The Surrealist's Manuscript by darknano | World Anvil Manuscripts | World Anvil

Act III

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The Untalo region is one which has thousands of years of history behind it -- many of which has been plagued with war that has stained its ancient sands. Many of the generations which have lived here resided here over time and have never really left. As a result of those deep roots, as well as the overbearing oppression of the Normatite race imperium, many here are hardly xenophilic and often approach outsiders with either hostility or great suspicion.

    My original purpose here was to research the anomalies surrounding where the Floating City used to reside. In the 8000’s, it used to be a gleaming citadel that floated freely purely by Tagonic influence for two thousand years. When the Empire lost its connection to the Iundan part of the continent, so too did it lose its greatest Tagonic infrastructure by repelling Iundan natives.

    There were no actual anomalies in the area at the time, but this region -- as well as the Parcel Tree, was unusually lush for the desert surrounding it. This in itself was, to the politicians uneducated on the workings of Termoyl, an anomaly. The thing about Termoyl however, is that it naturally fertilizes and moisturizes soil that it is intrinsically attached to, and the Terrasque uses these “Trees of Life,” much like the Parcel Tree, to enforce their influence on its domain.

    It’s no surprise that during ancient times, the Terrasque was considered a god of this planet. Indeed, Tagon was rooted into all-kind, from any culture on the planet for millennia. The shun of Termoyl by an opposing force is a new invention (or destruction) created and perpetuated by Normatite supremacy.

    All of this information I learned and studied alongside a Knomnolite scientist who never told me his name. His information would forever transform how I learned and studied Tagon, the Terrasque, and the Haze.

    The Terrasque is a seemingly omniscient being that has always been here since the start of Ciphrus civilization. As aforementioned, its influence could possibly be interstellar, but as far as we have detected in the past it can only extend to near celestial objects. The thing about the Terrasque’s influence is that a great many of the population presently ignore its availability. The Terrasque is seemingly omniscient in its domain -- it controls the entirety of the planet. There is not a single facet of this space in which we all inhabit where the Terrasque does not reside. It is an eternal presence. This simple fact is perhaps the most beautiful of its reality. We, as all-kind, are unaware of the influence of the Terrasque’s dominion because we were born from it. We are designed in the Terrasque's image, but it is neither idealistic nor creative. The Terrasque is monotonous, autonomous, and without more than logic.

    In the past, during the Xiqen Empire’s reign, most cultures among the planet (aside from Normatia and its divergent successors) illustrated the Terrasque as a deity because that is exactly what it is. Indeed, the Empire was a theocracy based around this basic idea, and this heavy idea emanates clearly among the entirety of the Untalo region to this day. 

    This unnamed Knomnolite was captured in a raid following a northern Iundan town search and sweep. He was apparently a “maji,” or “mage,” a person who was adept in the use of Tagon, and had managed to wipe out half a platoon of Federal (I.H.M.D.) soldiers before being captured by a flanking unit. I had requested to speak to him, despite the inevitable, bellicose response.

    What was an ambivalent surprise is that he spoke to me immediately, but at first only in a dialect I did not understand. Sometimes, comically, he would respond to me as if we were having a normal conversation, distinctly knowing that I was completely oblivious. His festive mockery had more than annoyed me, and for days I did not speak to him again.

    When I had returned, his mood had seemed to have derailed and his body appeared weaker -- battered and bruised from regular beatings by the unhampered supremacists, which ran rampant among the I.H.M.D. ranks. That day, he had spoken to me only out of fear, but he did not filter his words at all. I, in somber, recall that day with no joy because I was well aware of the fact that this Knomnolite had taken those beatings solely for verbally abusing a Normatite -- myself.

    The Knomnolite told me about the persecution of his people, and the grand scheme of what he believed the Terrasque was in its truest form. What he spoke of was majesty, grace in the face of chaos and a developmental, ever evolving mind that embraced reality much like the brains of children. The Terrasque, as described by his culture, was one which required care and nurture; it was there not so much as to take care of us, but for us to show it the universe in its truest glory.

    This stark difference in this perception and the illusion taught by western, Normatite academia is the rendition that there is a dichotomy between the Terrasque and its population. There is an obligation to take care of our world, so much as there is to live in it.

    For that whole week we had daily conversations, some going for hours. His heart was kind, but filled with a great and weighted sorrow. After that week, I arrived to continue our recurring interviews to find him gone, with nothing left except for an inscription which read:

MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION.

    I, nor the world, ever saw him again.

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