Hermetisia 3/24

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Translating U87-L...

(injecting name for immersion)

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In some places of the world, there are areas that change depending on how many people live in that area. One such area is the botanical garden outside the depleted mines of Dugh'ra. Ever since the mine has run out of ore, the botanical garden has been the nearest town's source of tourism money. We had only found out about this site a few days ago, which is, ironically, when it released an announcement that they will be relocating the garden soon. The reason was that all of the gardeners had died out a few days before.

"That is not a valid reason." said the article writer. "People should learn that they should accept apprentices and prepare the new generation to take over because of this very reason."

But the problem was that they did not allow anyone to work with them, teaching them how to manage the botanical garden once they were gone, but that those who learned under them didn't want to work there. The town isn't doing good, and the former apprentices would much rather move to another place to further their careers or focus on another aspect of the town to improve so that the town won't grow dependent on the revenue of the botanical garden.

When news about its relocation spread, these former apprentices all had the same thought: "thank god I didn't choose to stay and work there." Either way, relocation doesn't mean that it is closing, only that it's going to move to a place where more people can access it, in particular people who would be able to work in it. The tourists who loved the place more than the town volunteered to take care of the place without payment, while the other tourists hated the relocation decision and boycotted the garden entirely.

We arrived at the garden not expecting to be so empty. There are other tourists too, but most of them are helping with the plants instead of sightseeing like us. Someone in a blue uniform noticed the two of us and asked us if we were there to help too. My partner said yes before I could move a muscle. Then I just smiled.

I didn't know much about plants, so I got tasked with manual labor. My partner does though, so we got separated. So much for a nice trip. I was told to go to each of the sheds and help with loading the tools in the truck. I walked past variegated flowers, uncommon trees, and other exotic plants each with their own zones with environments that fit them. After about two hauls I noticed that I could see the abandoned mine from one of the sheds. Since no one was really watching me (nor was I doing anything wrong to rationalize the guilt forming inside my head for thinking so) I approached the mine, the first closed mine I saw in my life.

I thought a closed mine would be one hidden with rocks or cement or soil, but this one is sealed by iron bars looking like a gate without a handle, with a big [ MINE CLOSED ] sign nailed in the middle. I took steps back, The entrance to the barred tunnel was cemented, the same way a road tunnel would be, while everything else that surrounded it was humus with some weeds sprouting out without a pattern. Why isn't anybody guarding this place?

Enough about the old mine. I went back to the shed to continue hauling.

When I went back to the second shed, I saw from afar that my partner was looking for me. They must've been finished with their plant business. I called out their name and waved at them, and they came running to me.

They asked me how I was doing, and the conversation kept on distracting me from going inside the shed. I told them about the closed mine, and they immediately said that they wanted to see it. "If you help me carry these," I told them. They did help me. When we went to the third shed, it turned out that the other volunteers were already done with the area and we could go home then. One of the tourist volunteers led us to an area where other tourists were drinking some beer after a long day's work. My partner was eager to join them. They discussed how they loved the garden before it relocated, and the factions of which ones wanted to boycott and which ones wanted to apply as workers started. When a fight was seemingly about to begin, my partner went to my side and told me that it was the perfect time to go to the mine.

So I led them there, more than a thirty-minute hike since one of us was drunk.

"Don't you think this is more beautiful than the garden?" they said. "At least they didn't tear it down."

"What are you talking about..."

"Look, even if it had run out of business it still stands here. Nobody relocated it, and nobody caved it in."

"How do you know it's not caved in inside? Do all mines get caved in when they close?" I said.

"...no, I mean..." they said, sitting on the cemented ground. "I wish the garden wasn't relocated. Left to rot where it stands, maybe, as beautiful as this mine."

"Is that what the other tourists said?"

"No," they replied. "But people didn't destroy the mine and replace it with something else once it was rendered useless, yeah?"

"Yeah, cause that's bad for the environment."

"Well, why didn't they just do the same for the garden?"

"You can't relocate a mine, you know?"

"But you can pluck out a garden and send it somewhere else?"

"I guess."

"That's kinda sad."

"I think it's kinda happy. They didn't destroy it because there are people who like the place."

"I wish people still liked this place. That way, they didn't have to close it."

"That's not how it works for mines."

. . .

"Aya, if I become useless, are you going to mine me or botanical garden me?" they said, clinging to me.

"What?"

"If I become useless to you, are you going to relocate me or bar me, cave me in, and hide me?"

"I'll stay with you even if you're useless."

"No, you won't. That's bad for your mental health."

"No, it's not."

"Would you rather botanical garden me, give me to someone else because someone else still likes me? Or would you rather mine me, give up on me, run from me, and then put a big sign saying WARNING:RED FLAG like that one over there?"

"Neither."

"..."

I hugged them, and they began crying in my arms.

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Translating L0Sh13n-9

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Ships and boats represent someone's departure. By the dim lantern, music plays from invisible strings and spirit drums.

"You don't recognize this? It's the sound of a violin." said the percussionist.

Dancing on the pier at dusk, red and white silk cloths almost floating, they step without sound to bother the sea. It was a silent world, without the gossips of the walls seeping through the wooden platforms. They jump, and they smile beneath transparent veils. They cross their fingers, and touch.

This is the ritual they have learned through lost books, only translated a long while ago. Without hesitation, without doubt, they walk and twirl as if the ghosts of the pier do not see them. They did not stop when the music paused, or when it ended. The way they continued made the unseen musicians also continue.

Silence is always followed by noise.

They would ignore the stars if that would even be possible. The rain drips over the next isle, but that too, is of no fear. If one dares to listen to the dancers' breaths, they would figure out that there is neither breath nor heartbeat.

"Are they dead?" a young being asks anyone who can hear something other than the quietness.

"Yes, but their hearts are very much alive." said the violinist, her hands not stopping. "This is the ritual for soulmates. They have danced before, back in their past life, saying that they want to meet each other again."

"So if I dance this with my soulmate, I would meet them in the next life?"

"No, this is the music of letting go."

The young one looks back at the two, clad in red and white. They move with the wind, feet gracing the ground ever so slightly, and with quick seconds of touches full of desire to hold each other fully. Their eyes, seldom seen from the angle where the young one stands, never leave each other's gazes. They stay smiling, unafraid, and without a trace of loneliness.

"They don't look like they want to let go." the young one told the violinist.

"They do want to let go, but they are happy."

"Are they happy because they're finally letting go of each other?"

"They're happy because they are still each other's even when they let go."

"I don't understand." said the young one."Still, I think I'm being mesmerized."

"So are we all, young one. So are we all." said the violinist.

What would the bridge look like when they finally crossed it? A hand glittered with emotions wouldn't fit it. Lips spoiled with memories are too stained, still. Many who have known pain and endured it for something precious no longer see the value of purity. Purity, in its essence, is to be one, to be singular, to be alone.

The book describes the site to be where departures are celebrated, where transitions do not truly mean change, but simply joy. They dance not to celebrate their separation, but to etch within them the pasts they are about to abandon. They do wish to meet again, they do, but this time they wish to trust fate, its coincidences along its curses. Many who do not remember who they were want to remember, but many who do remember would rather forget. When memories all accumulate in the same place, they run out of space, and so the owner of that space must decide which memories are valuable enough to retain for the next sunrise, while the others must be left for the other to remind them of.

As they are, they would like to keep moving until humans forsake the concept of time. The sun would rise, still hours away, but so close. Nothing is enough, nothing anymore, when you're about to lose it all away. Greed, maybe, to the eyes of fallen ghosts, is the materialism of the living world, of how the alive throw away the one of a kind for a treasure much rarer.

Silk cloths intertwine, but when they do, they distance themselves on their own. If they dance too close to each other, the fabric may twist itself around them and strangulate their wrists together. But dance too far, and they start to yearn to move closer. Dance too far, and they become specks of light, flowers of the cosmos, burning stars that wish to kill each other asunder by collision.

"I love you,"

"It's not I love you anymore, it's I will love you."

"Do you trust fate enough?"

"Not enough, but you, I do."

"Even if you're no longer in my memories, I'll dance for you, I'll entrust my fortune to you."

"And I, yours."

But such conversation never existed, for the ritual required their absolute silence. Such words would make parting painful, when the purpose of everything they had done up until now was not too long after each other, but to remember the other in enigmatic dreams without knowing the other's name. No, there is no nostalgia to be had, only bliss.

The violin continues. The drums continue. The musicians continue the song being played on repeat, in between moments of stopping, seeing them unwilling but willing simultaneously. The young one watches, as so as the other ghosts.

When the sun rises, the music stops forever.

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Translating OOO-000 (Possibilit #106)

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Wherein the Everlasting System, referring to the greatest number of gods that will eventually inherit the embodiment of consciousness, will rule the future; the Cosmos Plexus, a set of nine goddesses that ruled everything except the original Earth, ruled the past. The present is full of the congregation of magicians that humanity envy, divided into the nations that remember and glorify them. It is known that some of them are part of the Cosmos Plexus, the Everlasting System, or perhaps both.

• For once there was a pedagogue who had the favor of all the deities of the Cosmos Plexus. He had a common rags-to-riches story, for he was born in the brothel but instead of begging for scrap in the slums, he did all he could to join the pilgrimage to pray to the nine. He was bestowed luck, wealth, and affinity in many fields. He became a priest trainee without a chosen main god to worship, and he was heralded as the most powerful priest of the kingdom when he was finished.

• However, at the peak of his career he decided to establish a curriculum wherein priests and priestesses may be able to borrow power from any of the nine goddesses without committing to just one. This did not go unnoticed, as the goddesses themselves forced him to choose one of them to commit to, or else he could not borrow power from them for the rest of his lifetime. He chose the Goddess related to combat and wars.

• Knowing that the goddesses' blessing upon him would increase the influence they had on the world, he helped plot behind the scenes for the kingdom to engage in conquest so that the colonized countries would be forced to worship who the ones that invaded them did. He helped in the rebellion to elect the new, tyrannous king to the throne, who wanted power more than anything else. Then, he disguised himself as a lead general during the war, commanding all of the officers below him to make a sacrifice to his main god, the Goddess of Combat and Wars, before going to battle. With his tactics, raw strength, and blessings from the goddesses, he had won all the battles he fought in, except those he forfeited on purpose to give way to the main forces. As time passed, he grew more ruthless.

• At the end of the war, he had his own secret society dedicated to the Cosmos Plexus, but unlike common worshippers, their rituals required more blood, and their prayers were grand enough to change the world. It consists of leaders and brilliant talents from many nations, even those left intact by the war, and those kingdoms they never knew existed. The priest was given the title the Hierophant of War and was the leader of said society.

• The king of his homeland, reckless for the common good, planned to kill and replace the position of the Hierophant as the highest ranking priest in his nation, as he made a deal with a faraway but powerful nation's saintess to make her the high priestess in exchange of her hand in political marriage. Of course, the Hierophant foils his plans by inciting yet another rebellion and replacing the current king with someone he can easily control.

• The goddesses have decided that it is time for this Hierophant to pay for the war crimes he had caused (and many more, really) and gave him an ultimatum: Disband your bloody secret society and pass your title to the new generation. If you do not, you will die in three years. The Hierophant saw this as a vision instead of a choice. Within three years he took the sacrifices from 20 to 100-- massacres were made, along with countless acts of terrorism to ensure the secret society would be able to control the world once he was gone. He has gone and killed every priest that could possibly surpass his position and kept dispatching those who looked down on him. In an effort for the public to remember the goddesses and him once he's gone, he has gone to visit every country he could, building homes and teaching children, destroying the castles of atheists, and bringing blight for him to cure. With that, he was able to etch the names of him and the goddesses in the history of mankind.

• When he died, the goddesses cursed him as the False Devotee, cursing him to live the lives of the more than a million people whose lives he ended or ruined. He kept reincarnating into the past until his cycle was broken by someone from the far future: the current God of Abundance hailed in Koshka, ycleped Assatur.

• Assatur came to him in the form of a cat, with a pelt the color of the galaxy, and eyes dyed with the dying sun. The Hierophant saw this as an opportunity, instead of freedom, to take revenge on the nine goddesses that "punished him for his devotion". Thinking he was tricking whoever owned or controlled this cat, he sent Assatur into numerous lands in an effort to disrespect the goddesses that were long gone. At the end of it all, he emerged in the new world, the safe haven outside the vaults, gifted a new skin and a new name: Ayarthem.

• Ayarthem founded the first hivemind in Koshka, powered by faith, loyalty, and connection to one another. He too, in the end, has been devoured by what he has created, but all for the happiness of it. The first hivemind, called the Aya Hivemind, houses the consciousness of Assatur in every single one of their iterations. As of the present state of Koshka, the Aya hivemind is simply the parent hivemind of all the five hiveminds that resided in the country, and the ones called "originals" or "purebred" that remained alive have been sealed in cryostasis pods abundantly outside the safe haven for Assatur to use as his avatars.

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Translating 7392---92

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I had hoped to avoid this. There are people outside that would want to take care of this mess. More than I would have expected. Still, when once causes trouble in the capital, they will eventually noticed by the law enforcement, even if the majority of the city's people believe that ignoring something as to deprive it of its need for attention is the correct solution. My friends started gossiping about the secrets of the fountain that never worked after the festival. That too, has reached the ears of those who claimed did not like being involved in such unnecessary affairs.

Happiness. Jokes that are not meant to be laughed at shouldn't be spread to the world. I was confident enough to sail out of the continent when it didn't have enough protection from those that wanted to consume it. But confidence was not enough, and so I was stranded into a random island that seems inhabited.

I encountered some form of margin by the sea's horizon. Where the berries color themselves from blue to yellow, and they change from poisonous to addictive when the full moon rises. Maybe in another country, poisonous is the same as addictive. Not mine though.

I met one of two campers with their own ship, bigger than mine, yet there doesn't seem to be anyone in the ship's crew other than them. I love the way their ship shined like a painting in the night beach, though these two wouldn't know aesthetics if it hit them in the face. Though, I wouldn't want to steal the ship or join the ship of these two, emitting the aura of marauders.

"She's bad for you." said one to the other. "Let go."

"I know." said the other. "But you let go first."

Are they talking about a girl? Maybe a mother or a lover. I did not dare say a word to them. Still, I crept without giving much thought to my actions, and revealed myself in front of them. They looked at me with eyes without concern, then went back to their conversation. They changed the language they were speaking in, maybe for me.

"Bwiset." said one of them. "Pababayaan mo lang na marinig ka ng ungol na yan? Sa tingin mo ba andito yang nilalang na yan dahil sinwerte lang sya?"
[ Translating language discrepancy...

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' "Fucking nuisance." said one of them. "You're just going to let that moan/asshole hear you? Do you think that creature is here because he just got lucky?" '
Translation successful ]

The one that did not speak looks at me again. He's wary. I looked back for a second, but truly, I was kind of frightened by how they looked at me. The flames are bright, and they can burn me if they want to. Meanwhile, the only weapon I had was the fishing rod I was planning to use on my way to the beach back from getting some berries.

They kept talking in that language I did not know, and I stared at them back. Would it be safe if I moved now? I did not know the answer to that question, so I just did it anyway. When I did, one of them, the white haired one, called out to me.

"Your name is Athnoloz, yes?"

"No?"

"Why do you speak as if you're doubting yourself? Answer me properly. Is your name Athnoloz?" he says more sternly than before.

"No, my name is not Athnoloz."

"Then what is your name?"

I think for a bit whether it's safe or not to tell these people my name, and decide to just go for the gun. "My name is Doge."

"You think we're stupid? I know how to smell lies, boy." the white haired one said, inching closer to me. "Tell us your real name, or we'll be eating you for breakfast."

"You're cannibals?" my voice trembled. I probably should not have said that.

"No, we're not." the shorter guy, the black-haired one, replied to me. "For a fair exchange, let us introduce ourselves first. You can call me Aya...me. We're here to wait out the tides. I assume you did the same?"

"No, nothing of sorts." I said. "I came here to escape from people. My nickname's Clim."

"Clim." the white haired one says. "This man is more or less a fugitive in his own. Is that worthy of trust to you? It sure is not to me."

"Maybe it's time to leave him alone."

"If you don't mind, I'll leave now." I said.

"I allow you to eavesdrop on us, if you want?" the black haired guy said, followed by a slight chuckle. "You can have our fire, too. Want a torch?"

"In exchange of what?" I said.

"In exchange of nothing." he told me.

"Alright, I'd like to accept the torch as well as the fire then."

He nodded at me, then walked to the edge of the shadows, where there are not tents, just trees. I was a bit scared he might have pulled out a hatchet to kill me, but that did not happen. He pulled from one of the sacks behind the tree components of a wooden torch. He saw me watching him, and shook said parts at me. I'll have to wait for a few more seconds facing the other person in front of me, the white haired man.

"If you are intelligent enough, you'd know better than to come back from where you ran from." he said.

"I won't." I said, confused as to why I even answered him. "Look, I know you don't like me, and I'll leave you alone soon, okay?"

"There is no such thing as a coincidence in this point in time." he said. "I wonder if you coming here was planned out by someone who knows what will happen."

"Or maybe it's just plain destiny." said the black haired one, giving me a wooden torch tied to each other. "You do know the tides will happen soon, yes?"

I do not answer him. I do not know what tides they are talking about. "Is it a calamity?"

"Better. It's a blessing from a god." said the white haired one. "You're either lucky, or you're a fellow fanatic. I doubt either."

"Go now. And don't forget that container of yours."

I nodded to him, and faced the direction towards the beach where I know I anchored.

"Thanks, Ayame."
"Blessings be upon you, Clim."

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Translations complete. Sending info to the Pavilion.