Waterlogged Scraps
Contents
Something is wrong. The whole village seems to be humming with a tense energy, like a string on a skendi about to snap. But I am ready. This tension fuels me. My gathering is today. A gathering of friends, of like-minded Tlaxani. We meet soon, and I have the whole home prepared. A fine dinner has been set up outside. I've fitted a new front door on my home and hung fine curtains of the brightest green.
My guests arrive as the sun moves past the midpoint of the sky. I welcome each by name with a polite smile and a pleasant atmosphere. The tension from earlier is still palpable, but none of my guests seem to be affected by it. Could it just be me? The humming, like a whisper, echoes endlessly in the back of my mind.
We discuss the war. This endless loss of life as Tlaxan soldiers are thrown one by one against the invader's forces. Not content to destroy us on the ground, they have taken to flying orbs, raining down virulent potions from above, blighting the very land we walk on, and leaving corpses in their wake. I hate this. Not just the invaders, but our leaders too. C'Shura started this. C'Axtal continues this. C'Zanil murders for this. It is tkenn on earth. We will not stand for it any longer. That is why we meet.
But as we speak, the rumbles grow louder. Discontent grows among the gathered as the tension erupts in my head.
Then came the roar. The sound, like thousands of voices shouting at once. A rage so pure that even the plants around us seemed to cower.
The spirit of this place was awake.
Fear filled my body with a cold chill, but I seemed to move automatically, herding my guests into my home. I told them to go into the basement to seek shelter. The earth itself was quivering and a strange shape began to coalesce above us. I saw a small figure floating above the center of Ta'Ferna, and that shape began to close in around it. The Soulspeaker. And something else.
I ran for my home, but by the time I looked back, the shape and the Soulspeaker were both gone. The rage had not subsided though. The ground continued to rumble. Then, as if lifted by invisible hands, the water from Lake Tenki lifted from the banks and a landmass began to rise from the waters. The sun seemed to freeze in the sky. I saw nothing else, as the cold grasp of fear took over my body again, and I rushed into the basement to join my guests.
With the door sealed, things seemed quieter. The tension was still present, but the sounds of rage from above had lessened. Soon, all we could hear was the water rushing over the hallowed grounds of the Sanctum.
Then the dripping began. Within minutes, the floor was covered in ankle deep water. The door refused to open, sealed by water or debris from unseen destruction. I know not which, but there seemed no way out. With nothing left to do, I began to write frantically, chronicling these events on page, hoping to preserve them on reed-paper so that whoever finds it will know what happened here. The rage of the jungle surrounded us.
Then with a rush, the jungle left us to die.