’t have much time before we need to be in our rooms,” Manny instructed.
I heaved a case of bottled water onto the cart, and we all got to work. By the time we made the final trip the carpet in the hall squished under my feet, oozing dark, foul-smelling liquid. It was coming in fast, now. Manny was probably right; we wouldn’t want the food supplies getting contaminated with… whatever this was. After he finished stacking the last bag of rice in the closet, Manny closed the door and turned the key in the lock.
“Well, we should find our rooms. It is getting late, and I doubt they will be in their usual place.”
As he turned to walk away, I noticed blood dripping down from his fingers onto the carpet.
“Manny, wait, your arm,” I pulled up his sleeve to reveal a thin, but deep cut running up his forearm. “What happened? Are you alright?”
Manny yanked his arm away,
“It’s nothing. I must have scraped it moving a box.”
It didn’t look like a scrape. It looked clean, with sharp edges, like a knife wound. But before I could say anything more, he was gone, disappearing down one of the halls.
“You ever wonder about him?” Vincent asked.
“Wonder what?”
“What his deal is. Come on, don’t play dumb. You’ve noticed how strange he can be. How he seems to know things about this place he shouldn’t. Surely, you’ve considered that he might be… one of them.”
“One of them?”
“You know, one of the things that run this place, like the Chef. A demon.”
“Manny? No, that’s ridiculous.”
“Why? He was here before you, maybe he was always here.”
“He is nothing like the Chef or the Masseur. It’s obvious that he is a person.”
“Is it? Maybe that’s just another trick. Maybe he is here to torment us, to steer us wrong.”
I shook my head,
“No, he’s helped us, helped me, many times. It’s impossible.”
“Alright,” Vincent shrugged. “But I have a bad feeling about this one, Lucy. Something about that… water. It isn’t right.”
“You always have a bad feeling. Come on, it’s time to get to sleep.”
“Right. See you tomorrow.”
However he knew, Manny was right. I found my room on the 2nd floor, in a back hallway. Since it wasn’t in its usual place, it took longer to find, but I did manage it before the deadline and locked myself in. Somehow, I could still hear the sound of flowing water, though. I could hear it everywhere in the hotel, in fact. In a way, it was soothing, people liked the sound of flowing water, right? So, keeping that in mind, I allowed it to lull me to sleep.
The morning arrived without fanfare, or a discernable difference in the light coming in through the windows. The storm continued to rage outside, and the clouds were so thick and dark that it was impossible to tell that dawn had broken. Still, my watch told me that day had arrived and so I left the room prepared to mop up whatever water had pooled downstairs and try to serve breakfast. No food had appeared in my room last night, so breakfast sounded very appealing. At least I could sneak a muffin or something. As I arrived at the stairs, I saw Manny standing on the landing, gazing down at the lobby.
“Is the mess bad?” I asked.
“You could say that,” Manny didn’t turn as I approached.
I reached the railing and gasped. The lobby was gone. The whole first floor was gone. All I could see was dark water, lapping against the stairs.
“How is that possible?”
“That’s not really a relevant question, in this place,” Manny noted. “Let’s just call it a flash flood.”
I jogged over to look out one of the windows, lightning flashed, illuminating an alien view, the lawn and garden were also gone. The only thing in sight was a sea of dark water, with the occasional tree protruding from the surface.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“What we always do. Vincent has headed upstairs to lay out some food. We can help him, then lock up the rest and go clean rooms.”
“And if the water keeps rising?”
“We keep moving up the floors, I suppose.”
I stepped down the stairs until I was next to the water, and reached out a hand to touch the surface, wanting to test its temperature and texture.
Stop!
I froze in place, hand hovering above the liquid, the command so urgent I couldn’t ignore it. Trying to act casually, I rose and headed back up the stairs,
“Alright, I’ll go help with breakfast. Maybe we should put up a sign directing the guests to the 5th floor?”
“I’ll handle that. We will have to ration the food carefully; we don’t know how long we will need to make it last. Whatever you do, don’t show the guests where the food is locked up, and only bring out enough for us to have a small meal.”
“Right,” I nodded. “See you up there.”
I turned and headed up the stairs. I waited until I was out of earshot to ask,
“Ok, what was that about?”
Do not touch the water.
“Yes, I gathered that. Why?”
Because you belong to me. And I need you alive.
“What is the deal with that water, exactly?”
But only silence answered. He was done volunteering things for the moment, apparently. I sighed and continued up the stairs. Vincent was waiting for me on the fifth floor, hovering by the landing, looking down over the dark, gleaming surface of the new lake below.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” he asked as I reached the top of the stairs.
“Nope, this is a new one.”
“I wonder if this is what being on the Titanic felt like?” he mused. “Water rising, nowhere to go, just waiting for the end.”
“We aren’t on a ship, though.”
“No. Does that make it better, or worse?”
I shrugged and Vincent passed me a bagel,
“I figure we should eat the breads first; they’ll go moldy in this humidity. We can save the rice, potatoes, and canned goods for later.”
“Makes sense. Do we have a way to cook any of those things?”
“I looked around. Some of the rooms have fireplaces, I guess we can hang a pot over the fire, cook that way. But maybe all this will stop before we get to that point.”
“Maybe,” I wasn’t exactly feeling optimistic about it.
I helped Vincent lay out some fruit and soft breads on the hall table, so that when the guests awoke, they would have something to eat.
“What exactly are we going to tell them when they get here?” Vincent asked, putting out some bowls. “We can’t exactly say that the hotel is sinking and it’s all perfectly normal, can we?”
“What else is there to say?” I shrugged. “It’s some sort of flood. We don’t know any more than they do. It’s the truth, right?”
He considered that for a moment, then nodded.
“I suppose it is.”
A sudden commotion from downstairs drew us to the railing. The three guests were standing on the 2nd floor landing, looking down at the water, Manny was saying something I couldn’t quite hear, but the response was clear enough,
“What do you mean, underwater!” Steward shouted. “This hotel is on dry land. We specifically avoided anything near the ocean or any major body of water. Where did all this even come from?”
“We are located on a flood plain. It is possible that the dam broke upstream,” Manny explained calmly.
Dam, huh? That wasn’t a bad explanation.
“If that is true, where are the authorities, shouldn’t someone be here to evacuate us?”
“I am sure they will be here when they can. Until then, we just need to stay calm and safe. There is breakfast laid out on the 5th floor, please stay away from the water and we will relocate your rooms to the upper floors.”
The trio of men grumbled, but eventually they headed up the stairs. Vincent and I ducked back to our places. As they grabbed fruit from the table, Lesley scowled,
“I told you we should have left days ago. We could have moved to another hotel. Now we’re trapped here, in this dump.”
“Oh, relax, Les,” Jack chuckled. “We’ve been in worse scrapes before. This isn’t a big deal.”
“And if the water keeps rising?”
“I bet we could manage to make a passable raft, eh Stewart?”
Both men chuckled, sharing a private joke, but Lesley still looked anxious.
“I didn’t ever want to be out on the water again. We agreed.”
“Seriously, Les, just keep it together, alright? Let’s just eat something and find some way to kill time. I am sure the authorities will send a rescue crew and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
I opened the storage closet and felt my heart sink as I looked on the nearly empty room. We were down to only a couple of boxes of crackers and a few bottles of water. We had rationed the food carefully, but it had been over 2 weeks now, and we had almost exhausted our supply. I wasn’t looking forward to telling the others. Things had been getting tense. The power went out on the third day, and by now every cellphone we had was dead. Not that anyone could get a signal before that, anyway. The water had risen all the way to the fifth floor, so we were all trapped together on the top floor of the hotel, with nowhere else to go, if it rose any further. The guests had mostly given up hope for rescue, and the rest of us knew that was never a hope to begin with. So, now it looked like the six of us were just going to be trapped up here to starve, if we didn’t drown first. I covered my face with my hands.
“That bad, huh?”
“Vincent. No, it’s… it’s not…” what was the point in lying about it? “Yeah, it’s that bad. We are almost out of food, and the water has risen at least another foot since yesterday.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I have no idea. Let’s just get back to the group. We shouldn’t leave Manny alone, in case the guests come out of their rooms.”
“Right.”
We walked back to the central hallway together. As we entered the room, I saw Manny with his back to us, removing a soaked shirt. Even in the dim light, it was clear that his back was webbed with dozens of scars and cuts. Vincent cleared his throat and Manny hurriedly tugged on a dry shirt.
“I patched the hole in the roof,” he explained. “The rain should stop getting in from there, at least. And I brought down a full barrel of rainwater and replaced it with an empty one.”
“Thank you, Manny. At least the water from the sky is… normal. Because we are going to have to start drinking that water from time now on, I think.”
“And the food?” Manny asked.
“Some crackers, nothing more.”
“Well, I guess we will all need to tighten our belts, then.”
A moment of heavy silence passed between us, before a door burst open and Jack emerged.
“Where’s the food?” he barked. “We’re hungry and the table is bare.”
“Food’s gone,” Manny replied coolly. “There is water in the barrel, to take the edge off.”
“We can’t survive on only water.”
“We can, for another couple of weeks.”
“So that is your plan, to slowly starve to death?”
Manny shrugged but didn’t reply.
“Well, suit yourselves, I have a better plan.”
Jack turned on his heel and stormed out.
“What do you think they will do?” Vincent asked.
“He said already, didn’t he? Build a raft,” Manny replied.
“Maybe that isn’t a bad idea,” I offered. “We could help, try to get out of here?”
“Has attempting to leave ever worked?” Manny asked. “No, all we can do is hunker down until this resolves itself. And I don’t think going out on that water is a good idea.”
“Should we try to stop them, then?”
“No. If they are focused on building, it will keep them off our backs, for the time being. Let them do what they want.”
Vincent and I spent the next few days watching the three men lash together furniture using heavy objects as improvised hammers and strips of torn bed linens as ropes. They seemed to actually have some idea of what they were doing, and they quickly fell into a rhythm, with Stewart and Jack doing most of the planning and construction and Lesley being ordered to fetch supplies and carry heavy objects. He grumbled about it, but did what they told him. They mostly didn’t even notice we were there, as long as we made a show of occupying ourselves with some cleaning task or another. They never even bothered to ask why we were still cleaning and maintaining a flooded, sinking hotel all day. It was hard to tell if they just paid so little attention to us that they didn’t notice, or if they simply figured it was our way of coping with the situation. Occasionally, they would ask us for some material they needed but could not find, and we would help as much as we could, then they would go back to ignoring us. On the third day, when the raft was beginning to look seaworthy, Jack sat back on his heels, admiring their handiwork.
“Well, boys? What do you think? Will it float?”
Stewart rubbed his nose with his thumb,
“I think it’s as fine a vessel as we have ever crewed, captain.”
Jack laughed,
“And you thought we had left those days behind us for good, eh chief?”
“They are. But it looks like it will come in handy for us, one more time. Good luck, huh?”
“Good luck?” Lesley’s face turned dark; he had been increasingly dour over the last few days. “I don’t see the good luck in any of this. I think we are reaping our just reward.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Les, this flood has nothing to do with us.”
“No? You think all this is normal, then? It’s been raining nonstop for weeks, the water keeps rising, no one has come looking for us. It’s like…” he hesitated before continuing. “It’s like we are alone in our own private hell. Just us and dark water everywhere. I don’t know how you aren’t thinking about it. I can’t stop. I see his face whenever I close my eyes. I see the dark puddle in the bottom of the lifeboat. Maybe this is what we deserve.”
Jack backhanded him across the face,
“Pull yourself together, swabbie. And don’t speak again until you’ve regained your composure,” he turned back to Stewart. “Now, we need to get this to the roof before we finish lashing it together, or it won’t fit. Then, we can either find a way to launch it, or we can wait until the water rises enough, what do you think, Mr. Stewart?”
“Well, captain, I say we rig up some ropes to lower it, because if we wait until the water is that high and anything goes wrong, we won’t have another chance.”
“Very good. Alright, Les, help us lift these pieces.”
The raft was relocated to the roof and the next 3 days were spent lashing it together and making the ropes strong enough to lower it the ever-dwindling distance into the dark water. When they were finally ready to launch, Vincent, Manny and I gathered on the roof to watch. I had to admit, I was really beginning to hope they succeeded, even if it didn’t seem likely. We were still rationing out the last few crackers, but three or four crackers a day did little to even take the edge off of the hunger, which gnawed on my guts like an animal. If this didn’t work, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I looked over at Manny, his face grim and starting to look a little gaunt. As he turned to face me, I saw blood coating his neck and seeping into his shirt collar from a cut near his ear.
“You’re bleeding.”
He reached up and touched his neck, bringing his hand aways stained crimson,
“Shaving cut,” he offered, wiping it off absently with his hand.
I raised an eyebrow, but let it go. I had noticed Manny with little cuts or scars before, but he was always doing landscaping work or maintenance, so small cuts and injuries didn’t seem unusual. But suddenly, in such close quarters and confined indoors, it was apparent that he seemed to injure himself more than I would expect.
Curious, isn’t it? Al asked, speaking up for the first time in sometime.
“You have something to tell me?” I mumbled under my breath.
No, just noting that there is power in blood. I wonder what he uses it for?
Power, huh? That was probably worth thinking about. Later. For now, my attention was drawn to the makeshift ropes lowering the raft into the water. The raft settled into the water with barely a ripple, the liquid was entirely too thick and seemed to stick to the wood like oil, and the sound when it hit was less a splash and more of a splat. The three men looked at each other, confusion and concern on their faces.
“That doesn’t much seem like normal water, Cap’n,” Lesley noted.
“Probably lots of mud and silt mixed in, it’s nothing,” Jack waved away the concern. “Get down there and then you can help us down.”
Lesley shook his head, mutely.
“Fine, Stewart?”
The other man didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded apprehensively and moved to the edge of the roof and clambered down onto the raft. As it bucked and shifted under his weight, he lay down, waiting for it to stabilize, but instead, the rolling and pitching seemed to increase. Then, from the water under the boat came dozens of pale human hands. They were terribly bloated and marbled with green and grey. Corpse hands. Stewart looked down, terror written plainly on his face.
“No! It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t cause it,” he shouted at the corpses looming under him in the dark water. “You want the captain, not me!”
If that was meant to mollify them, it didn’t work. The hands gripped the wood and pulled, capsizing the raft and pitching Stewart into the water. He screamed as he hit the surface. Not just from fear, but pain. He tried clinging to flipped raft, but hands wrapped around his torso, trying to pull him into the dark. I could swear I heard whispers rising from the surface: Join us.
“Help me, please!” he cried.
He was too far down to reach from the roof, but maybe there was another way.
“Hurry, if we can get to the windows on the 5th floor, we can pull him in,” I shouted.
Vincent nodded and we ran down the stairs, searching for the room closest to him in the water. The screaming helped. When we dragged him inside, he was covered in scratches and bites from teeth that looked very human, some very deep and freely bleeding. His skin was stained from the dark water. The hands continued to reach for him, so I slammed the window shut, leaving them to paw at the glass, just as Manny burst into the room, followed by the other two guests. Seeing the seriousness of his injuries, Manny moved closer, kneeling next to me.
“Some of these are very deep. We need to get pressure on the wounds. Go grab some towels,” he instructed Stewart’s companions.
He inspected the bites and scratches more closely,
“Lucy, this bite is on an artery, press down on it hard, or he will bleed out. Vincent, go get some soap and water, we will have to clean this as best we can, under the circumstances.”
Vincent rose and Manny and I were left alone with Stewart, who seemed to have passed out.
“You seem to know what you are doing,” I noted, pressing down on the bleeding wound.
“I… I was a doctor, once,” he didn’t meet my eyes when he said it.
“Wow.”
“It was a long time ago. Another life.”
“Why didn’t you ever…” I was interrupted when Stewart’s eyes snapped open.
“I need a priest,” Stewart grabbed Manny’s collar, his eyes fevered and unfocused. “I need to confess my sins, before I die.”
“You aren’t going to…”
“We killed him,” he pressed on, oblivious to my objections. “Alan Ross.”
“The billionaire?” I blurted, surprised. “But he died in a… shipwreck…”
I fell silent. I remembered the news stories; Ross had been on a luxury yacht on the way to the Cayman Islands when it wrecked in a storm. The entire crew was lost, except for the captain, the chief mate, and a single deckhand, who had survived in a lifeboat. Ross was in the lifeboat as well, but he had already drowned, before they were able to drag him on board. They had drifted for over two weeks, with his corpse, before they were found and rescued. It had been a major news story, about a decade ago.
“It wasn’t like the news reported,” Stewart gasped. “When the yacht started taking on water, we should have stayed and helped to organize the evacuation of the crew. But Ross wanted to leave right away. He offered us money if we took just him and abandoned the others. We agreed, the captain and I. Lesley was just a deckhand, but he saw us leaving and followed. We quietly launched a lifeboat and fled, leaving the others to their fates.”
“How did Ross die?” I asked.
“He had a bag with him. It was so heavy he could hardly carry it. When he put it in the boat, it fell open and it was filled with diamonds. He was taking them to the Caymans. When we saw that, we… well, we decided. If he didn’t survive the shipwreck, if the diamonds were never found, who would know? We drowned him and hid the diamonds. When we were rescued, we waited awhile, then we sold them, made millions. But it wasn’t worth it… it wasn’t worth this. The guilt…”
He slumped to the ground. Manny met my eyes over the body,
“I think we lost him.”
As I looked up from the body, I saw Jack and Lesley standing there in the doorway, towels in their hands. There was an ugly look on Jack’s face.
“I wish he hadn’t told you that.”
“Told us what? He was raving, delusional,” I attempted.
“We were standing right here,” he replied.
I swallowed hard. Jack advanced into the room, holding a broken table leg like a club.
“We’ve kept this secret all these years, it isn’t getting out now.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” I protested.
“That isn’t a chance I am willing to take. Besides, with the food supply exhausted, it was always going to come to this, eventually. Might as well get it over with.”
“What are you doing?” I heard Vincent call from the doorway.
“Lesley, take care of him, will you?” Jack continued to advance on us.
“Please Jack, hasn’t there been enough death?” Lesley protested.
“Don’t act all innocent, you agreed to this, just like the rest of us. In for a penny, in for a pound, my friend.”
I glanced around for a weapon. Between the three of us, we should be able to take him, but I didn’t much like the look in Jack’s eyes. Manny had stood, backing slowly away as Jack advanced. Then the captain took a swing at him, Manny jumped to the side and the makeshift bat shattered the window behind him. Jack’s expression turned to one of horror as a pair of pale hands gripped the doorframe and a body began heaving itself through the open window. The broken glass sliced its bloated flesh to ribbons, but it didn’t halt the creature’s ingress. Dark, thick liquid that smelled of death oozed from its wounds.
“Alan!” Jack exclaimed, backing away swinging his bat at the creature.
“You owe me,” it gurgled.
We all backed out into the hall, but the creature advanced, slowly, leaving a trail of black liquid on the carpet as it walked.
“Is it money you want? I can get you your money back, your diamonds,” Jack offered.
“What use do I have for money?” it wheezed. “You owe me a life.”
Jack hit the body with his club, but it didn’t slow its progress. He screamed as it reached out a hand and closed it around his throat. Jack was lifted off his feet and the creature carried him to the stairs and plunged him into the dark water. At first, he flailed and fought, but a dozen hands rose from the water, gripping every part of his body. When he was completely immobilized, the corpse released him, letting him be dragged down into the depths. Then, it turned,
“Now,” it spoke to Lesley. “Will you fight, or come willingly?”
Lesley was trembling so hard he could barely stand,
“Please, I’m sorry, I beg you, spare me.”
The creature’s lips curled into a grotesque smile,
“Do you regret what you did to me?”
“I do, I do. I never should have agreed with their plan. Please, have mercy.”
“Did you have mercy on me, when I begged?”
Lesley shook his head.
“Then accept your fate.”
“What… what do you want me to do?”
“Walk into the water. Give your life willingly. Perhaps they will spare you, if you do,” the creature laughed, dark liquid bubbling from its mouth.
Lesley nodded haltingly and began to walk towards the stairs, stepping into the water, he walked down until he was submerged up to his waist. Then, the hands wrapped around his arms and torso and abruptly dragged him under. For a long moment, it seemed like he was gone, the same as Jack, but a moment later, he was thrown back onto the landing. Lesley raised his eyes, now as black as the water, and the creature smiled again, a tooth falling from its mouth as it did.
“Very good,” it burbled. “You have been baptized and born again into a new life.”
Lesley nodded, a serene smile on his face. Without a word, he rose and walked back into the room we had vacated only a moment before. Outside the window, the raft had been righted and floated serenely on the water. He looked down at Stewart’s body, then picked it up and draped it over his shoulder. Glancing back at the three of us, he winked,
“A snack for the journey.”
Then, he stepped out of the window onto the raft and drifted away.
“Don’t suppose any of you would care to join him?” the corpse of Alan Ross inquired. “Be born anew in the cleansing water?”
We all shook our heads silently.
“Oh well, another time, then.”
And with that, the corpse walked into the water and disappeared.
That night, our usual meals appeared in our rooms, and by the next morning, the water had receded, as if it had never been there. The electricity came back on, and the rain stopped. I was finally able to charge my phone and post this account. I tried asking Manny for more information about his time as a doctor but is as reticent as ever. I will keep trying, though, because Vincent and Al are right about one thing, there is something suspicious about how much he knows that he shouldn’t. But, that is a problem for another day, after all there is no need to rush, we aren’t going anywhere.
Until next time,
Lucy

Hi, i was playing with some friends the other day... One claimed we couldn't place the 9th ocean unless it was triggered by the temperature rising to 0°C.
Is this the case, or was my friend trying to deprive me of a victory point? I couldn't find a mention of this anywhere in the rules.

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Hi everyone! This is a complete English translation of the Aniara sequel book by Harry Martinson called Doriderna that was put together after the author died. This translation was put together using various translation programs that can be found online, so I can't guarantee that it is a perfect translation, but it's better than nothing. I will also post the original in Swedish so you can improve the translation or look up words etc. if you want. Hope you enjoy!
I would also like to let everyone know that I am also working on my own Aniara fan fiction short story that I call "The Lost Voices of Aniara". This story tells about the events aboard the Aniara from the view point of another passenger and attempts to add more details to the story. It should be ready in the next week or two.
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HARRY MARTINSON
The Dorides (Doriderna)
Remaining poems and prose pieces in selection and with preface by Tord Hall Albert Bonniers Förlag
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PREFACE
For reasons I will not go into here, Harry Martinson did not publish any new work in the last years of his life. There is therefore a very large literary legacy, the publication of which began in the fall of 1978 with "Längs ekots stigar" (Along the paths of the echo), published by Georg Svensson. This collection contains only a few purely scientific poems - the emphasis is on nature poetry. The selection was made from unpublished material - which had nevertheless reached the proof stage - in three previous collections.
It remains to address other lines of thought in Harry Martinson's work: the ideas in Aniara, which in various forms occupied his imagination until the end. To follow the continuation of this great theme - at least in part - is what I am trying to do in this second selection from the surviving archive.
​
The 103 songs in Aniara were part of a larger set of poems, and the author then worked for several years on a sequel, to be called 'The Dorids', the people of the tribe of Doris. Around 1959 there were about 80 songs - most of them in more or less completed drafts. The dominant figure in the Dorids would not be Isagel or the Mimarobe, but Nobia, the Samaritan from the tundra planet and deportation site of Mars. Nobia would be a norna (fate goddess), though not a cruel goddess of fate, but a norna who weaves goodness into the fabric of the world.
But the whole project remained a large-scale endeavor. The reasons were many: illness, world events, which seemed to be moving towards a fulfillment of the prophecies in Aniara, and which gave him an increasingly dark view of life: he told me that "Aniara has become a neurosis" ... I feel like Mima being blown apart'. But the decisive reason was surely his demand for absolute freedom in his creativity. He did not want to be confined, and the result was, as he himself said, 'I have stepped out of Aniara'.
The fact that Harry Martinson stepped out of Aniara, and thus also out of the Dorides, does not at all mean that he left the motifs or ideas found there, which cover the scientific field from atoms to stars. Rather, it means that he was able to write without direct connection to the characters of Aniara and the Dorides in particular.
I have therefore considered it justified to call this entire collection the Dorides, even though the prose pieces and several poems do not have a clearly visible connection with such a title.
In order to comment briefly on the selection, I would like to say a few words about Harry Martinson's attitude towards modern science (it is my intention to return to this subject in more detail).
There are two main lines. One is deterministic, and has its roots in classical physics, founded by Newton, which dominated until the end of the 19th century. It has a philosophical form in the law of causation, which means that if you know enough facts about a certain course of events in the present and in the past, you can precisely specify the course of events in the future. Examples of such events in the 'big world' - the macrocosm - are solar and lunar eclipses.
But in the world of atoms - the microcosm - this determinism does not apply. Heisenberg demonstrated this through his uncertainty relation, also known as the indeterminacy principle. In the atoms, individual events are indeterminate, we cannot discern any causality - there is randomness. But chance can be mastered by the methods of statistics, and we must content ourselves with a "statistical causality", which describes the course of events in the atom with the highest possible degree of probability.
It is this second, indeterministic line that has long been followed by most physicists. But there is one major exception, and that is Einstein. At the 1927 meeting of physicists in Brussels, for example, he asked Bohr, Heisenberg and others with mild irony whether they really believed that God plays dice - "ob der liebe Gott würfelt". Einstein was convinced that the universe follows an ordering principle, a geometric structure, which can be called a world soul. This is a pantheistic view that is reminiscent of Spinoza.
Similar ideas are already present in Aniara, but in this selection the picture has become more sharply defined. Harry Martinson does not believe that chance plays a decisive role in the course of the world, as is clear from several poems and prose pieces. He believes more in Einstein than in dozens of other Nobel Prize winners. Apart from these authorities, he follows his intuition.
His approach to religion has often been quoted: he chooses the Riddler over the God. This belief is reflected in 'The Riddle'. In 'Poems on Light and Darkness', published in 1971, Harry Martinson, with 'The Inner Light' and 'The Bird in the Phoenix Bell', presents the events inside the atom itself. These poems show that - although 'Aniara' and 'The Dorides' are more about stars than atoms - he never lost his interest in the microcosm. In this selection, it is the atoms that are more interesting than the stars.
The bard enters the atom. He describes the course of events in a world which is completely beyond our senses and which, despite the enormous aids of science, we will probably never be able to understand exactly. The story itself probably comes from Gamow's book "Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom". Published in Swedish translation in 1946, it is, along with "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland" (also 1946), the versatile Gamow's best popular science books. Harry Martinson rated them highly.
The two poems 'Submerged as in a dream but still awake' and 'Actually, the comprehensibility was slight' depict a journey of thought into the atom, and the same motif recurs in several other places.
The poem "A Cosmic Thickness Lying Boundlessly Spread" poetically depicts a world development related to the hypothesis of the "stationary universe" put forward by Hoyle and others, and to Klein-Alfvén's "symmetrical cosmology". For several reasons - mainly aesthetic - Harry Martinson did not like the theory of 'the big bang', which was celebrated by most scientists. His poem should have been written quite a long time ago, and perhaps he would have changed his mind if he had been given the opportunity to understand what the "cosmic background radiation" - with a temperature of about 3 degrees above absolute zero - means for the credibility of "The big bang". It took natural scientists some time to become convinced that this radiation can best be interpreted as a fading glow after an unimaginable cosmic explosion some 18 billion years ago.
This selection also contains several pieces of prose, which in general do not need any comment. But I would like to mention a few. For "The Figuration Patterns of the Goddancer's Juggling Program", in three sections, there is a drawing by Harry Martinson, reproduced on the cover of this collection. The spread comes from Hindu philosophy: we see 'Siwa's juggling dance before Brama'. The dominant curves are so-called lemniscates, which were already known to the ancient Greeks. The lemniscate looks like an eight and is the mathematical symbol for infinity. It is defined as the trajectory of a point under the condition that the product of its distances to two given points is constant. In the center of the drawing there are several small curves. They are ellipses, and an ellipse - also first studied by the Greeks - is defined as the trajectory of a point under the condition that the sum of its distances to two given points is constant. The result is a geometric pattern, similar to a flower, which at the same time provides a poetic image of the complex interplay of forces in the atom with outward and inward energy impulses The juggler finds it increasingly difficult to work with his ball-particles as he progresses through the periodic table of the elements. In the end, he "dances the spectral theme in the dance of the Phoenix" - a symbol of the indestructibility of both energy and poetry, and a recurring motif in Martinson's poetry.
"Delsaga om tidens ariadnetråd" (Part of the saga of the Ariadne thread of time) is almost a fantasy about four-dimensional space, where you have to be careful not to get on the wrong track. The selection of prose pieces ends with "Some fairies dancing in the summer night near a quiet lake". It is a cheerful tale where the author combines a love of the Swedish summer with a love of light.
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I made this selection at the direct request of Harry. He even said several times that I should have all his scientific poems and prose pieces. But I think I judged this offer correctly when I saw it as an expression of his great generosity towards his friends. I always replied that he himself should complete and select what was to be published. But in his last years he did not want to publish anything. I therefore promised to make a selection if he did not change his mind.
​
He did not, and this collection is the result.
Finally, I would like to thank Ingrid Martinson and Georg Svensson for the understanding and assistance they have given me in bringing this selection to fruition.
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Tord Hall
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The Dorides (Doriderna)
The book you hold was written in Mima's hall.
Now, on a secret wavelength, it is sent home to you, my friend, who for some years inhabits a spherical beach called the Valley of Doris.
In other words, it was written so close to your own being that nothing could be closer to you than those described here. You are one of them.
​
Over the graves, the indifferent wind spreads
the whisper of the immortal gods
that no loss is foreseen in the grand scheme of things.
But what do the gods - those wasteful billionaires of the heavens - know about the beautiful and wonderful Doris?
how she was worth saving forever
and that whoever loved her
can never be comforted by the gods' continued waste.
About her a bird sings now alone in the tree of the grave. Of her as she was, the glorious one, if no other, the Dorides' thrush sings.
​
The window was full of stars,
The Leonids' swarm of stars came, then you know the time.
Autumn was gone, its yellowing burnt.
The lookout tower, closed on the wooded mountains.
I stood as a child of a time that saw the stars detach from the roofs towards a room where novas frightened a more distant valley, I found other myths than those I was used to picking hurled at me from the space of the Leonids.
I stood in the cathedral of fear of dreams.
The great copper woman who lay there with her back soldered to the lid of the sarcophagus drove horror into me, cast my foot with lead.
That the copper woman knew who I was, I immediately sensed as a deadly weight, and that I had been summoned here by herself, by the queen of copper, of that I was certain.
In empty benches sat forgotten years, from the emptiness of the auditorium the organ pipes shone like stalactites in the vault of a cave and there was nothing, no light, no hint that gathered my crumbling courage.
For everything was fulfilled as it was written in stone once when the water abandoned the green and it was said that man will go away and become the dead slave of the dead dust.
And as I stood there gripped, filled with horror
for this judgment and epitaph
which was predetermined and rehearsed
in the mute trumpet of the seraphim of the stones,
bells fell suddenly from the towers to the earth that rocked with an ore-broken thunder, and the copper woman rose, a scream of remembrance drawn from afar to her lips as she drew me in close to her copper body in terrified death.
He woke up. There was light. It was day.
And the Samaritan Nobia sat silent, but still heard the echo of the screams his dreams had squeezed out of his fear.
She searched for words simple enough for a stranger to grasp, but not so simple as to drive away his trust, hardly won yet.
In simple action she finally found them.
And she stood up and smiled with milk
From the moors of Gondrin to the mouth of this fugitive.
​
​
It is no exaggeration to say that space gave us long winter evenings rolled into one - the one that lasts. Our leisure time finally became a grim question with ice in our eyes and a frozen flame.
It became necessary to tell stories from reality - as it can be taken. I chose to tell about King Basii, who, supported by Chefone, forcibly turned himself into a god and magician in a celestial drama.
The Goldonder King felt like God and determined to live up to the gods he built himself a city in the sky.
It was a global world city of goldonders assembled into a kind of hive heaven.
But Basil's space-city, though it contained twelve million men in his service, was not enough for him; he had another built, and the greatest city in the world was soon in space. That city was a marvel to behold: a mighty golden dome, surrounded by three bionomically serving drabants, one of which was called the Vegetable City, one the Fish Drabant, and the third the Sting.
​
The names reveal their role and purpose.
So Basii sits in his heavenly land. The aquarium dragon orbits faithfully and Stings follows it with fattened animals and the vegetable moon amounts to the redwood.
The golden dome was the city of retreat for all climbers and celestial rebels, for gamma was a poison to all alike and all poor and rich alike had to choose between death and escape.
So many preferred the city of Basil.
But although he rules over twelve million
inhabitants of the great city of space, he is still very rarely happy.
And although the dragons in a faithful circle
raise animals and grow fish and wheat
Basil's only pleasure is when he gets
with Vulvis, the royal slave, to bathe in Lethe.
But all the deliciously good virginity
that can be enjoyed in Basil's harem
is in its nakedness a skin of fear.
of frightened dissimulation. And his love story
...is but a tale to be seen from the outside..,
and all his lust a forced voluptuousness.
​
Thus in The Night of Aniara I draw a little picture that everyone can understand from the rich treasure of reality.
And every time I make an arabesque in the hall of Mima about this space grotesque that Basil's space city can probably be said to be, I can for an hour or so make people sigh: the best is here anyway.
From Basil's false heaven we preserve. No, I'd rather travel with Aniara.
But soon the alarm goes off. The bells proclaim that the images of the fairy tale are overtaken by visions here that distress ignites.
And quickly to the halls I return.
​
The Goldonder's garden bubbled with glamour. A party was being held there and Chefone was there. He showed us a picture of the smith of happiness: the goldonder king Basii, a portrait jubilantly taken on the day the fifteen thousandth goldonder lay in the field ready for the wave of endlessness.
Then we were each seized by thoughtfulness and went to our own in solitude.
For in every ship of this number there was a Mima locked up in its cage.
The Rapid criminal was much loved and could operate as he pleased under the protection of the admiration he aroused. He always appeared at great speeds and abducted women whom he brought to Chefone in light blue rapid rockets.
Of course it was criminal, the people of the valley thought, but the charm was so close to the deed that the rampart was breached by sheer admiration and open worship soon followed the advice of restraint at the murder pedal.
​
Tucked away in a corner of our gondola, I pretend to smile at some rough fellows who spend their evenings with mockery and violence, with a devilish flutter as their sole aim.
They look at me and find me mortified,
- The clear approval is what they expect...
and I'm close to being squeezed badly
every time they jokingly glance at my grave door.
The brute is approaching, his dull face with many a foolish whim weighing on his mind.
And many a scowl missed by pigs from the worst corners of the soul he throws at me.
And when, full of fear, I strike with depleted strength in the dull face, the troll is only amused by my blow and raises his eyebrow with interest.
Then I flee between the troll's legs and out the other side of the danger of death.
How this happened can only be fully explained by the light of the gopher and the fourth tensor theory.
​
Here came the sober, composed and sober man who always kept his soul in trim and stuck to the dry, honest maxims of life.
Now he went into the fire with his imagination.
His cool reason was completely burned His sober composure was fried in seconds when the photo turbo in Xinombra exaggerated the cold matter.
And yet I can't help but admire the man as he made his way to the office where he had been employed for many years
and where, despite offers to flee to the tundra, he provided punch cards for thousands who broke up every day.
There died a man who never raised his voice, who always remained true to his calm tone, the martyr of calm composure who was burned when the cruel fires of excess were lit.
​
One is often chilled to the rock crystal by everything one hears before the ear falls like gray-white ash into the cremation hall.
And the girl from Rind who sees nothing is often heard to ask beyond the eye: how is the world of such torment visible? What is to be seen in this madness, where eeriness against eeriness is heard to answer?
Cultivating insight seemed futile
and many fell away from the faithful crowd.
and its program which was to see through
so that with the transparency of evil
as lens and instrument
try to find new signs
and new ways for the land of Gond.
Most people grew tired and withdrew from the room of the Truth Service, and Nobia sat for long periods almost alone, trying to hold on to her looms, always tormented
by the blood moisture of evil memories, the echoes of horror
surrounded her days
and made the Mara a bedfellow
who tore the fabric of the noman
and raped Nobia's dream
and the mood of life over the moors of Gondria.
It is as important to us to have friends
in the houses of distant worlds as at home by
the familiar road of the green earth.
You are reflected in endless eyes, watched by immense spectators.
They never interfere, but they watch the sewing and the mining,
the nurse and doctor on the rounds and the weapons in the shamelessly cruel wars.
Your own position under their eyes may be likened to the position you take with one whom you do not wish to grieve, but to share joy and to please.
So spoke the old astronomer, and then laid his head down to rest.
And he went smiling to the eternity that had been waiting by his side all his life.
His forehead shone with its ideas, even in the dead of death in the years of space.
He was among those who know the fairies of everything, those who get to comb Berenice's hair.
​
But for the longest time I still want to believe that this is the torment of an evil dream and the ship Aniara a phantom from which I will wake up in the Valley of Doris.
Perhaps everything is a nightmare and I want to wait with poison and a knife. They say there are dreams of a kind that seem as long as a man's life.
Out of the dust you were born, from its gifts you were supported.
You did not manage the gift, many a meadow you made desolate.
What is beyond this sea is called Going down deep among riddles too great to be found in a grave.
Faith can never cover more than what you see in spirit.
​
All the other things are too much to bear.
Do you hear the sound of the rescue team calling from an emergency station that is one of a thousand others, regardless of faith?
Now guess where the road leads and what Paradise is.
One of a thousand rescue stations scattered along the coast here.
Now I want to sing to my ear and ask it to listen to a voice that descends not to destroy the language I have collected for comfort. For the comfort of life and death, I whisper the price of sensitivity every time the sinful flow of language storms the breeze of the spirit.
​
One night Heba lay awake in the city of Aniara and heard the painter's joyful painting.
The skilled varnisher was varnishing the years that would one day end on a stainless steel stretcher.
And suddenly from Heba there was a shout against the smooth roof.
The skilled varnishers know their business well.
Too hard to become joy, too happy to become sorrow. The painters paint everything in Aniara's castle.
​
We know that we have been left out of the higher insight of the ocean of mystery and that we lack the tools to reach the depths of clarity that Mima once gave. But since Mima's death, the average of what we achieve of truth is not very high average is what is required if the choice of new paths is to be avoided.
A small number reach the values that should be the average to reach.
The others are satisfied with the flow of thought,
the rattle with which time is made to pass.
A daughter of my mother, called Tovi, was born in the night of space. Alas, dear ones, where can the crowd's demand for sensation and wonder lead us?
First came, as it should be, the blissfully sweet and indescribably pure birth, when the mimicry lay naked, uncovered and panting in the golden bed of the formula.
To her camp now came the mimicry and winged it
the naked one, as when the butterfly flies the honey chalice of its flower, in Dori's meadows. The description is not given (much to my regret) because there is always the possibility of a wave of miracles taking place in secret, to the great disappointment of many who wish to see how the mimagyne makes love, and from what angle the picture of the goddess's love life should be taken in order to really reach the audience.
Can it not be enough that Tovi gave birth to an allegorical child whom Isagel happily suckled at her breast and practiced miracles and consolation You may think so yourself, but others think otherwise.
For not even a mimagyn can defend the fruit of her womb against the human hyena who demands a clear answer on every point of what precedes it all: the prelude to sowing,
with the insides of the thighs well described in a clear image that gives the "public" a feeling that it was in the bed.
​
Yes, it has happened that I have sometimes asked myself (in private silence, of course) whether the smooth ice of superficiality does not have enough joy, and that the great swallows in these spaces are only terrible wakes which, compared to the agile princess and heartlessly threatening with superior power, will in the end become the cold room of beauty.
So small a strip bears, the other breaks, and all the incomparably large gapes with the same dark death which, unchanging with cold upon cold, only imitates itself.
To raise one's hand then with a light-year pound and demonstrate the fugue of eternity on terrible organs, while the girl in the icy distance dances, hardly greater to see than a fly flown away towards the light, it is to chill with the great weapon as when the superpower with the powers the element hides coldly makes its rows in the land of Gond against unsuspecting cities and, although itself dismissing all talk of sin punishment and trial, nevertheless treats the human with such terrible flame that this terrible torrent of loose gamma released by those who do not mean sin punishment nevertheless cruelly destroys both Yaal and Gena and melts down to ashes the wonder Heba
With the same fire they turned on Chebeba.
​
Posterity does not understand you so easily.
It judges according to the image of posterity
and counts up the time you lived in
as rows of negligence, as offenses
against the spirit of foresight, the duties of thought.
To this it adds the work of suffering
and piles up, as blind as a judge
as you were blind as a criminal, case by case.
Can those who have killed the foundations of joy and destroyed the great city of joy have the right to the joys of life?
Does Cain have the right to be happy?
Can those who strangled the joys of Xinombra and burned the valley of paradise have the right to heights of heaven other than Aniara's daily agony?
I ask but never get an answer. I have to arrange for pastimes
for the hordes of Aniara and manage its entertainment.
​
A wave of newly awakened hatred swept through the mountains where Nobia lived in deep mines and ghostly white lights illuminated every thread of life in the fabrics she wove.
She had sought and found the thread of life - a discovery of how healing rays are empowered by the inner council of things and fused with the heart of the atom.
And while hatred swelled around the mountains
and wounds screamed in the valley of time.
she wove day and night until the color of victory
and the skin of life rose in the hall of death.
Of her beauty little can be said. It was lost in a wave of radiation but the clear purity of the soul could be weighed; in healed wounds we saw her reflection.
​
Then I will throw you out of your chair. I will break your armchair view, because it is false and holds a convulsive security in a time that has slipped out of its rooms, but also the other way around: that it becomes a view without deep insight.
From this world, I shall send you happiness today to the kingdom of love, to the evil shore where the Samaritan Nobia and others spread works of love from country to country.
Figuring out the ways of evil and tracking down all the poison in the city of hate was futile, for hate stood there with heavy blocks united row by row.
Within its walls there was life and movement in the birthing centers and squares where human beings were conceived and human beings were born and human life in the human gap was destroyed. It was best to pretend that this city of self-righteous evil existed as nothing more than a devilish childhood that would mature, grow tired of itself.
We resolved to keep on sending saints there for the longest time.
from the saints' camps as long as the funds lasted
and as far as the need still aroused the heart.
This plan was tried for nine years, during which the Rind camp of saints bled to death: an act of self-sacrifice based on faith in the powers of good. But the heavy wall of hate stood just as hard, and the fatigue of leadership followed the act of hate; only too great was the throne of victory we had.
A single city consumed the power which we had thought sufficient for the transformation of the world.
​
On a rare occasion, the happiness of being free from desire also came.
Then the emptiness suddenly became populated by a kind of spiritualized mystery.
We walked the spirit's path of happiness along the beach, exchanging thoughts, making fortune cards.
It was evening and sunset in the sea.
Night fell, but the land of thought stood firm.
He woke up. She said: guess where.
I can't, he said. How did you get here? The same way you did: up the gravel path and then straight to the left among the cypresses. There was a dewy path the moonlight itself went there with light steps which I tried to imitate.
And when everything was past and the path was over
I managed to become a clear crystal and find you, my friend, on this path.
It is so transparently wonderful here.
We no longer exist. All that was is over.
Neither god nor devil here reaches us anymore and the end is the cruel parody of life.
​
Where is the plain text?
This is what I'm looking for.
The one that fits but still gives song.
After thanking God that he was a wasp and not something else, he continued between the leafy branches and stung the farmer.
Laid out by spiritual mobs, the truth becomes worse than the lie. When the mob washes the barley, it is never clean.
The rabble always wash in the dunghill from the Augean stables.
​
​
Matema's camel bells ring in the deserts of speech where the caravans of unfinished quarrels
never reach their oasis, only become more camels.
Immersed as in a dream but still awake, I found myself changed and so naked that no dream has words for what it was like when, transformed by the stone, I cut down towards the inner realms and while this was happening I became smaller, smaller and even more stripped of layers and layers of time and space as I sank further and further into the stone, deeper and deeper into things.
Who undressed me, wore me down so much that no conceivable smallness so small on this earth can be imagined unless one is long since beyond what every comprehensible thought wants to deny.
And yet I was being stripped and reduced still further in no direction.
So sunk, unceasingly sunk in
towards even more breathtaking reduction
I retained in my dream a way of seeing
and understand that I was traveling into
to the dimensions, the innermost
who with their interior work with their interior
and whose interiors compose the world.
They scare children with darkness, criminals with punishment and sinners with realms beyond death where the vengeful desire to torment has transported its arsenal of tormenting images.
But sorrow follows us every day, and joy follows us every day.
We ourselves are the sorrow, we are also the joy, everything human is rooted in humanity, and no human being can escape humanity, not her hatred and her self-degradation, nor the joy she spreads, nor the love she forms.
There is a third land that is not death and not life, but the reality that pervades all realities, and spins the very thread of the fabric from which dreams are woven. Yes, I had come to the rooms where these threads are spun. When I arrived, I stepped out and saw no longer surprised the smallest fairy, who herself was not at all surprised to welcome me to her inner land.
And although we were both unimaginably smaller than two grains of traveling dust on a suit on earth, we thought we were big here in this smallest room to which I have now come and which nevertheless encloses with its vault a separate world of realities formed.
On the contrary, I cannot describe what I saw of strange things, but that will follow when the habit of telling stories has been practiced for other habits than what life offers,
and other things than those called death.
For though beyond all I have known
this was not death
and though within all I have known
this was not life.
​
Actually, the comprehensibility was slight, as when multiples arranged in layers, and layered in the directions of space, make the fabric of the dream omnidirectional structural and become a fabric consisting of paths where the thread is only thought of as a path as a sign that here the shuttle has gone, but where is the thread? The thread is the path. I saw how the gnome was in a quandary as to which of two different possibilities to give clarity.
Then came formulas of such an elusive nature that the gnome was again gripped by the anxiety
which arises when the explanation is attempted but little response is felt by the pupil.
And with a look that shone as if with sorrow, he signaled a break in the dilemma. And with a formula more magical than comprehensible, we left the atom.
We expanded to other contexts and sat on a leaf next to a bee eagerly searching for honey in a meadow.
​
The Dance
Around the great star of the day we shall orbit the years we have been given to live, and our family for a few thousand centuries, perhaps more, perhaps less, no one knows.
But the time that we are orbiting is so small compared to that of the suns where they wander around in orbits in the galaxy our family named the Milky Way, luminous to behold.
What can our eyes see, our hearts cry out at the thought of atoms going around in the same way with waves and particles.
Some have called this the dance of the gods - it is always being danced by everything in the universe.
All indications are that among the arts of the muses
the art of dance is the first and the last,
and we are in it, dancing out
our role in the dance, it is already being danced
in other worlds separate from our time,
in other dance theaters,
yet one thing is clear
that we are dancing our turns.
Our role in it
is ours and no one else's.
Our own role in the dance art of all worlds.
​
Economic overview
Our earth wanders alive alone, around the sun our dear parent.
As far as the giant tubes reach no living neighbor to see.
Desolate and empty on the one who received the name of the god of war, burning hot and desolate on the one who received the name of the goddess of love.
Jupiter, planet of Zeus
ice-clad to two hundred times the height of the Himalayas.
The others are death's door.
Beyond that, light years to the next planetary village.
So each sun has only one living person, and that one is a leased farm, indefinitely and to an unreliable and dangerous race.
​
Here is a world of light distributed in the mystery of things.
Here is the salvaged light in the innumerable rooms of the stone.
Wands point with poles directed to their rooms inside mountains and stones, spinning mystery.
Deep in her fairy tale, she lives for the sake of the tale.
the norn who has learned to spin the yarn from the wool of the riddles.
​
The spirit of Ideema from space in endless lines gathered the seeds into the durable wood of the suns.
From far beyond time the hydrogen came in modest garb and built for its God the ingenious nests of the atoms.
Come, let us nurture the foundation of our life. The green sphere we have been given to live on in the universe's lottery system.
When the next lucky draw can get rid of the Milky Way's big tombola we do not know and can never reach.
But we do know one thing for sure: the next draw will not include us.
​
A stranger called chance shuffles the cards and deals them to the local players.
Every single poker face keeps a straight face.
There are plenty of goldfish in the tureen here.
According to the law, the silent coincidence itself is the last to raise its hand, with ice in its stomach.
Soon jaws of granite are chewing the cigar.
Where is the bundle of happiness among the starlings?
That question is answered when chance wins.
Then the shot goes off, chance's life disappears. His house of cards collapses, but soon everyone at the counter thinks it was a nice fish, that no one won, that chance herself was told by Smith and Wesson what chance was.
by Smith and Wesson what chance should do.
( translation to be continued )

Part 1: Meakpuj

Waves rippled gently through the knotted mass of branches, rocking the boats of the Twaiptšroþan boats. One could tell the tide was high, for the corals further out to sea barely caused the waves to break - at low tide they poked though the foam they caused, creating whirlpools between the spikes. In the village overlooking the small strait between Meakpuj and Nyæŋpuj, among the air-drying fish and the clamour of ducks and turkeys, Šţrooŋ looked out over the coast. Having just returned from a successful fishing trip out into the bay, she took a moment to consider the world in which she lived before preparing her freshly caught meal. She often wondered about the world that lay beyond the shores of the island upon she lived... Why travel beyond when the waters here were so rich? Thanks to the dzneapuakt jwič hooks, she needn't even enter the water to get a meal for her family! It was as simple as adding a small amount of meat to the end, and leaving them dangling off the edge of her boat. "What a life", Šţrooŋ thought to herself, as she turned to prepare her meal.
As Šţrooŋ returned home, so did her partner, Mwiav. Mwiav had spent his day in a rather less relaxing manner, digging into the higher lands for the best jwič. His haul today wasn't perfect, but he had built up quite a collection both for himself and to trade to the Nyæŋšroþ, who visted so often at this time of year. The Nyæŋšroþ visiting was a celebratory affair, as they brought with them pyaivz jwič, which could be mixed with xab jwič to produce far better dzneapuakt jwič than burning xab jwič alone. They had even come up with a quite ingenious technique where a mix of pyaivz jwič and xab jwič would be cooked into a liquid form with dzneapuakt čræð, which burnt for a second time far better than ordinary logs, then poured into special devices to produce many replicas of a single item, vastly reducing the amount of work needed to produce any item they needed. Not only did the Nyæŋšroþ bring pyaivz jwič, but also fruits the likes of which Mwiav had never seen growing on Meakpuj, spices and what they called dvziaţ, a firey drink which was far more impressive than anything produced locally. Where these things came from Mwiav did not know, for surely they could not be fished, mined or foraged just a few miles away?
As Mwiav continued contemplating, he saw some specks gradually turn through dots into boats on the horizon. These were no mere fishing vessels, the Meakšroþ seldom strayed that far from the shore lest they get carried away by the currents, and the Nyæŋšroþ rarely fished, and definitely not in these quantities. He called out his family and made his way down to the shore with their arms filled with xab jwič, the closer he got the more Meakšroþ he saw joining him in his journey. He knew these visitors - he had seen these men many times before, and he knew exactly what what they wanted.
As the boats got closer Mwiav could practically feel the dvziat warming his throat. He didn't recognise any of the faces, but then again he rarely did. Different visitors would come regularly, seemingly as and when they needed xab jwič, so not recognising a face was nothing out of the ordinary. What took Mwiav by surprise was the way they spoke. The Nyæŋšroþ had always spoken in a funny sort of way... Mwiav never really had issues understanding what they were saying, but some words they used were surely made up, and their accent had a strange sort of breathiness to it, and the rythmn of their speech was almost that of a song. These visitors, however, were different. It was almost as if someone had taken a description of the ways Nyæŋšroþ talked and took it to the extreme, and many of the words they used were far removed from anything even the Nyæŋšroþ would say. Mwiav could see into their boats, at the pots which looked just like the ones the Nyæŋšroþ kept their dvziaţ in, and the clumps of pyaivz jwič which looked no different to the once Mwiav had seen many times before. Surely these people were interested in their xab jwič, just as the Nyæŋšroþ had been?
After some back and forth, each sentence being half lost and half understood, a consensus was reached. Mwiav was confused, for these men were offering far more, at least in terms of dvziaţ, in exchange for his xab jwič than the Nyæŋšroþ ever did! With both men smiling, and Mwiav helping to load up the boat of the man he had agreed to exchange his xab jwič with, the man made a comment to Mwiav. Mwiav didn't understand the full comment, but what he thought he heard was something along the lines of "fust šustuč pyeitsupt šwiaţ psoaŋ xeip ǰeaţ", "I think your prostitute looks promiscuous". Mwiav gave the man a confused look, who then repeated himself - "fust šustč pyeitsupt šwiaţ psoaŋ xeip ǰeaţ". As he completed the sentence, the man gestured clearly at Šţrooŋ. How dare the man insult his wife like this? Was it customary to conclude trade deals with slander where this man was from?
In a fit of rage, Mwiav lifted his hand and slapped the man in the face. The man looked up at Mwiav in disgust as blood began to trickle out of his nose. As the Meakšroþ around Mwiav and the traders talking to them began to notice the commotion, all hell broke loose. The Meakšroþ knew they had the numbers advantage, and began chasing the retreating visitors out to sea, attacking them with whatever they could carry. Oars were smashed against peoples' heads, and rocks were thrown at the traders as they scurried back to their boats. As rocks thudded against the hulls, they rowed away from Meakpuj, never to be seen again.
For the rest of his life, Mwiav pondered upon that day. Why had these men come with their attractive deals, only to insult his wife upon their completion? Why had he only seen them once, surely they couldn't have travelled far in those boats? The older he got, the more Mwiav grew to accept that there are some things that we will just never know.

Part 2: Dzoagvrin

The traders of the Dzoagšroþ had long heard of another island beyond Nyæŋpuj, both in rumours passed down from generations, and in conversations with the Nyæŋšroþ when trading for xweipz - they often asked where the xweipz of such purity came from, to which the Nyæŋšroþ would reply "an island further beyond here". As Pwæð got older, he grew more curious about this island beyond... The boats of the Nyæŋšroþ weren't any better than his, so surely they wouldn't have to travel too much further to reach the origin of the xweipz? And wouldn't the xweipz found there be more pure than anything that had been through the Nyæŋšroþ? It only made sense for them to keep the best for himself.
As the quieter farming months came around in Dzoagvrin, Pwæð brought together some friends whom he had previously voyaged across the narrow strait to Nyæŋpuj. At daybreak, they rowed out across the strait as they had many times before, however this time as they approached the coast they did not continue on to land, but instead they rowed east. The coastline continued almost arrow straight for miles, the dense mangrove forest blurring the lines between shore and sea, however eventually the coast began to curve around to the south. With the curve came the first sign of hills for a while, as opposed to the almost endless flatness that eastern Nyæŋpuj had shown so far, however these hills weren't lined with fields like the western hills were... Instead they were covered in a thick mat of forest, barring the occasional fallen tree, with animals calling so loud Pwæð might have thought they were on the boat with him had he not checked his cargo so thoroughly before leaving.
Pwæð was exhausted after rowing for most of the morning, especially after dealing with the rougher waves around the easternmost point of the cape. He split a few loaves of dzæd with his fellow traders and drank some dvzub before continuing onwards, this time heading in a southwesterly direction, away from the coast. Almost an hour went by before they sighted land, however at long last they saw some hills and treetops peeking over the horizon - was this the fabled xweipzpuj?
As the boats got closer to shore, Pwæð saw a break in the mangrove in the form of a sandy beach, which already had some boats pulled up onto it. Above the boats were a crowd of people, all holding... something... Pwæð was too far away to make it out. Were these defenders, here to attack the Dzoagšroþ and keep them away from their land, or were they traders who somehow foretold their arrival eagerly awaiting them? Pwæð's heart raced as knew he would find out in just a few short minutes. Pwæð thought he could make out women and children amongst those crowded down on the beach; surely this could only mean that this was a welcoming party?
Upon reaching the shore, Pwæð's hopes that this was a trading party were confirmed. Each member of the crowd held some highly pure looking raw xweipz, or highly tasty looking šţyaið kwiin, and all sorts of goods inbetween. Pwæð announced loudly to the crowd "I want to buy your xweipz", only to be looked at as if these people had never heard a man talk before. He gestured, pointing to himself on "I" and the tin nodules the crowd were holding on "xweipz". This got a response, Pwæð thought it sounded affirmative but it was hard to tell through the downright odd speech of these odd people, who talked like some sort of an extreme caricature of the Nyæŋšroþ - harsh, monotone and using all sorts of basic words such as "dark grey rocks"... Had they never thought to just call the rocks by their actual name, xweipz, before?
Looking around, Pwæð could clearly tell that these people were backwards and likely stupid. There were no terraces to be seen on the hills further inland, and while their boats looked sturdier than those from Nyæŋpuj or Dzoagvrin, why did they need so many boats when they clearly didn't travel to trade? He began talking in a very oversimplified manner, with a bunch of gestures. "I want dark grey rocks.", he said, pointing at the xweipz. "I give blue-green rocks and spice juice". This clearly got a response to the man he was talking to, who gestured to his family to bring over more xweipz. Knowing the man was clearly stupid, Pwæð offered a rock bottom price. H didn't even offer all the goods he had brought - these backwards people were lucky that he wasn't just taking it from them. Of course, this was accepted. "Pure xweipz for this cheap, and just a few extra hours of travel? This island must have been sent as a reward from the stars", Pwæð thought to himself as he loaded his spoils into his boat.
Once all the xweipz was loaded, Pwæð turned to the man he had just fleeced. Still giddy from getting such a good deal, and a little tipsy from all the dvzub he had drunk on the way over, he said "šustuč mruupt čyeapz, fust šustuč pyeitsupt šwiaţ psoaŋ xeip ǰeaţ" - "you are a lucky man, I think your wife looks very pretty". The man looked confused, so Pwæð repeated himself: "fust šustuč pyeitsupt šwiaţ psoaŋ xeip ǰeaţ". For seemingly no reason, this threw the man into a fit of rage. Pwæð felt a ringing in his ears and a stinging on his skin as a hand smashed into his face. He wasn't quite sure what happened next, but he did know there was a chorus of shouts from the group on the beach, as oars and rocks began to be pelted at the delegation, cowering back to their boats.
As the minutes passed of Pwæð and his friends rowing out to sea, it became clear that they were not being followed. Phew. Blood lined the bottom of Pwæð's boat, and he began to feel more and more dizzy as the group approached the cape, with its angry, towering waves. The tide was lower now than it had been earler, which forced the group to row slightly beyond the reef, in the rougher sea. As Pwæð's boat rocked side to side, he worried about how his sensation had gone from dizzy, to sick, to ----. As he was thinking, a huge wave had come in and swept the boat clean over, dumping Pwæð and his cargo of xweipz into the ocean. His ears ringing more than ever, Pwæð tried to swim up to the surface, but it was no use - the current was pulling him down. As he kicked upwards with all his might, he saw shadows approaching beneath the waves. He looked at the cloud of blood coming from his upturned boat, and screamed in desperation. There was nothing he could do.
end.

Key translations (Meakpuj dialect)

Meakpuj: the middle island with tin Nyæŋpuj: the northernmost island -šroþ: -people dzneapuakt: burn-PL-Indef-Gno (dzneap: burn) pyaivz: blue-green xab: dark grey jwič: rock/ore čræð: wood/log pyeitsupt: prostitute-F (pyeits: prostitute) psoaŋ: promiscuous

Key translations (Dzoagvrin dialect)

Nyæŋpuj: the northernmost island Dzoagvrin: the highlands/mainland dvziaţ: spiced wine xweipz: tin dzæd: corn bread dvzub: corn beer pyeitsupt: spouse-F (pyeits: spouse) psoaŋ: pretty šţyaið kwiin: salty fish with funny tasting salt

It’s cool that Essay difference between North Shore and South Shore. North Shore’s dad jokes are crueler because they involve possibly getting trampeled to death by horses. Essay difference between Block Island and Cape Cod. The number of electric car chargers available. I don’t remember many more of my monthly goals left to do. CrossFit is done, one insult per week toward Jews and Protestants in the Facebook group, 420 blaze it stuff invested in Reaper’s business and there was one other goal that I did. I am forgetting some goals; I’ve accomplished like 80-90% of them for May

Down the elevator went, further and further down; much farther than the last two elevators the three had taken. It seemed as though it would keep on going without stopping, making all of them wonder where the elevator was taking them.
But after an entire minute, the elevator stopped. What was revealed was a narrow hallway, which contained two rows of capsules; each big enough to contain a single individual. The room was immensely cold; their own breaths could be seen the moment they stepped out.
“Brrr… It’s so cold.” Sumireko said, rubbing her arms to generate friction. Suika also felt the immense cold, but wasn’t as bothered as Sumireko, all the while Satsujin acted like it was his kind of domain.
“It’s very narrow as well. What is with all these capsules?” Satsujin said, observing the number of capsules down in rows. Even though his hearing allowed him to distinguish forms with exceptional detail, if any material that could reflect sound waves was present, it was difficult for him to identify what was inside of it. Curious, he approached one of the vats, and sticking an ear to the glass, he made little knocks, in hopes to use the vibrations as a guide.
"There's a person inside. Aside from that, I can't tell much." He said, turning over to Sumireko. "Could you take a look for me and tell me what's inside?"
“A person? Let me look.” Sumireko went over to the capsule. It was all fogged up due to the low temperature of the room, so she had to wipe the glass with her hand to get a better look inside. And inside revealed a sight that caused her to jump back in shock and horror.
“EEEEEK!!!” She yelled. “T…That…That person inside.” Her hand trembled while pointing. "It's dead!!!! And rotten!!!!"
Suika looked inside the capsule, staring at the mummified figure.
“Huh, you’re right.” Suika said. “Wonder how long they’ve been sleeping in there.”
The monitor next to the capsule activated; flickering on slowly as it filled with text, yet not all of the text was shown correctly.
[Sub… N………..urei”]
[Date of b…. 18…. The very first… of Gen…yo. Not much in…mation is k….]
*pop*
The monitor turned off, and a trace of smoke filtered through the plastic.
"Great. The display just died." Sumireko said, bonking the screen in an attempt to bring it back to life. But alas, it didn't work at all.
"Let's keep moving." Suika said, pointing at the distance.
The group stumbled upon an improvised workbench, filled with at least half a dozen folders, a writing pen made from strange materials, a dirty coffee cup, a moldy piece of hand-made cheese, and a shelf, filled with small and medium capsules containing many organic samples of various kinds of living beings. The liquid in them was semi-translucent, with a weak blue color.
"Ugh! The cheese stinks like death! Someone get that out of here!" Sumireko said, taking a pile of papers from the trash bin, and wrapping the undesired object in them.
Suika took the cheese, and after a quick scan, she saw a strange machine labeled "Trash disintegrator". She put the cheese and the papers that wrapped the food in it, and after a loud electric sound, the cheese was no longer there…except for the stench that stayed in Suika's hands.
"Ugh…fuck." Suika said, reaching for one of the many hand washers that were in there, and furiously cleaning her hands with soap until there was not a single trace of smell. After that, she returned over to the others, who were inspecting the items in the table.
In one of the many smaller capsules, an oddly familiar piece of tissue was floating in a transparent liquid. It had a scale-like patterned exterior, similar to a fish's skin, while the interior flesh was mostly orange with signs of advanced decomposition.
[Sample N°1: "Fallen Mermaid"]
Recollected on the 12th of April, on the shore of Misty Lake. Condition: Stable.
Aside from the previous capsule, there was another one, with a decently sized chunk of flesh inside, roughly as big as a trout, in an outstandingly good condition. It looked more like human flesh than the previous one.
[Sample N°2: "Night Sparrow"]
Harvested and recollected on the 12th of April. Condition: Perfect.
"Wait…the skin color in the first one looks familiar…Wakasagihime?!?" Sumireko said in shock. "So the journal was actually right after all."
"And the second one must be Mystia." Satsujin said, taking the second capsule, and lifting it. "Why would he want to store this?" He thought, returning the capsule to its original place.
"I don't know, but I'd rather not mess with any of this." Sumireko said, returning the capsule she had picked up to its intended place. "Suika, did you get rid of that thing?"
"Yep. It's gone. What have you two been looking at?" Suika said, taking one of the folders in the desk, and looking at its contents.
[Clone N°7: "Reisen"]
"Stage of growth: Fully grown young adult. Memories have not been copied into this clone yet. Not ready for deployment."
[Clone N°8: "Reisen" (Uncomplete)]
"Stage of growth: 16 to 18 years old. Clone possesses a perfect copy of the original's memories. Requires further growth."
[Clone N°9: "Reisen" (Gender-swap)]
"Stage of growth: Fully grown young adult. Ready to use in case of a catastrophe. Complete memories and growth."
[Codename: Project Origin]
"The original and authentic Reisen. I've decided to replace the original with a clone, in case something happens in the next few days."
“...” Sumireko glared at what the information had to say, squinting her eyes slightly while looking closer, as though there was something else on her mind. Satsujin took notice of this.
“Something wrong?” Satsujin asked.
“I’m good… I just… Feel like the stuff here isn’t…I don’t really know.” Sumireko said. “It just feels like something’s missing… Or maybe the opposite. Maybe there’s nothing missing, I don’t know how to describe it.”
"Missing? What do you mean by that?"
“It feels… Wait, where’s Suika?” Sumireko looked behind and found that Suika had walked further down the hall, as though something caught her eye.
“Suika?” Sumireko asked again, chasing after the Oni. “Hey, what is-”
Sumireko stopped. She noticed the narrow hall widening into a large, circular section. Surrounding them were various capsules; clear as day and bodies that were well preserved. Each one held a certain figure, all of them bearing similar traits. Brown Hair, Clear Skin, and they all looked female…save for one. Around the center there was a much bigger capsule; one which remained empty, but had text written on it that had the following message.
“Reserved for Reimu Hakurei.”
"What in god's name is…" Sumireko said, her eyes widening in shock. “What is this place?”
Sumireko walked over to one of the capsules at random; specifically the one that was empty, tapping on the monitor just as it began to spit out dialogue.
"Subject N°12: Minako Hakurei."
"The 12th Shrine Maiden. She died in an unfortunate incident regarding a loose cerberus long ago. Somehow, all traces of her DNA have vanished from existence after awakening the power of the Hakurei God. All that remains of her are my own memories of her, what the sages knew, and her kin."
“Minako…Who is that?” Sumireko said.
“...An old friend.” Suika said, standing behind Sumireko. She turned around to greet the Oni; who no longer had a careless or cheerful voice. Instead she looked more solemn; down to earth. “Out of all the Shrine Maidens, she was one of the most dedicated to her job. She had a cold mind, and never hesitated on taking matters into her own hands. However, that didn't make her less comprehensive when the situation called for it. She never harmed or was rude with any innocent person or youkai, and was always fair with everyone. And to top it off…she was an amazing friend to have. She was more human with us than most of the previous maidens. It's such a disgrace that her life was taken away so early."
“You…knew her?” Sumireko said. “But I thought that you only knew Reimu and-”
"Yes. I may not look like it, but I've lived long enough to meet most of Reimu's bloodline. A very long time, I must say." Suika said. "And the day Minako died is still fresh in my mind."
"It took us all by surprise. We thought it was everyday business, as always. But it wasn't. Fate is a cruel thing, and that day, it decided to seal her and her spouse's destiny in a heroic sacrifice for her beloved daughter. A sacrifice which would leave wounds that never healed. Reimu suffered the worst part of it, having to bear the trauma of seeing her two heroes be ripped off to shreds right in front of her. And there she stood, filled with terror. Even days after her mother died, she would continue to tremble and have nightmares every single day, until her mind gave up and sealed those memories away, to never be rediscovered again." Suika said, in a melancholic tone. "Me and the others who were close to Minako agreed to never bring this topic to her by any means, and to ensure she had a normal childhood."
Satsujin and Sumireko both were in shock. They never seen or heard Suika act in such a way, least not since they broke her out from her gourd. Her words sounded true; her voice genuinely saddened.
“Suika…” Sumireko said. “I-I’m sorry that-”
W̶̖͘r̷̨̀o̵̜̽n̸̛͍g̴̦̈́
“...What?” Sumireko was interrupted upon hearing a voice. It seemed that Suika and Satsujin also heard it.
Ỵ̵͛o̷̺͘ǘ̵͍ ̴̹͝a̸͇̽r̶̠͝ë̷̜ ̸̜̈ẉ̷̒r̵̢͝ǒ̴͔n̸̦͊g̸̨̐.̸̜̃ ̵͉̃T̵͎͊h̷͕̒a̸̞̐t̵̯̚ ̵͙͠ṅ̷̜e̸̘̊v̴͔͝ê̸̺r̶̬͝ ̴̭͛h̸̙̑a̴̺͝p̴̺͌p̷̪̂é̸̢n̵̯̓e̷̺͋d̶̢͛.̵͓̈ ̸̦͠T̴̬͋h̵̞͂a̵̬͒t̶̲͒'̵̞̉ş̴̋ ̵̤͊ṇ̶̏o̷̧͠t̶͚̚ ̵̩̂w̴̙̆ĥ̴͙a̷̹̐t̴̻͑ ̶̮̓t̵̡̏r̷̤͛ų̸͗l̷̐ͅy̷̖̎ ̸̨̃ḫ̷̋ȧ̶͍p̸̬̽p̷̼̔è̸̜ǹ̷͎ê̴͕d̸̞́.̷̨͌
“Who’s saying that!?” Satsujin demanded. “Who are you!?”
S̵͎̕u̴̞̎i̴̠̐k̶̳͑ą̶̈́.̷͍̎ ̸̬͌S̶̜͘t̵͖̄o̶͍͊p̴̖̃ ̶̯̀l̸̲͒y̴̙̓i̸̻̚n̶̯͆g̸͚̍.̵͇͌ ̴̠̎Y̶͖͌o̸̩͑ų̶̉ ̴̬̋k̷̩͝n̶̈́ͅó̸̯w̶̲̎ ̵̫͑t̶̟͗h̸͕̆ȁ̴̩t̸̟͋'̷͔̿s̶̰͋ ̸̰̌n̸͖̓o̸̝̊ṱ̴̈ ̴̙̓w̴̻̃h̷͔͠à̶̗t̷̫͆ ̷͇̋h̴͖̍ă̵̗ṗ̷̤p̷̮͑ë̴̪́ň̶̳ë̵͔́d̵̺̆.̵̖̎.̸͈̑.̶̅͜ ̸̖́T̸̢̏h̴̦͌a̷̢̎ṭ̴͠'̵͇̎š̶͉ ̵͍̊n̶̡̓o̷̻͛t̶̠͛ ̴̩̀w̴͑͜h̷͍́à̵͜t̸̡͂ ̷̯̉I̴͓̓ ̶̝̈i̸̘̾ṇ̷͝t̴̞͠ë̵̖́ǹ̸͖d̵̤̄e̷̱̅d̷͚̾ ̸̟̀f̷̠̂ǒ̶̦r̴̛̫ ̶͎̌y̴͎͐o̴̼͑u̶͈̽.̶̮́
“What?” Suika asked. “No, I-I…”
Ḋ̸̖õ̴̩n̶͇͑'̵̱̈t̴̛͚ ̵̡̒y̷̦͗ǒ̵̱ŭ̷̪ ̷͙͌r̵̨̚ë̶̤́m̵̜̀e̷͍͛m̵̠̽b̶̛͓ę̴͐ȓ̴̤ ̵̤̋t̸̟̚h̸͈͂a̸̜̐t̶̪̅ ̵̦̀d̴̯̏ó̷͈l̷̗̃l̸̰͠?̵̻̕ ̴͈͐D̸͂͜o̴͓̽n̸̙͠'̸͈̋t̷̙̉ ̴̰̀ẏ̶̙o̴̥͊u̵̧͑ ̵̖͑ȓ̴͜ḛ̶̈m̷̳̑e̸͍̓m̷̱̋b̷̨̂ẹ̸̓ř̶̹ ̴̠͝t̴̢͊h̸̏ͅè̸͖ ̸͆͜t̵̿͜r̴̞̊ȅ̶̫e̵̙̓,̸̕ͅ ̶̯̿w̶̧̄ĥ̷̹e̵͇̍r̴̯͗ē̶̥ ̶̩͘y̸̤͘õ̸̝u̴̦͝ ̵̮́w̵͍̾r̶̳̒o̵͚̐t̸̠̚e̸̘̍ ̵͎̕t̸͑͜ḥ̷̈́a̷̩͊t̷͕̋ ̶̲͝m̴͙̅e̷͕͗s̸̨̀s̷͙̏a̵̭̓g̵̺̿e̷͉̐ ̴̺̈́a̷̺̅n̷̛̠d̵͍̕ ̶͉̇h̷̢̉į̶̊d̶̖͛ ̵͇̍t̴̻͛ẖ̵̋a̷̬͂t̴̜̔ ̷̻̈b̷̟͐o̶̡̎t̶̫̚ṭ̶͂l̶̝̚e̸̳͆?̶̥̇ ̸̺͌Y̷͠ͅo̶̺͒u̷̼͛ ̵͖͝k̵̦̀ṉ̸̅ò̷̢w̸̖̚ ̸̬͛w̷͇͐h̴͉̚a̴͖̐ẗ̷͔́ ̷̮̚R̷̙͆E̴̬̐Ḁ̵͊L̴̤̐L̵̞̅Y̵̰̏ ̷̧̀h̴̠̄a̵̼̔p̶͔̂p̷̲̓e̶̩̾n̸̗̽e̵̜̓ḑ̸̉.̷̭́ ̴̜́D̶̡̿o̷̳͆n̴̫͌'̷̳̈́t̴̖͑ ̸̫̏ľ̸̺i̷̻̿e̸͌ͅ.̸̯̕
“A…Ah…” Suika shuddered. She trembled to her knees, and shook her head. Flashes of memories that she could recall like yesterday rose from the surface. The doll, the rain, the injuries… The sight of her very first friend on the surface after so long… Yet one person did not approve of her kind, for a very good reason.
“No…No…I remember now… Why did I suddenly remember?” Suika asked. “Dammit… I shouldn’t have ever forgotten… Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
“Suika!? What’s the matter?” Sumireko said, checking on Suika closely while Satsujin remained where he was, listening to the voices more intently.
“...Who is that voice? They sound like her… But… different.” Satsujin said.
Wait… This wasn’t supposed to happen… What are you doing? Why are you doing this?
I̸̺̾'̸̙͝m̴͉̈́ ̷͔͋d̴̡̈o̶̪̿ḭ̵̐n̸̰͒g̷̝͝ ̴̭̀w̴̼͆h̸̟̿ḁ̷̾t̷̻̆ ̸̰̀į̴́s̵̙͆ ̶̕ͅm̷̭̈́e̸̝͠å̸̪n̶̗͝t̸̖̿ ̴͙̂t̴̼̎ō̴͖ ̶͇̀h̴̓͜a̶̝͝p̵̠̀p̸̞̈́e̶̪͐ṅ̸̪.̴̈͜
But this was not what I, or rather, we had in mind.
W̸̲̊h̴͍͋ȧ̷̢t̵̝̂ ̷̭̉y̷̹̾o̵͉̎u̷̜̇ ̶̖̅ȟ̷̫ã̵̩d̶̗̄ ̸̜̓į̵̍n̵̠͘ ̵͇͌m̴͍͝ḯ̴̞n̴̡͘d̸̛̠?̷̫̄ ̸̯̀W̵̢̚ë̶̞́l̷͖̚l̶͎͂.̸͓̈.̵͉̏.̷̭͑ ̶̮̆t̷͈͗ǒ̷͇ô̷͜ ̵̓͜b̶̨̛a̸̯͝d̴̫͑.̶̻͋
The voices were then suddenly replaced with loud static, coming from all of the monitors next to their respective capsules. They all shook with the figures still inside; as their eyes glowed with a white glow as though they were each looking directly at the trio, surrounding them with their divinity.
“What is going on!?” Sumireko asked. “Wait. Suika? Why are you breathing heavily?”
“Hah…Hah…” Suika’s eyes were wider than before. She was looking at two specific capsules and pointed at both of them. Sumireko looked at where she was pointing.
Those two capsules were the only ones who’s figures eyes weren’t open with a white glow. One held a figure who looked to be quite elderly; bearing hair that was slowly turning white and skin with signs of wrinkles. But the other… The other was a man… And he smiled, with eyes that looked red instead of white like all the others. His monitor flickered with red text.
[Subject Number 10: Sendai Hakurei]
[Date of Birth: Unknown. The only member of the Hakurei bloodline that was born a male… A man who had been forgotten by history, not by accident… But because of the atrocities he committed to both Gensokyo, and his own daughter.]
The man looked over at the other capsule next to him. His eyes glowing brighter with almost ecstatic behavior. Suika and Sumireko looked at the capsule next to him, and it caused Suika to panic even more.
“No… Not her… Not her… Not the Blood Flower Maiden.” Suika whimpered.
"You three…get out of here. She has finally revealed her true colors."
T̸̮̅h̸̹̕e̵͈̊ÿ̸̜'̵͒ͅř̶͖e̷̱͐ ̶̘̔ņ̴̍ǒ̴͉t̶̻́ ̷̛̼s̶͙͒ù̶͖p̸̖͛p̸͎̿o̴̭͊ș̸͠e̵̢͊d̴̨̔ ̷͓̑t̷͓̔ò̵͎ ̸̮̿ľ̶͚e̶̖͝ȃ̸̬v̴̱̿e̸̊ͅ ̴̥̇ȳ̷̹ẹ̴̽t̴̨̓.̴͇̿ ̷̠̒Ṇ̶͑o̴͎̽t̶͉̏ ̷̬́u̶̢̾n̶̳͂t̴͎̋i̸̖̅l̴͎̈́ ̷̳̓s̵͉̎h̶͖̒e̵̖͂ ̶͓͌a̸̺͊ŵ̷̻á̵̝k̷̳̈ě̷̦n̶͇͠s̶̅͜.̶͙͊
"DON'T LISTEN TO HER, RUN! EXECUTING CORE ISOLATION PROTOCOL!"
\BZZT**
Ǹ̶͓Ọ̵́!̷̗̐!̷̢̛!̸̼̉ ̴̦͗T̶̼͌H̷͕͘Ȋ̴̯S̴͔͂ ̴̰͋I̶̗͆S̸͍͆ ̵̬́Ṇ̴̐O̸͚͝T̶̘̈ ̷̘͝H̷̫̆O̵̢̒Ẅ̴̘ ̴̫̎I̵̮̽T̸͉͛ ̴͎̏I̸̝̍S̴̳̆ ̵̩͛Š̵̺Ȗ̵͈P̵̙̔P̴͖̿O̵͕͑Ś̶̡É̸͇D̷̗͝ ̷̼͑T̴͖͛O̸̢͝ ̷̙̀G̶̞͝O̸̝͘!̶͖̓!̶̥̽!̸̰̉
The room started blaring with red lights, but it was already too late. The other figure awakened from her slumber, slamming her hand against the glass as cracks began to show.
“No no no no! Not her!” Suika said, freaking out.
“Suika! Stay with me!” Sumireko said. “It’s going to be okay! I swear upon it!”
“...” Satsujin listened to the blares, the thoughts of everyone around her. They all… had nothing to say… except for one. The only other man in the room.
“...Heh…She’s right, you know? This wasn’t her plan… Yet it looks like she has to go fix things up for the future.” Sendai thought.
“...Who are you?” Satsujin asked back.
“Me? I’m nobody at the moment. I don’t have a role yet, and probably won’t for a long time. Least, that’s according to her. How do I know this? It’s simple really?”
The other figure managed to make more cracks, and Suika was now crying, almost afraid of what’s to come.
"Grr…Damn you! Listen to me, I can't hold her forever. Suika, take them and return to the surface, and…shit, she's trying to escape! GO!!!"
S̸̻̈Ḧ̸̫Ȗ̶̝Ț̶̉ ̷̗̍Ú̷̻P̴̰̑!̷͖͐!̴̮̔!̵͔͋!̴̡͝!̶͓͒
“She has everything planned out… including all of your deaths.”
*ERROR*
Buffer overload detected. Restarting stage…
Restart was successful!
—
—
—
The room was dark and quiet again… It was as though everything that happened in the last few minutes never happened. The emergency backup power was left on, giving the people who were still inside the room just enough to see their surroundings.
Suika found herself hugging Sumireko, yet couldn’t remember why she was doing so. She also felt tears on her face, but didn’t remember why she was crying. Sumireko was the same. She found herself hugging Suika back, with a hand on her head like she was comforting her.
“Um…Did something happen?” Sumireko asked. “What were we doing?”
“Uhhhhh…” Suika was confused as she let go of Sumireko and got back up. She noticed how dark the room was yet the last thing she recalled was leaving the elevator with Sumireko and Satsujin and exploring the room a little bit.
Satsujin was standing next to them, facing one of the capsules which contained a still figure; almost lifeless. There was nothing else he sensed in his surroundings, save for a pile of shattered glass which was now on the floor.
“Um, you two.” Satsujin said. “I think something happened.”
“Huh? Something happened? Like what?” Sumireko asked.
"Phew. I thought the core isolation protocol wouldn't work…Now…where we were?"
And then all the lights in the room flashed back on, almost blinding everyone as the lab went back into full power; running everything that needed to be run efficiently. A muffled air fan sound could be heard in the distance, adding to the abandoned ambience.
The glass shards that Satsujin noticed earlier were now revealed to have belonged to one of the capsules, which was empty. It made him more worried as it now begged the question of who was inside there.
“That’s…not good.” Satsujin thought.
But then something else caught everyone’s attention. There was a monitor, or rather a large screen, about 70 inches in width, above the capsules and everything else as it turned on, showing some old footage of a couple familiar figures.
“Wait a minute.” Sumireko said. “Isn’t that… Eirin? And… Okina?”
On the screen, the two figures looked to be discussing something, sitting down in a room together full of empty capsules.
“Do you really need to be recording this?” Okina asked Eirin. “I’m not familiar with your moon’s tech, but I would rather not find out this is something used to send info to your superiors.”
“I assure you, this device is for containing records and nothing more. And even if I wanted to send this to the Lunar Capital, that would risk the safety of me and the princess, which you are well aware I would never do.” Eirin said.
“Yeah yeah, just don’t let anyone unfamiliar find this somehow. Last thing we need is for them to get too advanced too early. And what does any of this have to do with what we agreed on?”
“I’m a doctor, but also a researcher. It is basic common sense to note down any information you come upon, and this is no different. Besides, I’m interested in what you had in mind regarding this project.”
“All I care about is whether you live up to your side of the agreement, I don’t care about anything else. You should be glad I decided to sit down and talk to you instead of informing the other sages of Lunarian immigrants.” Okina said with slight bitterness.
“I prefer you don’t refer to me or the princess with that kind of tone. We no longer live on the moon, nor do we have the same mindset as them. We are human.” Eirin said.
“Human you say? Sure, and I’m the housekeeper of some doorknob salesman.” Okina said.
“I don’t believe doorknobs are a usual sight in this country.”
“Great, you don’t know what sarcasm is… Just make sure you do your side of the deal well. I’ll make sure to check on your progress every time there’s a new shrine maiden. Do good, and I’ll make sure not to tell Yukari about your whereabouts. Fail, and… well you know what.” Okina said, standing up and leaving the room.
“Hah… So much for complete isolated peace with the princess.” Eirin mumbled to herself.
The video flickered a little, fading to static before something else popped up. That being once again, text.
"Project: Faith Preservation.
A conjoined effort between all the sages of Gensokyo to preserve the lineage of the Hakurei family in case of a catastrophe.
When I first arrived on Earth, the sages were initially against the idea of letting me, an enemy of their worst enemy, live in this land. However, they offered me a truce. In exchange for being hidden from the moon emissaries, I would spend the next centuries making sure that every woman and men who ever wore the Hakurei surname was preserved for a later use, may the current active one die, or be rendered useless by any reason."
The monitor turned off, and everyone was left staring at a black screen that reflected themselves. Then, the screen flickered, and showed a series of dots and lines in the screen for some seconds before turning off again.
"... .... . / .... .- ... / -... . - .-. .- -.-- . -.. / ..- ... .-.-.- / --. --- -.. / ... .- ...- . / ..- ... / .- .-.. .-.. .-.-.- / ... - .- -.-- / .- .-.. . .-. - .-.-.-"
*splat*
Everyone turned to where the wet sound came, and there she was. A woman in her elders, with wrinkles and grayish hair, wearing an old, more traditional shrine maiden outfit. She looked over at the group, when her sight was set on Suika. She looked at the Oni who wore the clothes of her lineage. It made her so confused…and angry. Very angry.
"You filthy Oni…why are you…wearing the Shrine Maiden's clothes?" She said, in a raspy yet intimidating tone of voice.
Suika didn't answer at all. She froze in place, and like it was a cruel joke, she remembered why she was crying.
"No…NO! This is bad…really bad!" She said, falling to the ground in terror. "She's awake…"
“W-what? Who?” Sumireko asked.
“Chihana…Hakurei.” Suika said. “We need to run now.”
“Run?” Satsujin asked. “Why do you-”
“We need to run!!! No questions asked!”
Suika didn’t waste time in grabbing both their hands, running down the hall and back towards the elevator. She practically threw the two in while she started pressing the up button rapidly. Chihana walked forward towards the group, pulling out a needle from her sleeve and gripping it tight and imbuing it with a certain type of magic. Right as the doors began to close, she threw it at eye-blinking speeds, only stopping in front of Suika by just a centimeter thanks to the doors closing in time.
But still the Oni was trembling, shaken, filled with the fear of the woman that pursued them slowly. For now they were safe, but how long.
“H-Hey… You said they were also a Hakurei? And you knew them?” Sumireko asked.
“Y-Yeah…” Suika said with a shaky voice. “S-she was the previous shrine maiden before Minako… You could s-say she’s Reimu’s grandmother.”
“Her…grandmother?” Sumireko asked.
*ding*
The elevator opened up to the third floor. Suika and the other two left and walked down the room filled with plants.
“Wait, how come no one else knew about her? I mean, thinking about it, it is a little strange how there is very little information on any of the previous Hakurei Shrine Maidens. Not even in the Gensokyo Chronicles.”
“That’s because they were erased from history; traces of their existence wiped off the books save for a handful of mentions. That was done on purpose because Yukari didn’t want anyone to remember the Hakurei Shrine Maiden as brutal or bloodfestive.” Suika said. “There’s a lot you don’t know about the predecessors.”
The floor on the ground burst open, and Chihana rose out of it, maintaining that same glare on Suika specifically. Suika looked back and her face stricken with horror.
“Why are you… running away you damn Oni!?” Chihana shouted, pointing a sharpened gohei at her.
Once again, Suika, Sumireko and Satsujin made a run for it, avoiding the talismans the elder Miko threw at them with vigor. The talismans stuck some of the nearby green; setting it ablaze with flames that sprouted from the paper charms, disintegrating the plants with no trace left behind. Fortunately none of them hit the trio as they made their way to the next elevator.
“You won’t get away this time!” Chihana shouted, running right at them. But the doors closed just in time as a fist-shaped dent was made in the thick steel.
“Hoooh…I guess we should be glad the elevator was reinforced like the rest of this lab.” Satsujin said.
“That’s not going to stop her.” Suika said. “She’s the type who never gives up until her target is lying dead on the ground. And in case they’re already dead, she’ll personally pursue you all the way to the afterlife to ensure you don’t reincarnate.” She looked back at Satsujin. "Heck, she would even go after your whole family if the circumstances required it."
“But why was she trying to kill us?” Satsujin asked. “The moment she saw you I could sense killing intent. Isn’t the spell card rules-”
“The spell card rules didn’t exist until Reimu you idiot!” Suika shouted at him. "It was kill or be killed! Gensokyo lived on a pecking order for centuries, and that was humans, youkai, demi-gods, actual gods, the Shrine Maiden, and then the Sages… And all the youkai were forced to accept that fact…or perish! That’s why most of us lived either underground or on Youkai Mountain because none of us were idiotic enough to dare go anywhere near the Human Village while she was around!" Suika said, letting out a sigh. “And I was the idiot who decided to leave.”
Neither Sumireko or Satsujin had words to comment on Suika's statement. They stood silent, until they arrived at the following floor.
*ding*
They walked out, and again they moved across the room over to the other elevator.
“Suika… If you don’t mind me asking… How do you know her anyway? And why does she not like you?” Sumireko asked.
Suika thought for a moment, as though she was wondering if she wanted to answer or not. But she did anyway, “I knew her daughter a long time ago, Minako Hakurei. When I first ventured up to the surface I did what any youkai would do and started scaring people at every chance I got. But when I met Minako by pure coincidence, she wasn’t scared. Rather she was infatuated with me. I guess it wasn’t everyday you meet someone with horns and capable of smashing trees with a single punch, hahaha… So, we met a few times, got to know each other, had fun like how any pair of friends would. But…her mother didn’t like seeing her daughter get close with an Oni. And then she tried to kill me, right in front of her daughter’s eyes.”
“She did what?” Sumireko said with shock in her eyes. “How could someone do that?”
*bang*
“Wait, hold on a minute.” Satsujin said. “Did you hear that?”
*bang*
“I think it’s coming from below.” Sumireko looked down at the ground.
*Bang*
“...Fuck.” Suika said.
*BANG*
Chihana bursted out of the floor, rising out of it and once again glaring at the others. The process repeated, this time with more speed. The group rushed for the next elevator door, and entered, as Chihana emerged from the ground once again, tossing away everything that was on her way, including metal shelves with a lot of fragile objects, which made a loud sound after impact.
“Close close close close close…” Suika spammed the button repeatedly.
The elevator fortunately closed right as Chihana approached. They all let out a sigh of relief… And then they returned to shock upon witnessing the door being forcefully opened with bare hands. The red-glow glare of the demonic Miko leering inside.
“You won’t get away this time, foul demon!” Chihana expressed.
“AAAH!” Sumireko screamed. She used her psychic powers to push her back, with great success. The elder shrine maiden didn’t expect to be hit with a burst of psychokinesis while she slid back on the ground. Then with a cry of frustration, she threw a handful of talismans at the trio. Fortunately most of them didn’t hit as the elevator doors shielded them; save for two which struck Sumireko’s hat and Satsujin’s shirt, one of which set Sumireko’s hat on fire.
"My hat is burning! Ow! Ow!" Sumireko said, tossing her hat into the floor, which had been struck with a talisman. Shortly after, the hat vanished in a violent blaze.
"Aw, I liked that hat too. Oh well, at least we-SATSUJIN!!! YOUR SHIRT!!!" Sumireko yelled loudly.
"Huh?" He said, unaware that a talisman had made its way into his white shirt, and was about to activate. With quick reflexes, Suika pulled the shirt with two hands, and ripped it from Satsujin's torso, as she wrapped the talisman in the cloth, and tossed it away. The end result was a burning pile of cloth which eventually disintegrated into nothing. The process left Satsujin with half of his shirt gone, revealing his slightly toned body.
"...damn it." Satsujin said, closing his cape to cover himself. "I don't like to be like this in front of someone else." As he said that, one of his eyes shined brightly.
"There was no need to be that dramatic, you know?"
"Still…I feel exposed." The layered voice said. Shortly after, the eye stopped glowing, going back to its previous state.
Suika didn’t say anything during the conversation. She was too focused breathing in and out repeatedly; hugging herself in the process. It was clear that she was feeling a large amount of anxiety.
“Hey, Suika? Are you still there?” Sumireko asked her.
“I’m…fine Sumireko.” Suika said. “I just want to get out of here and back with the others. I hope they’re doing better than how we are.”
The rest of the elevator ride went in silence. The three waited until they got back on the first floor, seeing the elevator doors open up…
And revealing Chihana standing there in front of them, holding her sharpened gohei, a pair of needles and talismans, and a face full of malice.

I have an Orion XT6 Dobs.
It's my first telescope and I'm still learning the ropes. (Gonna try to bring it to the outer Cape (Cape Cod) this summer to see what I can see with how much darker it'll be out there, and the relatively clear horizons. (Especially the eastern horizon)
That said, messing around with it looking at he moon, I'm having a hard time getting photos from it. It came with a smartphone mount, but I can't seem to get it to work well.
My phone seems to get nothing not blurry or half photos from it. (Pixel 6)
Seems almost impossible to get it lined up juuuust right.
Any tips?