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Incautious statements of the person

Hi, my name's Ari. I've been lurking on the SCP wiki for ages and have decided to have a shot at the Wanderer's library, as I much prefer the prose focused style this site permits.

The (in)complete Journals of Elionore Von Lichtenstein, one

An introductory note by the translator:
The collected volumes of magistrate Elionore Von Lichtenstein`s scholarly journals are a pet-project become-passion for me. These unassuming, horridly preserved almanachs - written in a language spoken so scarcely across the known multiverse, that my finding of a tutor fluent, willing to teach and alive of this tongue, took a longer and more arduous effort than the translating of the crumbling pages themselves - first were brought to my attention upon entering the library as a young, starry eyed man. At first glance, I had nothing but an idle curiosity for the journals, peeked only by their apparent age and state of decay. Back then I was still venomously ambitious, turning up my nose at any and all books that did not entice with the promise of magical knowledge - and through that, power. It was only after learning to decrypt the writings of magistrate Von Lichtenstein that I, in an ironic twist of fate, realised that these journals did, in fact, hold secrets to tremendous power all along. Unfortunately - or rather, luckily, as I understand it now - by this time I had long let go of any delusions of grandeur and no longer yearned for the secrets of the universe, being rather content with collecting and preserving obscure knowledge, which otherwise might be lost to time. To any readers who might now be finding themselves in the same position as my younger self, squirming in their seats at the promise of power, I must inform you solemnly and finally, that I will be omitting the portion of magistrate Von Lichtenstein`s journals which delve into the finer details of her magical findings - as she dabbled in some rather questionable, and sometimes outright immoral practices, which I feel confidently right about letting die out. That said: her journals are nonetheless fascinating, if not from a standpoint of academic merit, at least from a standpoint of awe at the sheer lack of respect Von Lichtenstein continuously exhibits in the face of her own mortality and the rather peculiar places and situations this led a woman of her intellect and talent to find herself in. The following translations are taken out of chronological order, as many of Von Lichtenstein`s texts were beyond salvaging and she wrote them in an ancient dialect of the already difficult to translate script, which rendered large portions illegible. All dates are kept in their original format, as transcribing them to any widely utilised calendar has, as of yet, proven impossible. - Prof. A. Rauch

The (in)complete journals of magistrate Elionore Von Lichtenstein, as translated by A. Rauch - first chapter

Of my findings in the strange place of SheoHELL, the seventh through nineteenth of (illegible)

Seventh of (illegible)

I arrived by ship this morning. The map I’ve bought from the planesman* has proven more than useless. He’s either a remarkable con man or an idiot convinced to know what he’s talking about. Either way, I’m making a note of paying him another visit after this is done with. The ship ride was horrible. The oceans of this bumfuck-nowhere** Backwater are oily and pitchblack, unmoved by wind or the rolling of waves. They are however occasionally broken up by pale spectres emerging from the dark deep. There were groups of three or four of these pale (illegible, probably an expletive) following the boat at almost all times, staring up at us so very cocksure, as though they knew something we didn’t. The captain informed me that meeting their “eyes” for too long might “steal your soul”, so that was lovely.
With my soul still my own we arrived in port. I must admit the journey felt drawn out and unpleasantly timeless, but as soon as the ship set anchor, I was quite honestly tempted to stay under deck until it was due to depart again. The harbour in this place - which the locals call SheoHELL, insisting on emphasising the “hell” part - is a shabby, bleak affair. It stinks of old fish - though I’m confident there is not a single fish in this terrible excuse of an ocean to be found - and the people here are pale, haggard and grim. I use the word “people” very lightly. There doesn’t seem to be a native species to this place, instead the locals are a mixed bag of many species I’ve encountered - and haven’t encountered - on my travels. The first person I talked to was a scowling man, who claimed to be the harbours log-keeper. In this place all languages seem to be translated into a uniform gibberish, which you’ll understand once you hear it, but is impossible to reproduce - I’ve tried on a sheaf of paper for a while. The log-keeper called me an (no translation possible***), which seems to be a derogative for “outsiders”, and wanted a fee of seventeen “promises” for my stay. Upon informing him that I had not the slightest idea what in the hells he was talking about, he produced an IOU and tried pushing me to sign it - in blood, mind you. When I told him he could try getting some blood off me, if he wanted to regret crawling from his crypt this morning, he rolled his eyes and went on to the next passenger deboarding the ship. I was later informed that this is a common con pulled on outsiders, and that, had I signed, I would have been indebted to the “log keeper” for seventeen promises, whatever exactly that would entail. The other thing I immediately noticed about this place - aside from the gloomy locals - was how it snows, despite there being no sky to speak of above. Also, the snow never seems to settle on the ground, simply vanishing from existence shortly before. My very first visit was, of course, to a pub. Stepping into the dank, icy room was as unwelcoming as can be. Not a single soul looked up from their drink. Also noteworthy: there doesn’t seem to be food in this place. The (illegible) don’t need sustenance, but they still grow hungry. They also get thirsty, which one would assume not to be a problem, as I mentioned above, that drinks exist. However, the only drink in this entire dump of a place is a concoction they aptly call “regret”. When I stepped up to the bar and tried ordering one, the barkeep stared at me blankly and answered that “this drink does not fit the likes of you”, and after insisting that I still wanted it, he slid an IOU for the amount of two promises over the counter. I offered him gold, gems, rare artefacts and even (illegible, no translation found), but he insisted on the IOU. Of course I didn’t want that, so I simply snuck a bottle from under his nose, while he wasn’t looking. I’m not going to drink it, but I still want to know what it owes its name to.

Ninth of (illegible)

Alright, this place is the worst I’ve been to yet. And I don’t mean that this place is so torturous it beats out the Neverglade or the All-Seeing-Wall, but it is most definetely the most mind-numbingly boring place I’ve ever been to. It might just be the most boring place in all of existence. The locals do nothing except moping around, drinking their “regret” and trying to get you to sign their IOUs. Libraries do not exist, every building is the same ranky style of shack, and as it turns out, Mephisto Mann does not actually reside here, most of the time. I’ve considered burning something down, just for the fun of it, but then again, I do still need Mephisto`s boon, and this is still his domain. And the most frustrating part of it all: my ship doesn’t depart until the eleventh. I am stuck here for another two days. I don’t even know how the locals tell time here, as there is neither a sun, nor a moon, nor do watches work. I’ve packed seven watches, all of different make, some even magically jam-proofed, and still they all stopped working simultaneously at (no translation found). Another funny thing I realised after a while: you cannot sleep in SheoHELL either. Anyway, I will try to get something from this disaster of a visit.

Tenth of (illegible)

I hate it here and I want to go home. I am hungry, I am thirsty, I am tired. I am severely tempted to open this bottle of “regret”, simply to have anything to do. I can’t even read. Books become illegible here.

Eleventh of (illegible)

I opened the bottle today. Apparently, the toll of the shipfare is siexhundretandsixtysix promises, which I assume is supposed to be funny. I almost killed the captain. Some of my magic still works here, for whatever reason. Of course I tried opening a path to the library, which I would have done earlier, if fairy teeth weren’t as expensive as they are. It didn’t work. It still destroyed the fucking ingredients though, so that is great. Anyway, regret doesn’t taste too bad, and after almost a week without food or water it came as a godsend. It does have a bitter aftertaste though, which I can’t place yet. Gonna have to regroup and think of a way to get my hands on some IOUs.

Twelfth of (illegible)

It’s amazing how much time you’ve got to think, once you don’t sleep. Apparently murder is a very lucrative business in SheoHELL. Who could have guessed? I don’t want to be misconstrued, I am not a hired killer. At least not in the traditional sense. Of course, death is no escape from SheoHELL, at least not a permanent one. It is however a temporary relief from the excruciating boredom and eases the constant hunger, thirst and weariness. And the more “dead” you are, the longer it’ll take for you to become conscious once more. Incinerating a person on a molecular level buys them a lot of out-time, and they’re willing to pay quite a few promises for a service as exclusive as this one. Bashing somebody over the head with an axe is easy, but I am a sorcerer, and I take my profession seriously. I take it fifteen-promises-a-hit seriously, in fact. In a few days time, I should have scratched together enough promises to leave this hellhole and even get me a bit of regret on the side. I’ve had a few more bottles since then, and the return of having any kind of taste is most definitely diminishing after a couple of bottles. I’ve also figured out what the bitter aftertaste is: it’s bile.

Fifteenth of (illegible)

Been staring at the ocean for hours a day. The still fucker is taunting me. Not even the spectres come to the shores of this no-man's-land. What I wouldn’t give for one of them to steal my soul and banish it to some hell-vortex, I’ve gotten my way out of quite a few of those. At least there you’d be experiencing some kind of torture, or you’d have some devillord, promissing you never ending torment, to square up against. This place is just desolate. I can’t stop drinking the regret, most of my promises are spent at the pub. By now it only tastes of bile, but at least it’s something. You can’t even go to the bathroom here. How devious is that? You’re constantly gulping down this bile-brew and you’re not even granted the small pleasure of taking a piss.

Nineteenth of (illegible)

I’ve talked to the captain. Apparently, every bottle of regret you open doubles the price of the fare. Some quick mental arithmetic later I came to the conclusion my drinking would by now have racked my up a bill of a few hundred billion promises. Fuck that. I am not staying here for another day, let alone a few thousand years. I’m going to make a swim for it, and I am going to do it now. I don’t care what happens, but this place can go (no translation found)

This is the end of this portion of the journal, which picks up again a few months later. - A. Rauch

Appendix

1. *1 The Planesman is a recurring accquantiance Von Lichtenstein´s, as of yet, I cannot say which of the assumptions made by her are correct, as both are of equal merit, based on her journals alone.
2. *2 This translation is imperfect, as there is no literal equivalent in the english language to the explicit used here by Von Lichtenstein. Her original phrasing is however of equal vulgarity, which is why I chose this translation. This applies for every use of the word "fuck" in this text.
3. *3 In this case, I could not find a tasteful equivalent to the explicit used, which would keep intact its originals meaning.
4. *4 The missing translation of this last sentence was due to heavy slang use, which could not be translated sensical into the english language without knowledge of the obscure dialect, in which Von Lichtenstein wrote.

The Legend of Knight Sieghart And Other Tales

The Idiot King And The Dragon

Once upon a time, many, many ages ago, there lived a great and powerful king. His rule was one of benevolence and wisdom, and so he was beloved throughout the land. The thriving kingdom and his happy subjects were his pride and joy. However, as steadfast and respected his rule, the king did also have a great fear troubling him: his son, his only child and crown prince to the throne, was unfit to be king. The prince was a kind-hearted, gentle soul and the king worried what might become of his land, once the head upon which the crown rested was one stuck in the clouds of naivety. And so, even though the king was in good health and of sound mind, he grew sombre and pondersome, so worried his people might lose the wealth and happiness he had worked so tirelessly for. And as the ever so slight scarping of bone that followed every of his horse's hoof-falls began reminding him of his ageing body , he preferred the solitude of his own mind to the company of his court. Many a gloomy afternoon he would spend, wandering the grounds and woods by the castle, muttering to himself of times to come. So it happened that the king stumbled across some peculiar ongoings, on a dreary late-autumn evening. He tottered through the woods, mindlessly kicking at the golden leaves, as he had done so many times before, and was so caught up within the recesses of his mind, he did not notice the gruff voices arguing until he had stepped onto the clearing, where a dozen men stood, clad in the rags of vagabonds and bandits this kingdom had not seen in a comfortably long while. The men did not take notice of the king, so fiery they did discuss the matter at hand:

“I says: sell it back to ‘er! The longer we keeps it, the angrier she’ll be!”

“Ow! So yer tell me: how’re we gonna get the bloody thing back to ‘er? ‘R’ye gonna walk up to ‘er and tell the great ol’ madam ‘Oi, sorry we done knicked yer brat, that’ll be some hundred shiners for ‘im back and we’ll be on our merry way!’?”

A great deal of yelling and pushing ensued. During the scuffle, the king caught a glance of what lay in their midst: a small child, bundled up in a raggy blanket. The king, enraged by the gall of the bandits, drew his sword and, in a short and grizzly affair, struck them dead. He took the bundle back to the castle and let his servants spread the word: a child had been abducted and was awaiting his mothers safe embrace once more at the king’s castle. The King was sure the child’s mother must be worried sick, as was everybody in his kingdom, for there had not been an abducted child, or any crime of that magnitude, for that matter, in these lands for a lifetime. However, there came nobody for the child, not even a message, for three days and three nights. The king began to worry his judgement might have failed him and he had killed twelve innocent men over a misunderstanding. In the early morning hours of the fourth day however, the sun had just barely crept beyond the lowest of the green hills, the king was awakened by his son: “Father! Father! Come to! A dragon! A great, terrible dragon cometh right for the castle!” The king jolted from bed, alike a spring-wound toy, and raced through the castle, ringing the alarm himself. From the castle’s highest turret he saw it true as steel: a dragon, besat with scales as bright and glistening as nacre and horns as black as coal. Its wings beat with all the ferocity of a storm rolling in from the sea and the king was sure the beast would topple the entire castle in one fell swoop. The king however was not a man to back down and so he sent his son and all the servants to take shelter within the castle’s vine cellars. He gathered the strongest, most fiercely brave of his knights and went out and stood before the castle’s gate to meet the dragon. As the beast grew closer and larger, even the most steadfast of his men began clanking with fear within their armour and only the king stood upright and proud, determined to stand his ground. The dragon’s landing was however not in a blaze of fire and brimstone. Neither did the ground tremble and break under the dragon's wagon-sized paws. It landed as softly and quietly as a sparrow in a tree. Yet it still towered over the king and his shaking men and when it spoke with a voice like a thunderstorm over a landslide, even the most stalwart among the knights took flight:

“Hail, King. Thee hath something of mine.”

Now it was only the beast and the king, a mountain and a tiny, fragile climber. The king unsheathed his sword, the sword his father and grand father and grand-grand father and so on bore, and spoke with resolution:

“Hail, dragon. What is thy concern? Knoweth: this is a land of peace, we wage no war on thy kind and we has’t plenty of gold to offer in return of peace!”

And the dragon answered with a most horrible noise. A growling, earthshaking roar that drew deep ripples through the moat’s waters. And the king realised: the beast laughed.

“Mine interest lies not with thy riches, wise king. Thee hath found something of mine: mine son. Word of thy brave rescue hath reached me and I has’t cometh to collect the boy.”

Of course the king was distrusting of the dragon’s claim, and so he said, though knowing he might stoke its wrath:

“I shan’t keep a mother apart from her child, however, the boy I hath found is a human child, and thou art a dragon, a kind which does delight in the eating of children, as legend tells!”

Again the dragon laughed, so uproariously, the aged king felt his bones rattle.

“Thou art a wise man indeed. To trust a stranger with a child is to put a terrible amount of trust within that stranger. So I sayeth unto to thee: in exchange for mine child’s safe return, I, the Dragonmother, shall grant thee a single boon of mine gratitude. A wish of thine heart’s innermost desire I shall grant.”

This made the king think. He still did not trust the dragon entirely, but he thought of that single wish that would make his heavy heart grow light and his sorrow-stricken mind to ease from the worries. He could not withstand the temptation and so he said:

“Very well! I shall send for the child.”

And so he did. The child was brought out and placed between the dragon’s claws, where it shielded the child with one of its front paws, as though anybody might dare to come near them. The dragon’s eyes met the kings, and only then, the king saw them for their true, soft blue colour.

“Very well, what is thy wish?” the dragon asked, “Doth thou desire more riches, a larger share of land to broaden thine kingdom’s horizons? Stronger warriors, perhaps? Ah, but I believe it is not any such mundane desire, thou want’st fulfilled, am I not right?”

The king nodded his head so vigorously, the crown tumbled off his head and right into the dark waters of the mote. In his excitement however, he could not pay mind to a thing as mundane as the crown he bore every day. Now with a trembling voice he cried:

“I wish to evade the reaper’s clutches! I want to live and rule forever!”

So blindsighted by the promise of having found the solution to all his problems he was, he even forgot the formal tone one should adopt when talking to a far-away land’s ambassador. The dragon grumbled. It did not laugh this time around, simply averting its gaze from the king and answering:

“I took thee for a wise man, but thou’rt a fool just as much as any village idiot. But very well, I did promise thee a boon and thee shall receive. Art thou certain, this is thine desire?” The king shook his head yes eagerly. “Death is a cruel mistress. She’s a bitter mule and she shan’t take thy transgression lightly. I cannot cheat her out of a soul. However, cheat her out of thy soul I can. Whenever thou would pass on over, I shall devour one of the folk living in this land and so give death the life she yearns for.”

This made the king hesitant. He began to reconsider. But then he thought of the wars that might be waged under a weaker king’s rule and the countless lives that they would claim. And he thought of poverty, disease, crime and famine so many kings with black hearts and empty heads had brought upon their subjects. And so a deal was struck and for a while, the king was happy once more.

Many years passed and the kingdom was as prosperous and well as could be. This, however, was not the old king’s doing. His son had grown to become as wise and capable of bearing the crown as his father had ever been, the kindness once confounded for naivete and the visions for a better tomorrow, confused for hopeless farawayness, had become his greatest strengths. The old king however was not well. For the dragon had tricked him, he was sure, as he may not have died many a time his moment had come, but his body still aged and illness still ravaged him. And with the burden of worry for his kingdom finally taken off his shoulders, the king began, for the first time in his long, long life to truly fear death. The dragon’s attacks began slowly, sneakily. Here and there a villager or townsfolk were snatched up and devoured, when the king could not fend off an especially nasty fever or his poor eyesight snuck a fold in the carpet beneath him and he tumbled down a flight of stairs. But as the old king aged and aged he saw his own son, the new king grow white and wither and die and the same fate came for his grand-children and their children. And the kingdom grew emptier and greyer and sadder with every passing minute of every passing hour the old king could not rise his boney, ramshackle frame off the old bed which had not seen a change of sheets, ever since they had walled off his chambers because his haunting of the castle reminded them of the dragon, that may yet come for them. And one day, after ages of ruin, the kingdom stood empty and forlorn. And the king drew his last breath and damned the dragon for its treacherous curse.