translated by catren mjuna—also known as catren hannly, her grey sander name stripped from her by purism, her mjuna ancestors, and the mysteries of her family’s past and place in the aether’s intentions—shortly after her sixteenth birthday.
— catren mjuna, age 16
this translation was stored within the de la rue archives following her eldest brother’s marriage to judith de la rue. shortly before catren moved to the northern reaches of baalphoria, it was removed from the archives at her request. it is unknown if the original translation still exists. this particular translation exists solely within olivier de la rue’s censor, pulled from his memory once his censor was installed.
— olivier de la rue, age 16
“note to self: look through the documents for more references to grey sander beliefs on what comes after death.” — catren mjuna, age 16
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while this one abhors what she and her remaining servant were forced to inflict upon her second servant, it is undeniable that our actions were an important factor in our ability to determine who was responsible for the deaths of this one’s first and second servant, and at this point in our investigation, we increasingly believed the many missing souls of the tidal cities were disappeared by the same party. it is only through this one’s second servant’s gallant sacrifice to our investigative science that more souls were not destroyed before we tracked our way to the first of the culprits.
perhaps it is best here to return to our investigation, but in a less clinical, horrific manner. as this one previously stated, the mutilations inflicted upon this one’s second servant were of the near exact sort expected of someone in the medical profession, especially one whom had training in the art of teaching their craft—for as those to whom this document finds itself may be aware, the ability to teach one’s craft often skews the way in which their work is done. it was not difficult from there to send one of this one’s lesser servants to seek counsel with our record keepers.
with the aetherstreams guiding their feet, this one’s lesser servant returned swift as the wind with information on the various citizens of the tidal cities who fit our idea of our perpetrator. a mere two days later, this one and her remaining servant were seeking out the first of the strange doctors this one’s servants had been so wary of during their first investigation into the disappearances. at the time, those two days passed with nary a blink of sleep between this one and her remaining servant, loath as either of us were to tempt fate and leave our lives at the hands of whatever evil had taken the lives of this one’s first and second servants. it was, therefore, perhaps normal that as we stepped into the first doctor’s clinic, both alive and whole—even if our hearts were but shattered at our feet—that we pressed thanks into the aether for allowing each of us to survive the ordeal, even at the cost of our sanity, in some regards.
it is unfortunate that in our thanks we lost our heads, our wariness slipping away as we confronted the teacher-doctor, a man who had no issue with expounding upon all he had done—or so we thought.
for hours, this one and her remaining servant listened to the man speak on the research he was conducting: an attempt to create soldiers who could be stopped by nothing but the most soul and body destroying of attacks. while this one was capable of burning both her first and second servants’ bodies back into the aether, this is by no means an easy feat—not at this time, although this one knows that her words may find their way to people in far off locations, where war and the monstrous abilities soldiers wield are as common as death itself, or other, far-off times, where who knows what innovations and calamities will have befallen our blessed world. this one assures those to whom this document finds itself: in this time and summer, and aether willing, hundreds more to pass, such abilities are nigh uncommon.
for what reason this teacher-doctor was seeking to create an all but unkillable being was something on which he refused to speak more than the standards babbled by so many professionals who push their craft to the brink. even as he muttered words of being interested in no more than what was and wasn’t possible, this one and her remaining servant were sure there was more. something in the gleam in his eyes, the twitch of his finger, the cock of his head—everything about this teacher-doctor screamed across the lines of the aether that he was neither lying nor sharing the whole of the truth with us.
yet, this one and her remaining servant could extract no more from him before his death.
this one cannot deny that the fault in the teacher-doctor’s death lies with her, for this one is more than knowledgeable about the ways in which the aether and our cores can be shifted and stirred in search of destruction and death. many turns of the moon later, the land on which the teacher-doctor sought his death by the turning of his core upon himself remained barren, the aether herself scarcely touching her tendrils into its cursed land. this one and her betters each assessed the damage, as did many of our most eminent. none shared hope that the land would be capable of supporting abilities or the aether’s benevolence for many summers.
this, of course, was before the disappearances began anew.
for nearly five turns of the moon, no s of more missing souls in the tidal cities reached our ears to the south. this one and her remaining servant returned to their homes, not yet ready to find more souls to join our ranks—and perhaps if this one had followed proper procedure this one’s remaining servant would still be amongst those who count this realm as their home. yet, this one made yet more mistakes in these few summers, and it was with her remaining servant alone—for we are all surely aware that the value of lesser servants lies elsewhere, outside of the investigations we make our lives by—that we returned to the tidal cities as more and more people disappeared.
it is suspected, from what scant information has been attained, that many a transient person and child vanished in those five turns of the moon. these people and children are neither loved nor hated by many of the more fortunate citizens of our great and prosperous land, but they are amongst our forgotten, and to vanish as someone who may vanish and return with each turn of the moon, each passing summer, is to hardly vanish at all. unless, in the coming turns of the moon and passing summers someone might stumble across the place in which the many disappeared were left to wither and die—and while this one would prefer not to fathom whether those disappeared were left dead or in the tortured, undead state that was inflicted upon each of her servants, it is an undeniable possibility that haunts this one’s every waking moment, each knock upon her door, each letter arriving upon her doorstep and desk leaving this one’s heart stuttering in fear of what she may next learn of the grand incident—this one doubts we shall ever determine which of all the missing souls were truly victims of the three evils, which were victims of some other nefarious plot—for we have found at least ten people to whom other fates befell, their killers making use of the grand incident’s chaos to exact their own evils—and which of the missing simply took the chaos of so many vanished souls to willingly disappear themselves to different, more prosperous lives.
it was not until the first of those powerful and influential people found their loved ones and acquaintances vanishing once more that this one and her remaining servant were sought out to return, our investigation rising from the ashes of the burned land where the teacher-doctor snuffed out their own life and scarred their mark upon the aether.
this one is ashamed to admit that it did not take long for our minds to immediately fall upon the second of the doctors of whom this one’s servants were so wary. they were someone harder to break than their teacher-doctor, and it was only after many days of monitoring their comings and goings, this one’s lesser servants working their ways through transient populations and monitoring them as best one could for any vanishings, for this one and her remaining servant to determine that the second of the doctors had likely halted their enacting of their teacher-doctor’s work, stopped by our scrutiny. yet, as we do not live under one of the terror governments of the far west, nor under the all-seeing eyes of our northern neighbours, there was little this one and her remaining servant could do.
under our most esteemed laws, nothing could yet touch the second of the doctors. all we could do was wait, tension rising into a ball of torment around this one and her remaining servant and lesser servants both, for each passing sunset brought the reality that we had each survived yet another night, but our torturous non-death might soon be upon us—or perhaps even worse, subsequent inquires into our non-dead bodies as those left would search for excruciating evidence within our near-dead bodies.
this one does not believe herself, nor her remaining servant and lesser servants, that any of us dared wish for something to change. it is not in the nature of we investigators to dare wish for more evidence, the way this one knows those who hail from other nations are wont to do at times. more bodies bring more evidence, and yet, to desire the death or non-death of anyone is a terrible thing regardless of anything, but when the aether herself may heed our words and bring upon us what we desire? how could one forgive themself for wishing for more bodies for no more reason than they grow weary of waiting around for our second doctor to make some move—either to prove their innocence or guilt.
no shame shall find this one as she admits that she too was quite bored with all that waiting around, each of our stomachs constantly turning as we fought to keep our nightmares of grotesque non-deaths as bay—this one would never dare wish for anything to alleviate her boredom from such mundane circumstances. yet, our boredom did soon come to an end—this one can only assume our second doctor succumbed to their own boredom after many turns of the moons in which their near every move was watched by the many eyes amongst our numbers.
there was a soul we saved, shifting through the aether to halt the second doctor’s cruel knife after so few cuts that while their victim still remains in care as their body heals, even a near summer passed, they survive. some little pain comes for them, at times. some many nightmares—both waking and sleeping—come for them, most circles of the sun. yes, this one still seeks this victim’s ear and time on occasion for our damage from the grand incident is different and yet impossibly similar.
this one is grateful herself and her remaining servant fell upon the second doctor before they could mutilate their victim to such an extent that snuffing out their life would be an impossible, inescapable option. this one extends her apologies that we could not retrieve more information from their tongue, before their jaw clamped down over it, blood spilling from their tongue where words and truth should have.
this one still remembers the walk back to our lodgings, covered in blood from the spray and spit of the second doctor’s mouth, our own jaws clenched and tongues rattling in our minds as this one and her remaining servant pressed upon our knowledge and instinct, pulled at the aether’s guidance and benevolence, seeking answers to the ever present question of why, for all that we had managed to remove from the second doctor’s mind before they snapped their life to a close was this:
“of course all this was not simply for the question of can we do it? of course we can do it—anything is possible for the right minds and souls. this has long been possible, but so few have been willing to reach out and grasp the opportunity for all the fear of consequences. great science can never be stopped by ethics or social ramifications, by threats of people such as yourself falling upon us. great science and innovation know no bounds, but if you think this simply a push against our artificial bounds, this student is ashamed to have been caught by ones such as yourselves.”
with that, our second student-doctor returned their soul to the aether. may they pass a thousand years of penance before the aether deems their tainted souls ready to return to this soil.
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Arc 9 | Chapter 348: the honourable hyren za curren is bored but still waits
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