Disclaimer: The following document fragment is presented from an in-character perspective, it should not be taken as the truth of the setting.
Context: There are many things to be found out there in the Cosmos. Some of those things don’t pose a direct threat to humanity, but they pose a threat to those too curious to keep away. This excerpt presents one such example, presented through the words of one of the mages who discovered it.
An excerpt from the writing of Alexandre Boivin, expedition leader:
We are unsure what it is that we have found. We are not convinced we should pursue this knowledge. But, ultimately, we can relay our experiences to you. We can tell you what we have seen in that world. And you may decide on your own.
It could be just another barren world — a place of howling winds and eternal storms raging overhead. The dim light of a sun never seen shined through the grey clouds, yet it felt like most of the illumination came from the flashes of purple arcing between the clouds. They fooled the mind, suggesting shapes hidden in the sky. Or, perhaps, knowing now what we have discovered, there was indeed something there. Immense and unimaginable.
This place was to be nothing more than a stop upon a grander journey. Yet when we received reports of this world displaying anomalous properties, we felt compelled to investigate. And when we gazed off into the distance, where the row of statues stood, we could see the horizon dissolve into the sky, as if the curve of the Earth itself was pulled up to the rolling storm.
The statues were our first hint at some alien interference with the strange properties of this world. Without them, it could be nothing more than a natural spatial anomaly. But the way they stood on the horizon as if guardians to some boundary drew us in. They were nominally human; we could recognise they had four limbs. But unfortunately, we could not see the hands and feet from where we initially spotted the idols, and we never approached them close enough to investigate further. They sat, gaunt and long-limbed, upon the grey soil, their arms wrapped around their knees. But the most striking feature was the head, or lack thereof, as instead, they all possessed a sprouting bloom of tendrils that would fall in arcs to the ground around them, disappearing among the rubble littering their perches.
It was an eerie sight. And our inability to estimate the idols’ size only added to the sinking feeling we all shared, looking into that desolate, distorted horizon. We tried, of course, we tried old-fashioned triangulation and the most modern and precise lasers we could have delivered to our location. Only to have all measurements return radically conflicting data and place the statues’ size anywhere between three-hundred meters to multiple kilometres tall.
So we embarked towards them by vehicle. But we could not reach them; we couldn’t approach the idols. As we drove closer, their placement would rearrange. They were not moving; it was, instead, the space between us that stretched and twisted, pushing the states into two rows that flanked our approach. And we decided to drive further ahead, not correcting for the altering position of our initial targets, knowing well that the very topology of space-time we were entering could entrap us for eternity.
It was a decision we all made together unanimously, in Sophia’s name.
And so, eventually, the statues were no longer at our sides but behind us, yet we still saw them from the same direction as when we started our approach. But before us, the horizon stretched even further into the sky, though we could see the golden rays of sunlight piercing the clouds in the distance. The clouds never ceased to thunder and flash with violent discharges of lightning. We could now see the purple tongues of plasma lick swarms of stones and boulders that hung suspended low in the air as if we looked at fragments of hyper-dimensional dross. No, I am convinced that is precisely what we’ve seen.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, we emerged to a place where we could more clearly see the source of the golden light, only to realise this was no sun shining down from within the eye of the storm.
What we have seen was the edge of that world, looking out into an abyss of grey haze. It warped and curved upwards, though, yet at the same time, the ground here was perfectly levelled. Behind us, the statues encircled this place, and there, above and at the same time before us, hung a flower — an immense flower of a soft, golden hue, immaculate in its filigree fractal detail. It would shift with even the slightest motion of your head, a neck turn, a step taken in any direction. It did not move, though, nor did it truly change. Instead, from any point upon that edge overlooking the void it occupied, you could gaze upon a different three-dimensional projection of the sum totality of its existence. I am unsure how many dimensions it could possibly span. I am uncertain if I could enumerate them, no matter how much I tried. Seeing it was so mesmerising that I could not trust my senses or memory of what I had seen.
Yet, gazing upon it, I felt something else. Something that even now, as I write these words in the comfort of Earth’s embrace, makes my hair stand on end. Something that, at the time, I could not name: an all-encompassing stillness and serenity of my mind. Only later did I discover the name of this feeling. Ataraxia.
I am unsure if I can ever return to that place. I am sure that I do not want to do so. I fear that were I to look upon it again, the human part of my mind would stay there, eternally transfixed upon the gentle splendour of that incomprehensible blossom.
Esoteric Musings... 