Fannett TX, 6 miles SW of Beaumont. 2 months after the apocalypse.
The next morning we eat fried eggs and bowls of hot oatmeal with butter. It seems like a luxury. I can't remember the last time I ate a meal that didn't come from a can or wrapper. With breakfast complete, we head back to the rift.
After a couple more hours circling ever closer to the center, killing every alien creature we encounter, at last we can see the flat-black sphere in the center. Another lizard pushes its way out of it, but it doesn't seem to be actively defending the breach between worlds so much as having just wandered through into ours. We kill it easily then I push through the aperature into the other world, quickly followed by the others.
This hell is a swamp. There are irregular areas of deeper water and relatively dry land. The shallows are dominated by what look like cypress trees but seem to really be colonies of thick vines that twist together into a mutually-supporting trunk and wind together with nearby trees to create a network of hanging green growth. When we walk through the water, we have to be cautious for venomous eel-like creatures try to wrap around our legs and find purchase to latch their jaws onto our flesh.
While the mature vines are innocuous, we quickly learn to be careful of the younger and more supple growth. These are prehensile and appear to be carnivorous. In fact they seem to have a symbiotic relationship with the other life in this swamp, as it quickly becomes clear that the other animals are trying to drive us into clumps of grasping vines. We see the result all too often as naked humanoids are trapped in the vines, slowly being fed on by not only the vines but all manner of other creatures as well. Even the spongey amulatory plant things have grown over the worst-afflicted of the creatures, who somehow seem to be barred from actual death, despite how their flesh rots and is consumed.
Fortunately our armor mostly protects us from the creatures' jaws, but we swipe our spears at the water around us as we move through it to dissuade their attacks. However, when we are forced to fight in the water, things become dicey, as the eels clinging to our legs slow us down even if they can't effectively attack us. Meanwhile lizards leap from trees and overhanging branches, and stinging bats flap around us almost constantly.
As we move through the putrid swamp, we start to find ruins. There are half decayed walls and towers seemingly thrown up at random. In our shared griping about the horrid place, we feel like they are less some kind of actual fortification, and more of a twisted maze. More and more, this confirms our suspicion that we are in a hell, not an actual world with fortifications created for conventional defensive purposes. Eventually we come to a wider expanse of deeper water that we have no way to cross. We are discussing that in the future we should put inflatable boats in our packs, when suddenly some great tentacled thing lashes out at us from the depths, and we are forced to flee.
While we find no threats that can really defeat us, other than that tentacled thing, or the risk of being entrapped by vines, we also find no sign of any other nearby worlds. Still, fighting the things here is more challenging and a more concentrated source of essence than the zombies are, so we resolve to explore and fight until we have our fill for the day.
As we are nearly ready to turn back and fight our way to the exit, we come upon a strange, half-ruined tower. It is surrounded by walls that seem to pose more of a challenge than most we've encountered, and it seems like this might be the creation of an intelligent being, or at least a relic tinged by some sanity within the chaos of the rest of the swamp.
We fight our way inside, and find that the lizards here are less spry but are larger. We form our line of shields and advance, spears at the ready, while Stefan blasts away with his shotgun and Cas's bow twangs. When the creatures advance and lash out with claws and jaws we block and stab, quickly putting the creatures down thanks to the wounds that Stefan and Cas have inflicted.
An even larger lizard-like creature is guarding the interior of the tower, but with some kind of thing growing from the top of its head and shoulders, sprouting tentacles that try to grapple us and spear us with barbed stings at their tips. There is a round, red, gem-like eye, or eye-like gem in the middle of its forehead. The ceiling is half collapsed and we can see the gray sky above it, but the rubble creates piles of rubble on the floor we must fight over and around.
Anat's firey spear slashes at the tentacles, making short work of them, while Stefan and Cas soften up the body. Then we fall upon it in force, shields holding back the worst of its attacks and fending off its acid spit as we advance with our spears. We lay the creature low in a hail of stabbing blows. Anat pries the gem out of its forehead and it is a stone-like object of a pearlescent red color, with a faintly iridescent surface. We pass it around and even the least sensitive among us can easily feel that there's power in it, we just don't know how to use it.
We climb a spiral staircase and find the ruined upper floor is partly overgrown with moss and ferns. There is a chest to one side though. Cas fires an arrow into it, but nothing happens. We approach, with Ellie and Anat looking for any kind of magical traps, and Cas and Stefan looking for any sign of physical ones. We find nothing, so Cas picks the lock after a bit of effort.
Cas opens the chest and inside is what appears to be a mask-like object made of dully-gleaming golden metal that radiates faint but clearly noticeable magical power. There is a curved row of also-curved tines with somewhat sharp tips that appear to be designed to slide into the hair of the wearer to hold it in place.
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We hand the mask around so each of us gets a chance to examine it.
"I feel it gives the wearer the power to communicate with any intelligent creature," says Ellie, when it gets to her. She sounds awed. We all murmur our own surprise. It's a genuine magical item.
"There's more to it, but we'll need to learn about the item to unlock its other abilities," Anat says, holding the mask reverently. "It has to be bound to the soul of the one that will use it. I think it needs a small sacrifice of blood to accomplish this."
"Seems you are the logical choice," says Stefan.
"Yeah, she's the biggest talker of the bunch of us." Rodgers agrees. Everyone else chuckles. Even Anat giggles a bit, before passing it to me to examine.
I see rows of runes that look like some kind of cross between Atlantean and Edenic runes, and which I suspect was the basis for both. The runes are filled with a dull, silvery metallic substance that I've never seen or heard mentioned in sources on such runes found in our world. I wonder if the substance is less durable than the metal and was lost to time. The word "oricalcum" pops into my head. Interesting.
I examine it carefully, especially considering any connection it might have to the Atlantean artifacts I've studied, and through the lens of what I've learned about arms and armor while learning to do blacksmithing. I examine the runes until I feel certain I'll be able to recognize related Atlantean and Edenic runes. I'm particularly interested in the only group of runes on the inside, across the brow of the mask at the base of the tines.
The mask is designed to wrap three-quarters of the way around someone's head, leaving the top and back open, with the back spreading to the sides and curling down and forward to guard the back of the neck and head from any attack swung from the side, and then to guard the sides of the neck and ears. There's a large gap in front of the ears though, which is a vulnerability. But it will do little to impede hearing, which is also important in the real world. The front looks a bit like a corinthian helmet, but the face is more open, much like a Roman helm with the addition of a nasal, and with the cheek-guards being more angular and extending down below the chin. There is a short, finger-wide brim that extends around the front and part of the sides which will deflect blows sliding down the front of the mask away from the face, again following a theory much like a Roman helm. The front rises straight up to an angled surface that is reminiscent of the front of the Pope's miter, but with a more modest angle, the point in the front descending in a sloping line that angles around to the back. It is clearly intended to deflect blows swung at the top of the head from the front or sides, rather than stopping them like a proper helm.
Having completed my examination, I pass the helm back to Anat. Everyone else has had a chance to look at it. She takes the mask, then pulls out a knife from her belt. After thinking for a moment she grimaces and cuts a fingertip.
"Fuck that hurts!" she grunts between gritted teeth. Then she rubs the blood across the surface of the mask. A moment later the smeared blood has disappeared. She slides the mask into her hair with a bit of effort.
"Oh, neat!" she says, and the mask folds in on itself, becoming just a narrow band of runed golden metal around her forehead and the sides of her head. A moment later it unfolds again becoming the protective mask once more.
"Well, now that we've gotten me some treasure, let's fight our way out of here." Her words are teasing, but I note an edge of smugness to her words.
We return to the town for another night among other people. I prefer to find someplace quiet rather than join the party. More than anything, I want to compare my memory of the runes on that mask to the book on runes and my notes that I keep in my backpack.
Most of the glyphs are in two lines of formations that trace the perimeter of the helm. Both those lines contain the runes for gathering and stealing. One line contains the runes for magic, food, and flow, while the construction of the formation suggests the other runes are logically linked to the runes for maker. The other line contains runes for magic, will, and power, and appears to be linked to an owner. There is another glyph along the underside of the brim that contains glyphs for information, understanding, perception, and learning, which is tied to the runes for name. The runes on the inside seem different. There isn't any real meaning, and I suspect that the runes represent a phonetic pronunciation.
I remember what Anat said about needing information about the mask to unlock more of its power. And the formation of one of the glyphs suggested a linkage to a name. Another was linked to the identity of the maker, and to the mask's owner, presumably its original owner. Could the runes on the inside be one of those names?
Phonetic translations of the alphabet of a dead language are chancy at best. Especially such an ancient language as the Atlantean and Edenic languages. However, a line of research suggests that the Edenic language influenced the Proto-Indo-European language, with some going so far as to claim that the Proto-Indo-European tongue was the language of Edenic refugees forced out of their flooded homelands. As such, there are some strong theories as to what Edenic words actually sounded like. If the Edenic tongue was in turn, influenced by whoever created this mask, we might have a chance. It seems like a long-shot but we have to try.
I spend most of the night madly researching. My the time my watch shift is complete, I'm pretty sure I've worked out a range of pronunciations. Something like how a person who is unfamiliar with a particular language's romanization scheme might attempt to stumble through the pronounciation of word from language that doesn't use Latin characters.
I sleep a bit and then wake up, eager to share what I've figured out with Anat. I explain whe runes and how they might be pronounced. She gives it a go, working the unfamiliar patterns of sounds around in her mouth as she says them. I know her well enough to sense when her intuition finds a hook in one syllable or another, gaining greater confidence when she feels like she's gotten part of it. At last, she announces with pride "Arzarath Harrak! Your power is now mine!" Moments later she whispers. "By the gods, I can see. I can see… so much. I can analyze!"