Cracks in the Circle
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After a grueling few weeks, the newsletter continues with upgraded graphics, chapter 3, and so much more from the world of Sunlock!
Chapter 3:
I screamed.
The reverberations through my head were pounding louder now. Absolute chaos had descended in the dark among the party. I heard Yuri sobbing in one direction, while Tian’ Xi kept repeating to herself quietly “Think… think… think...”
I put my hands up against the wall, feeling around, trying to make sense of where we are. No inspiration came to me. Hours could be passing, and I wouldn’t have recognized the passage of time.
I felt water in my eyes. I couldn’t be crying, could I?
What would Nome do?
“Hard to say.” I said back to the voice inside my head. “I don’t know if she ever faced anything like this.”
What would the people who trained her advise her to do?
“I don’t know. She’s Aery, there might be something in their manuals, but I don’t know it.”
What does the Aery do in general to create order out of chaos?
“Training, repetition, drills… call on the River? I don’t know!”
The voice didn’t answer back. Instead my mind circled back to the image of Tian’ Xi pulling the lever in the pattern of the sigil of entry.
I didn’t understand the significance of that motif, but I did have an idea. I didn’t know if it would work, but I decided to try it nonetheless.
“Bless the River, flow well.” I said quietly, trying to ignore the waves of pressure building in my head.
The vague sounds of panic continued by my side. Keeping my left hand on the wall, I searched with the other for Tian’ Xi. My hand connected with her arm, and I seized it. She cried out in fright.
“Bless the River, flow well.” I said louder.
“Ha… what… doing…” Her slurred speech came back at me.
“Bless the River, flow well!” I shouted.
She understood. It was a moment of clarity in an otherwise terrifying situation. One of the few things our rapidly deteriorating minds could grasp onto. A mantra from everyone’s childhood, pounded into our heads by our times at chapel when we were young. In my case, quite literally since there had been punishments for not learning one of the most sacred sayings of the River.
“Bless the River, flow well!” Tian’ Xi and I shouted in unison.
Some time had passed when my next memory formed. We were all shouting the mantra at the top of our lungs. I picked a direction along the wall, and began to feel my way along it to the left.
“Bless the River, flow well!”
Had I felt a corner? Was there a change in direction? I didn’t remember. All I remembered was the mantra, and the flow to the left.
“Bless the River, flow well!”
Eons might have passed. I was hungry. How long had we been down here?
I felt something new and stopped. What was it? It felt mechanical. My hand almost drifted over it before I moved my hand back to hold it. If I let go, I might forget where it was. I might even forget I had found it.
There was something in my hand, why was it there? Where had that come from?
What was going on?
Where was I?
Why was everything dark?
I had to get out of here, but I didn’t know how. I was holding onto somebody’s hand. Why was I doing that? The hand gripped mine tighter and I could feel fear. I held onto it.
There was something in my other hand. What was it? It felt mechanical. Why was it mechanical? It felt like I could move it. How was it supposed to be moved?
My head hurt. Waves of pressure pounded through my skull. Somebody gripped my other hand. Where did they come from? Who were they. They were afraid.
“Bless the River, flow well.”
The shout reverberated through the tunnel. I recognized the voices. Tian’ Xi, Yuri, and Dr. Ininsir.
What was that object in my other hand? It felt mechanical. Why was it mechanical? It felt like I could move it. How was it supposed to be moved?
A murky image formed in my mind. A glyph? What did it mean? Where had I seen it before?
Follow the path.
“What path?” I asked the voice in my head.
There was no answer. Instead, the image remained. That was so strange. It was the only thing I could remember. Why had I remembered it?
What was that object in my other hand? It felt mechanical. Why was it mechanical? It felt like I could move it. How was it supposed to be moved? Was it related to the image in my head?
I traced the pattern with the object.
Light.
I blinked. I was outside of a tunnel. I looked around, orange light suffused the air. We were in a small circular courtyard. The others sat around me, shivering in the open atmosphere, despite its warmth. I took a few steps forward before collapsing to the floor. I didn’t move. I was so hungry.
I laid there for what felt like hours before I pushed myself up from the ground. Everything hurt. My head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. I glanced behind me at the cavernous tunnel entrance and crawled away from it. I would not be going down there again.
Flickers of memories returned to me of what had happened down there. Bits and pieces of disorganized recollection, half-remembered and fearful images of various scenes. It felt in some respects like a dream I had, but it was all too vivid to be a dream. I had felt the pressure in my head. I had felt the wall appear to shift underneath my hand from one moment to the next. It wasn’t a dream. Here we were back in normality to prove that it wasn’t.
Tears flowed down my cheeks as I sat down. I stifled any outcries of misery that I had. I couldn’t be seen as weak. After a solid minute of laying there, I felt soft tremors from a pair of boots by my side.
“Haye?” It was Yuri’s voice.
I looked up at him wearily. He was shaking. He sat down next to me. The silence between us was broken by him first: “Thank you for keeping your head on down there.”
I would have responded in thanks, but it would have felt like I was taking responsibility for something I had nothing to do with. I shook my head. Yuri wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “We’ll both make it through this.”
I leaned into the embrace, staring at the floor.
“Where are we?” Tian’ Xi demanded hoarsely.
“Anyone’s guess.” Dr. Ininsir whispered.
“It doesn’t matter. We lost the trail. We don’t know where our supplies are.” I breathed out before I internally berated myself. What was I saying??
I stood up with difficulty, my frame wracked with hunger and thirst. “Is there any way out of here?”
Ininsir curled into herself.
Tian’ Xi shook her head. “It doesn’t look like.”
Around us, smooth slate gray walls reached upward at least twenty feet in a circular pattern. Unknown inscriptions lined the walls, their glyphs looking all the more menacing and unfriendly now that we were completely lost and destitute. We weren’t going back into the underground entrance. No matter what the alternative was.
I had to think of something, but I didn’t have the energy left to panic. I started walking around looking at the walls.
Tian’ Xi looked at me with hopelessness. “Can you read those?” She asked rhetorically.
“Start looking for an exit glyph” I ordered.
“I… What?” Her brow furrowed.
“An exit glyph.” I returned her gaze. “Start looking for one. There might be one somewhere on this wall.”
“What are you talking about?” She replied, confused.
“The entrance/exit glyph! The one you got us into the tunnel with.”
“Hang on now!” Her voice raised in ire. “I didn’t get us into that! You did! Don’t try and pin that on me!”
I growled. “Yes you did! You moved a handle in some sort of shape and the tunnel opened.”
“I never did that!”
“Well what happened then!?”
“I don’t know, one moment we were in the building with the tunnel entrances, and the next bit is a blur, and then we were here. I never moved a handle. Are you sure the thing in the tunnel isn’t messing with your mind?”
“I distinctly remember you opened the tunnel!” I shouted!
“Oh yeah!? Describe the glyph then if you remember it so well!” She screamed back.
I opened my mouth to retort, but then closed it. I couldn’t remember the shape of the glyph. Try as I might search my memory, I couldn’t even remember a single fragment of the glyph.
“Thought so!” She spat before leaning her trembling frame against the wall.
I pounded my fist on the wall. What had it looked like!? I had been able to clearly picture it in the tunnel, where we were forgetting everything! Why couldn’t I remember what it looked like now? What was it!?
I screamed at the sky.
***
Half an hour later, after leaning against the wall, trying desperately to find some sort of inspiration in the carvings, I sat down against it in defeat.
“We shouldn’t have gone down there.” Tian’ Xi took the moment to bitterly observe.
I didn’t answer her. The weeks of misfortune had taken their toll on her, and the cracks in her cheerful and helpful demeanor were starting to show.
Dr. Ininsir stood up with difficulty, and started to examine the glyphs. “There’s a strange thing about these glyphs. It’s as if there are many individual glyphs layered on top of each other. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I mustered up enough investment to care about the statement. “Does that mean you can translate it?”
“Unfortunately no.” Her voice turned resentful. “If I had access to one of Hennir’s dictionaries I could maybe suss out some meaning based on context, but my knowledge of Forbear glyphs is limited. Doubly so that our knowledge of Forbear is limited to begin with.”
“Great.” I sighed.
“Good to see we’re still screwed.” Tian’ Xi said with sarcasm dripping off her words.
I bristled. “Not helpful right now.”
“Oh so now you’re claiming I’m not helpful! This, after all the times we’ve heard you shit on everyone else around you? After all the times you’ve gotten us into trouble?”
I tried to breathe deeply. What would Nome do? Patience and understanding didn’t come though. “Watch your tongue.” I blurted out.
“No! I’ve had it!” she angrily cried. “The utter lack of self-awareness… The inability to even consider if an idea you’ve had is unwise… The disdain for other people...”
“This isn’t my fault.” I growled.
“Oh yeah!? Whose idea was it to follow this “figure” that you saw? Whose idea was it to go into a dark tunnel after him? Who tried to talk you out of it?” She hissed. “You never take responsibility for anything Haye Zintan! We should have never gone running after phantoms and you know it!”
“All right!” I bellowed. “So we should have just stayed there and slowly starved to death instead of following the faintest hope we had of getting out of this forsaken place!?”
“We didn’t see hope, you did!”
“Are you implying something!?”
“I’m implying your brain is addled, and you want to not be in a place where there’s not even the faintest hope of escaping! Ever! WE’RE STUCK HERE! GET IT!?”
“YOU THINK I HALLUCINATED YENSIR!? AFTER WHAT I SAW IN THE MOUNTAINS TURNED OUT TO BE RIGHT!?” Flecks of spit flew out from my mouth as I matched her volume.
“DARKWARD GUTTER SCUM!” Her hand raised in a rude gesture towards me.
I heard a menacing rumble behind me. “You watch what words you use, Beltlander.” Yuri snarled.
“Oh if it isn’t her friend, come to make excuses for the woman he’s in the hole for.”
“Yuri, stay out of this.” I warned.
He didn’t heed my warnings. A quick succession of bootsteps were all the warning I had before he had marched quickly over to Tian’ Xi, hunger notwithstanding, and squared up to her. “Say that again while looking in my face. I dare you.”
Tian’ Xi faced him down. “Everything I’ve said is true. She doesn’t care about the people around her, and she can’t take advice without overriding it. Don’t say I’m not wrong.”
“Haye has her character flaws, but if there’s any woman who’s stuck with me through thick and thin, it’s been her. Always. Don’t ever use that slur against her.” He stared into Tian’ Xi’s eyes. “Don’t ever call her darkward. In fact, don’t ever use that word again. I don’t like it.”
Tian’ Xi blinked and backed away as much as she could. “We shouldn’t have gone in the tunnel.”
Yuri shook his head. “Now we know to stay out of there. We had no way of knowing what would happen in there would happen. And Haye is right about this one: we can’t be so afraid of things going like they did in the tunnel as to never risk trying to follow the leads that we can. Now, Haye said she saw someone going this way. You saw the blood marks like I did. I believe her.”
We stood there, our camaraderie utterly wrecked. Yuri back away from Tian’ Xi. We all tried to breathe out some of the tension.
“If you would all kindly scream at each other a little more quietly!”
The three of us looked at Ininsir, bewildered by her sudden outburst. She stood at the other end of the enclosure, her palm tracing lines and certain glyph patterns in the wall.
She breathed in deeply, cleared her throat and stated simply, “I think I’ve found a way out of here.”
The World of Sunlock: Aulan
It is with great pride that I introduce my first constructed language for the world of Sunlock: Aulan. This is the language of the Aulan Empire, from which the doctors Hennir and Yensir hail. As of yet, it is in its early stage of development, but already has some solid grammar rules. Below is the original plus a translation of a poem written in Aulan.
Original Aulan:
Cu yennenem baudmene cangirnhet
Ef yennuri todiucha demirnhet
Netete gapinir derhet dapud
Mu Pitelegdenir Cinebaunnud.
Dam coftubentu if dam ummhedtu
En erivnem ummhedmene detgu.
Cu repfellnu vaulecan yanri se
Tupeitha se muyannu etage.
Tancinec yic dapnem ininmene
If muzumene Cinem cangirnde.
Mudenna er muncinanem zari.
Mudenna er cinanem mufbaudri.
Veza mudennanir er muretnu.
Su ef susuri bogdriyen yevu
Feva netu yatru si if daunu
Cavet netetu dergbuhar suytu
Mutrep netu evhat cabed ertyu
Tu pinul cayet cerz vanan funu.
Se netete dehet if cazuhet
Za netu netete bidrauceyet.
English translation:
It came to pass in years of auld,
That long since raised from the groundfold,
Dwelt them of ages lost to might:
The kindred folk of no birthright.
Houses strong and houses proudful
Filled with dance and conduct rightful.
Within a fruitful course of time
Rose up the pride of youthful prime.
The armies forth to conquests new
And strange lands passed, and those foes slew.
Death to enemies of the sun.
Death to the traitor, from him run.
Death to disunion: thrice cried they.
The one of ten mid the affray,
Their hair rent and suffused with gold,
Their prideful eyes lustfully bold,
Their arms ne’er the hilt to the fore,
Sent forth this saying through all war.
So they prospered and so flourished
Their twilight sun them full nourished.
The phonology of Aulan is more limited than in English. There are no “j” or “o” sounds for one. Modern Aulan is limited to four strict vowels: “a”, “ü”, “ee”, and “eh”, with the schwa sometimes pronounced when a speaker is speaking fast and loose. Diphthongs are present, and a key distinction between the Aulan version of high-class Received Pronunciation and proletarian speech is the emphasis given on correctly pronouncing diphthongs. Higher-class Aulans are trained to enunciate each vowel in a diphthong, ie in the name “Hadz Ievi Caudisir”, “Hah-dz Ee-EH-vee CAH-ü-d-ee-seer”. For lower class Aulans, this is often shortened to a schwa sound: “UH-vee CUH-dee-seer”.
There are three consonants in Aulan that are distinguished by length: m, n, and l. Any of these if sustained indicate a stress immediately before the double letter (ie “PÜLL-nir” or “Hey-ENN-ee-seer”). In the Aulan alphabet these letters, though related in shape, are considered separate graphemes.
Aulan has a basic three-tense system (Past, Present, and Future), three noun-cases (Nominative, Prepositional, and Genitive), three numbers (Singular, Paucal, and Plural), and three verbal aspects (Perfective, Habitual, and Continual). Somewhat confusingly, adverbs change form depending on the aspect of the verb. There are four Aulan verb conjugations, which tend to (though not always) indicate the type of subject an action has. Direct verbs indicate an action that has a definite direct object. Indirect verbs act as a kind of dative/ablative marker indicating that an object had something done to it indirectly (For example: “I provided help to him”, would be represented by one indirect verb). Reflexive verbs indicate that an action applies to the subject itself (“I provided help to myself” would take the reflexive form). Somewhat rarer is the Intransitive or Null conjugation, which indicates an action that normally would be considered a Direct action that lacks a subject (“She walked to town.” direct, versus null “She walked.”)
The World of Sunlock: Bezlanders
Yuri Aldarin is a member of a landless, nomadic ethno-linguistic group known as “Bezlanders”. The term, originating from the Bezlander word for “Without”, is an ironic play on words Bezlanders describe themselves by. “We are from the land of Bez!” they might say, knowing full well they are “Without” land.
Other peoples are less kind. The Aulan derogatory exonym for Bezlanders is indicative of this: “Mufacrud”, close in meaning to “treacherous darkwarder”.
Bezlanders have experienced a historic prejudice from almost every nation in which they have settled. Their refusal to lose their sense of identity to the culture around them, coupled with their slightly darkward complexion have led their surrounding communities to stigmatize them and blame them for all sorts of evils.
Bezlanders can be divided into three general ethnic sub-groups, which speak related, but not equivalent, dialects of the Bezlander language. Those most commonly found in Nordecker and Aula are termed “Temnynarod”, and are sometimes hard to distinguish from the local populace, especially since there have been multiple generations of inter-marriage. Darkward of Aula and Drei, found in multiple scattered communities, are the “Belynarod”, who take after their darkward ancestry much more strongly. Found in the Uridan isthmus, those Bezlanders who sought some protection from being close to the Basilica generated the “Krasnynarod”, so named because of the banner colors offered to them by the Uridan princes in times long past. They form the largest component of the Basilica’s ceremonial guards, which has earned them some repute in the neighboring Uridan city-states.
P.S.
So, this is the part where I apologize to myself for missing two deadlines while writing this chapter. In my defense, the past bit of time has been chaotic. I will try in the future to be more on time.
While this week’s offering from the book is indeed shorter than most of the chapters I’ve written, I think it will become bloated if I add more to it. It does exactly what I need it to in the 2.3K words I’ve written for it.
I’ve been thrilled to see the community of people invested in the world of Sunlock grow, to the point that we now have our very own Discord server! You can join the server and directly interact with other member of the community here: https://discord.gg/zhv6WE9F
We’d love it if you came and joined us! There are people creating fanart, helping to inspire backstory, and more to come in the future!