text | un: younghuman

[terriblepurpose]

[content warnings: thalassophobia, prophecies of doom]

Citizen-Sleepers of Trench

My name is Paul Atreides. Some of you know me. I am a paleblood disciple of the Pthumerian mysteries, a fellow Sleeper, and I have been granted a warning.



I have seen a leviathan, an immense blood-corrupted marine beast, bound for the shores near the city. It arrives in one lunar month, and when it does, I've seen some of you fall in its path.

I have no evidence for this claim except my word, and I have no intention of using grim portents or tidings of doom to frighten anyone into belief. What I see is in flux, changeable, and if you choose to deny this warning, you're not wrong to do so. This is not a prophecy, and I won't ask you to take what I say on faith.

What do I ask, of those who believe me, is that we kill it first.

The Leviathan

I have observed the beast's approach and its attacks, and these are my preliminary findings and theories on what it is, and how it dies.

• The beast is a shapeshifter, altering its form to attack and defend. It seems to rely only on aquatic and amphibious life as the sources of its abilities and shape. My current theory is that it exists across multiple states simultaneously, and manifests different parts of itself as adaptation to threats and its environment.


• I believe it has some ability to perceive the future, or to react so quickly that it appears to. Through observation, I've determined that this has limits, and these are the limits we will exploit.


• The nature of the beast makes further description difficult, but I estimate its size to range between 60 to 120 meters depending on which aspects of itself are active.


• Sufficient concentration and variety of attacks against it prevent the leviathan from adapting out of harm's way. Accomplishing this will require, at minimum, several coordinated teams of combatants.


• Killing the beast will be possible through cumulative effort. Despite a larger than usual capacity to absorb damage, the beast remains a corporal living organism. In brief: if enough of it bleeds, it dies.

What We Need

Taking on a beast of this size and complexity will require advance planning and preparation. The following is a list of what I believe should be organized for that purpose.

• Logistics: The first step will be establishing the base camp for the operation on the beach, at a remove from where the beast will emerge. After the camp is built, it will require regular supply and maintenance.


• Divination and reconnaissance: Intelligence gathering on the beast. Due to the difficulties of reaching the open ocean, I believe we will have to rely largely on blood magic and other forms of non-mechanical surveillance.


• Medical corps: Injuries are inevitable, and will exist across a wide spectrum of possibilities, so a diversity of medical and healing approaches will be needed


• Combatants: This will be a dangerous battle. Consider that before you volunteer yourself for it.


• Command and signal: Central command will coordinate the above efforts, create our strategic, operational, and tactical plans, and run communications through base camp.


What We Do

This vision came to me, but this isn't my fight to lead. I know that together, you have overcome worse threats than this, and I have no doubt you will do so again. I have no intention of disrupting your methods or insisting that my own be followed over them.

What we will do is no more and no less than what you all already have done every day since your arrival here: work together as a people to protect your city, your allies, and yourselves. Before us lies a challenge, but it's nothing that can't be overcome. If I ask only one more thing of you, it's that you do believe that.

A wise man once said that dreams make for good stories, but everything important happens while we're awake. They may call us Sleepers, but this is the Waking World, and while we may have to fight and bleed for the fate we choose, we will choose it.

The Next Steps

I invite you to ask me any questions you have. I'll answer what I can, beginning with the first I anticipate: those I've seen in the dream, I am warning personally.

Otherwise, prepare yourself as you best see fit if you intend to join this hunt. Construction of the camp will begin shortly on the Farther Shores. If you want to speak with me in person, that's where you'll find me.

[This is the kick off post for the Fated Leviathan player plot. You don't have to have commented over there to participate, although you're welcome to do so if you'd like to. (Additional people being added to the visions is also still on the table, whether seen by Paul or others.) Feel free to thread with other characters about the plot here as well - consider it an open forum for discussion.

Timeline wise, this post goes up shortly before Paul sends out the individual warning messages, and all individual warning messages are private and locked.

I can be reached at terriblepurpose or via terriblepurpose#0419 on Discord, as well as through PMing this journal, if you have any questions/concerns/plot ideas.]

Comments

[terriblepurpose]

[This was not a reaction Paul expected, but he tamps down on the urge to write back a curt that's rude. It's unfair to judge Kaworu that way.]

That can be arranged. I'll see what we can do about a bridge.

For now, there's nothing for you to do. Get rest, eat well, if those are things you need to do. Don't worry about this.

[Not that he seems particularly worried.]

[peripheries]

[It's absolutely correct to judge Kaworu that way. Trust your instincts, Paul.]

Really? Interesting. I'd be curious.

Hmm, you just said some ancient being might come up and kill me. That's a bit worrying. Or... are you so sure you're going to stop it?

[terriblepurpose]

I know an expert in mental magic. If anyone has the skills, he does, but I'll need to speak with him first. He's a private individual.

I am sure we're going to stop it. We have advance warning and the most dangerous individuals I've ever met at our disposal. The future isn't a fixed thing, it flows from choices made now.

[peripheries]

I wonder if he could make it so I can see what it's like to dream if nothing else.

You're very confident. But be careful, ancient creatures like this... angry ancient creatures like this are dangerous. They have nothing but bloodlust and so nothing to lose.

[terriblepurpose]

I think he'd like the challenge, if nothing else.

[It's an oddly moving statement, even if it wasn't necessarily intended to be. Paul's mild irritation ebbs.]

I'm confident that this city has survived worse, and so have the people in it. This isn't about me, or what I'm capable of.

So: is there anything else you can tell me about ancient creatures?

[peripheries]

Hmm. They don’t think like you and I. They have goals that we can’t comprehend.

…What are you capable of?

[terriblepurpose]

With deference to your greater knowledge, this one's goals aren't difficult to make sense of.

[It's something to see how Kaworu packs so much unsettling thought in such short sentences. Paul nearly appreciates it.]

In general? Enough.

[peripheries]

You mean it’s desire to come to shore? It is simple to understand the desire but not necessarily the reason.

[terriblepurpose]

[Of course the people of Trench would have questions about this now, despite their rampant incuriousity about much more troubling and prevalent mysteries. What did he expect.]

Then maybe we'll find the reason of it through you.

[peripheries]

Perhaps. But its reasons may be not understandable by anyone who approaches being mortal. And dangerous to those who try to understand. Its mind, like its body, exists across multiple realities.

[terriblepurpose]

Are you sure of that, about its mind?

[peripheries]

No. It's simply what I sense. And what I sense is likely only what's above the surface and nothing for the vastness still below.

[terriblepurpose]

Has anyone ever told you that you're a reassuring person?

[peripheries]

No.

Am I?

[terriblepurpose]

Let's say that I'm not asking you to improve morale any time soon.

[peripheries]

So you will ask me to do something then?

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul can't help but smile, in spite of his better judgment. The word whelp, ground out in a rock-crushing voice, comes to mind.]

Will you work with the diviners to develop our intelligence on the beast?

[peripheries]

I suppose. Most of my training revolved around trying to reach out and contact unknowable souls so perhaps it's possible.

[terriblepurpose]

If not, there's no shortage of other work.

You could put on a concert.

[peripheries]

Did your vision inform you if the creature prefers Bach, Mozart, or Chopin? I wasn't able to sense that myself.

[terriblepurpose]

If you send me a selection of recordings, I'll play some while I sleep, and we'll see.

[peripheries]

Is that what dreaming is like? Music and images and answers all twisted together?

[That's so... unimportant in the scheme of everything here and yet... he has to know.]

[terriblepurpose]

That's what it's usually like. This is slightly different.

When you sleep, do you know if your eyes ever move?

[peripheries]

I'm not sure. They never told me.

[terriblepurpose]

Almost everything dreams. It's a biological function. You might, and not remember it, or recognize it. We can try to find out, if you want to.