Ahead of the Storm - Day 28
Sasserine, Four Months Ago
THE JOURNAL OF LARISSA VANDERBOREN
The Ecology of the Isle of Dread
Physiology of the Greenvise
19th of Goodmonth, 578 CY
Today I came upon a clearing where is seemed a herd of dinosaurs (or Thunder Lizards, as the Olman natives call them) had recently stampeded. The footprints were massive and the devastation to the area immense - likely caused by a herd of diplodocuses or other large herbivores. There were no signs of an attacker's footprints, leading me to believe that the panic's source had come from the sky.
As I was studying the ruined landscape, I discovered a large plant, a greenvise once nearly 15 feet tall, fatally trampled into the ground. Its still huge, flytraplike mouths twiched violently - seemingly hungry even in death - and spasms ran down the length of its main stalk, causing the plant's tendrils to flutter and make a sound like someone shaking a tree.
About halfway down the stalk that served as the greenvise's throat, a pulsing bulge appeared to be the source of the plant's post-death contractions. Whatever was inside the carnivorous weed was still alive, struggling to escape. When I sliced open the stalk to try to free whatever was trapped within, I encountered some resistance - the greenvise's thick stem proving tougher to carve than a ripe melon. Viscous froth spewed from the incision, and oozed its way to the ground, reminding me of the saliva of a fleshy creature - except that this reeked of sap.
Lining the inside of the stalk ran rows of dense thorns protruding down toward the plant's gut, arrayed in such a fashion as to prevent captured prey from escaping back up to the maw. I could see a sizable frog peering up at me through the thorns, desperately trying to push past the barbs to reach the opening I had created. I spoke to it in an attempt to calm it, but the traumatized thing was fully intent on escape. The frog must have kicked one of the rooty organs that once guided the greenvise's locomotion, for one of the plant's tendrils convulsed, knocking me off my feet and pinning me to the ground.
Struggling to free myself, I heard the flap of powerful wings and stilled myself at the sight of a pair of wyverns scouring the carnage. These creatures were likely the culprits behind the stampede, returning to pick over the devastation. Instinctively, I shifted myself into a small snake and slowly slithered away from the remains of the man-eating bush, seeking a hiding place where I could wait for the predators to depart. Behind me, I heard the lesser dragons tearing into the greenvise, not discriminating between frog and plant. At least the poor creature did not suffer long.
Aranea Habitat
15th of Harvester, 578 CY
I cannot put to words the sense of grief and guilt that consumes me. By now, Hatoi is surely dead, a victim of an unspeakable fate I unwittingly had a hand in weaving. If only I had heeded his warnings, he would still be here with me as I write this. For the thousandth time I ask why I ignored him, foolishly venturing into a darkened hollow in the eastern jungle where I noticed even the thunder lizards feared to tread. There, my curiosity cost me and my friend dearly.
As we entered the vale, made eternally dark by the dense jungle canopy, I immediately felt something was watching us. At first, I shrugged it off as nerves, but it became increasingly difficult to keep Hatoi calm. When he suddenly stopped and started hissing, staring intently into the darkness, I halted in deference to his keener senses. It was then that I became aware that we had been walking beneath a floating mass of spider webs strung through the trees above. Disgusting corpse husks dangled from the rope-thick strands like macabre Midwinter ornaments. Yet, even more terrifyingly, something had purposefully positioned the carcasses, forming rotting shelters as sickening as they were crude.
All of the hairs on my body stood on end when I caught a glimpse of movement. Praying for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, I could barely see them: giant, horrifying spiders slowly decending from their webs, seemingly hovering in mid-air and gesturing with their front appendages - disgustingly elongated arms with multi-knuckled hands. Although I had never seen one, I took these creatures for aranea - rare and rumored spiderlike beings storied to carry ill-mannered children off to their evil forest kingdom.
I didn't have the opportunity to look closer or attempt to speak to the creatures as the surrounding jungle suddenly came alive with indistinct, sinister shadows and the sounds of slinking things. Despite the activity, I could sense nothing other than Hatoi, the spider things, and myself. Even now, I don't know if something was actually there, or if those images and noises were mere figments meant to drive us to some deadlier trap.
Regardless, and overwhelming need to flee consumed me, and I prayed to Ehlonna to steel my nerve. I don't know what came over poor Hatoi, though, because he bolted, heading deeper into the hollow as if charging one of the spiders, a terrified by determined look on his face. I can't help but wonder if he was trying to defend me. I had scarcely a moment to call out before I saw his peril, each bound into the undergrowth covering him more and more in thick strands of webbing, ghostly ropes slipping around him like wet nooses. The sounds of him calling out to me as he was hefted into the silken nightmare above still ring in my ears, and through my own screams I thought I heard a chittering arachnid laughter that will ever torture my nightmares.
Conclusion
1st of Sunsebb, 578 CY
Some time has passed since I left Farshore and - in light of the recent tragedy - this is likely to be my last entry. When we return to Sasserine, I shall deposit the bulk of this work into the family vault for safekeeping until such a time that I can organize my notes and publish a full dissertation of the island's ecosystem. Whatever final form my observations take, though, I plan to dedicate the work to those souls who lost their lives in that unforgiving land. I hope their sacrifices might serve as a warning of the savage nature and primal ferocity that epitomizes the aptly named Isle of Dread.
THE END
Larissa shuddered, recalling the fear that had spawned that final paragraph - that fear that hung with her still on dark nights, recalling some of the greater horrors and tragedies she had witnessed on the Isle of Dread. Fifteen years ago that had been, and she had returned since, furthering her studies and learning even more about the Isle - though never pressing her luck beyond the warnings of the Olman clans, to never approach the island's central mesa, where long ago dwelled the city of Thanaclan, before the great disaster smote it down, leaving only few survivors and putting a curse upon the island that remains to this day.
At times, Larissa wondered if she was making the right decision in passing on the Blue Nixie to Lavinia and Anzak - wondering if they would be fortunate enough to survive the Isle, much as she had. Perhaps she was tempting fate by offering her own daughter to the Isle, that place of chaos and fear that had failed (despite many attempts) to claim her own life. Verik certainly thought it a dangerous idea, though in the end he had been convinced.
I can only pray to Ehlonna and Fharlangn that the day will never come when I regret this decision. After the loss of Hatoi, the fear of a similar fate is hard to shake off...
THE JOURNAL OF LARISSA VANDERBOREN
The Ecology of the Isle of Dread
Physiology of the Greenvise
19th of Goodmonth, 578 CY
Today I came upon a clearing where is seemed a herd of dinosaurs (or Thunder Lizards, as the Olman natives call them) had recently stampeded. The footprints were massive and the devastation to the area immense - likely caused by a herd of diplodocuses or other large herbivores. There were no signs of an attacker's footprints, leading me to believe that the panic's source had come from the sky.
As I was studying the ruined landscape, I discovered a large plant, a greenvise once nearly 15 feet tall, fatally trampled into the ground. Its still huge, flytraplike mouths twiched violently - seemingly hungry even in death - and spasms ran down the length of its main stalk, causing the plant's tendrils to flutter and make a sound like someone shaking a tree.
About halfway down the stalk that served as the greenvise's throat, a pulsing bulge appeared to be the source of the plant's post-death contractions. Whatever was inside the carnivorous weed was still alive, struggling to escape. When I sliced open the stalk to try to free whatever was trapped within, I encountered some resistance - the greenvise's thick stem proving tougher to carve than a ripe melon. Viscous froth spewed from the incision, and oozed its way to the ground, reminding me of the saliva of a fleshy creature - except that this reeked of sap.
Lining the inside of the stalk ran rows of dense thorns protruding down toward the plant's gut, arrayed in such a fashion as to prevent captured prey from escaping back up to the maw. I could see a sizable frog peering up at me through the thorns, desperately trying to push past the barbs to reach the opening I had created. I spoke to it in an attempt to calm it, but the traumatized thing was fully intent on escape. The frog must have kicked one of the rooty organs that once guided the greenvise's locomotion, for one of the plant's tendrils convulsed, knocking me off my feet and pinning me to the ground.
Struggling to free myself, I heard the flap of powerful wings and stilled myself at the sight of a pair of wyverns scouring the carnage. These creatures were likely the culprits behind the stampede, returning to pick over the devastation. Instinctively, I shifted myself into a small snake and slowly slithered away from the remains of the man-eating bush, seeking a hiding place where I could wait for the predators to depart. Behind me, I heard the lesser dragons tearing into the greenvise, not discriminating between frog and plant. At least the poor creature did not suffer long.
Aranea Habitat
15th of Harvester, 578 CY
I cannot put to words the sense of grief and guilt that consumes me. By now, Hatoi is surely dead, a victim of an unspeakable fate I unwittingly had a hand in weaving. If only I had heeded his warnings, he would still be here with me as I write this. For the thousandth time I ask why I ignored him, foolishly venturing into a darkened hollow in the eastern jungle where I noticed even the thunder lizards feared to tread. There, my curiosity cost me and my friend dearly.
As we entered the vale, made eternally dark by the dense jungle canopy, I immediately felt something was watching us. At first, I shrugged it off as nerves, but it became increasingly difficult to keep Hatoi calm. When he suddenly stopped and started hissing, staring intently into the darkness, I halted in deference to his keener senses. It was then that I became aware that we had been walking beneath a floating mass of spider webs strung through the trees above. Disgusting corpse husks dangled from the rope-thick strands like macabre Midwinter ornaments. Yet, even more terrifyingly, something had purposefully positioned the carcasses, forming rotting shelters as sickening as they were crude.
All of the hairs on my body stood on end when I caught a glimpse of movement. Praying for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, I could barely see them: giant, horrifying spiders slowly decending from their webs, seemingly hovering in mid-air and gesturing with their front appendages - disgustingly elongated arms with multi-knuckled hands. Although I had never seen one, I took these creatures for aranea - rare and rumored spiderlike beings storied to carry ill-mannered children off to their evil forest kingdom.
I didn't have the opportunity to look closer or attempt to speak to the creatures as the surrounding jungle suddenly came alive with indistinct, sinister shadows and the sounds of slinking things. Despite the activity, I could sense nothing other than Hatoi, the spider things, and myself. Even now, I don't know if something was actually there, or if those images and noises were mere figments meant to drive us to some deadlier trap.
Regardless, and overwhelming need to flee consumed me, and I prayed to Ehlonna to steel my nerve. I don't know what came over poor Hatoi, though, because he bolted, heading deeper into the hollow as if charging one of the spiders, a terrified by determined look on his face. I can't help but wonder if he was trying to defend me. I had scarcely a moment to call out before I saw his peril, each bound into the undergrowth covering him more and more in thick strands of webbing, ghostly ropes slipping around him like wet nooses. The sounds of him calling out to me as he was hefted into the silken nightmare above still ring in my ears, and through my own screams I thought I heard a chittering arachnid laughter that will ever torture my nightmares.
Conclusion
1st of Sunsebb, 578 CY
Some time has passed since I left Farshore and - in light of the recent tragedy - this is likely to be my last entry. When we return to Sasserine, I shall deposit the bulk of this work into the family vault for safekeeping until such a time that I can organize my notes and publish a full dissertation of the island's ecosystem. Whatever final form my observations take, though, I plan to dedicate the work to those souls who lost their lives in that unforgiving land. I hope their sacrifices might serve as a warning of the savage nature and primal ferocity that epitomizes the aptly named Isle of Dread.
THE END
Larissa shuddered, recalling the fear that had spawned that final paragraph - that fear that hung with her still on dark nights, recalling some of the greater horrors and tragedies she had witnessed on the Isle of Dread. Fifteen years ago that had been, and she had returned since, furthering her studies and learning even more about the Isle - though never pressing her luck beyond the warnings of the Olman clans, to never approach the island's central mesa, where long ago dwelled the city of Thanaclan, before the great disaster smote it down, leaving only few survivors and putting a curse upon the island that remains to this day.
At times, Larissa wondered if she was making the right decision in passing on the Blue Nixie to Lavinia and Anzak - wondering if they would be fortunate enough to survive the Isle, much as she had. Perhaps she was tempting fate by offering her own daughter to the Isle, that place of chaos and fear that had failed (despite many attempts) to claim her own life. Verik certainly thought it a dangerous idea, though in the end he had been convinced.
I can only pray to Ehlonna and Fharlangn that the day will never come when I regret this decision. After the loss of Hatoi, the fear of a similar fate is hard to shake off...
posted by Markus the Mad | 11:00 AM
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