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Expedition Journal - Night 7 Entry
We have spent a long time in a debate where everybody wanted to express his opinion about the place we found ourselves in. What was it, and how old could this dwelling, hideout, complex be? Carved in the volcanic rock – possibly by adjusting the already existing passages and gaps in the mass – using equipment no doubt advanced, but certainly older than the European civilisation. Who could have lived here, and when? Worsley and Herman placed the forming of ice cover over Arctic some 700,000 years ago, the time when, according to the palaeologists and anthropologists, the modern human beings were unheard of. The ancestors of Neanderthals lived in Europe at that time, sure, but as far as modern science knows, they were hardly advanced enough to create something like this. But was it possible that we have found an evidence of something our science had not discovered yet? Were the Neanderthals responsible? Were we to open a completely new chapter of the Earth's unknown history?
What was this Pleistocenian wonder of the world? Whose hands have carved these mysterious glyphs into its titanic walls? And why did they pick this remote island in the middle of nowhere – with no link to the mainland? And how was this whole matter related to the monstrous abominations in our midst - and the imprisonment at this prison of ice - and the claimed visions or dreams of sir Michael's daughter?
We have been questioning her about that, as now, grasping again our scientific thinking, we started to feel it most peculiar to follow such an irrational claim as that of a dream, even though it proved true. But as all of us men and women of science knew, one practical result is not the definite proof of a theoretical claim, other explanations are always possible. Exhausted by the endless dispute, in the end, we have decided the young lady's fate. I need not describe what happened next. I need not describe even our frustration when, once again, we were proven completely wrong.
The girl's body did not start to change. But it was once again one of these moments when our strictly rational thinking has been challenged. Needless to say, most of us would ascribe the girl's dying words to premortal fabrications of her fading mind, no doubt influenced by the experience of the previous days and also by thoughts and images stemming from her subconscious, likely fueled and further distorted by various fantastic literature and pictures popular among today's youth. Even the allusions to certain obscure mythologies, which even some of our group seemed to be familiar with, did not let us make much account of her feverish babbling. Nevertheless, these have been her last words:
"I can see things you people would not believe... Silver ship alight by flames of the black dragon... I see the rivers of spears glittering in darkness beyond the gates of iron... and the monsters of horn and ivory that hid in the bowels of nether earth... all these things have been forgotten... upon the coming of the roaring sea..."
LIVING MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION:
Boromir88 - senior assistant to a professor of glaciology
Morsul - federal grants lawyer
Brinn - polar bear biologist
Nogrod - old palaeoecologist with is own theory of climate change
sally - the original initiator of the expedition
Thinlómien - whale expert
Nerwen - mechanic
Bes - room/store manager
Shasta - sled-dog handler
GONE:
Roa - survival guide - died on blood loss from Werewolf attack on Day 2 (left game, innocent)
Mnemosyne - field medic - shot by the survival guide on Day 2 (Werewolf)
Inziladun - meteorologist - killed by Werewolves on Night 3 (innocent)
tromkehra - cook/bartender - left aboard the ship on Day 3 (left game, innocent)
Nienna - navigator - shot on her way back to the ship on Day 3 (innocent)
Greenie - senior assitant to important scientists in the company, killed by Werewolf on Night 4 (innocent)
Pitchwife - marine biologist - unambiguously executed by the expedition on Day 4 (Werewolf)
Eomer of the Rohirrim - sea pilot - murdered in the icy darkness on Night 5 (innocent)
wilwa - crewmember - executed in the underground cavern on Day 5 (innocent)
Macalaure - palaeomathematician - killed while performing his palaeomathematic operations on Night 6 (innocent)
Loslote - rich funder's spoiled daughter - died with visionary words on her lips on Day 6 (Birthday Dreamer - innocent)
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories
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