The Underwater Gardens That Weren't There

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Captain Schultz's office stood out from the rest of the facility. Walls decorated with wood, as well as the floor and ceiling. Doors stylized as those in ships. There were hunting trophies on the walls. Attached pike, detached limb looking like a blade that belonged to local giant shrimp. A little further from them were the swordfish and the horn of the narwhal. The room was lit by a bright lamp placed in a dried puffer. The floor was dressed in leather, seal skins, and in the center of the room next to the desk was a helm, more symbolic than it would be for any function. On the other side of the room there were shelves with books and a map of the Baltic Trench with marked points. Behind the desk, as well as the captain's back, there was a dolphin skeleton suspended from the ceiling.

On the desk itself, apart from a lamp and a pile of documents, there was a foundation computer monitor and a great white shark tooth. Director Schultz himself was sitting in the chair behind the desk, smoking a pipe and wearing a captain's cap. In front of him was a map of the ruins of the city of Fae, which was located at the bottom of the Trench, along with several markings of specific buildings. One could distinguish temples, a palace, and a little further away the ruins of a bathhouse, next to which there was something like a brothel. Ruins of the courthouse, almost completely destroyed, and many residential houses.

"Captain, the results of the autopsy on the body pulled out of the object have finally arrived" a voice said from the monitor, which now displayed the icon of a 19th century diving helmet, it was Nautilus.aic.

"Continue boatswain Nautilus" the director said curiously.

"According to doctor Kot, the death of this unidentified humanoid occurred 30 years ago, due to a heart attack. I did a few more analyzes myself, the genetic code of the object was mostly in line with Homo sapiens sidhe."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, the traces of the city's destruction are much older than 30 years. It is only one individual, but we may be dealing with something bigger" the Nautilus replied almost immediately.

"Thank you for stating obvious, Nautilus" Schultz said somewhat maliciously.

The captain put his pipe down, the matter of the ruins at the bottom of the Trench was bothering him, now the thing with the humanoid. This creature, from its body structure, was adapted to life in water, while the ruins in their structure are not fully adapted to such a race, as exemplified by stairs or the remains of torches. Or even a newer discovery, on one of the stones that was the wall of a residential house, there was an engraved runic inscription in Nordic language. He proclaimed "Steinar was here."

Doctor Cis was currently in the Gamma Sector laboratory, in front of her was a cut piece of stone with Norse runes carved on it. There were sheets of paper with single letters and translations of the inscription next to the stone. The short, red-haired doctor was now leafing through the Foundation data for any mention of fae in Viking texts. Until she succeeded. Excited, she opened the data. Archaeological excavations in Trondheim. Irrilate tools and weapons were found, a Foundation investigation was launched, but no evidence of fae was found. Only a poem by one of the scalds. Doctor Cis decided to open a file containing the poem in it.

Great queen
She welcomed the warriors in her palace
Our warriors lost in the wave
Prematurely shown in Niflheim
Oh, to the place where the Yggdrasil root grows
And the mighty Hel rules
They could not feast at Odin's table
In Niflheim, they were welcomed as a guests
In the palace of the great queen
She welcomed the warriors in her palace
They used the palace gardens as a feast place
Great queen, she sent the warriors away
They returned higher to the seas of Midgard
That they might have the taste of being killed in battle
And eat at Odin's table when it is convenient

Sources from the songs of the scalds were usually not very accurate, they were often improvised on the spot based on the audience's reaction. Cis, however, tried to impose some interpretation on this Viking song. Many mentions of the "great queen", the presence of irrilit tools1. Additionally, the inscription of the Vikings is engraved here. Did they mean PoI-001-C when singing about the great queen? This, however, creates many problems, such as when the Vikings traveled and Queen Mab's time is thousands of years away. Also, all sources describing Queen Mab show her face as beautiful, while Hel is mentioned here. One of the recognizable features of this Loki daughter was a large body part symbolizing death, be it the rotten half of the face or the skeletal legs. Another thing that did not fit a bit, for some reason the queen welcomed the warriors in the palace gardens. For some reason, they were not admitted to the dining halls.

Doctor Cis pushed the map of the ruins of the city of fae closer to her, after putting a finger to it, she started looking for a place where the palace gardens would be located, but after a while she realized that there were no such, even a trace of them outside the city. The palace gardens simply did not exist.

Wait a second, just like this Trench, was not visible until 2010, despite the fact that it definitely existed and there was life in it. The ruins did not exist until the Foundation realized they existed. Maybe most of the city is hidden in a thaumaturgic illusion? Doctor Cis got up from her desk, in fact with this awareness some elements of the map seemed a bit strange to her, unnaturally composed. She began marking the mismatched points on the map with a white marker.

Request #1231
From: EmCi69
To: @Site-PL-69-Dir
In analyzing the Nordic runes from material 69-1253, I noticed a certain connection with the Baltic Trench and the texts SK-3124 from Trondheim. Additionally, the layout of the buildings and walls of the Trench in some places simply doesn't make sense. However, looking at how I and Dr. Siwiatło discovered the existence of the ruins, there is a high chance that a large part of them is hidden by some kind of magical illusion. I would like to submit an request to bring in a research team specializing in thaumaturgy in order to thoroughly check the places I have marked on the map.

Request status: Accepted

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A Fish Under a Cat's Knife

Tales From the Bottom of the Sea

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The Return to Niflheim

Footnotes
from-120s-archivesopltale
page revision: 15, last edited: 24 Nov 2023 11:47
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