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[void-lore]

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Mother? by Elena Samoylova

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From their shore, the mirror flats look very much like an endless expanse of clear, perfectly-calm water, reflecting the space above flawlessly. For those who rely on vision to navigate, the effect quickly becomes disorienting, the world above and below exactly the same. This disorientation is the easiest way to reach the underneath, if you seek to go there, and the easiest way to be lost to the underneath, if not.

Almost nothing else exists within the mirror flats. Not landmarks nor structures, nor flora nor fauna. No water wells from the ground, and no wind stirs the air. not even debris, brought from other places, mars the mirror-like surface of the flats. The flats are not made of glass or metal, nor water or salt or any substance a human might recognize. It is said the flats could hold the weight of all of the behemoths of old, and yet the unwary traveler may slip through the surface.

Traveling the flats is a gamble at best, and a poor decision in any circumstance. Once you are out sight of the shore, any direction is as good as any other- it is surrounded completely by the mirror bog, where shards of the flats break off to travel the bog, sentient and hungry. You cannot follow them- the mirror bog may only be reached through the second crystalspine forest, after all. Any shore you might reach is random until you set foot upon it. Every shore you might reach takes seven days to travel to, if you reach a shore at all.

If the flats are kind, then you may encounter their only denizens. Twisters, small, coiling creatures with sail-like frills and no eyes, inhabit the air above the flats, watching over those who attempt to make a crossing. Once you have passed out of view of the shore, they may come to you, and you may request their assistance, their guidance, for the right offering. If you happen to have what they desire, they will lead you to the shore you need in exchange.

If you do not have what they desire, well. The flats are not necessarily kind to you.

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I do not remember the time when the behemoths of old wandered the Void. Some do. Some remember. Moretta, who prowls the border lands. Salis, deep inside the first crystalspine forest, residing now among their shattered remains. The Collectors surely remember when the behemoths walked the Void- they probably remember the Void before the behemoths as well.

What I know is that the Void used to be much bigger than it is now, infinite expanses of nothing, populated with eight crystal behemoths, or sometimes twelve, or seven. I have heard that you could not see one side of them while looking at the other. I have heard entire cities could have been built in a single eye socket, and that Ravener’s Ridge, the towering mountains that sometimes split the Void in two, is what remains of the tenth behemoth’s spine, and that the leviathan seas at the eastern edge formed from their footprints in soft soil.

I used to wonder how anything so large could survive, what it ate, how it moved without collapsing on itself, but I think the Void was a less savage place in their time. Not pleasant, not kind, but not as hungry. Not as vicious. I cannot help but wonder if they existed because of that fact, or if it was like that because they existed. I suspect it was the latter.

I am told the Void was not divided back then, not shattered and shifting, not splintered at its core. That the behemoths were able to wander infinity in slow, lumbering strides, and that communities of all sorts formed and fell below them, between one step and the next. They did not consume or create anything, but consumption and creation followed in their wake. Moretta says that when the constructs brought the behemoths to the ground, creation ceased and the Void began to consume itself. I asked her, once, how something infinite could become smaller. I will spare you the answer.

One of the Collectors will speak of the behemoth’s return, for the right price. I should not have paid it, but I needed the information. It told me that the behemoths that wander the crystalspines now will never stop growing. That, if the Void can contain the constructs within the fifth forest, behemoths will once again freely travel the Void. It told me not to hold my breath, as if it mattered whether I did, because the Unraveller would not allow this to pass, that he would find a way to outwit the Void and release his creations once again.

A long time ago, I would not have believed the Collector, but I have seen the small constructs now. I have witnessed a loop gate snare a void beast. I have seen the rotting corpses of leviathan dragged to the shore of their seas.

The behemoths were his first. They will not be his last.

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Deep in the wastes and always in the distance, roam the vortex deer, great stags towering over the land, jagged antlers disappearing into the fog above the wastes. They travel slowly, or appear to, though each step covers a hundred meters of void-eaten ground. Their travel makes no noise, leaves no impressions in the soil.

This is not surprising. Many speculate they do not even have hooves with which to touch the ground, though none have gotten close enough to find out for sure. The closer one gets to a vortex deer, the less it looks like a deer, and the more it looks like a howling vortex. For once, your eyes will not deceive you; this is how they hunt, transforming into lashing winds that grab up and dissolve everything in their path.

However, like the leviathans and the behemoths of old, vortex deer have no care for mortals one way or another. On the one hand, this means they will not hunt you. On the other, it means they will not notice if they travel in your direction. They will not notice when they consume you.

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To one side of the second Crystalspine Forest lies the Mirror Bog. It is never the same side, but it is also never the north side, when north exists. You can only get to it from within the second Crystalspine Forest, which is fortunate, all things considered.  Do not wander the Mirror Bog. You only have so many steps. The number is different for everyone.

Unlike the bogs of your world, this one is not made of peat and sluggish water and biting insects. This bog is made of shards of reality, liquid and sharp and reflective, like a churning layer of crushed mirror. You may ignore the shadows you see pass beneath and through the bog’s surface- your own should not leave you to join them unless you have offended it.

The scraggly trees that reach gnarled hands to the sky have no substance- they are merely a reflection of something that has never existed. They will call you to them, soft songs that will sound like the gentle rattle of wind through summer leaves they never had. Do not touch them, and do not attempt to shelter under them. Their roots are hungry.

There is a way out, if you are careful enough to count your steps.

At the center of the bog lies a dock, attached to nothing and leading nowhere. If you manage to reach it before the whispers find you, climb onto it at the middle. Walk to the end, and step off. If you have chosen the correct end, you will find yourself on a small, wooden boat. Probably wooden. At any rate, it will take you out of the bog. This may or may not be a blessing, depending on where it takes you.

If you are incorrect... well. Perhaps you had best choose correctly.

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Sometimes you need some examples of horrifying teeth to go into those giant gaping maws about to consume you whole.

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Built by the Unraveller in his early days, loop gates are mechanical snares intended to trap those not afflicted by time. Or rather, those who are unaffected by its passage, those who shed time like water from skin not of any world.

If you are quick, and if you are clever, you may use this construct as a defense against those that would pursue you, miring them in a loop of twisting, repeating time. Be careful not to enter the coils of the gate, yourself, or you will find yourself unstuck in time- an unpleasant experience for mortals.

Should you successfully utilize a loop gate to trap a void beast, you should depart swiftly. Those that would pursue you are inevitably pursued in turn by the one who built the snare. He will arrive before long, to claim his trophy.

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Inka & Niclas - Becoming Wilderness, 2015

Click on each image for details.

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(Photo from Inka & Niclas - Becoming Wilderness, 2015) Requested by @serendipityxxi

Along every border of the Wastes can be found Revenants.

Like everything in the Void, they are not alive, but unlike most, they are not living, either. They do not breathe, they have no beating hearts, and - also unlike most things in the Void - they do not eat. They are blind and deaf and mute, stumbling out from within the Wastes to wander until they lose cohesion.

Touch is their only sense, and they crave to gain the others. They are made of the hollows between the elements they have collected, twisted sticks and bleached-white bones and gnarled debris from the Wastes cobbled together to vaguely resemble something mobile.

Do not touch them. A single touch will alert them to your presence.

The bones they wear did not start out as bones alone.

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At the core of the Void - not the center, but the core of it - there is a great, yawning vortex. Some call it the core of the Void itself, or the heart, if the Void could have such a thing. Whether it is a power source or a power drain has never been determined for sure.

Its tendrils swirl in both directions, causing it to always look as though it sinks away and toward those viewing it. Light bends and whirls around the pitch center, dragged ever toward the middle in the manner of a black hole, but the Vortex does not pull. It is a twisting, squirming, writhing thing which does not move at all, starving to fill itself with everything it touches.

It is never the same twice, or at least, no story about it matches another quite right. Some say the Vortex can fit in the palm of a human hand. Some say you cannot see one side of it while looking at the other, no matter how far back from it you stand.  It howls, and is silence; either way it consumes all noise it does not create. Its tendrils are blue, or red, or green, or any other color depending on who is looking. It will not be the same color the next time.

If you have ever been inside of a thundercloud during a lightning storm, you may recognize the electric sensation of charged air. If you have ever stood next to a lightning strike, you may recognize the click of the ground beneath your feet as it waits to connect to the sky. The Vortex is both of the moment before and the moment after, connecting each part of the Void to every other part the way thunder connects to lightning. The pull of the Vortex is what moves all parts of the Void, gives it an ever-shifting landscape.

The Vortex is a place of infinite ending and creation. All that which the Vortex consumes or spits out becomes a part of the Void. All that the Vortex spits out, it will eventually consume again. It maintains the endless cycle of the Void.

If you ever intend to leave the Void, you would do best never to visit the Vortex.

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i love this blog so much holy shit

Happy to hear this!

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hey have i ever told y’all about my cursed apartment building

cursed how, you say???? well, here’s the thing: no-one can fuckin see it. let me explain further

i live in a tiny flat in a big red brick building with huge windows. it has a driveway with two columns on either side - not a thing you usually see in this area. it is opposite a bus stop and several corner shops. it is on a main, busy road. most significantly, it is attached to a church. a well-known church with a big pink sign on the front.

all things that would make it easy to spot, right???? like if i gave that list of distinguishing features to someone along with my address then they’d be able to find my flat easily, right??? well APPARENTLY NOT

we have never once had a delivery to our flat (outside of the usual postal service) where we haven’t been called by a lost courier 

usually, they are about thirty seconds away. “i’m by the church and i don’t know where to go from here,” they say. so we tell them, “it’s the building right next to the church!! the one you’re outside. that church. it’s the next building along. it’s opposite a bus stop and it has a driveway with two big columns.” 

without fail, they call back 5-10 minutes later, still lost.

i have answered calls from both lost delivery people and friends where i’ve been able to see them standing in front of the driveway, from my window

a friend of mine once drove past my building three times, while on the phone to me, getting increasingly panicked that she couldn’t figure out where she was going. she parked in a nearby road and i had to walk to her car and guide her to the driveway

however, my flatmate and i found this place when we were flat-hunting first time, no trouble, and we don’t know what that means other than i guess this place chose us and the rent is so cheap because the estate agents were so relieved to find the first people in a thousand years who could actually see this fuckin building

today a food delivery person called me to say he was outside the church, was told to go to the next building along, (a 20 second journey on foot) and arrived at my door 20 minutes later, saying, “sorry, i went to the back of this building by mistake. weird right???”

this building doesn’t have a back

it backs onto the rest of the church it doesn’t have a back where did he go

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Black hole

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Creepy installations made of video tape by Philip Ob Rey/ Humantropy 

Facebook Every now and then you come across an artist of piece of art that takes your breath away and lingers in your mind for the rest of the day. This recently happened to me when I found Philip Ob Rey’s (also know under pseudonym Humantropy) ‘V-project’. Using the tape found in old VHS tapes Philip creates creepy installations and places them in the gorgeous, dreary Icelandic landscape. The results are fantastic, images looking like they’re taking from a horror film, or displaying a creepy monster from a fantasy book. I highly recommend reading the introduction of the series on Philip’s website as well, it’s beautiful written and a great start to fully enjoy his wonderful work.

You can find more of Philip’s work on his website and videos of his projects on Vimeo. Enjoy!

via:bleaq dark