A Disappointing Truth

Stormday, Decæmon 13, 998th year

Finally, I have gathered a crew that is willing to fall off of the globe with me. Even from the highest point in any continent or from The Origin, the other side of the planet is obscured by the planet’s curvature. Most living things on this pathetic rock are too cowardly to risk their lives for the pursuit of understanding or even the childish ecstasy of exploration. However, these fifteen men around me possess at least one of these two qualities or are at least so stupid they have not yet realized the risk of this endeavor. Having been forced to live in a world populated exclusively by dolts meandering through life far below my intellectual caliber, I am used to putting my life in the hands of people who I do not trust. Thus, I have little reservation about sailing with men with no self-preservation instincts, especially so since it is what makes them so useful to me.

I am seconds away from breaching the final frontier and going to the region I only know falsehoods and legends of. I made an offering to Hima-a, the Goddess of travel, Amiuzike, the God of knowledge, and, of course, the four ocean gods. The Gods are the only beings in reality that I can truly trust and that are more perfect than I am. I have no doubt that I have only lived for as long as I have because of their blessing.

Friegday, Decæmon 14, 998th year

Only thirteen hours past the southern tip of Sasilla, the winds and waves beg us to turn back. Despite the storms and cold, I find myself unable to stay in my quarters. My eyes are the first to reach every sight I see here. I will stay out here until my fing~~~~.

Damn! The boat’s rocking sent my pen gliding across the page, an inevitability given I cannot control my numb fingers. 

It seems the sailors have not lost their spines, as we have not turned back. By my calculations, it should only be another day until we reach the opposite point on the globe from which we started. But there is no end in sight for this storm, and it can substantially slow us down.

Satenday, Decæmon 15, 998th year

Somehow, the storm has gotten worse. I must commend my crew for continuing to brave these elements. Perhaps I underestimated these men. Perhaps they do possess the scholarly virtue that has blessed me with my lust for discovery.

Though I must admit, I am starting to worry for my own life, which is a new sensation. I feel my own preservation instinct crawling up my back, whispering into my ear suggestions of surrender. A ridiculous notion, as it is too late to turn back now. I had committed to this journey from the day I was born, ever since the gods put me on this world to decode the secrets of this world. It is with a strong will and pious duty that I refuse to relent for the sake of my crew with whom I have come so far and for the pursuit of knowledge I have lived my life in service of.

Solday, Decæmon 16, 998th year

Well, half the crew is dead. So it goes, as they say. Disposing of their bodies was a rather trite affair. The other sailors were sniveling over their fallen comrades as we pushed their corpses into the sea. I have noticed that sailors tend to try to remain stoic around each other, as if their insecurities were not so plainly seen through their facade.

On the bright side (literally), the weather has cleared up. We find ourselves shimmying our sloop through expansive sheets of ice. They are so large that just one of them could not fit anywhere in the seas between the continents. They each stretch on for miles, and if not for the occasional break in the ice, I would think there were just two giant sheets of ice covering this entire side of the planet. The weather is pleasantly warm. Too warm, I think, for the water’s surface to be covered in ice.

We can hear a very faint thumping noise regularly as if there is some earthquake occurring miles away at random times. At other times, we see the sea quake and the ice sheets begin to crack. Just what are we sailing toward?

Areday, Decæmon 18, 998th year

I was woken up in the middle of the night by a blistering cold, one much worse than in the storms. I was going numb before I even gathered my thoughts to leave bed. Luckily, I had ordered the crew to pack clothes for all types of weather, and three layers of heavy clothes now shield us from frostbite. Oddly, it is still sunny. The weather still looks clear and cloudless. The sun still burns through the sky’s blue canvas, but none of its warmth seems to reach us.

I was so taken by shock yesterday that I forgot to test the ice and waters below us. But today, noticing that the ice masses are completely gone despite the freezing weather, I was urged to test the waters. I fetched a thermometer and attached it to a string that descended into the water. When I pulled the rope back up, It had melted. The glass was molten and glowing. What is in the water that is making it so warm? And how long will we have to bear this godsforsaken cold?

Kingsday, Decæmon 19, 998th year

I am writing this late at night since it took all day for my hands to recover from the frostbite (I took off my gloves to write). The weather has warmed up again, but in place of the cold, we are subjected to giant, spontaneous waves that almost capsize the boat. After the trials we were put through, I cannot imagine anyone coming to save us if we get stranded here. If just one small mistake is made, if any one of these waves capsizes us, my story ends. I will have ended my life in my greatest failure, not completing my journey across the dark side of the globe. I do not know if the four sea gods will hear me from here, but all I can do now is pray.

Stormday, Decæmon 20, 998th year

Finally! After a week of traveling, perhaps the worst week of my life, I have been bestowed with the greatest reward my eyes could ask for. A stunning castle of ice, at least twenty times larger than the Emperor’s Ruby Palace. My ears have been blessed with the truth of the thumping sounds. Not an earthquake, not an eruption, but a chanting coming from inside the castle. A cacophony of male shouts, perhaps some arcane ritual. I can see the origin of the waves and quakes, too. Sometimes, the structure violently shakes, forming waves around it. Luckily, we are close enough now that the waves are too small to be a threat anymore.

We are docking at the walkway in front of the gargantuan front door. As I write, I and the six remaining crew members are knocking on the front door. By that, I mean we are firing a cannon into it since knocking on ice will not make any sound, especially since we are so small compared to the giants that must live in the castle. It was very difficult to convince the men to load the cannon, as they did not want to upset whatever resided in the castle. What happened to the brave men with whom I conquered the storm and the cold? Are they not willing to sacrifice their lives so that their souls may know the absolute truth? Are we really just going to sail past this impossible discovery?

Almost an hour after we shot a cannon into the door, which barely made a dent in it, a giant flung open the door, looking as if he could barely stand. If he falls, would it cause the quake that shakes the castle? He must be sixty times taller than a human and much, much heavier. He was wearing ragged pants, an open-buttoned shirt, and a large potbelly. I could tell, even from this distance, that he was drunk. He opened his mouth to speak;1 but before he could, another voice called to him from inside the house: “Zheng, what is it?”

“It’s a ship,” Zheng peered ovr2 th door to the bal. “They fired a cannonball into the door.”

“Could they not just knock?” th voice askd.

“I dunno.” He was slurring his wrds. “Lemme ask.” He turnd bac 2 us. “Could you not just knock?”

I and the crew stood there in silence for a minute as we took in what we were witnessing, but what was harder to process was the name of the giant at the door: Zheng. Could it be Zhengine, the Hemiyan God of the Eastern Sea? This drunken slob? Impossible.

“Well?” The giant asked, “why didn’t you knock?”

“Greetings, Giant. My name is Hasi Ko, a researcher from the Eastern kingdom of Hemiya. We have travelled through terrible conditions to explore the unknown. It is an honor to meet-”3

1 This was meant to be a colon, as I expected the giant to speak, but I was wrong, and haphazardly changed it to a semicolon.

2 I apologize for my contractions and mispellings. I was in a rush to write down every word they said.

3 I gave my notebook to a crewmate so I could speak to the giant and still have the dialogue recorded.

“B-but why the cannon?”

“Oh. Um, we did not think knocking with our small hand would make enough noise, especially not since the door is made of ice.”

Zheng looked back inside & called, “Should I let ‘em in?”

“Sure,” the voice said, “but have them get the mail.”

“We have a mailbox?”

“Yeah, they put the prayers and offerings in there.”

“People pray to us?”

“Hold on,” Ko said, “are you the God of the Eastern Sea, Zhengine?”

“Yeah4. So, uh, get the mail.”

“May we enter your castle?”

“Yeah,” Zheng said, “after you get the mail.”

I looked up, and the mailbox he spoke of was so far out of our reach that I just looked back to the buffoon.

“Ok,” Zhengine said, “fine. I’ll get it.”

He stumbled over to the mailbox and flipped it down. Immediately, letters and burnt offerings flooded out, spraying Zhengine in his face5. After the mailbox was empty, and most of the people’s prayers were floating away in the water, Zhengine picked up one and put it in his pocket. “Come in,” he said to us.

4 Needless to say, my heart dropped at this point

5 In the mess, I thought I saw a few letters containing my own prayers to Zhengine, obviously having gone unanswered.

I cannot even describe my reaction to what I saw inside the castle. Only one word can begin to describe how I felt: disappointment. I could tell the place was once beautiful, but it had been trashed by spilled wine and broken ornaments. We turned the corner into the next room, which had blue walls stained purple, and saw the other three giant inhabitants of this house, the perpetrators of the destruction. One was lying on a broken couch, holding a hand to his head with a pained expression on his face. Another was on the floor, holding a bottle of wine between his lips with his hands at his sides. When we walked in, he started to sit up, but the wine fell out of his mouth and spilled over his face. One more giant walked in through another door and plopped down onto the couch, ostensibly not seeing someone was sleeping on it and woke his friend up by sitting on him. The giant below him reacted with a queasy yelp, and rolled his friend off, causing them both to tumble to the floor.

Zheng pointed to the giant who had just walked in. “That’s Sinbi, God of The Southern Sea. You know Sasilla, right? It’s the sea around that continent,” he said as if I didn’t already know what Sasilla was or who their Sea God was. He pointed to the one who had spilled wine on himself. “That’s Odeius, North Sea God, for the Numer continent.” He pointed to the last one, saying, “That’s Guertkl, for the, uh, Western Sea...”

“Around the continent of Waima. Yes, I know” Ko said. “You men are all Sea Gods? why don’t you live with the rest of your pantheons?”

“Did the gods not tell ‘em?” Sinbi said. He turned his head to us from the ground and said, “They imprisoned us here after we defied the will of the other gods. They made some, like, really bad storms to stop people from reaching us. At first, we were, like, sad, but then we realised we could do whatever we wanted to now. So we invited a bunch of mermaid babes to the castle and-”

“SHHH!” Guertkl silenced him. 

“And what?” Ko said, “What happened next?”

“Alright,” Odeius said, “These sailors already saw too much. They’re not dumb.” He turned to us. “You humans can tell that we’re just having parties day in and day out, right6? Well, we aren’t doing it alone, duh. We bring all sorts of fish-people and merfolk here, and they party with us. Eventually, we decided we didn’t want any humans bothering us, so we made some extra barriers on top of the storms, like the desert of ice that boats shouldn’t be able to sail through and the intense cold spot. But somehow, you guys got through. The thing is, since we can only control water, the only way to make the air cold was by getting the sea to absorb all of the heat, so if you went into the water, you would’ve boiled alive. We don’t really leave the house, and we don’t get sober, like, ever. We don’t get hung over cuz we just never stop drinking, but when you guys knocked, Sinbi went to gather everyone up and hide them. We stopped drinking, so the hangovers are setting in. Thanks for that.”

6At this point, it was painfully obvious.

This is it? This is who the Sea Gods really are? This will change everything. We must return with haste and

Friegday, Decæmon 21, 998th year

The crew and I woke up in what seems to be a prison cell in the house. The last thing I remember was the gods picking us up and how much we shook in their grip as they stumbled through the castle. We must have passed out due to our bodies being thrown around, and now we are in this cell made for a giant, which I can tell because the prison bars are so far apart from each other that any regular human could just walk through, though I doubt even these oafs are not asinine enough to put us in a prison we could just walk out of. There must be a hex on the door, and I do not want to find out what will happen if I try to walk through. This may be a blessing in disguise, however, as I can see into the room where the party is happening. I can get a glimpse into the daily life of a god.

It was mostly just regular, nonstop partying, which was not much different from human parties, but I did find out what caused the castle to shake. One god tossed multiple bottles of mead into the air, then shot them open with bullets of liquid, and all of the partygoers, including the gigantic gods, jumped for a sip of the booze. These jumps rocked the castle, and I must conclude that the quakes and waves we suffered for most of the trip resulted from drunken buffoonery, and the noises we heard were just the unhinged chantings of a pathetic mob.

The second event that night was one truly bone-chilling. Zheng decided to take a nap and pulled the couch away from the party, closer to the cell. Muttering that he was cold, he went and fetched a candle, which he lit and placed under the couch. Obviously, it caught on fire, waking him up, and he tried to put the fire, which had engulfed the couch, out by just blowing on it. It did not work, of course, but he continued to try for what felt like an eternity before remembering he could control liquid and tried to put it out by raising the alcohol up off the floor and pouring it onto the couch. This only made the fire grow, and he spent another eternity panicking before conjuring water to finally put out the fire.

I was blown away by his stupidity. He did not know how alcohol works, forgot that he had control over liquid, and he even put an open flame under a regular, flammable couch. Is it possible that gods can be this stupid? Am I giving them too much credit for thinking they actually put a hex on this cell?

I gathered my courage and leaped through the bars, ready to die. I was honestly a bit disappointed to find that I was still alive, as my faith in the gods had surely perished today. After leaving the cell, escaping with the crew was easy. The gods seemed to have completely forgotten about us and hadn’t even done anything with our ship. 

I have made the greatest discovery in the history of the world, and I feel more empty than before. I do not know if it is right to share this knowledge with the world. Perhaps some mysteries are better left unsolved. 

Oh, what am I saying? Of course I’m publishing this.