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When Elijah Haverty-Jones saw what – or rather, who – was sitting in the containment cell, his first reaction was “Oh, goddammit.”
Even though he had been situated in the Foundation for exactly this reason, he did not feel any better about what was to come. It seemed inevitable that one of the four genetically identical dimension-hoppers was going to be noticed by the Foundation one day, but gods, did it have to be this one?
From the speaker attached in the containment cell, a distinctly childish voice floated through.
“So uh, hey, are we gonna like, do anything here? Or am I just supposed to sit here?”
Eli forced himself to resist the urge to walk in there and strangle the kid, because that would only cause him more trouble. Just keep taking deep breaths, Eli. Remember what the doctor told you. High blood pressure will only give you more problems. The brat would like that, wouldn't they?
Instead of punching through the glass, Eli pressed a small green button on the control panel in front of him, leaning over the mic. “Hey there, brat. I've gotta go talk to my superiors and figure out what the hell to do with you, so for right now, sit there and don't you fucking dare move. If you try to run from these people, it'll give us both hell. Got it?”
There was a pause between Eli's words and the brat's response. “I have a name, you know. Or did you forget again?”
“The hell do you mean again – nope, you know what, fuck it, I'm not getting into it with you. Because that's what you like, and right now you're in trouble. Big fucking trouble.”
The brat started humming, apparently not interested in listening to Eli, instead swinging their legs under the metal chair and table they were currently handcuffed to.
Well, at least they can't make anything worse for right now… right? Eli shook his head, braids falling across his face as he did.
Time to go talk to the higher-ups and see if he could make the situation at least a tiny bit better. But there was no guarantee the brat wouldn't fuck it all up.
—-
“Look, I know what I'm saying sounds fu – I mean, crazy, but you have to let the kid go,” Eli said, leaning over the desk of his superior, bracing himself on the desk with his elbows. “Yeah, they're the exact definition of anomalous, but they have a purpose.”
“Are you implying that other anomalous objects in this facility have no purpose?” The superior asked, waving one hand in the air. “All of them had a purpose at one point. Why is this one any different?”
“Because this one is helping to keep the world intact, I just explained that, you — ” Eli explained, cutting himself off before he could call his superior an idiot. “Yeah, I know, it sounds like a load of bullshi – bullcrap, but believe me, this one really does serve a purpose. Without them, the fabric of reality as we know it may collapse.”
“And I should believe you because?” The superior asked. “I'm sure most of the humanoid anomalies in this facility have tried to convince us at some point they were necessary for the world to keep turning, but the world has continued to spin with them in custody.”
Eli frowned. Damn, this was going to be harder than he thought. “Fine, don't take my word for it, then. But take this.”
Reaching into his pocket, the dark-skinned man drew a USB stick from his pocket, shoving at his superior. “Don't worry, it's only got one file on it. And it won't kill you or anything, it's not memetic. If you don't believe me, you can run your own tests on it.”
Eli turned on his heel, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.
The superior hummed in response, took the USB, and plugged it into the computer.
—-
Later on, Eli was called back into the office by a now pale-faced superior.
“I'm…" The superior paused, swallowing heavily, "afraid I don't have the clearance to authorize taking the object in question out of containment, but this is – this is definitely grounds to take it to the higher ups.”
“Then take it to the damn higher ups,” Eli hissed in response. “And maybe you can't do anything about releasing the kid from custody, but at least tell me what to do with them in the meantime?”
“For right now, the best thing we can do is nothing,” the superior replied. “Keep it occupied with whatever means necessary, and in the meantime I will worry about getting it released. But do keep in mind it might not work.”
“I'm well aware of that,” Eli grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And I hope God'll take mercy on your soul if you can't, ‘cause I sure won't.”
—-
The brat was still in the same position as when Eli left them, which gave him reason to sigh in relief for the first time that day. Stress from the whole day was starting to get to his head, literally; some of his neatly-braided hair was coming undone, frizzy hair sticking out from the aforementioned braids.
“Hey, brat,” Eli said, pressing the green button again so the kid could hear him. “Listen, my superior is taking your case to the higher-ups, but for right now, you're gonna be doing jack shit.”
“That's no fun,” the brat pouted, crossing the arm that wasn't handcuffed to the chair across their chest. “Can't you make it go faster? And where's Oliver, by the way?”
“I dunno where they put the damn cat, but they're not gonna let you have him back if you try to pull any funny shit,” Eli replied. “So no portals. Yeah, I know you could open one up, but don't, or else they'll never listen to either of us.”
“Phooey.”
“Dictator, I'm fuckin' serious,” Eli snapped, eyebrow twitching. “Don't do anything, just sit there and answer their questions if they have any. Be good and you'll be outta here. Got it?”
“But what if they don't?” The brat – Dictator – quipped back. “I don't exactly have a replacement, y'know, unless you wanna convince Liz to let one of her kids take my place.”
“I think we both know that's not gonna happen,” Eli sighed. He felt drained, and he'd spent less than an hour actually talking to the brat. “Just… keep doing nothing. Got it?”
“Sure, fine, whatever.”
Dictator continued to pout, and Eli released the green button, slumping back into the swivel chair in front of the control panel.
—-
It only took a few hours for Eli to hear back from the higher-ups, which was odd. Normally, these things took days, sometimes weeks, but apparently it was important enough that they got back to him immediately. What he heard was partially cause for celebration, but also enough to somehow make him even more stressed than he already was.
He gave a heaving sigh as he opened the containment cell where Dictator was still located, sitting pretty like he had told them to. He was accompanied by one of his superiors, another scientist whom he did not know well. The other scientist looked quite nervous, but Eli was cool as a cucumber. At least, he was for now. There was no telling what hearing Dictator's voice would do to him later.
Once the airtight-sealed door was unlocked and opened, Dictator immediately perked up, looking much like an excited puppy as they strained at their restraints.
“Finally, I thought you'd never come to see me!” Dictator exclaimed, swinging their legs a bit faster. “Are you gonna get me out of here? Who's your friend? Where's Oliver? Are we gonna – ”
“Kindly shut the hell up,” Eli growled before the other scientist could get a word in. “We've got a proposal for you, brat, and you can take it, or leave it. But I doubt you're gonna wanna leave it.”
The scientist took the seat directly in front of and across from Dictator at the table, and Eli walked around to stand next to Dictator, putting one hand on their shoulder. Although this was usually a comforting act, Eli's fingers dug into Dictator's shoulder blade, causing them to flinch.
The other scientist cleared his throat before speaking. “Our proposal goes as such, Mx. O'Malley. You will be allowed to continue your dimensional upkeep for nine months out of the year. For three months, however, you must stay within the Foundation, and submit to tests and experiments conducted by the Foundation. You will be allowed to keep your… companion, but both of you must be under 24/7 surveillance. Because he seems to know you so well, Dr. Elijah Haverty-Jones will be in charge of your surveillance.”
“Oh… well, that doesn't sound like much fun,” Dictator muttered, looking away from the scientist for a moment. A harsh jab in the ribs from Eli got them to look back at the scientist, grumbling “ouch” under their breath. “But, I guess as long as I get to keep Oliver, it won't be so bad, right?”
The scientist ignored their question and continued on. “While you are in the Foundation's care, you will be free to travel with Dr. Haverty-Jones during his daily rounds, as long as you do not prove to be dangerous or reckless in any manner. Is that understood?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Dictator replied, twirling a lock of hair around their finger with their free hand. “But, like, what if something really bad happens while I'm here?”
“If the universe begins to… pull apart, as witnessed in the video, you will be dispatched along with an MTF unit to the location of the abnormality, and you will be allowed to fix it. Afterwards, you will return to the Foundation immediately for debriefing. Understood?”
“Okay, so… basically, big Bro gets to babysit me for three months each year? Sweet. This might not be boring after all!”
“Yeah, remember though, I decide when you get to come out of your cell,” Eli growled warningly. “So you'd better do everything I tell you to. Got it?”
Dictator giggled. “Yeah, sure. Got it.”
“If there are no further questions,” the scientist interrupted, starting to get up from the chair. “Dr. Haverty-Jones will bring you to a humanoid containment cell. You will be released tomorrow, and your first month of containment will begin three months from tomorrow. Understood?”
“Yep,” Dictator replied cheerfully. “This is gonna be fun!”
Eli groaned.


** "Officially known as Mnestic Stimulant 125, coldpost Is currently only given officially to researchers on highly classified projects or SCPs, however due to its highly addictive nature, it remains a popular illicit substance amongst Foundation staff of a variety of clearance levels. Rumours to this day persist about senior staff enjoying "coldpost lounges", but all claims are unsubstantiated.
Coldpost was given it's name because the high it produces is akin to having a bucket of ice water thrown in one's face. Those who needed it were said to be working "cold water posts." This term was shortened to simply coldpost and was used in reference to the drug as well as those stations that needed it."
Excerpt from "An Introductory Guide to Foundation Pharmacology" by Dr. Adenech Legesse **
We rolling?
I saw you brought some scotch. You have any coldpost or any other mnestics handy? It's been eight hours since my last dose. No? Fine. The scotch will do.
I'll recite the entry from memory first. Then I'll describe my initial reaction to it.
Ahem!
…
Item #: SCP-XXXX
Object Class: Euclid/Apollyon
Special Containment Procedures:
IRRELEVANT.
Description: SCP-XXXX is an antimemetic land dwelling coral reef located seven kilometers north of [REDACTED]. It contains eighteen species of airborne fish, including three resembling mackerel.
…what?
That was the entire entry. I stood utterly confused by this oddity, this idea of a joke. Send me to create a goddamn paper on some goddamn template that made the system. This is not an SCP. It's even labeled with Xs instead of numbers. Why is this even in the database?! Surely Rosen and his AIC monkeys would not let their bots consider this a real entry. Dosen't even have a proper classification, and who in the hell thinks antimemes are real? They're a theoretical subject discussed in seminars.
You are getting this on tape, aren't you? Good.
Those were my initial thoughts. Confused ranting, is all. But now I've grown wise. There's seriously something wrong with the Foundation. Something is rotting, I can taste it. It's acrid, a moldy lemon poached in battery acid.
This bum Willendorf was trying to create something called Operation ARCTIC CIRCLE. There's people in the higher ups convinced something is eating documentation as easily as a person would shovel chips in their faces.
No less than the O5s brought me in, asking about 001. I had never met the O5s before. Very few have. Dunno what I expected and hell if I know anything about 001. Classified even to me. But I go in. I see thirteen dirty decrepit men in UIU uniforms stand at podiums in this giant filthy space. Trash piles of rotting garbage reach to the celing. There's literally shit on the floor.
I am not making this up. This is true. So different than the image the PR guys put out, right? I guess the Administrator puppetmasters these freaks and makes the actual calls. But maybe not.
Hand me that scotch, would you?
Anyway, the leader there, I guess he's O5-1, he croaks out about the importance of my work with 001. I rightly point out to the old coot that I was never assigned to 001. I would have known.
He shakes his wrinkled, flabby head, and opens his mouth wide. I see his rotten gums.
"The entry with no numbers? My Doctor, that is 001."
I'm in shock. The joke template?! Willendorf's batshit theory?! God I can see why the Insurgency left.
The one on the right. The one with no eyes. O5-7. He pulls out this ridiculous ornate scroll. Like an Egyptian papyrus scroll. It rolls out over the podium and unravels at my feet.
Really.
On it is a list of entries: Joke entries, entries with no respect for protocol, some have no capitalization, some have every word capitalized. The objects are bizarre, to say the least. Nothing we've ever contained. Some have numbers already assigned to contained objects, some have obvious placeholders.
"What is this, sir?" I enquire
The old men all lean in together and speak as one, a singular voice I still hear rattling around my skull like a coin today.
"Your new job."
Then again, they did inject me with amnestics, so I've no clue if my impressions were accurate.
They want me to be seeing cracks in the bureaucracy now. Misshaped documentation where it shouldn't be. I ask about each error dutifully like a good dog, but Rosen's unavailable and filing paperwork in Greenland. I pour over every Kafka-esque fly in the ointment.
And now so do my former colleagues. You know the Brightbots? Do you know how they were created? Well, they authorized the splintering of of SCP-963 through some awful arcane process. Took the pieces and wired each tiny fragment in the center of their latest androids. They do the job now we senior staff once did. Horrifying and beautiful, those machines. Just as callous and flippant as the old Jack, but totally loyal to the O5s and those associated. No humanity left. Just cruelty.
I remember the first line of them. Back then they didn't forcibly inject you with "coldpost" to help you see, they just sort of beat you. But about a year before you started, they authorized use of that sweet mnestic blend. We've been on pretty heavy duty "coldpost" since. They get you hooked on it, so you crave more and more. It's the perfect productivity tool. You don't have to sleep, you barely have to eat. All you have to do is work and remain passive until they sweep through again. Use that high to look for evidence of 001. Then they inject you with more "coldpost". Repeat.
I don't think the human body is meant to have that much mnestic in it at at one time. Yesterday I hallucinated a mackerel over my desk. It was tattooed "001".
But in my looking, I've found nothing. Templates and errors that were created by programs and system retrieval failures. They aren't anything. There is no 001 to be found there, just malfunctioning software. My days are useless, my searches pointless.
Something is driving them all crazy up there though. The old men and their inhuman monkeys and their robot managers. You've seen how normal operations are breaking down. The once powerful senior staff now broken researchers not allowed to leave the site. Brightbots everywhere. Everyone's convinced that Operation ARCTIC CIRCLE has some truth behind it. I'm watching as our mighty sites literally fall into ruin. Safe skips ignored, some disposed of. The Euclids barely have enough personnel to maintain them. I have an rational fear that they'll start to forget about minor Keters, some godawful day. All resources funneled into the 001 problem. Everything is at the end of the rope. We're forgetting who we're supposed to be.
That's where you come in, kid. You? You're gonna have to Secure and Contain and Protect because otherwise hell will break loose.
Me? You want me to be the whistleblower? I've been in this shit too long. I'm in too deep. Hell, even I start to believe that Operation ARCTIC CIRCLE has merit sometimes. Like I get confused now on dates. I'm doing research on the Chaos Insurgency, which broke off from us in the 1920s, as you know. And that makes sense if you think we were officially founded in the 1890s as the SCP Foundation, a joint project of previous national groups. But if you believe, as I do, that the O5s are former UIU guys, that places the founding in the Fifties. So how could they Insurgency break away before we were founded? The dates start to get fuzzy, you see? Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's my age.
God, I'm a wreck. A shadow of myself. What happened to me?
Fucking hell if I know, truly.
…
I remember, back when I was a field agent, I knew a great entomologist named Bill Scott. He's long since gone. I remember him as a wonderful man, quirky as hell and curious like a child about everything around him. He would bring me on trips to the Amazon to categorize strange new insects. See if anything would catch the eyes of a Site Director. Some entropic bee or shit like that. I vividly recall one trip where we followed civilian anthropologists to observe the Sateré-Mawé indigenous people, in the Brazilian Amazon. This culture has a ritual where they fill a glove with bullet ants and adolescent boys must wear this glove for ten minutes as a pain ritual to help them symbolically become warriors. Bill and I were the only non-tribesmen who wore a glove that day, the civilians preferred to watch and take notes. I guess even then, we were chicken, as the young boys did this some twenty goddamn times over a few days.
First they coat your hands in charcoal as protection, you see? And they bring out an oven mitt looking thing, the glove, swarming with hundreds of horrifying giant black ants. And the worst ten minutes of your life begin. I immediately began howling in pain as the ants began to bite. These fucking nightmares deserve their name, let me tell you. It was like someone was peppering shotgun blasts through my arm, shredding blood and bone and melting, oozing flesh to the rainforest floor. Agonizing waves of pain shot up my arms, and I could see the ants swarming up my arm, thousands of tiny feet, each foot bringing more shotgun blasts, I felt my soul dying, my brain shutting down instinctively. All I knew was pain and ants. Melting and burning and jabbing and thousands of flesh wounds as my pores were forcibly ripped wide, ants falling by the thousands into the holes, stinging all the time. The pain all consuming. Fire and ants on my spinal cord, traveling up to my brain. Ants pouring out my mouth, my nostrils, my eye sockets. My entire life has been pain like you can't understand.
And through the howls and tears, and before I blacked out, I looked over and saw Bill standing tall. He was looking down at his hand, almost unconcerned with the horror happening to his arm. He had a quizzical expression, as if the ants were an odd toy on a shelf and he was trying to figure out how they worked.
I thought about that expression as I drifted in and out of consciousness over the next few days. Bullet ant sting takes a while to work itself out. But behind the haze of fever and agony I saw the best the Foundation could and should ever be. Detached, yet caring. Observant and methodical, yet curious and full of wonder. Able to draw impossible strength to face down horror, both in the name of science and the normal people who live in this world. A cold scientist, an idiotically brave warrior, an unrecognized hero who does what must be done.
I have hallucinations about those bullet ants now. I dream they swarm over that air breathing coral reef. Eating the flying fish. I wake up content from those dreams sometimes.
Pass this recording on to anyone who still has sense in this god forsaken place, then let them dose you with amnestics and return to your station. Don't worry about me, you wont hear from me again.
Thanks for the scotch, at any rate.


Previously on the UIU Series With No Name...

And now,on to our adventure!

Quinn MacAllister and Darnell Christman have arrived back in Cinncinnati to deliver the remains of an anomalous humanoid at the local Foundation site. After spending some quality time with her wife Harley, Quinn receives a call regarding the remains, and finds that it is the body of one JoAnn Storm, a teen that disappeared from her hometown of Green Pastures, Iowa some seventeen years ago.
Quinn's gag order is finally modified so that she may tell Darnell about the history of her hometown, and give part of an explanation as to what happened.
We now rejoin our heroes on a plane bound towards Iowa, hot on the trail of the organization Grassroots, who appears to have had enough presence in Green Pastures to afford the acquisition of a native of the town.

Quinn scowled in the general direction of Ohio. Behind her was Harley, several unpleasant conversations, and a tense phone call. Ahead was a town she hadn't been back to in almost twenty years, that had been uprooted by the organization she was now acting as a lackey for.
"Mac, you okay?" Darnell asked, closing the dossier they had received. Half of it was documents pertaining to Grassroots, the other half talked about various SMILODON projects. Most of it was redacted. Quinn had lost interest around the time they began talking about suspicious activity in Las Vegas involving mutilated animals.
"…what do you think?" Quinn asked, finishing off another airplane martini. She knew it was unprofessional, but the Foundation handler was having some of his own. "I'm going home for the sake of an organization of psychopaths."
"Mac, the Foundation—"
"Fuck the Foundation," she hissed. "Green Pastures doesn't have a high school anymore because of them."
"All right," Darnell said, holding up his hand. "run it by me again. I got lost around the time you began explaining the Black Pasture."
"Right," Quinn swallowed, and began explaining again.

There have always been four families in Green Pastures.
When the town was founded in the 1800s, four families were feuding over a plot of land where the soil was fertile: the Schafers, the Storms, the Gardeners, and the Aldermanns. And I mean outright feuding; we're talking gunfights in the street, houses set on fire, distilleries destroyed, crops decimated, kidnappings, shotgun weddings…
Then, one day, the four families were going to go to outright war. It never happened. A man with violet spectacles and a black suit came to the battlefield when the first shot was fired. He plucked the bullet out of the air and turned it into a flower which he handed to the youngest girl in the Gardener family.
'I am the keeper of this Green Pasture,' he said. 'I have been watching you, and I have been disappointed. You four, together, could do great things, but instead you fight. And over what? Land that has been made barren?'
No-one had noticed, but the land they were fighting over had been made unworkable by the constant fighting that had been going on. All their efforts were for nothing.
'I shall make a deal,' the man said. 'I shall give you all the capacity to restore this land to a fertile state once more, but you must swear to never draw arms at each other again. If you must kill, it will be in self-defense. If any of you die by the hands of another family, the Black Pasture will overtake this land and all within.'
No-one knew what the Black Pasture was, and until… shit, 1998, no-one even thought it existed. When they got the… capacity, they didn't question it.
The Schafers — that's my family — are able to understand and exert their will over animals. My grandmother could talk to insects, and I have a cousin that can talk to wolves. It skipped my mom and I, and I'm pretty damn thankful for that.
The Gardeners, as their name might suggest, can make the fruits of the earth grow to tremendous sizes, weave plants into intricate shapes, and make entire forests bloom with life. I once saw Percy Swift — we don't keep the names of the original families, most of the time — make flowers grow all over the football field during a game to ask Karen Walpole to prom.
Karen was part of the third family, the Aldermanns. When they finally got married a few years later, she made their wedding rings from scratch. The Aldermanns have power over all stone and earth, and she pulled up gold from a quarter of a mile underground to the surface, and her father helped forge them. Another time, Jemma Adlermann pulled a meteorite out of the sky to give it to her beau.
Then there's the final family. The Storms. JoAnn — that's what was left of her back in Ohio — could call down lightning any time she wanted. The Storms could make it shine, or flood, or freeze. We would have snowball fights during the summer, and sunbathed in January. It was amazing.

Quinn fingered a pendant around her neck. "JoAnn and eleven other people from Green Pastures disappeared in 1998. Among them were Percy Swift, Karen Walpole, and Jemma Aldermann. They were never seen again, until earlier this week."
"…you get poetic when you're drunk, Mac."
"Yeah, you're right," she said, putting down the still-full airplane martini that she had just gotten. "Monday feels like three years ago."
"Still," Darnell frowned, looking through the dossier. "The heck did the Foundation do to your town?"
Quinn's cheeks puffed. "It would be like trying to describe what Japan feels like to someone who's never heard of it. It's… easier to see, believe me."
Darnell opened the dossier again. "Check out some of the evidence from the Grassroots case," he said, tapping one of the pieces of paper. "A hit-list. Look who's at the top."
Quinn peered at it. "McCarthy. Not surprising. And there's Dulles after that, CIA director… Hoover… this can't be right."
"What?"
"This is what people find when they think they've found a hit list. These are just names of people in the government with contrived ways to kill them. Like… McCarthy has 'poisoned paper' by his name?"
"Yeah," Darnell's eyebrow raised as he flipped through the pages. "I think I know what made JoAnn Storm look like that."
Quinn looked through the pages. "Project BLACK LODGE… transmutation of matter… bone into metal for better conductivity — holy shit is this alchemy?"
"Yeah," Darnell said. "The main goal of BLACK LODGE was — say it with me now —"
"To make a Philosopher's Stone," Quinn rubbed her head. "They still haven't learned that's a bad idea? Look at what happened in New Dehli a few years back. Tried to make red mercury, everything was a mess."
"This is the part I'm more interested in," Darnell indicated the passage about 'bone into metal'. "I think that's what happened to your friend."
"Poor girl. She must have been in so much pain. But…" She frowned. "…why destroy a bank? Why did it have a portal underneath it?"
Darnell looked over her shoulder, out the window. He saw the light pattern underneath a break in in the clouds, and recognized they were going over Chicago. "Are we asking the right questions?"
"…hmm." Quinn looked at her drink, and put her finger into it. "The question shouldn't be 'why is it there'. The question should be… 'who put it there?'"
"And why did we find it?" Darnell poked his head. "Why was the Foundation digging into the bank vault? What incentive did they have?"
Quinn's eyes widened along with Darnell's. "…they had something inside of it," they both gasped.
"What the hell could they contain in a bank vault?" Darnell scratched his head. "Is that why they sent us away so quickly?"
"We're the only UIU agents in the Midwest," Quinn muttered, realization coming onto her, "Since they closed Chicago. They knew that we'd find something they didn't want us to if we stuck around. But what didn't they want us to find?"
Darnell snatched away Quinn's drink and downed it. "This is so far above our paygrade. The NSA's Abnormal Security Unit should be handling this, not us." He sighed. "So, now what?"
"We can't let our handler figure out that we know."
"Agreed. For now, let's look busy." He opened up the dossier again. "All right, so… who was Ainsley Kerrigan?"

Dr. Zhou looked at the chunk of mineral that had been recovered from the bank vault. He pushed his glasses up his face and picked up the faintly-glowing blue crystal, tapping it with a metal rod. He felt a soft jolt through the stick, and exclaimed, dropping it. "It still has some energy in it. That's good."
"We believe that the vault managed to protect it," agent Dexter Adams explained from behind some plexiglass, adjusting his shirt, "But beyond that, we got nothing. We don't know why it opened up a portal to New York, or how nobody on the other end noticed it."
Zhou looked back at agent Adams. "Where was this recovered from, exactly?"
Adams flipped through a folder. "Um… says that this particular rock was found in a 'suddenly appearing outcropping of crystals' found in… you're kidding."
"What?"
Adams looked up from the file, looking like he was going to throw it into the air. "Found in Green Pastures, Iowa, 1910. The birthplace of Ainsley Kerrigan."

« Come Rest Your Head A While| Hub| It's Too Cold For You Here »


There is something in my mouth, underneath the tongue. It's nothing relatively uncommon. Of late, my urine is black and I have excreted strips of paper. Ever since I opened a letter from Robinson Toʊ Liz and then quarantined by the Foundation, this has been the new norm. So much for uneventful retirement in New Zealand.
My tongue twirls around my mouth, feeling for the mysterious thing that is still inside. It feels soft. Probably another piece of paper.
Eventually, I spit it out. A squarish shape appears on the otherwise stale floor, coated in my saliva. Despite its condition, I can make out the yen symbol on that shape.
Ah yes, so that is the compensation – as they have mentioned a few days ago – in the form of a postal stamp.
But the stamp consists more than the denomination. The image of the banana tree. The words "Dai-tō-a – Malai Baru".
"That is…"

"Stop, Miyafuji." Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto ordered.
I still remembered that day clearly. Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto invited me for a stroll in a park, even when the Americans' bombardment were increasingly common in the cities. Our feet trod upon stone pavements, islands in the sea of grass. In front, two paths lied ahead – left and right.
"Yes sir." I obeyed the Lieutenant Colonel's orders.
"Look at the paths. Which one will you take?"
"I will follow the path you take, sir."
Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto was silent, shaking his head grimly. Perhaps he did not desire that answer.
"Sir, I express only loyalty toward-" I was cut off by him.
"I did not ask you for elaboration. But it appears I must guide you again."
"My apologies, sir." I bowed at Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto.
"This crossroad is the fifth we've crossed within this park, the outcome of the paths we have chosen. Here, we are to make another choice." Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto explained, "Choices are important, Miyafuji. They defined the present moment and guide us to the future. Most importantly, choices require actions. Do you understand all of that?"
"Yes sir."
"So, what will be your choice?"
I stared long and hard at the two paths. Both looked so similar to the other that they felt like the same path, regardless of what I chose.
"Corporal, we are at war. The Americans will bomb us any minute! We do not have the luxury to contemplate!" I exited my deep thought.
"That way!" I cried, my finger pointing out to somewhere. It was on neither paths, but out into the grass and another divergent stone path.
"Yes. The current situation is not preferable, yes? The empire is in dire situation." Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto mused to himself, "We desire for a better present. But to do so, we must redo the choices already made. So Miyafuji, how can you reach the direction you pointed at?"
"Walk there directly."
Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto smiled, and stepped upon the grass. He then rummaged his pocket, and produced a bank note. The image of a banana plant was printed onto said bank note.
"A souvenir during my previous assignment in Malaya." He explained, handing the bank note to me, "I will be away for some time, to find a better situation wherein the choices made resulted in the empire's continuation. And the Anomaly Agency hopes that we can seek help from those situations."
"Yes." I paused briefly, "Sir, may I help you in your mission?"
"No. I need you here. You have to protect your mother. I heard the Americans enjoy the taste of the women of defeated nations." Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto cautioned.
"Do not worry. No one will ever harm the Lieutenant Colonel's sister."
"Good. Then, farewell."

"Did he even find it in the end?" I pick up the stamp and clean my saliva off of it, "Unlikely. What is the likelihood?"
I pocket the stamp away, continuing my cloistered existence under the Foundation's internment.

Some days later, I while my time at the library in the internment area. After all, there is little to do beyond reading up on English. At least I can improve my grasp in that language.
While flipping through a book on English grammar, an unusual thought pierces through.

Dear Miyafuji,

"Very few people whom I know would call me that."
And before I know it, the next thought manifests.

Sincerely
Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto

"Uncle?"
And like a river, more thoughts stream in.

Found appropriate reality. There, empire exists.

"I can tell." I recalled that stamp, which I surrendered to the Foundation nurse when they asked for it. After all, they have power over me entirely. It is unwise to oppose them.

Sent the stamp as validation. I planned the design.

"Seriously? What about the world you're in now?"

Empire still exists. Humans there possess stronger digestion. Can dissolve even cellulose. History and culture is similar to ours. Society mostly disinterested in inter-dimensional travel.

"That explains their unusual methods… Uncle, how is your mission?"

Travelled long to find appropriate reality. Only Robinson Toʊ Liz interested in inter-dimensional travel. But can only transmit words and small objects.

"Like that stamp."

Sent the stamp as validation. I planned the design.

"I know that already." My voice pierces the silence of the library; those around stare at me. I then bury my head into my book, pretending to be reading it.
"But how do you know to reach out to me?"

So I worked for Robinson Toʊ Liz. Saw client list. Your name and address are on it.

"So you sent a letter to me. Thank you, Uncle."

Sincerely
Lieutenant Colonel Sakamoto

"I know. About mum… wait, I'm not actually speaking to him." I sigh.

I have placed myself in client list too. If you intend to contact me, my address is…

"No. I'm effectively a prisoner here. I have to get by the Foundation if I want a letter to be sent, and they will know something's off from the address alone. How?"
Amidst my thoughts, I feel the urge of nature's calling, specifically of the ink and paper processing inside of me. I left my book for medical assistance, wherein I continue pondering for a solution.
In the end, I think that there may be a way.

The following day, I'm once again in the Foundation's interrogation room – by my request. The Foundation doctor – Dr. Cohen – is my interrogator.
"So Mr. Miyafuji, you have requested for me. What is the issue?"
"My uncle wrote to me. He's IJAMEA Lieutenant Colonel Ryusei Sakamoto."
"IJAMEA?! But that group is…"
"It's not dead, or at least parts of it. That stamp is evidence. They have found a world where the Axis won the war instead."
"What do you know about that world?" Dr. Cohen's face stiffens.
"Not much, but here's an inference." I reply, "If they are willing to send in trivial things like stamps and letters, what else are they willing to send across?"
"And you're telling us this because…" Dr. Cohen pauses, waiting for my response.
"I want to help you. Allow me to have correspondence with my uncle, and I will feed you the information you need."
"And why should we trust you?"
"I requested to meet you, instead of running off."
Dr. Cohen stares at me briefly, perhaps pondering over my words.
"I will bring this matter to my superiors first. This conversation is over until further notice." Dr. Cohen left the room.
"At best, maybe we'll have a few last exchanges before my ruse falls apart."


Warsaw
1944
Another airdrop had been intercepted by the enemy. The English had good intentions, but when those ended up being consistently dropped into German territory, one could not help but wonder if if they were trying to miss the zones occupied by the Home Army. And they had just dropped it in the worst possible location.
Basilisk Street was simply a name that her platoon had given this area. It may have had another name, once, before the Germans had razed it. The road looked familiar to her; she had visited it several times when she was younger, but she could not recall the name. She knew it had a bank on it, and a baker's shop, which had once been a knifesmith's house, centuries ago.
The relevance of this last point was not lost on anyone in the platoon. Stefania, with her brown hair and broad Polish face, was flanked by two others. Tolek, who had been designated their sniper, hefted a rifle that looked too big on the young man's frame, like he was a little doll that someone had stuffed into a uniform. Kazia didn't look much better; years of starvation had taken toll on their grenadier, but she had bounced back from it, and what she lacked in fat she made up for in athletic muscle, enough that she could lug at least ten of the improvised grenades they had made, along with her rifle. They fortified themselves behind a shell of a building, some bombed-out walls clinging to their foundations, as they waited for the return of their final member.
Their saboteur, Odetka, had just returned from scouting ahead, crawling on the ground laboriously. She swallowed, and looked at Stefania with wide eyes. On her coat, she wore what she considered a badge of honor: a yellow six-pointed star. She looked up at them, remaining prone. "They're not looking at the supply drop."
"What?" Kazia spoke up, in a hissed whisper. "That has to have five days worth of food in it. Why would they not even inspect it?"
"They're more focused on one of the buildings. I've seen three Szkopy — " an insult better than the Nazis deserved — "go into it, but none have come out."
"What building?" Stefania took out her binoculars and surveyed the area, coming to a pause over a sign for a barber's shop, smashed in two by an explosion. "Everything is rubble."
"Not so much a building, but the cellar of one." Odetka paused. "…you've told us about the second war before, Stefania. The one being fought next to this one."
Her hand squeezed around the binoculars. "A war of magic. I didn't believe it, either, until I saw what happened in the telephone building." Stefania remembered the taste of burning flesh when a man covered in intricate Nordic tattoos incinerated two members of her squad, before she put a bullet in his stomach, and then five in his skull.
"Everyone knows the myth. You don't suppose it could still be here?" Tolek's voice was a timid squeak, almost drowned out by the sound of a distant explosion.
"…if it is, we feed them all to it and seal up the chamber." Kazia moved out from behind cover, staying low to the ground. "Odetka, how many smoke grenades do you have?"
"Three of them."
"Three?" Stefania frowned. "You were given five. We used one to escape the patrol on Świętojańska, where's the other?"
"Pressure was leaking. I had to toss it as we were coming up from the last square."
"Wonderful." Stefania signaled to her companions to stay low, crawl if they had to. This was easy for Tolek's young frame. Poor Kazia had a significant target on her, with the grenades strapped to her back. Their plain clothing mixed in well with the rubble, providing some cover. From this distance, any Nazi without binoculars or a scope would have thought they might have been scraps of paper being blown about in the breeze.
Crawling, inching forwards, they approached the end of the street, as the September sun crept overhead. Gunshots rang out an indeterminate distance away. Another church in the city wavered on its foundations.

With the pace they were going, two hours had passed when they had arrived at the other end of the street. They ducked into alleyways, hid in buildings, and pissed on the rubble of what had once been a dress shop. They were too poorly-equipped to charge in alone, with or without grenades. Tolek looked like he was going to vomit at any point during the journey; fear of death outweighed the nausea.
Eventually, they reached the end of the street, believing themselves undetected. Five soldiers and one commander stood before a hole in the ground. The hole had once been a door to a cellar, and from the burn marks on it, Stefania guessed it may have been by a bomb. The Germans were accompanied by a pair of dogs, who had their attention trained on the hole. Behind them, their objective — the airdrop — stood, concealed under a parachute, forgotten.
Stefania's eyes widened when she saw the hounds. Between Tolek's whimpering and their own stench from crawling in the sun for so long, they would soon be found out. She suppressed a swear, and signaled to her platoon to be at the ready. Both her and Tolek steadied their rifles on a pile of rubble that had once been a windowsill, ready to shoot whatever noticed them first.
Instead, the dogs were given a command in German: "Go!". The two dogs dashed into the hole. Some time later (Stefania's heart was beating so fast that it could have been anywhere from two minutes to an hour), one of them emerged, running and whimpering. Through her scope, Stefania saw that its eyes were shut. Then, it came to a halt by the Germans' transport, and fell over, dead.
That confirmed it, then. Basilisk Street lived up to its name. The cellar of a building, torn down to rubble, once more contained a creature that could kill with a stare. A perverse combination of rooster and reptile.
The Basilisk of Warsaw had never died. Or rather, maybe this was a descendant? Some youngling, birthed from an egg that had lain dormant until the bombs hatched it? Was Warsaw deciding to punish its invaders by recreating something that had been the terror of the city so many hundred years ago?
She could not be sure. She gave another signal to Kazia to ready a Filipinka; an impact grenade. The Germans were clustered together enough that a bomb would take out at least one of them. To Tolek, she motioned for him to aim at the youngest-looking soldier, adjusting his rifle for him. Odetka readied her own smoke grenade to choke out whoever survived the initial blast.
Stefania pointed, and Kazia threw the bomb. The casing shattered on the back of one of the Germans, killing him before anyone could react. Another had his arm torn to shreds, and writhed on the ground, screaming. The rest had turned their attention to the rebels.
Odetka's smoke grenade sailed almost in tandem with Kazia's Filipinka. It landed at their feet, and the air was filled with the sound of choking and coughing. Nazis were dangerous in groups, but like most soldiers, they were an uncoordinated mess when caught by surprise.
Stefania's shot entered the heart of a third trooper as he stumbled from the fog. He gasped when his spine exploded outward behind him. Tolek managed to hit the knee of a fourth, and as the final two gained their composure enough to draw their pistol, Kazia let another Filipinka sail towards them. A second later, no more Germans lived in the street.
Stefania ran out from behind cover to a barrier the Germans had erected, then to another, and finally, to the jeep they had been next to. The others followed, with Tolek in the back, staggering themselves so that no one person was behind a piece of cover at the same time. Stefania rummaged through the transport.
"What are you doing?" Kazia hissed. "They're going to be checking up on the explosions. We could have snipers above us at any minute! Let's just grab what we can from the drop and go!"
"The basilisk is real, Kazia," Stefania growled in return. "We can't let them get it, and if they're not getting it… well, the Home Army could use a… how do the Americans say? Trump card?"
"You're not serious," Odetka gasped, having opened up the crate; she was starting to stuff chocolate rations in her bag. "Stefania, that thing will kill you, if it is real. How do you even intend on bringing it out?"
"Szkopy are evil, but they're not completely without sense." Through her rummaging, Stefania found a cage made for large poultry, a metal rod with a noose on the end, an apron with mirrors on the outside, and an electric torch. The thing that caught her interest the most was an implement with a large set of flaps around a thick loop, all leather.
"What is that?" Tolek frowned as she removed the last object.
"Blinders," Stefania presented them. "I saw them used in a falconry demonstration before the war broke out. They cover a bird's eyes. Perfect for the thing down there."
"It will kill you in an instant!" protested the youngest member. Poor Tolek was shaking again. "Please, I can't. We can't lose you, Stefania."
"It can't kill me if it doesn't look me in the eyes." She pulled the apron, the noose, and the flashlight out of the transport, and found, on top of the cage, a set of black glasses. She placed them over her eyes, and smiled at her companions. "I'll be fine. Really."
She dressed herself in the apron, and left her rifle behind, electing to take a pistol from one of the dead Nazis. If necessary, she would kill the beast. She held the torch in one hand, noose in the other, and pistol by her side, Stefania descended into the cellar.

The room was far too large to exist under Warsaw. Stefania had been underneath some other buildings in this area; she did some of her education in the basement of a now blown-out apartment building not a block from here. She used her torch, and never saw the walls. The air was cold, and reeked of petrichor, like she was in a cavern. She aimed her light upwards, and could not see the ceiling.
And so, she shuffled through the darkness. She felt a mounting dread, that she had known twice before: first, when she heard that Hitler had pushed his forces through Poland, and was aiming at the rest of Europe. Second, when she faced down a man using… shooting flame from his hands, in the PAST telephone building. He had reduced most of the relays that were still intact to slag, melted with no effort.
Since the Uprising began, she suspected the existence of the basilisk. Several squadrons vanished in the area of Basilisk Street in the past week. It had been where the myth of the basilisk took place, and Stefania knew all the details. The knife-smith's children being found dead in a cellar, their nursemaid dying to the creature's gaze, the wise doctor instructing on how to destroy it, the convicted man's expedition into the cellar…
Nobody ever knew what happened to the beast itself. A ghost story in her neighborhood said that, every time you saw a new statue around the city, it was a victim of the basilisk. It was a fairy tale, something made to scare the children, get them to behave.
This did not change what Stefania was looking at. One-hundred meters away from where the September Sun was shining down, Stefania Borowska was standing over a dog whose eyes had swollen to the size of hen's eggs. Its skin seemed ready to burst open; poking it with her noose caused an effluence of pus onto the floor of the cave.
She heard something skitter behind her.

Tolek bit down on a cracker ration he had taken from the supply drop. The rest would be distributed to those at the base, but for now, this was his. It was an American cracker, and theirs were the best, made with some honey or sugar.
Kazia's eyes admonished him between setting up traps of Filipinka attached to poles at either end of the street. When someone walked by, they would knock into them, and the grenade would explode on contact with the ground.
They stared at the cellar door. Stefania had just left, but it filled them with unease. Warsaw was an old city, approaching 750 years. It had much buried beneath its stones, old conflicts, attempted takeovers, the bones of tyrants that marched through and stepped on the scythes of the people. The bombings, the siege five years ago, and now the Uprising might be bringing it all back to the surface.
"Where are you, Tula?" Odetka chewed at her finger, keeping her sub-machine gun aimed at one end of the street. Poor range, but the fire could at least cause some to scatter, or set off the impact grenades Kazia was setting up.
"Heh low the hair!" cried a voice in an American accent. All three of them jumped at it, aiming their weapons. From out of one of the few intact buildings (which Kazia, with a curse, realized had a back entrance) came three men in black uniforms, the leader a blond man wearing black leather gloves. "Sprichst du Deutsche? Noh, uf korz knot."
"State your purpose!" Kazia growled, letting off a warning burst. It scattered off one of the buildings, and the unknown party ducked.
"Yew hidyot," growled another voice, this one from a more diminutive man with black hair and a Polish widow's peak. He had a more natural accent. "He's asking if you speak German, he's an American," this one said in Polish.
"We don't speak Szwabski!" Kazia growled. "We've got you outnumbered, and we have a secret weapon. One that will kill any German that toys with the Home Army!"
The Pole translated for the American. "The Basilisk, yes?"
"…yes," Tolek's hands shook and he gripped his rifle tighter. "How did you know?"
"We sent Stefania here to retrieve it."

Stefania kept her eyes shut, relying on her hearing. She held her breath to listen for the skittering of the basilisk. She had seen its body; a rooster with a lizard's tail and claws, just as the myth said. She couldn't help but wonder if it was hatched from a cock's egg, like the myth claimed.
She swung her noose almost at random, trying to grab any part of it. She remembered what the American — she thought he was a reporter — told her. This creature was dangerous, and if it couldn't be destroyed, it could at least be locked in a cage, contained, until the war was over and it could be properly studied.
The American told her that he worked for a Foundation, and they did not know the city like she did. It was an international organization, he claimed, trying to stop two wars — the war she fought, with sabotage and sniper rifles, and the war they fought, with monsters and magic. An Occult War, he called it.
In the dark, she stood still, eyes shut behind protective glasses. The basilisk didn't caw, didn't chirp, didn't crow like a cock. It just ran about on its little feet, and occasionally tried to peck at her. It came from her left, and she began a slow turn towards it. If she spun too fast, the mirrors would warp with the apron, and the basilisk would not be stunned, and would flee for another attack. Too slow, she would be pecked to death by a venomous chicken.
The basilisk came up on her. Stefania turned, noose wand extended, and felt a tug on the end.

"Why would Stefania agree to this?" Odetka sounded skeptical. "She should keep it for the cause."
"And risk losing her own force?" asked the translator. "She could kill everyone in the resistance, from the lowliest peon to… you call her Jaga?"
"Lt. Mileska," Tolek nodded. "She's nice. She's cared for us."
The American nodded and spoke more things nobody understood, until the translator spoke, pointing to the trapdoor. "Things are faster down there."
"Faster?" Tolek asked.
"Time moves faster. She could have been down there for quite a while now." The translator looked at them. "Warsaw is a messy city. Both of the wars are making it messier. Once she's out, we must—"
"You must what?" Stefania asked, emerging from the underground with a basilisk, blinders over its eyes, trapped in a noose wand.
"Stefania!" the American smiled, switching to German, something both of them could speak. "It's good to see you again! You have your prize?"
"…yes," Stefania replied in the same language. To her compatriots, it must have sounded like she was speaking in a snake's tongue. "You'll keep it safe?"
He nodded back towards the transport, with a swastika painted on the side. "We have a cage in there."
Everyone's heart sank. Stefania's blood became volcanic, and her vision bore holes into the side of the transport. "You're. A. German organization?"
Tolek yelped, and covered his ears, curling into a ball. The conversation had taken a turn for the worse; he could tell from tone alone. The cowardly soldier remained curled up, whimpering.
"It's a matter of convenience," the American explained. "They have better equipment, we can move through freely through the occupied zones. No offense to your forces, but those K-Pattern weapons aren't going to work against… well, nevermind."
Stefania's hand approached the basilisk. "Szkopy were here earlier, trying to get it out of the hole themselves."
"They were looking for it as well," the Foundation agent elaborated. "We simply wanted to get to it first. Are you really going to begrudge us some espionage?"
The only word that she could use to describe the American was 'traitor'. "They were going to use this as a weapon." She stared at him hard enough that even the basilisk in her hand could have turned to stone. "How do I know that you aren't?"
"You don't, I'll admit," the Nazi licked his lips; his nervousness was showing. "You're just going to have to take my word. We will keep this specimen secured and contained until the war is over."
"And then what?" Stefania's hand came up the basilisk's beak, towards the blinders. "You'll let it lose on the next threat?"
"Frau Borowska, please—" he began.
"I am not a Frau." Her hand was on the blinders. "I am Polish. I am free!"
The others realized where her hand was going. The officer drew his gun. Kazia pleaded and turned away. Odetka begged, and shut her eyes a fraction too late. Tolek remained curled up on the street, as if a bomb was coming for him.
Stefania pulled the blinders off of the basilisk.

Tolek Lisiewicz was left alone on the street, with the shuddering sound of his companion's last breaths. He knew what had happened. The boy crawled towards Stefania, eyes still clamped shut, and felt her stony legs. She, too, had looked into the eyes. Intentionally, or inadvertently, it did not matter. She was dead. He believed the others to be as well.
He felt his way up her body, mumbling apologies the whole time, until he came to the basilisk, trapped between her tight, stone-encrusted hands.
Its neck came between his fingers.
His hands twisted in opposite directions. The Basilisk of Warsaw was no more.
Eyes still clamped shut, sobs suppressed and swallowed, he limped his way back down Basilisk Street, fearing that if he looked back, if he even opened his eyes to blink, he would put a picture to the horrific sound that he heard from the instant he snapped the basilisk's neck.
Tolek heard screams, barely muffled by stone. Of them, Odetka's was the loudest.

Underneath Basilisk street, in a disused cellar, an egg laid by a rooster began to hatch.


It is said that in ancient epochs, when the world was closer to the stars, that in dreams one could glimpse foretellings of things yet to come. Such beliefs are not encouraged in these days, as the Temple considers any claim of prophecy to be a form of blasphemy. I now know that on this, the priests are incorrect, that the dreaming world can reveal things yet to come. Had I known it when I was younger, I might have been better prepared for the revelations that I have unearthed; but perhaps it is better now, that what was foretold has come to pass, that I can relate to you that which it has now come time for the world to know. It is likely that merely holding this text in your hands has marked you a heretic in the eyes of the Temple, but I implore you to hear my tale; and you will learn how the promise of St. Azarius has been fulfilled, and how it was foretold in my dreams of the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea lies in the far east, amidst the barren expanses of the Plateau of Leng, far from the coruscant spires of Panopolis and the verdant fields of Arcadia. Its shores rest a thousand feet or so below the rim of a great pit the likes of which can be found nowhere else in the world, which extends at least three hundred miles in diameter. The depths of the pit are lost to history, as are its origin. Some speculate that it was once some primaeval ocean, or the crater left by a meteor of unprecedented size. The great Dr. Elutherius, of the Imperial Collegium, attempted to excavate the southwestern bank in my grandfather's day; he made it half-a-mile deep before his crew abandoned him, driven seemingly to madness when they discovered a rock face smooth as glass and beyond the artifice of nature. All know of the Dead Sea, and all will find their way to it in due time, but few who do so are in any state to tell tales of the place. No man sails the Dead Sea, nor does any fish plumb its depths, for it is not water that laps upon the shores of that sea, but flesh and bone. All who live must die, and it is the law of the church and the state that all who die are laid to rest in the charnel-house of the world, the Dead Sea.
The beginnings of the Dead Sea are lost to history. It was already in use in the first century after the Triumph of the Church and the proclamation of the Blessed Empire. Archaeologists have found remnants of lesser such accumulations around the world, which must have at some point been abandoned when the Temple ordered all the dead to be discarded in one place. It is said that ten thousand years ago or more, before St. Azarius promised eternal life in the hereafter to all who believed in Him, that the bodies of the dead were revered; they were cleaned and dressed, displayed for public viewing, and buried in the earth in the lands in which they lived. Such practices are now considered blasphemy, as the Great Scriptures proclaim;
"Do not lavish honours upon the bodies of the dead, for the body is but a carriage for the soul. The body rots and turns to dust, but the soul, which Our Lord knows and treasures, takes its leave for life eternal. Therefore, do not let the dead lie among the living as the heathens do, for they have had their reward in full; but take them away from your lands instead and cast them into the deepest hole, and let them be forgotten."
And so it has always been done; in every corner of the world, the dead are loaded onto lorries and trains and air-coaches, by the hundreds of thousands each day, and hauled hundreds or thousands of miles to the Dead Sea, to be dumped onto its surface. New bodies are unceremoniously piled atop the old, to be submerged in turn by the next crop of decedents, to sink and sink until they crumble away and rejoin the earth. A terrible miasma engulfs the land, and it is said that at night, the sea glows with corpse-lanterns fueled by the gaseous emissions of the decomposing millions. Few of the living set foot on its shores, save the high priests of the Temple, the carrion-haulers, and, it is said, those who illicitly dig to the lower layers of the sea and harvest the rich corpse-soil, to be sold as fertilizer. (This libel is a favorite of farmers to levy against their rivals; for who would buy their crops, knowing they were grown from the dead?) The last class of the living who glimpse the Dead Sea's shores are not spoken of in polite company. On the northern shore of the sea, where the drop from the edge of the pit to the sea's surface is much sharper than the gentle descent of the southwest, there stands the Long Walk; a causeway extending several miles from the edge, along which those convicted of the most abominable crimes against the church and the state are condemned to walk before casting themselves into the depths.
I have dreamt of the Dead Sea since I was a child. The dream does not come often, but it is always the same; I awake to find myself lying atop the surface of the sea, and as I surveil the horizon I can espy no hint of the shore; there is nothing on any side but the dead, baking and rotting below the blood-orange sun. I can find no steady footing, for with every step I sink knee-deep into flesh. I call for help, but there are no living ears to hear me. Thousands of feet above, the air-coaches glide silently overhead, barely slowing to discharge their rain of carrion unto the gory mass. I find myself sinking into the ichorous loam, fearing that soon I shall no longer be an unwelcome guest among the dead, when I awake.
Oft have I shared my dreams with the Temple priests during the Rites of Expurgation. I dared never speak my silent fear that I was being given visions of what was yet to come, for to be known to even be harbouring the thought might label me suspect. The priests nonetheless assured me that I need not fear any such fate befalling me; no man is marked for disposal until the hospitallers have declared that he is truly and irreversibly dead and his soul has left his body. They often suggested that the dreams evinced a defect in my faith; that perhaps I doubted the truth that my soul will depart when my body expires, and that I will be left to pass away into nothing along with my body. It was also suggested that, though St. Azarius would never deem to speak His Word to a living soul if the prophetic signs were not present, that perhaps He was testing my faith in a way; by showing me a vision of what my eternal self might suffer if my temporal self failed in its devotions, He might encourage me to more fervently follow the right path.
These words provided me little comfort during my adolescence, but as I came of age, I began to find more comfort in the admonitions of the priesthood. I committed myself to the study of the Great Scriptures and sought to live in word and deed as St. Azarius had commanded. In time the dreams grew less frequent, and had stopped altogether by the time I came of my thirtieth year. I had been successful to a fault in my career, and took full advantage of the rare opportunity to enjoy a night of leisure, making my way through the finest public houses and dance-halls of my native Austhaven. I danced and ate and drank and sang and caroused into the small hours of the morning, and then…
I awoke with a pain in my head, my body sore, my mouth dry, my stomach in tumult, an ache in my bladder, and a strong desire to return to a slumber I could not remember laying down for. I was no stranger to the ploughman's curse that is the hang-over, but seldom has it occurred in my life that I drank to such excess that I could not remember the end of the night. No sound perturbed my ears that morning, so I judged that I had either found my lodgings, or had taken unconscious in a poorly-trafficked alley. In either event, it seemed, there was no urgent need to me to arise, so I rolled over on my side and sought to settle in - when I felt a sharp object jab me in my side, and a stench like nothing I have ever known assailed my nostrils.
My eyes darted open and the flash of the naked sun, blazing brilliant in the clear orange noonday sky, blinded me. I reached to my left for a hold to raise myself up, and my fingers sank into something warm and soft. Squinting, I turned my gaze from the sun to my hand, and an unholy horror consumed me when I espied what I had laid my hand upon - a human skull, sun-bleached, bits of discoloured flesh clinging limply to its surface. I drew my gloved hand back in horror and took with it a dram of brownish ichor that had once been its owner's eyes.
I wretched, ejecting nothing but my own stomach juices, as a dread realization overcame me. Below me was a pile of discarded rags that had once been loosely wrapped around the dead. To my left, to my right, in every direction, was nothing but gore - broken limbs bending in every direction, bone shards jutting from distended flesh, thick and opaque puddles of congealing blood, undulating pools of worms and maggots feeding on the bounty before them, and surrounding everything, the undeniable miasma of death. This was far more vivid than the dreams had ever been, and in that instant I was forced to recognize that my dreams had been prophetic after all - for here I was, a living breathing man, lying discarded upon the surface of the Dead Sea.
How was this possible, I wondered? Austhaven is many thousands of miles from Leng; could I have drank so heavily, so excessively, that I was mistaken for dead and loaded upon one of the trans-continental air-coaches? I still wore the heavy coat, gloves, and boots I had decorated myself with the prior evening, though definitely less fashionable now coated with gore as they were. Perhaps, in my cups, I committed some intolerable act and had been convicted by the state - or worse yet, found soulless by the church - and compelled to walk the Long Walk?
Somehow, I found the wherewithal to rise to my hands and knees, finding some footing upon the bones of the dead, and it seemed that Providence, in the most meagre of ways, had shone upon me. Though noon had passed and the sun was already bearing towards its rest in the southern sky, I was able to glimpse, in the west, a shallow cliff face. I had not taken the Long Walk, nor had I been disposed of in the heart of the sea where I would have had no hope for survival. It would be a struggle - but it would not be impossible for me to reach the shore of the Dead Sea, climb to the edge of the pit, and survive this ghastly ordeal.
The journey was slow in the going. Every step I took, every foothold I spotted amidst the rough uneven mass of carrion, could potentially give way and leave me to sink and drown amidst the dead. I tested each step with the utmost of care, often falling to all fours to better spread my weight among the clusters of bone and lumps of skin that could hold it. The heat was unbearable; though Leng is known for being a frigid climate, the chemical processes occurring within the depths of the sea kept it considerably warmer than its environs. My thirst overpowered me; and though all my senses rebelled against the notion, I forced myself to lower my lips into a pool of blood and drink a few sips. It tasted of death and sin, and I evacuated most of it sheer minutes later; it was evident that the sea would provide me no nourishment, and I was doomed to die if I could not reach the shore. Though I could easily have walked three miles in an hour on open land, I found myself making less than half a mile each hour, as the sun drew closer to the southern horizon and the bright orange of day grew a darker blue and purple. It was apparent that I would not make the shore by dusk, and I had no confidence in the moon, that mother of liars, to not guide me around in a circle until I dropped from exhaustion, so there was nothing to be done but to spend the night at sea. I pulled several of the larger, more intact cadavers together and atop one another to form a raft of sorts, and I lay flat on my back upon it, gazing up at a starless sky, as purple gave way to black.
I slept little that night, fearing that, should I let my eyes close fast again, that they might never re-open. As the moon rose contemptuously over the horizon, the fabled corpse-fires of the sea began to alight, bathing the feculent stew in an eerie gleam. I remembered hearing a rumor supposedly passed down from the soil-harvesters who plied the sea under cover of darkness, that the lights were the souls of the dead, trying to escape and burning up instead. I remembered the doubts of my youth - that my soul would perish in the Dead Sea with my body - as I stared at the gyring blazes that seemed to confirm my fears. I did the only thing I could think of to do in such a dark and seemingly hopeless hour - I prayed.
And in that dark hour, my prayer was answered. I heard a voice, both quiet and bold, humble and resplendent, seeming to whisper and shout at once from some cavernous void in the back of my mind. Fear not, it said to me in a language I could not recognize. I have promised you life eternal; endure now, and it shall be granted. It was in that instant that any trace of agnosticism I had ever experienced was put paid to; for here, at the edge of the world, in the land of the dead, in the darkest hour of my existence, I knew, without any doubt, that St. Azarius Himself had heard my prayers and had spoken to me.
In time, the first rays of the morning sun began to shine from the north. As soon as I could fix my eyes on the shore, a scant five or so miles ahead, I resolved that I would reach it by sunset. It was unlikely that I could survive another night on the sea without food or water, and St. Azarius Himself had commanded me to carry on - what choice did I have? Hours passed as I picked my way across the wastes. As I drew nearer the shore, the going became easier - here were the ripest of bodies, those delivered by train from the lands closest to Leng, and there lay less distance between them and the bottom of the pit than did those further asea. I was nearly a mile from the shore when I spied an unusually old body amidst the mass of the newly dead - its skin was dry and practically mummified, leather wrapped over bone. It jutted skyward between two corpses that had lain there a week or so, its eyeless sockets fixed on the heavens, one sinewy claw seeming to grip for dear life to the bosom of one of the newer bodies. A shudder befell me as I considered this remnant that had once been a man - his posture, his stance, the look on his dried face, told me that he had died after arriving in the Dead Sea. Logic dictates that I could not have been the only person in the history of the Empire to have befallen such a fate, but here, it seemed, was the proof.
I reached the shore an hour or so before sunset, and began to crawl and climb my way up the slope to the edge of the pit. I was halfway up when one of the carrion-haulers slouched up to the edge and discharged several hundred cadavers over the edge in my direction. I clung fast to the rocks and prayed, and again I heard St. Azarius urge me to persevere. Though they rolled over me, falling apart on the rocks, wooden caskets and linen wraps disintegrating on the way downward, limbs tearing asunder and buffeting me as they made their way downhill, I managed to avoid losing my grip and rejoining them below. Dusk had fallen by now, but I no longer had need of the light to guide me, for I knew which way up was. It must have been midnight before the slope gave way to level sand, the green glow of the Dead Sea lay behind me, and I knew that I had escaped with my life.
What now, then, I wondered? Though I was free of the pit, there was no succour to be had at its edge; it was a good hundred miles to the nearest town, and even the carrion-haulers dared not overnight here. I glanced around in the darkness, hoping that the corpse-lights would illuminate some sign of salvation, and as I looked westward where the lying moon rose above the plateau, I glimpsed the unlikely silhouette of my rescue; a relief station, from which no light now shone, but which the carrion-haulers surely had need of before making their return trip back to the depots where their next load of unfortunates was to be received.
I recall not whether I admitted myself to the men's chamber or to the women's; it hardly seemed like the most significant of details at the time. All I cared for was that there was a sink within, connected to a reservoir no doubt resupplied with waters from far outside this accused land. Water! Few sing hymns in its praise but those who have been made to do without. I suckled greedily at the tap like a baby hungry for its mother's milk. Having had my fill, I splashed my face, washing away the gore and sludge that had accumulated during my trek across the Dead Sea. I breathed a sigh of relief that my ordeal had come to an end. In the morning, more carrion-haulers would come. I could flag one down and tell him my story, and by day's end I would be back in my flat in Austhaven, and all of this would be nothing more than a thrilling tale of adventure with which to regale my grandchildren. Clearly I had begun to go mad in that grim viridian night among the corpse-fires and imagined the voice of St. Azarius; now that I was safe, I would need to seek Expurgation for those thoughts, but having done that I would never have to speak or think of that blasphemy again. Sighing, I rose from the sink and met my own gaze in the mirror - and as instantly as the earlier relief had swept me, a new revelation came.
It is said that in ancient epochs, when the world was closer to the stars, St. Azarius struck a bargain with the gods, that man might not die, but live eternal if they followed His teachings. The Temple has always taught that this life is to come in the hereafter; when we die, our souls depart our bodies, and if we are worthy, then St. Azarius will welcome us into the new world of His making.
I know not what negotiations He brokered with the Outer Things, nor what black magicks he authored in those distant ages, but I know now that the immortality He acquired for mankind was not the same immortality that the priests of the Temple had expected Him to deliver. Their vengeance when they realized the truth must have been immense. Perhaps He was the first one doomed to take the Long Walk into the heart of the pit. Perhaps the Dead Sea was built upon Him, that the Temple could hide His disgrace from the world without abolishing the reputation of His Holy Name upon which their power was wrought. I knew now that when I had heard St. Azarius speak to me that night in the Dead Sea, He spoke to me not from some metaphysical world-to-come, but that He was below me in the depths.
When I first beheld myself in the mirror, I vomited. What I expelled was not the fresh water I had just consumed, but something far more foul; black and brown, malodorous and syrupy, speckled with bits of graying flesh. In an instant, I recalled the details of my birthday celebration that had previously been denied to me; how I was unceremoniously tossed into the street after last call at the Eel & Castle. How I staggered drunkenly along the cobbles en route to my flat, hollering impolite suggestions at the ladies on the kerb. How I lost my footing on the mist-slicked staircase that lead downward to Earl's Street. How I tumbled twice and bashed my head against an old stone on my way down. How the maidens had screamed for help. How the hospitallers struggled to carry me onto a horse-drawn carriage as my life-blood ran down onto the stone.
Be not afraid, the voice spoke again in my head as I peeled the glove off my left hand, taking half of the soggy purple skin with it as I peeled it loose. I promised life eternal to all those who believe. In you the world shall see the fulfillment of my vow. The prophecy has been fulfilled, Dear Reader. The new age is upon us. The time has come to cast aside the false declarations of the Temple, which has denied us the truth of St. Azarius' promise and condemned us all to refuse our true immortality in favor of a false utopia.
All of this I realized as the glove slipped free from my hand and I raised it to the face I saw in the mirror, felt with my own hand the point where my skull had caved in on the cobblestone, where shards of rock and bone had forced their way into my exposed brain, and traced my bony, skeletal finger along the contours of my pure, bare, white and skinless face.


秦末，高祖为亭长时，人言丰西泽有大蛇。探之，乃遇一异士，蛇首而人身，以为精怪，拔剑欲斩之。其人大惊，言其本是伏羲、女娲之后，夏之遗民，非是妖邪。
高祖观之，着公卿之装，饰有玉带，果博学之士。遂问其众神、列国、诸王、群兽以及人事，喻以故事，一一作答。

Back at the end of the Qin Dynasty, when the first emperor of Han, Liu Bang, was but a local officer, it was rumored that a great serpent lurked in Fengxize. Arriving to investigate, he encountered a strange being with the body of a man and the head of a snake. Seeing that it was a monster, he pulled out his sword to slay it. Panicked, the being explained that he was no monster or demon, but a descendant of Fuxi and Nüwa, a remnant of the Xia Dynasty.
Upon closer examination, Liu found that the being wore the clothing of scholars and officials, adorned with a white jade belt, indeed a well-learned person. He hence asked the being about gods, kingdoms, kings, beasts and men. With stories, the serpent-man answered accordingly.

众神如何？
天地始如鸡子，盘古破之，遂有大渊。大渊者，归墟也。诸神趋于此，如萤趋火，又相争相食。故归墟又为神墓。有阴阳二龙蛰伏，一名伏羲，一名女娲，以诸神为食。二龙相交，产有九子，九子又生人，故人为万物灵长。
逾万八千岁，二龙相斗，便有伏羲身碎，女娲囚于太岁。人治毁坏，诸神相庆。
诸神中有麒麟者，人面而鹿形，角有黑白纹。闻之，弃其形体，逃于镇星。
有无面之神，见而笑之，曰：“竟惧二龙如斯？”
麒麟对曰：“神者，贪愚之至；人者，龙裔也。如今二龙尽去，诸神必以九子及人为食。二龙归来，必噬尽诸神。惟愿避祸而已。”
无面之神曰：“二龙相斗相食，一如诸神，不足虑。”
麒麟曰：“二龙相斗，必余其一。彼时，诸神尽入腹中。”遂不再答，遁入镇星。

About the Gods
At the beginning, the world was like an egg. When Pangu cracked it, the Great Abyss was formed. The Great Abyss was called Guixu. The gods were drawn to it like insects flying into a fire. There, they fought and consumed each other; hence Guixu was also the tomb of gods. Two Great Dragons, of Yin and Yang, also lurked beneath and fed on the gods, one called Fuxi, the other Nüwa. The two Dragons mated and spawned nine offspring, and from the Nine Children, men were born. Hence men were the most distinguished among all beings.
Tens of thousands of years later, the two Dragons fought. Fuxi was shattered, and Nüwa was imprisoned in Taisui. The rule of men was broken, and the gods all cheered.
One Qilin among the gods had the shape of a deer and the face of a man, carrying large antlers with black and white patterns. Upon hearing the event, Qilin abandoned its form and fled to Saturn.
A faceless god witnessed this, and laughed at it: “How come you fear the two Dragons this much?”
Qilin answered: “Gods are the greediest and the most foolish of all beings, and men are descendants of the Dragons. Now that the two Dragons are both gone, the gods will surely feed upon the Nine Children and men. And when the Dragons return, they will surely consume all gods in turn. I only wish to avoid such disaster.”
The Faceless God said: “The two Dragons will fight and consume each other, just like the gods do. No need to be concerned with this.”
Qilin answered: “But one will surely remain between the two Dragons. And by then, we will all end up in its stomach.” And so it no longer responded to the Faceless God, and hid deep within the planet of Saturn.

列国如何？
古时，有猿之国与夏战。猿之主驭有兽王，又唤树母，驱百兽、百禽及草木无数；夏之君使兵俑、战车，铜铁所铸，又备利器，可夷城郭。
大战半百，小战不可数。战火所至，涸泽作土，化土为沙。蛮夷见之大骇，以为神怒，一一远遁。
如此干戈不休，逾百年。有夏之君芒，驾蛟至大盐泽，与猿之主会。
夏之君曰：“驭兽，龙之道也；机巧，蛇之道也。龙、蛇为侣伴，而所驭之兽、所操之械出于同源。再战无益，当止戈。”
猿之主曰：“若止戈，当如何？”
夏之君曰：“可各执一方。”
猿之主曰：“地有大小，若穷尽之，则何如？”
夏之君指天答曰：“天河无边，可取诸星。”
猿之主应之。遂使猿之国守西地，兼理辰星、长庚、荧惑；夏执东土，并掌太阴、岁星、镇星。至此，干戈止。
又百余年，十日齐出，是金乌所致。金乌者，日之精魄。猿者，昼伏夜出；夏民，逐水而居，事农桑。故猿之国与夏皆受其扰，困苦不堪。又有太阳之民作乱两地，各以羲和、帝俊为首。曰：“吾等日之子裔也。”
猿之国与其斗，因十日之故，不得胜。太阳之民又窃瑰宝，使兽王、树母及百兽百禽作乱不休。猿之国至此而亡，其民十不存一。
夏之君桀闻之大骇，遣大夫羿以轩辕剑击十日。九日坠地，一乌脱逃。然金乌所坠，尽为火海，夏地尽毁。
故有人叹曰：“嗟乎！昔时猿、夏两国，何其兴隆？庶民见之，以为仙圣，亦以天人自居。分治后土，兼有诸星。如今俱为尘土。”而今人所见诸星，闪烁非常者，是猿、夏之孑遗。

About the Kingdoms
In ancient times, a war between the Xia Dynasty and a kingdom of apes was fought. The Lord of Apes summoned the king beast and the mother tree, with animals and plants of a thousand kinds under its control; the King of Xia commanded soldiers and chariots of iron and bronze, and harnessed great weapons that could wipe out cities.
Over fifty great wars were fought, with countless smaller battles. Wherever the fires of war reached, waters were vaporized and rocks were turned into sand. The savages who witnessed this all fled in terror as they thought of it as the wrath of gods.
The war continued like this for over a hundred years, until King Mang of Xia rode a wyrm to the great salty lake, and met with the Lord of Apes.
The King of Xia said: “The taming of beasts is the Way of the Dragon; the construction of machines is the Way of the Serpent. The Dragon and the Serpent are partners; hence the beasts and the machines originate from the same source. It is futile to continue the fight, so the war must end.”
The Lord of Apes asked: “If the war is to end, what should we do?”
The King of Xia said: “We can each rule one part of the land.”
The Lord of Apes asked: “But the land is limited, what if we conquered it all?”
The King of Xia pointed skyward and said: “The Milky Way is endless, and we can rule the stars.”
So the Lord of Apes agreed. It is then decided that the Kingdom of Apes shall have the West, as well as Mercury, Venus, and Mars; Xia shall rule the East, along with the Moon, Saturn, and Jupiter. The war hence ended.
Another few hundred years passed, Golden Crows, the sun spirits, caused ten suns to appear in the sky. The apes rested during the day and worked at night; the Xia people lived near waters and practiced agriculture. Hence both the Kingdom of Apes and Xia were greatly troubled. In addition, the Sun People, lead by Xihe and Dijun, revolted in the two kingdoms. They said: “We are the children of the suns.”
The Kingdom of Apes sought to suppress them, but was unsuccessful with the interference of the ten suns. The Sun People then stole their great treasure, and made the king beast, the mother tree, as well as the thousands of animals and plants wreak great havoc. The kingdom thus collapsed, leaving few survivors amongst the apes.
King Jie of Xia heard of the event. Terrified, he sent Scholar Yi to kill the ten suns with the Sword of Xuanyuan. Nine suns fell to the ground with only one crow escaped. But the fallen crows turned the land into a sea of fires, and Xia was doomed as well.
Therefore it was exclaimed that: “Alas! Back then, weren't the Kingdom of Apes and Xia prosperous? Ordinary people would regard them as saints and gods, and they also regarded themselves as heavenly people. Their domains were not only this land, but the stars as well. Yet they are but ashes now.” And among the stars people now saw, sometimes strange blinking lights could be found. They were what was left of the two kingdoms.

诸王如何？
昔有阿伽之王祈于大渊，唤三阎罗，曰：“愿不死。”阎罗曰：“可以一博。”与郁垒为叶子戏，与阎摩投壶，与地藏奕，并赌以宗族、臣民及鸟兽。
王不得胜，阎罗遂索魂于显贵、庶民、牲畜。便有灾祸，疫病大行，征战无休，黎民十不存一。余者揭竿而起，公卿尽戮，困王于庭。
王大惧，又祈于大渊。有无面之神应之，曰：“死之，三日而返。再饮诸血，可得生。”缢于中庭，举国庆之。曝尸于野，群鸦饲之。
及三日，阖城尽死，俱为干尸。神遣从者至，以玉盏盛诸民之血献王。欲饮，然尸身残破，不得抓握，失手翻之。诸血流而为河。神叹曰：“不得生，亦不得死。”
王大骇，欲再求诸血，不可得。三阎罗笑之，化鸦而走。

About the Kings
The King of Ajia once called upon the Great Abyss, summoning the Three Lords of Death, and said: “I wish that I will not die.” The Lords of Death answered: “You may gamble with us.” Thus the king played cards with Yulü, competed in throwing with Yama, and engaged in a chess match with Kshitigarbha, with the royal blood, the citizens, and the animals under his rule as stakes.
The king lost. The Lords of Death hence took the souls of royalty, common people, and livestock. Disasters arose, plagues prevailed, and wars broke out. Less than one tenth of the people survived. The survivors revolted, killing the royalties and officials, and trapped the king in his court.
Terrified, the king called upon the Great Abyss once more. A faceless god answered him, and said: “You must first die, and will then return in three days. By consuming all blood, you shall live.” The king hanged himself in the court, and the whole kingdom cheered. They exposed his body in the wild, where it was fed upon by the crows.
Three days later, the whole city was lifeless. All were corpses, drained of blood. The god had sent its emissary. With a jade cup, the emissary held the blood of the city's people, and presented it to the king. Attempting to drink it, the king grabbed the cup. But as his body was torn and broken from the crows, he dropped it by accident. The blood ran down and formed a river. The god sighed and said: “You cannot live and may not die.”
The King panicked, and asked for the blood once more. But his chance was lost. The Three Lords of Death laughed, then turned into crows and flew off.

群兽如何？
有殃君居于西土，是猿国旧地，狄瓦之治。狄瓦者，事巫蛊，崇恶神。虽衣冠博带，以人为食，或呼喝玩弄，如群兽。民皆苦。
殃君不堪驱使，夜遁。遇不末，是僧侣，侍于伏羲。
不末曰：“伏羲者，蛇父也，是金之神，大智慧者。当以铜为肌，以铁置骨，以机巧换脏器，以水银化血，可解汝之苦。”
殃君不愿，曰：“身体肤发，舍之，可为人乎？是愚行。”
不末叹曰：“可求诸神，不可求于龙母。”
遂与不末别。俄而，狄瓦追至，擒殃君，囚于兽栏，择日食之。遂求于诸神，无应者。
泣于夜，闻兽之音。是龙也，曰：“吾名女娲，是汝等之母。”殃君拜之，以为神。又以栏中猪羊为祭，以饲龙下兽者六。龙曰：“善，当助之。”
殃遂为术者，牧有龙、蛇及诸兽。狄瓦不敌，退走，弃其城。殃君曰：“吾当为术者王。”语毕，六兽来贺。以城中民饲六兽。
不末闻之，率僧侣伐殃。再见之，四目巨口，如龙似蛇，不类人。不末叹曰：“与兽相斗，反为野兽，呜呼哀哉！”
败殃君于压罗。又驱入太岁，自此如入兽笼，不见天日。

About the Beasts
A man named Yang lived in the West, the land the Apes once walked, now ruled by Daevas. The Daevas practiced witchcraft and worshipped hideous gods. They might wear fancy clothes, but being beasts inside, they used humans as food, slaves and toys. People under their rule suffered.
One day, Yang could not stand this any longer, and fled into the night. He met a monk named Bumo, who served Fuxi.
Bumo said: “Fuxi is the Father Serpent, the god of metal, one who bears great wisdom. Your pain can be eased if you replace your flesh with copper, your bone with iron, your organs with clockwork, and your blood with mercury.”
Yang was reluctant, turning him down: “If I abandon my body, how can I remain a man? Such is foolish.”
Bumo sighed and said: “You may call upon the gods for help, but do not call upon the Mother Dragon.”
Yang then bade farewell to Bumo. Soon after, the Daevas came and caught him. Locking him up with livestock, they decided to eat him on a fine day. It was then that Yang called upon the gods, but none answered.
Weeping into the night, Yang heard the call of the Beast. It was the Dragon, who spoke to him: “I am Nüwa, the mother of you all.” Yang regarded it as a god, and knelt. He offered goats and pigs in the cage as sacrifices to feed the Six Beasts under the throne of the Dragon. The Dragon then said: "Good. So you shall receive my aid."
Yang thus became the Sorcerer, and herded dragons, snakes, and beasts. The Daevas could not match his power. They fled, leaving the city behind. Yang then said: "I shall be the Sorcerer King." As he finished, the Six Beasts all descended and congratulated him, and was fed with the city's people.
Bumo heard of the event, and led his monks to fight against Yang. When Bumo saw Yang again, he found that the being no longer resembled a human, but a serpent-like creature with four eyes and a huge mouth. Bumo exclaimed: “Once struggled against the beasts, he now became a beast himself, such a shame!”
He defeated Yang at Yaluo, and drove him into Taisui. As a beast in the cage, Yang never again bathed in sunlight.

人如何？
始皇时，四海一统，蛮夷皆服王化，又有四方异士来朝。秦皇告天下曰：“愿得长生。”
有盘甲从海外来，是古之民，寿数无穷，通鸟兽语。言及龙蛇治世之时，建木高塔沟通天地，乐土园林畜有诸兽，昆仑殿宇为人所居。造阿房宫，建高台以摘星，锁诸兽为基石，又录众生之语为典籍，献于秦皇。
秦皇曰：“可得长生否？”
盘甲曰：“立不朽功业，自当为万民所念，长存于心。”
秦皇怒，焚其书册。盘甲叹之，遁入火光，不复见。
有鱼凫从蜀中来，是蚕丛之裔，夏之遗民。言及黄帝、尧、舜及禹王，行伏羲之道，天下大治。铸机巧兵俑万余，又造飞舟，穿行天河，达于太阴。
秦皇曰：“可得长生否？”
鱼凫曰：“以机巧为躯壳，可以不朽。”
秦皇不悦，视为外道，弃而不用。
有徐福自西土来，是内殿之使，龙母之仆。言及术者殃君，拜于女娲及其坐下六兽，退诸魔，驭群兽，有伟力。
秦皇曰：“可得长生否？”
徐福曰：“可。”
秦皇大悦。徐福遂索五百童男童女为牺牲，秦皇允之。祭于大龙，俄而，龙下之兽至。果许秦皇以长生及伟力，曰：“日祭一人，以谢龙母。”秦皇曰：“当祭百人。”大兽曰：“善。”遂征天下之民。徐福见之，逃于东海。
鱼凫闻之大骇，曰：“盘甲者，至人也；夏民者，龙裔而已；徐福者，实野兽之属。不求于盘甲，而求于徐福，大谬也。如此，一人得生而祸及天下，不可取。”
遂率昔日所造兵俑，困秦皇于阿房宫。又沉入地下，虽寿无穷，不得脱出。

其人语毕，高祖曰：“人皆言此中有妖，不可空手而还。”其人曰：“可斩此蛇。”掷玉带于地，化为白蛇，高祖斩之。其人不复见。携蛇而归，众人皆惊，言是帝王之兆。

About Men
During Shi Huang Ti's reign, all lands were united, all savages were under the emperor's rule, and people with rare talents came from all over the world to seek audience with the emperor. The emperor of Qin hence announced to the world that: “I seek eternal life.”
Panjia came from overseas. He was of the ageless ancient people, and spoke the words of birds and animals. He talked about the reign of the Dragon and the Serpent, where the Great Tower of Jianmu led to the sky, the Paradise Garden housed all beasts, and the Kunlun Palace resided by men. With beasts locked up in the base, he built Epang Palace, where towers could reach the stars. He then wrote languages of all life into a tome and presented it to the emperor.
The emperor asked: “Can I achieve eternal life through this?”
Panjia answered: “If you can accomplish such great things, you will surely be remembered by all of your people, and live forever in their hearts.”
The emperor was enraged, and burnt the tome. Panjia sighed, and disappeared into the flames, never seen again.
Yufu came from the Shu state. He was the descendant of Cancong, a remnant of the Xia Dynasty. He talked about the Yellow Emperor, the kings Yao, Shun, and Yu, and how they managed to govern the land to prosperity through the Way of Fuxi. He first forged tens of thousands of mechanical soldiers, and then a flying ship, which sailed in the Milky Way and settled on the moon.
The emperor asked: “Can I achieve eternal life through this?”
Yufu answered: “If you replace your mortal body with machines, you may live forever.”
The emperor was not pleased. Regarding the method as heretical, he abandoned Yufu's plans.
Xu Fu came from the West. He was a messenger of Adytum, servant of Mother Dragon. He spoke of the Sorcerer Yang, who worshipped Nüwa and the Six Beasts under her throne, and was able to defeat demons, harness beasts, and wield great power.
The emperor asked: “Can I achieve eternal life through this?”
Xu Fu answered: “Yes.”
The emperor was greatly pleased. He permitted Xu Fu's request, who asked for five hundred children as sacrifice. Xu Fu then sacrificed to the Great Dragon. Soon after, a Beast under the Dragon's throne came. It indeed granted the emperor eternal life and great power, saying: “You must sacrifice a person daily to show gratitude towards Mother Dragon.” The emperor answered: “I shall sacrifice a hundred daily.” The Great Beast replied: “Such is good.” The emperor then collected people from all over the land. Xu Fu saw this, and fled to the eastern seas.
Terrified of the emperor's actions, Yufu said: “Panjia is the perfection of man; the Xia people are but descendants of the Dragons; Xu Fu, howerever, is indeed of the beasts' kind. Seeking help not from Panjia, but from Xu Fu, a grave mistake. An eternal life but at the cost of the lives of all who walk the land, such is intolerable.”
Yufu thus led the mechanical soldiers he built and trapped the emperor in Epang Palace. He then sank the palace into the ground, and left the emperor with no escape despite his eternal life.

As the stories were finished, Liu said: “People all say that a monster dwells here. Thus, I cannot return empty handed.” The being said: “You can slay this serpent.” He tossed his jade belt onto the ground, which then turned into a white serpent. Liu slew it, and saw that the serpent-man was nowhere to be found. Seeing the serpent Liu brought back, the people were all amazed, and said that it was a sign of future royalty.