Reprieve
A Few Housekeeping Notes:
Once again, I would strongly encourage everyone to join the official Sunward Fans Discord server. If you don’t have Discord, or don’t know how to join up, just message me and I’ll be more than happy to help.
The rate of output on this newsletter is likely going to decrease again, since I will be starting a new job on the 16th of February! While this is good personal news, it does mean that it may take a few more weeks between each newsletter, unless I start going for more paired down releases. I might try to experiment with that.
Have a good day, and be excellent to each other!
Chapter 4:
Dr. Ininsir stared at the glyph intensely, cocking her head from one side to the other. It seemed uneven, like parts of its interior weren’t aligned with the other parts. Jagged lines and spirals careened off into other symbols on the wall. Now that I looked at it twice, the entire set of symbols on the wall felt just as disorganized. Some symbols were larger than the others, and were carved with far less care than the others.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“I think I can read this.” She stated plainly.
“What does it say?”
“It looks like a personal name, but there’s also a glyph underneath it that looks like it’s associated with the Forebear word describing inward and outward movement.”
“Why are they on top of each other?”
“Unknown. Based on what I can remember of Forebear animate classifiers, I think there’s a good many personal names listed here, along with honorifics that indicate some sort of social standing. Those are the glyphs underneath the more recent ones.” She gestured at the wall.
Tian’ Xi asked, “So how does this translate into a way out of here?”
“The Forebears didn’t use directional modifiers in an inscription unless there was some sort of functional reason for it. That means it has to be nearby.” She began pressing on the glyphs immediately surrounding the one she’d indicated earlier.
“Why are there so many names here?” Yuri asked.
“Based on what I can see about the honorifics listed, I think it might be a war memorial. The glyphs on top don’t really make se...”
Realization dawned on her face.
“Doctor?” I queried.
“It’s…” She sighed. “It’s graffiti.”
“Graffiti?” I inquired, bemused.
“Yes. We’ve seen very few instances of graffiti darkward. I never imagined it would be here, in the height of their civilization. Especially on a war monument of all things.”
Something slid under her hand. I looked at the glyph. It was familiar somehow, though I couldn’t put my finger on where I’d seen it before.
The glyph had slid in about a centimeter into the wall. Dr. Ininsir pushed harder on it, and it slid in further and clicked.
With a grinding start, sections of the wall began to fold away from each other as the doctor jumped back with a start. An oval section of the wall opened up before our eyes in a series of movements that felt mathematically coordinated. The geometric subsections of the wall twisted and turned in an excessive artistic show of craftsmanship.
I stepped through the opening, peeking left and right.
A massive pile of rubble sat to my right, up against the building that abutted our enclosing courtyard. I saw a hole that had been blasted into its side, and recognized the shell-burst pattern. The avenue in front of me was unremarkable otherwise. The good news was that none of the tentacled beasts were nearby. On the other hand, I still had no idea where in the city we were.
As I stumbled to the right side to let the others through, something caught my eye. Through the hole that had been blasted inside, it looked like a backpack deep inside the building. Other shapes emerged as my eyes adjusted to the dark: a rifle, cans of food, some ragged fabric, a canteen. The room was small, unadorned with anything of note, with few windows facing outward. A few entrances led to other parts of the building.
I didn’t wait for the others. I lurched into the building and towards the future source of my nourishment.
I was in luck. The cans weren’t opened. There had to be at least six of them, containing meat pate and canned vegetables. My fingernails scratched at a can’s surface.
“Let me help.” I heard Tian’ Xi’s voice.
I looked up at her. She held a small can-opener, barely a few centimeters long.
I sighed and passed the can up to her.
While she opened the cans, I scanned the supply cache we’d stumbled on. There was nothing to indicate who might have set it up. I wanted to believe that it was Yensir’s supplies that he had left here, but there was no way of knowing. We’d lost our rifles in the tunnel, so it was good to have at least one replacement. There was a bedroll… an improvised shiv… my eyes drifted up to the wall.
I could see faint tally-marks in the wall, clearly Aulan. They had to be tracking the rhythms spent awake. The maker of the marks hadn’t been as dedicated to keeping to the standard schedule as we had. Dr. Ininsir had even set her watch diligently every time we’d woken up. This person… their tally-marks grew more and more sloppy as time passed. They had risen about two-thirds of the time that we had. Either that or they had left this area about a ten-rhythm ago.
“Who have we found?” Yuri asked from the entrance I’d come in.
“With luck, nobody.” I slumped against the wall.
“Beans or meat first?” Tian’ Xi asked.
“Meat.” I answered.
“The others have been sticking largely to themselves, apart from organized scouting parties.” Dr. Ininsir observed as she entered, taking off her jacket. “I find it highly unlikely these supplies belong to any of them.”
“Do you think we’ve found stuff that belongs to him?” Tian’ Xi asked quietly.
“Maybe.” The doctor observed.
The others pulled close as Tian’ Xi finished opening the cans, and passed them out to everyone. I felt my stomach gurgle.
We ate and drank in silence. I still felt unfilled afterwards. We sat there, looking at each other, trying to process the past few hours.
Eventually, I stood up shakily. I was going to look around. Yensir might still be in the vicinity, if indeed he had ever been here at all.
The nearest exit led to a promethean hall that traveled the width of the building. An identical row of doors lined both sides, reminding me of some sort of office building. I was at one end. What intrigued me was a staircase at the other end. If I could get to a higher vantage point, I might have some idea of where we were. I reasoned that should be my first priority.
The climb was slow, as usual. My stomach had ceased some of its growling, but I still felt a little weak from hunger. I made sure to climb up at least ten stories before I exited the staircase and peered through a nearby window out onto the city.
I was high up enough that I could see into some of the gaps between the buildings around us. We had traveled far from our original position. My best estimate, after triangulating from some recognizable landmarks I’d memorized, led me to believe we had gone about a couple of kilometers as far as the snull flew.
My gaze drifted over to another gap, and I realized I had a perfect view of…
Zealot’s encampment.
The hexagonal base of the squat building he and his followers had taken up in was visible through a gap in the building. It was located about a kilometer away. Enough distance that a patrol from there would not likely detect our location, but close enough that whomever had stashed the supplies below was within striking distance.
When the chaplain, or rather Zealot, had first left, I’d tracked him and his followers to this building. It was a strange choice of location, but then again I didn’t expect much logical decision-making from him anyhow. It was one of the lowest buildings in the city, standing at a “mere” three stories tall. It’s roof was defined by strange hyperbolic curves that melted into each other, supported by architectural principles that were unclear to me. A plethora of intricately patterned and colored windows decorated the exterior walls, each one hooded, reminding me of nothing so much as a traveler’s face obscured with a cloak.
The approach to the building had been cleared for about twenty meters, and was raised up in a plateau. At six locations, there had been great stairs set into the plateau, which provided the only unobstructed way onto the raised space. I saw tiny figures guarding each approach.
I had thought that, whatever the building’s shortcomings as a defensible spot, Zealot had shown some intelligence in what defensive preparations he had made. Scraps of metal, presumably from the wreck of the Destiny, had been used to barricade the staircases. His party had been able to scavenge a serviceable amount of firearms from the crash site, and there weren’t good points of cover for an attacking enemy to take advantage of as they charged up the approaches. I had only gotten as far as the bottom two steps with my hands raised before the guards had fired a warning shot above my head. I had judged the encampment as impregnable with the resources we had at hand.
So it was much to my surprise when I caught sight of a lithe form, barely discernible against the side of one of the buildings. It was high up enough, at least twenty stories, that the guards on the ground would have had no idea it was there. As I watched, the form jumped off the side of the building and… floated… across the vast space towards the roof of the building. I blinked to make sure it wasn’t one of the beasts. It wasn’t. It was human.
My jaw fell open as the figure settled in the crack between two curves in the roof. The guards didn’t appear to have been alerted.
I saw something glint in the orange light of the sun. I could barely discern that the figure had something metal in their hand before it disappeared behind a bend in the roof and did not reappear.
I stood there dumbstruck, before a terrible resolve started to fill me. That had to have been Yensir. There was no other reasonable explanation for the supply cache down below other than that he had left it, and had been monitoring Zealot’s encampment with the intent to infiltrate it, as I had just seen.
I couldn’t explain his seemingly supernatural abilities, but it felt right at home here, in this supernatural city. Clearly he had access to some… magic? Technology? Something that the Forebears must have made.
We had to find him, to figure out what he was up to. My intuition screamed at me that we would never figure out anything about this city, our situation, or how to escape from it, if we didn’t find him soon.
***
“Wasn’t he injured when you last saw him?” Tian’ Xi’s voice was incredulous.
I poked at an empty can, lost in thought. I had already moved on in my mind from what we needed to do, to how we could possibly achieve it. Something lay inside Zealot’s encampment that Yensir was interested in. We didn’t have access to whatever had enabled Yensir to effortlessly glide over the guards’ heads. I would have to think of a different method of gaining entry.
“I asked you a question.”
“I know.” I responded, distracted. “And the answer is yes.”
“So… how did he just magically heal his leg?”
“Maybe he did heal magically.” I mused.
“What does this mean we should do?” Yuri asked.
“We have to go after him.” I said with finality. “We have to somehow get inside that building and extract some answers from him.”
Nobody immediately answered my statement, but I could sense discontent from the others.
“I don’t agree.” Tian’ Xi finally spoke.
I closed my eyes. After what had happened in the tunnel, I sensed that this was coming. “We don’t have another option. I know you blame me for what happened down there, but that doesn’t change what we can do.”
“By itself, yes.” She folded her arms and huddled further into her field jacket. “I’m sorry I blew up at you back there. You weren’t wrong in trying to follow him into the tunnel.”
“There’s a “but” coming.” I said with my eyes still closed.
The silence of the city filled the air between us for a while before she finally offered something. “I don’t know how to explain this. It’s going to sound insane.”
I opened my eyes. “Tian’ Xi?”
She looked as if she wanted to say something, but closed her mouth after letting out a breath.
I searched her expression. None of what she was saying was making any sense to me. “You can say what you need to say. If you’ve got a different idea of where we need to head, just say it.” I coaxed.
She sighed. “I don’t know. I just…”
“Go on?”
She sat up straight, breathed in, and finally told me what was on her mind.
“So, I want to first say that there’s got to be something that keeps trying to communicate to us. I mean all of us; the entire crew. Do you remember Hapsman? When the Destiny was traveling sunward of the Great Range? The Archivist somehow communicated to him in his dreams.”
I nodded.
“Something’s… alive in this city.” she said with hesitation. “Both Zealot and Dr. Hennir touched it somehow when they were hit by lightning. It tried to show them the Ultimate Truth. Those creatures… they tried to communicate something to us when we first arrived.”
“What’s your point?” I asked.
“First of all, do you agree with this observation first?” She looked at me intently. “It seems to me like there’s some sort of intelligence behind the events that brought us here. Some sort of superhuman alien-ness that’s trying to direct us to something, or some goal.”
“That may be. Continue.”
“I… think I saw it.” She stuttered out.
A tense silence fell across the group. Yuri’s eyes darted back and forth between us. Dr. Ininsir sat up straight, with wide eyes. “What?” She whispered.
“I think it tried to communicate with me.” Tian’ Xi said with less reluctance.
“When did this happen?” I demanded.
“When we were in the tunnel. I saw flashes of something. It didn’t make much sense at the time, but I’m starting to piece together some of my memories. There was a face, out of the darkness, and something else… it was like a person…”
Dr. Ininsir shifted uneasily. “What do you mean?”
“It’s vague. It tried to say something to me, but I only heard whispers. I couldn’t understand them. I think it may have tried to contact us and communicate in a way that was more understandable.”
“That might explain the mental effects that were in the tunnels.” Dr. Ininsir noted.
“This is all a bit of a logical jump…” I started, but then paused.
Tian’ Xi wasn’t wrong with her premises. When we had spent time at Dostwickr Basin with the Archivist, the beings that had been there mentioned something about a mysterious being or group of beings that lived at the sunward pole. I almost took it as a given that this place was special, that something big lived here. Something very far beyond our comprehension.
A more unsettling thought occurred to me as the hairs on my back started to rise. What if we had encountered something, or someone, in that underground space, and had no memory of it?
I started to feel a sense of dread creeping in at the back of my mind. There was no guarantee that whatever we had discovered in the tunnels, if it was a sentient being, would be benevolent. In fact, given that our hypothetical encounter would have wiped our memories, the reverse was more likely.
“What do you remember, in detail.” I asked.
My fear must have leaked into my voice, as the others’ expressions grew more uncomfortable.
“I’ve told you as much as I can remember. It was very dark; I only saw a white outline. It wasn’t well-defined. It was kind of grainy too, like a bowl of grains.”
“Was this a vision or was it a real thing?” The urgency grew in my voice.
“How could I know? I just figured it was important. I remember… like it was motioning us somewhere?” She held her head in her hands, as if trying to wring the memories out. “That’s what gets me. It might be trying to lead us somewhere important.”
“Or it might be trying to lead us somewhere it can dismember and consume us quietly.” I countered.
“If it had wanted to kill us, don’t you think it might have done so when it had us right there, instead of letting us go?” Tian’ Xi rejoined.
Yuri probed, “You think we should follow it?”
“Maybe. It’s one option. It certainly seems more doable than trying to break into Zealot’s encampment.”
“I… With all due respect, we almost died down there. We can’t go back…” My voice raised in disbelief at what I was hearing.
Tian’ Xi shrugged. “We don’t have to do it immediately. I was just putting it out there. I needed to tell you about it.”
Yuri broke in, “Maybe if this… thing tries to contact us at a later time, we might put some more weight on trying to follow it. But the whole memory thing… I’m leaning against trying to follow it. The whole thing smells bad. Dark space, memory loss, strange figures… Ehhhhhh” He shuddered.
“There is another option.” Dr. Ininsir quietly opined.
I prompted. “And that would be…”
“Dr. Hennir has fewer people in her group. She’s more easily approached. Granted, we’ll have to track her down from wherever she’s disappeared to, but she has to have books that would help us begin to translate the inscriptions around the city. Maybe we could find something, anything that would help us get out of here. Or perhaps just survive.”
“You mean like that graffiti you translated?”
“There’s no need to snark at me like that.” She angrily sniffed.
My teeth clenched.
My pride got the best of me in that moment. Why couldn’t they just listen to me? These ideas were all distractions, and going down into the tunnel after we’d barely gotten out of there alive? That had to be the height of lunacy.
“No. We have to keep following Yensir.”
“You don’t even know if that was him.” Dr. Ininsir bitterly noted. “And even if it was him, do you think we could pull off anything like what you saw? We’d have to fight out way in.”
“Seems like we need a cost/benefit analysis.” I growled. “Option one: go back into the tunnel, lose our memory in search of some phantom. Die. I won’t even grace the suggestion with the possibility of finding something at the other end. Whatever it is down there, I’m going to presume is hostile. The creatures in the city definitely were before something, we still don’t know what, happened.”
I continued. “Option two: go after Dr. Hennir’s notes. Same potential cost as penetrating Zealot’s encampment, except we get a bunch of books that you may not even know how to use. We may not even find anything significant to translate in this city. There definitely weren’t any inscriptions by the Ultimate Truth, so I don’t think we have any points of interest we can revisit.”
“Now consider:” I slapped the edge of my right hand into the palm of my other. “We are on the trail of somebody who clearly knows what’s up in the city. Somebody who was the reason we’re here to begin with. Somebody who can leap between buildings, probably because he’s gotten hold of something from the Forebears. In short, an easy source of information. Why in the world would we choose either of your “leads” over going after Yensir?”
Silence fell across the group. I could tell my frustration had caused some tension, so I back-tracked.
“I’m not saying we can’t look for Dr. Hennir’s books after we’ve had a chance at capturing Yensir. But you have to trust me on this. This is the best path forward.”
I looked each one in the eye, seeing a variety of emotions.
Tian’ Xi was clearly angry at the way I had shot down her suggestion, but there was also recognition in her face that there were problems with the idea. She was grudgingly assenting.
Dr. Ininsir was more hopeful and open to continuing on our original course. Something lay underneath her interested expression though. It was successfully hidden from me.
Yuri… he was close to defeat. The poor man had been stretched thin from our time in the city, literally. He’d lost a few pounds and had to tighten his belt a notch. Nonetheless, I saw a look of support from him.
“Palms out.” I ordered, putting my own palm out in front of me.
A succession of slaps met my upturned palm, with the last to come from Tian’ Xi.
“It’s settled then. We’ve got to get inside that building somehow.”
“How are you planning to bypass the perimeter guards?” Tian’ Xi asked flatly.
“I’m working on that.” I stood up and walked back towards the hallway that led to the stairs. “We need to get a good look around the encampment first.”
The World of Sunlock:
After quite some time spent trying to work out the intricacies of Fontforge, I have finally created the Aulan alphabet, a brief chart of which is contained down below, along with a transcription of The Child of Twilight. Anybody who cares to write in Aulan can find the ttf file on the Sunward Fans discord server!
Long consonants are distinguished by a tail that trails off from their upper right corner. Although it is difficult for an English reader to spot from a distance, Aulan readers would have no such trouble, especially since many of them rely on context rather than the glyph to figure out spelling/pronunciation of a word with long consonants.
Also of note, the Aulan alphabet usually relies on unvoiced consonants followed by a special “voiced” mark to identify voiced consonants, which is one reason the alphabet stands at a mere twenty-one glyphs. Two of these glyphs (namely “old zh” and “old kh”) aren’t often used with modern Aulan words, and their presence can be used to identify words that have deep roots in the old Midtel. Their pronunciation in Modern Aulan also differs from the old Midtel, as Aulan has lost the “kh” and “zh” sounds, they are now usually pronounced as “h” and “z”.
P.S.
It is insanely fun to build out the world of Sunlock, and I feel like I’ll be doing it for many years to come, regardless of the ups and downs of life. That being said, I’ll repeat what I said in the introduction: There is a good chance that I may be unable to keep up a biweekly issue of Five Percent Josh. I will remain active to the best of my ability on the Sunward Fans discord server, where you can download the .ttf of Modern Aulan in case you want to try working in it yourself.
I wish you all a pleasant week, and my sincerest thanks for sticking with me this far. Let’s keep building Sunlock together!