Weaving - Mortuum Priums - 2

The Dead Progenitor Expedition - Lead Researcher Jacklyn Spearhead’s Log - Day 150 - 1/2

One of my instruments finally registered The Mortuum Primus today. Or rather, it finally registered what lies within The Mortuum Primus. Every piece of arcane equipment we brought, including my right arm, has suffered unruly levels of interference for two weeks now. It’s a good thing I’m left-handed. I’ve lost count of the false positives we’ve experienced, which doesn’t happen often as I have an eidetic memory. Regardless, there is no doubt in my mind that this is the real deal. I spotted the signal light on my Relmatic Scope glowing faint, alternating casts of green, yellow, and purple. This was considerably odd as it is a red diode. The glows quickly grew so bright that they became painful to look at. It’s worth mentioning that brightness alone is not an uncommon occurrence. Past visits I have made to Aarou, a particularly energetic realm, have produced the same luminance. However, in the case of Aarou, it takes three to four hours for the glow to reach that level of intensity. 

Before I could make it to the device’s eyepiece, a high-pitched series of whines, cracks, and pops emanated from the optical tube. All nineteen of the implement’s lenses had shattered into exactly three pieces of varying sizes. Fortunately, I am quite clever. I predicted our journey may pose challenges such as this. I brought multiples of everything and already had a second Realmatic Scope, tuned to a different frequency, running in parallel. I should be able to find a suitable configuration somewhere between the two devices’ frequencies. I’m currently writing this as my technicians disassemble the damaged instrument. In a moment I will configure the replacement based on what they find. But until then: tea and journaling. 

While the event of our Realmatic Scope breaking was a moderately alarming occurrence, I find myself feeling quite optimistic. Never before has there been a more well-supported expedition. You could probably start a small university with all the supplies, staff, and experience I have on board. And if hazards of a more violent nature emerge, I am confident in our level of security. At least as confident as one from The Crimson Enclave could be. The crew of The Dawnbreaker have literally fought and beat divinities before. And the Captain’s wife, Ruthena, is technically a Divinity herself. We are as ready as can be for whatever challenge the Mortuum Primus throws at us. It should be noted that my preparedness is not entirely solely based on experience and instinct. While the territory is unknown, we are not without a guide. Like most expectations I have for this journey, I founded my preparations on The Alliance Tome.

I need not explain the wonders of The Tome to other academics. However, if this expedition is as successful as I am hoping it to be, I fully anticipate this journal to be published for historical significance. So I will make The Tome’s importance understood by the less academically versed reader. Also, I am partial to gushing, and conspiratorial discussion.

The Alliance Tome was obtained from the Eethryil. The text was given to us by our alien neighbors after much coaxing. To put it simply, it contains the secrets of the universe. Sort of. It has become as instrumental to academia as the anvil is to smithing. But I am getting ahead of myself. Eethryl is a society comparable to our own. Merely more advanced. It resides within a cluster of habitable solar bodies we discovered three decades ago in Deep Wildspace. The Eethryli’s civilizations initially astonished us. Science and magic developed far past our own. It was also the first time we encountered an alien society that had gods different than us. Not merely an alternate perspective of divinity, but an entirely separate, unrelated pantheon. A group of worlds that existed outside The Weave. To make my point clear, their magic came from somewhere we didn’t understand. We were left frightened and perplexed by this discovery. Fortunately, the Eethryli are reasonably affable neighbors and didn’t obliterate us. We spent the first years in awe of their majesty, but they kept us at arm’s length. Like how an appreciative celebrity might keep an adoring fan a few paces away. They’d known of us long before we knew of them but did not interfere with our development due to Cosmic Law. A concept we would soon become familiar with. While the discovery of The Eethryli expanded our understanding of The Cosmos, we were only just beginning to glimpse the bigger picture.

After nearly a decade of tentative communications with the Eethryli, we learned of their place in The Cosmos, and by extension, our own. Eethryl was part of The Cosmic Alliance, a federation of societies scattered across the stars that have discovered one another and formed, well, alliances. Sharing resources, technology, and most importantly information. While the Eethryli initially seemed to us like a great, wondrous nation, we eventually began to suspect that they are actually of relatively low importance to The Cosmic Alliance. Though, they would like us to believe otherwise. Their location within The Cosmos is quite remote relative to The Alliance’s heart. Ours even more so. To put it another way, within our region of the stars, The Eethryli are the big fish in a small pond. 

Like all organizations, The Cosmic Alliance has rules. And we have been able to learn a fair deal about them. From what we can tell, there are multiple entities within our universe like The Alliance, each with their own competing goals. The Alliance’s mission seems to be one of natural order. Their regulations largely pertain to the protection and preservation of developing civilizations. They uphold the idea that societies that cannot venture into the stars on their own, or protect themselves from external forces should not be tampered with. It is unclear as to exactly why this is their mission, but we have a few working theories. My personal belief is that in The Cosmos’s history, interference with lower societies manifested like a proverbial cancer. Singular domineering forces that swept across the stars shedding blood and stomping out the unique and valuable aspects of developing civilizations. This theory works in multiple ways as it can also could be viewed from another perspective. Perhaps they are banding together against a greater, malicious entity?

Suffice it to say, the governing bodies of The Crimson Enclave wanted anything and everything that The Eethryli would give us, but little was provided. They would only provide familiar resources. Trade discussions were slow and we had nothing besides our art for trade. Which, to them, was novel at best. Based on Cosmic Law, they weren’t comfortable giving us anything too scientifically advanced. They had everything that we had and more. This all changed when they learned about the Lumina Pearls harvested on Neptulon. Unbeknownst to us, resources with space-warping properties are valuable all across The Cosmos. Extremely valuable. 

If not for Cosmic Law, I’d bet the Eethryli would have annexed The Crimson Enclave solely to harness Lumina Pearls. However, a hypothetical hostile takeover wasn’t even worth considering as one day they suddenly informed us we could become a part of their nation. Most governing bodies of The Known Galaxy were enthused by the idea of amalgamating with Eethryl. The Crimson Enclave was still a relatively new government and had experienced a fair deal of growing pains. The prospect of assimilation came as a shock to us. We assumed to be too primitive for them but Eethryl assured us that we lie somewhere between primitive and alliance-material. According to them, this sort of union was common across the stars. It seemed the Eethryli would take full advantage of The Crimson Enclave’s disorder and eager naivety. It is only by pure luck that the noble house controlling the pearl trade is headed by the most skeptical, oleaginous man I have ever met. Lord Kentucky Gallahue.