ꙮ You can only, as it turns out, stay holed up in your quarters for so long. (And that’s with your excursion and successful experimentation with Dyu earlier this morning!) It’s definitely ‘late afternoon’, at this point. Mu culture seems to be more ‘small meals at intervals across the day’ than ‘dinnertime’, but I wouldn’t call it dinnertime yet, not quite. The Sun is, of course, still high and angry in its firmament. What are you getting up to, Salme?
No song playing
Up next: 0 songs
Scene Archives
← Active ScenesThe Boundless Fathom
#saint
: “Trouble, of course,” she says to you as she finishes pinning her hair up into its most scholarly low bun. Though that isn’t true, not really. She’s hopefully getting up to—“research,” she says. She’s not been able to stop thinking about the stele in the First Orchard.
ꙮ I think there are Samudran academics who would proudly theorise that trouble and research aren’t too far off from each other.
laughs as she wraps a deep burgundy scarf woven with subtle geometric patterns in a paler shade of red around her hair and pins it in place with a golden pin. She picked both items up in the market earlier. The tasseled ends of the wrap hang down in her front, covering the parts of her front that the burnoose doesn’t. She’s still wearing her clothes from Samudra, and they do breathe comfortably even in this heat, even if they clash with the burgundy of the wrap. “I suppose. I don’t know how receptive the zvahr are to strange humans asking uncomfortable questions.”
hefts her satchel over her shoulder, checking to make sure the tablet is inside. She considers checking on if Aurelius is still in their room, and if he’s still alive, then decides that’s … probably not necessary? He doesn’t mind her being nosy, but there’s nosy and then there’s deranged.
opens the door to their room and checks anyway.
ꙮ He must be out Making Maps, or something.
nods. That makes sense. And he did recently post on the Linkpearl. “Would you know if he died, silmät?” She shuts the door behind her and heads out into the City.
ꙮ One imagines an event such as that would be one that I’d be observing, yes. It’s not like I was looking away when he had that horrid run-in with the Elemental, anyways, as unpleasant as it was to observe. In any event, the City stretches out in front of you, coiled like a spring in the mid-day heat. Where are you headed?
nods absently at that reassurance. She is being … silly, she knows. She takes a moment to adjust to the sunlight before she starts moving. She is looking for the zvahr, or a library or an archive. Any place where records are kept.
ꙮ There is an archive; it’s not far. One of the closest buildings to the Temple, really. Deceptively small in its facade, almost tucked away in between two different administrative buildings.
heads directly towards it. She doesn’t hesitate; she immediately steps inside.
ꙮ There’s a pleasant-looking– what looks more like a waiting area than anything else, with a plethora of comfortable if plain-looking chairs and couches. There’s a desk, staffed by an ancient-looking Kin and two human assistants. A map, along one wall, of the reclaimed fields outside the City - looking at the map, it looks like most of the space is given over to wildgrass and the kind of trees that would bind and stabilise soil against the wind, rather than food production. The kind of land you’d call ‘untamed’, back home, although you know, already, how much effort must go in to keeping it alive. One of the humans looks up- squints- and recognises you as someone he doesn’t recognise, which is intriguing, and so he says, “Shade and comfort! Can I help you find something?”
’s eyes linger briefly on the map, on the immense labor reclaiming the land from the desert must be, before she turns to the person who spoke to her. “Shade and comfort,” she says, sliding her hood down and unwrapping her scarf. “My name is Salme. I am a guest of Yazhn Ravhi from very far away.” Her mouth twitches here a bit, like she’s amused herself. “I was interested in—well, I saw the stele in the First Orchard. I wanted to know about how far back your records stretch, and, hm, the process of keeping such records.”
wants, of course, to know everything, but it’s always best to start with a specific question.
ꙮ Indeed, it is. The Kin looks up, at her question, with something like a pleased, slightly amused smile; the human looks a bit at a loss at first, but then he smiles amiably and works the problem: “Oh! The far-wanderers, that’s why I didn’t recognise you, of course. Um, hm, I think…” He looks at the Kin and they have a brief Eyebrows Conversation. “Since she’s one of the Yazhn’s honored guests…” The eyebrows continue, unabated. “And she wants to know about our -process-!” The Kin softly huffs an assent, and smiles at Salme out of the corner of a very toothy mouth; the human nods in satisfaction. “I think you should talk directly to Zvahr Yhjrn, in the Fathom, rather than– anyone trying to explain it to you in words.” The name is– the name is Challenging to pronounce, it sounds like it starts with a gust of wind and ends with a rumbling trill.
nods carefully, and repeats the name to herself over and over in her head before she attempts to say it aloud. “It would be my honor to speak to Zvahr Yhjrn, if it would not inconvenience them.” She doesn’t quite nail the pronunciation, but she gets close. It’s not the first time someone’s thrown a curveball of a name her way. She files away ‘The Fathom’ and ‘in words.’
ꙮ When she gets the name almost precisely correct, the Kin perks up again, looks her right in the eye, and smiles, warmly, and then rumbles something, hands an object to the human, who looks at it briefly in surprise before standing up to approach Salme with a little rod of blue crystal. He looks slightly overwhelmed to be holding it, at all, and he hands it to Salme, and gestures to a door in the back of the main room, past the desk and a bunch of shelves heavy with books. “Just- wave this at the door, it’ll take care of everything else.”
looks at the human, and then smiles at him brightly. “Thank you very much. I—do not understand the precise significance, but I know an honor when I see one.” She takes the object carefully between her hands, and heads towards the door. Her step never hesitates, even if she does want to stop and gawk at the books, so different from the ones she saw on the Beast.
ꙮ They do look remarkably different. You don’t think there’s a single paperback - there’s a bunch of ledgers, a bunch of huge, heavy, ponderous tomes. When you get to the door, and hold the blue rod in front of it, the gold door slides open smoothly to reveal a tiny gold-and-marble room; based on your time in Samudra’s Academy you have a fairly solid idea of what this room is and is for, although it doesn’t have any controls that you can see.
steps into the room. She suspects that, as she does so, she is giving up control, though perhaps not.
reaches behind her, briefly, to touch the Mask secured in a pouch tucked beneath her belt.
ꙮ As you suspected, it’s another ‘vertical train’, and as you suspected it’s got a destination programmed in; something beeps pleasantly as you and the door slides shut as easily as it opened, and then there’s a rather precipitous drop that you barely, but definitely do notice - it’s being shielded by gnosis, somehow, so it’s not completely overwhelming, but your sense of place is strong enough that you can tell you’re traveling much deeper down than you might have expected by the short span of time before it beeps again and the door slides back open. ⁂
ꙮ The door opens out onto a wide ledge with a waist-height handrail, a significant ways down into a perfectly square cavern lined with wide ledges, stacked on top of each other– you can see the top, from here, but you can’t seem to see a bottom. Each ledge is built significantly into the wall of the cavern, and is full of bookshelves that are full of books. Some ways down the ledge the elevator stopped at, there’s a little white stone platform hovering a couple inches off the ground; on the platform is a desk stacked high with books, and a chair, and a Kin with bright gold scales scribbling frantically in the pages of a book they’ve got open in front of them, making reference to some letters they have on the desk.
takes a moment, just one, to look down into seeming infinity before she approaches the Kin at the desk. “Excuse me. Are you Zvahr Yhjrn?” She gets the name a hair closer to exactly right this time, but still misses the mark.
looks up from her desk, suddenly; bright and curious gold eyes behind tiny little round glasses perched precariously on her snoot. She’s got a white coat on that’s embroidered with gold, horns that curl back on themselves and which are decorated with a variety of gold rings, and looks immensely pleased about the distraction and the distraction’s bold and admirable commitment to accuracy. “I am she. You are… one of Yazhn Ravhi’s wanderers, correct?” A brief pause. “Salme, I assume? Shade and comfort to you. What do you seek?”
manages not to stare, but does have a dizzying moment of surprise—that she knew who she was, that she knew her name. She holds that question, and gives the Zvahr a small smile. “Everything, truly, but if I had to choose …” she looks around the room—the Fathom—and then looks back at Zvahr Yhjrn. “I am something of a historian of the place from which I come. I am, in some ways, the only person who remembers the past beyond a certain point. I contain some 250,000 years of memory, and not with any particular clarity.” ⁂
: “Earlier today, I read the stele of your First Orchard. 279,930 years of continuity.” She smiles at Zvahr Yhjrn. “I’ve felt some—many things, reading that date. I was hoping you could tell me the story of Mu’s earliest history, and how you’ve kept records so well for so long, and—well. Let’s start there.” 🙧
looks intrigued and more intrigued as Salme speaks- you can tell the kinship of the emotion when she holds back an immediate flood of several urgent questions, you can see it in her eyes. She brightens, a little, at the mention of the stele. “Oh, a student of mine participated in the re-commemoration this year.” She does something with the desk, and the entire platform it’s on smoothly glides over the floor closer to Salme, and she points -up-. “Our earliest records are the furthest ones up. We keep everything, even when we don’t reference it any more. Every 144 years, we summarise the events of the last century - the fields begun, any notable changes in the desert. Then, every 20,736 years we summarise the last 144 summaries, and close that section of the Archives to general use. Eventually, some day, we’ll write a summary of the summaries of the summaries, but that won’t happen for a very, very long time, I’m sure.”
looks up, and for a moment, for it a moment, it seems like she might sprout wings and fly there on her own. “Why those particular numbers?”
holds up a clawed hand, and presses her thumb to one phalange, then the other, then the other. “Twelve counts to a hand, so with both hands you’ve twelve twelves - a grasp - and then a grasp of grasps. Humans prefer counting things by ten, for whatever reason I’ll never understand.”
holds up her hands and wiggles her fingers playfully. “We take the easy way out by counting fingers, probably.” She looks up again. “Would. Would you be willing to show me? Your oldest records?”
motions for Salme to come join her, on the platform. There’s a little chair, on the other side of the desk. “Well, even I’ve never seen the original archives. But I can absolutely show you the way the first Grasp of Grasps began.”
: “I would be grateful,” she says as she takes a seat in the chair across from Zvahr Yhjrn. “Are the original archives elsewhere?”
She does something with the desk again and it begins whizzing along the balcony all the way around to the other corner, more or less. She points up, again. “They’re up there, we don’t throw anything away. There’s no need to. But anything at all that’s vital knowledge will have been written in the condensed records.”
nods but bites her lip. “I’d like to see them. The originals. The first book. After the first Grasp of Grasps? If that’s allowed. I just—I’ve never seen something that old.”
: “Hm. I don’t see why -not-. Referencing the oldest archives, that’ll definitely make it into this Grasp.” She smiles fondly. “Not that the six of you wouldn’t be, anyways.” The platform slows and then stops; there’s a fancy-looking shelf with what are clearly a matched set of volumes of material; she absconds from the desk and carefully, reverently goes and gets the very first volume and brings it back.
: “Now, let’s see. Is there anything you’re particularly curious about?” There’s a drawing, in the very front of the book - it’s of the City, when it was just the Temple rising from the sand, a collection of outlying buildings, and the Sun burning down overhead.
peers at the book intently, and all her ability to Not Stare is completely, absolutely gone. She’s almost holding her breath. “The very beginning. The start of it all.”
gives Salme another fond look, and delicately turns pages with her claw. “In the very beginning, the first Kin and the first humans awoke safe in the Temple, and when they walked outside, they immediately felt the Sun’s light scouring their bodies, and knew that their Work had already been put before them.” She says it like catechism, but gestures to records in the first Grasp of Grasps – she points at two years of frantic experimentation before the first successes at terraforming, and then another four years of perfection of the technique before that First Field was salvaged. “See, right here, the first inscription on the stele.” It’s much the same as the one that’s there today.
looks at the writing in the book. Can she read it?
ꙮ It’s all perfectly legible, yes. There’s a lengthy description of the first death of a Kin, the slow and methodical invention of new ritual to commemorate him, to place what he became in the Temple to rest until the God awoke, and awoke him again in turn, and then as-lengthy descriptions of the celebrations of the first fruits of the First Field.
stares and stares and stares. How is the death described?
ꙮ It’s not described as a death, to be clear - Salme would probably read it as such. It is described as him having entered a state of rest, like that of all Kin and humans before they awoke in the Temple – that all living things were created by the God at rest, and briefly experience a period of time Awake, during which they can perform the Work, and after which they return to a state of rest, until the day when the Work is complete and the God can awaken all those who ever lived; these are stated as straightforward historical fact along with descriptions of the buildings being built in the City, and the walls being raised, far enough out from the Temple that it would have room for every building which would need to be built, in time.
ꙮ But, in terms of actual physical process – there is a drawing, in the book, of a Kin who had turned entirely to faceted crystal.
’s breath catches at the drawing. She thinks, of course she does, immediately of Solei, of Caion arm where gnosis no longer circulates. Does it look at all like that?
ꙮ Honestly, it rather does.
nods thoughtfully, and then a little less thoughtfully she asks, “What happens to Kin and humans once they are at rest again? Where do you keep them?”
exhales the specific exhale of ‘this is a Yazhn question, may the God salvage me’ but she does her best: “They rest in the Temple, in the gallery which surrounds the Holy of Holies, until such time as their rest is ended.”
nods, and doesn’t let the frown show on her face. “Do the books chronicle every person who ever awoke or went to their rest?”
nods. “Of course, yes. By and large, such details aren’t recorded in the Grasps, let alone the Grasp of Grasps. But their crystals and their statues are still safe in the Temple, and will be, until the Work is done. Every life that has ever been lived is valued by the God.”
reaches in to touch the Mask, and then makes a decision and pulls it out. “This is my archive,” she tells her. “There is only ever one bearer at a time. It—is much like your Grasp of Grasps, in some ways, but much gets lost.” She takes a slow, heavy breath. “Were things always as they are now? With the Zvahr and the Vehru and the Yazhn and the Roshu?”
shifts bodily in her chair, to look at the Mask; her eyes widen a little, and then she looks up at Salme, in something like -awe-. “What a heavy burden for one human to carry. May you always have shade.” It’s not -pity-, it’s definitely… something she struggles to find words to express, and eventually settles for her default of ‘helpfully answer the question’. “Yes. We were five clades already when we first awoke in the Temple.” And she points to the part that talks about that, a list of various different things that could be split into five parts - senses, parts of the body, elements of gnosis - as proof of the Kin as an integral element of the Work.
: “Do various clades correspond to a specific kind of gnosis or specific senses?”
laughs, suddenly. “Oh, people have been arguing about clade-gnosis correspondence for grasps of grasps. As for senses… well. We Zvahr are sight, and either the Rohsu or the Gorhn are touch. That much there’s straightforward agreement about. Every Grasp or so the consensus changes about which clade corresponds to which part of the body in some capacity.” Pause. “Most of that doesn’t make it to the Grasp of Grasps, either, to be honest.”
laughs a little, and there’s some relief there. “People are people no matter where we go, in that way, I think.” She returns to the Mask, sitting still and silent on the table. “It is a heavy burden for anyone to carry, I think. We don’t have Kin where we come from, but it would be no lesser burden for Kin than for someone like me.” She smiles at her. “We do have Spoken Wood, trees that walk and speak and love and sing just as we do, and Lightdrinkers, glowing stone that does the same—except, of course, for the walking part. They live,” she blinks. “They live for as long as my world can support life. It—fails. Every so often. And we start over. The Mask persists.” ⁂
looks around the fathom again, and she doesn’t struggle to keep the awe off her face. “It seems like a miracle to me, this place.” ⁂
: “I have another question. Did something happen here 1,296 years ago? Maybe something that has happened 216 times in recorded history?” 🙧
’s face falls, and she listens to Salme gravely, and– again, ‘pity’ is not the emotion she feels but the one she does feel is too large to name. “Oh.” And then, almost impulsively, “Please feel free to come back here, any time you’d like to.” And then, as Salme continues with another question, she tilts her head to the side as numbers immediately click into place. “Yes, that’s the recorded year of the last Rite of Renewal, which has been held two hundred and sixteen times. Why…?” She’s starlit, you’re utterly certain, by the Lantern-and-Eye, and its light briefly flashes in her eyes.
takes a slow, careful breath. “Because my world has—been destroyed or destroyed itself, I’m not sure which—two hundred and sixteen times, and the last time it happened was 1,296 years ago.” She places both her hands on the table. “It may not—I don’t know if this is too much to ask, or if it’s even possible, but could I have the dates for the Rites of Renewal? If they do line up it might help me make sense of the memories in the Mask. And—if you tell me where to look, I will happily avail myself of your invitation to come back any time and figure it out for myself. There’s so much here and it’s all … wonderful.”
listens to what Salme says, and she keeps both fascination and dread off of her face, with expert care. But Salme sees the way her claws press in, ever so slightly, to the desk. “You should– I think– you ought to speak to Yazhn Ravhi about all of this. If anyone can understand it, it would be him.” And she nods, professionally. “I’ll have that compiled for you and sent to your shelter as soon as possible, I’ll do it myself if I have to.”
: “Yazhn problems, not Zvahr problems, yes?” She remembers, rather clearly, the way Xilai kept disparaging himself. She reaches out a hand and lays it over hers. “You do not need to feel such dread for my sake, Zvahr Yhjrn. I chose this path, and I am confident in my ability to walk it. That said, I would be grateful to have that information.”
smiles. “Just as there are problems which are Zvahr problems, and not Yazhn problems. Like compiling information for an honored guest. Oh, I will have questions for -you-, before you leave. Like– where are you going, and– how did you get here? There’ll be a CHAPTER in the Grasp-of-Grasps devoted to you.” And an unspoken ‘and I’ll get to be the primary source’. As much as she felt a pang of dread, a moment before, her claws are practically wiggling. “And how does your Mask work? To think that anything could carry so much and yet be so small. It’s–“ She shakes her head. “But first, the information that you asked for, I’ll make sure that you have. And I’ll put in the proper paperwork to access the closed archives. I don’t… foresee it being a problem, I– I’d like to let you experience that, though. And I’ve always meant to see them with my own eyes, rather than in summary.”
grins at her, a genuine, actual grin. “I’m happy to answer any questions you’d like. I—it’s a long, long story how we got here, and I’m happy to tell it. And the Mask has a trick to it—it’s … hm. Would you like me to write up my understanding of it for you? Then you can ask me questions. And if you’d like,” she hesitates, considers Zvahr Yhjrn, and then decides something, “I could show you a memory within the Mask. It is—experiential, rather than written, and there is a lot of joy alongside the sorrow.”
immediately cut in with an “I’d like that -very- much”, with regards to the write-up, and then tilts her head to the other side. “Show me… a memory?”
nods. “Yes. The mechanics of the Mask are … complex, and I don’t understand how it was made completely, but I can write out what I know. However, I do know how to navigate the Mask very well. It—“ she picks it up and presses it against her face, blinking out through the eyeholes. “The bearer wears it, and it remembers what we see and do and think and feel. And then the next bearer can access those memories. The farther away you get from the present moment, the muddier they tend to become unless they were extremely important, but you can still find some very old memories if you’re clever and determined.”
pulls the Mask away from her face and grins again. “I can show you, when I come back. I’ll find something … hm. Is there anything in particular you find fascinating or curious?”
nods. “Oh, that makes sense. I see why you compared it to the Grasp-of-Grasps.” She peers at it, in curious delight. “I’ll think on that, and make sure I include that when I send you the information I’ve found, how’s that?”
: “That sounds like a deal.” She’s still beaming, and she doesn’t even try to hide it. “Thank you, Zvahr Yhjrn. I was a bit apprehensive coming here. Thank you for helping me and illuminating my journey.”
brightens, even more, at that. “The pleasure is mine, to have made the Boundless Fathom a joy for you, rather than– most people who come here are looking for an obscure attestation concerning handling a particular kind of gnosis-blight, or something like that, which, it’s terribly important, but not. I just– I hope that the information I give you can help you. I truly do. Shade and comfort everlasting.” And she fiddles with the desk, again, so it nyooms back over to the other corner of the balcony where the elevator is, so Salme doesn’t have to walk all that way for no reason.
nods, and stands, and gives a small little bob of her head that passes for a bow. “Any information you give me will be more than I had before. And when I come back, if you don’t mind, I’d love to see also something in the records that brings you joy. Shade and comfort everlasting, and I’ll see you soon.” And then she goes, to fly back up to the surface, wishing to know that which she wishes.