Book 1 - Croatoan
- Location
- California
So.
Roanoke.
The Lost Colony.
Founded in 1585 on the island of Roanoke off the coast of North Carolina. It lasted, for sure, until 1588, the last time anybody saw it intact. The next time somebody checked on it in 1590 the entire place was found fortified to within an inch of its life, and empty. The entire 120 or so colonists vanished without a trace, the only clue being the word CROATOAN carved into one of the trees inside the colony palisade. It was assumed that the word was a reference to the nearby Croatoan peninsula where a native tribe was known to live, a message left saying where the colonists had fled to. No evidence had ever been produced to prove that theory beyond some rumors that Caucasians were seen among the local tribes in the area.
No hard proof of where the colonists went had ever been found. Even why they left or had to fortify to the extent they had is still a complete unknown. Roanoke island was abandoned, and no attempt had ever been made to reclaim it.
At least that's all the official mundane history has to tell.
The records that Lucifer sent me, and how he got sealed Church records I have no idea and I'm not really sure I want to know, add some rather interesting additional information. According to the Church, they received word in 1587 that the colony was being beset by monsters and suffering under some pagan curse. The colony begged for aid and, in response, the Church sent an Exorcist armed with Excalibur Blessing to defeat the monsters and free the colony from the curse. The ship the Exorcist sailed on should have arrived at the colony in 1589. Of course whether it had or not is unknown as the ship was never heard from again. The colony was found empty and no sign of the Excalibur or the Exorcist was ever found.
Not for a lack of trying though. Several subsequent expeditions had been sent to the island to try and determine what had happened and to recover the sacred blade. None of them were ever heard from again, either.
This is where I'm going.
Island of Death.
I go to all the best vacation spots.
Well, I'm certainly not going in there without as much information as I can get.
I wonder if any of the tribe native to the Croatoan peninsula are still around?
It takes almost a week to get out of Kuoh, even after I know where I'm going. I have to make sure Mia won't burn the house down or starve without me there. I have to make sure that my students will have things to work on without me. I have to find my way to the east coast of the US, which is a place I've never been so I don't have an address Script anywhere useful. Which means I'm reduced to mundane travel.
The entire trip takes just about three days. Two days of flights, with layovers, eventually ending in the Pitt-Greenville Airport. A rented car and another day of driving lands me in a little town called Manns Harbor, which is as close as one can get to Roanoke island without physically being on it. It's also one of the few pieces of civilization in the area that, back in the day, was called Croatoan.
Finding surviving members of the native tribe of Croatoan is both easy and hard. Easy because all it takes is a few internet searches to discover that they do in fact still exist. Hard because there's maybe four of them. They all belong to the same family, and do live in Manns Harbor.
The house I eventually find is... well it's a single story, the exterior is painted in a sort of lime green that can't have been considered a good color even in the sixties. Which given how faded and peeling the paint is, has to be when it was last painted. The windows are clean, but the lawn, surrounded by a waist high chain link fence, is filled with weeds and in dire need of a cutting. A single path made of concrete runs from the sidewalk up to the front door of the house.
I pause to take the entire place in, and for the first time I'm actively glad that my life has turned into the bizarre urban fantasy novel that it has. The constant risk of getting torn apart or enslaved by supernatural monstrosities is vastly preferable to getting trapped in the existential hopelessness and despair of a place like this. I let out a shuddering breath and shake off the feeling of mild creeping dread at the idea that I could have ended up being so much less than I am, and headed up the path to the door.
The front door is covered in the same peeling horrendous color as the rest of the house, and is blocked by a rusted screen door. Set into the wall next to the door is a battered doorbell. After a moment's hesitation I press the button, and can hear a staticy electronic bell go off deeper within the house.
After a short pause the sound of footsteps heads towards the door, and moments later the inner door is pulled open. The man on the other side is about my age, maybe a few years older. He has Native American coloring, and his long black hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail. He's dressed in a pair of battered jeans and a loose flannel shirt. His expression goes from one of irritation, to a rather awkward looking smile once he gets a good look at me.
I think he's trying to be flirtatious?
I give him my best come hither smile back, which is terrible I have no doubt, since I've never tried to make such an expression before in my life. It seems to work on him though, as his smile becomes a little more natural.
"Can I help you?" He asks, sounding hopeful.
"Yes!" I try to sing my words just a bit as I speak, to try and get a little bit of the sirens' mesmerizing voice. Not sure how well it works but I don't sound forced, so at least I'm not making things worse. "I'm working on a project, and I was hoping to get some native accounts of some famous historical events."
"Oh, what events?" He asks, leaning against the door frame, in a voice that I think is supposed to be smooth. It comes off as slimy, instead.
That's possibly just me though.
"Roanoke colony primarily." I try as hard as I can to maintain my smile without letting it curdle. Why is it so much easier to spot that this guy is flirting with me when I really don't want him to, when spotting Lei do the same thing was so hard, even though I was interested?
He makes a face at the name then sighs, "Come on in, I'll see if my grandmother will speak to you. She's the one that knows all the old stories." He pushes open the screen door to lets me in, and smirks slightly as I squeeze past him. "Maybe afterwards I can get you a coffee or something."
I maintain my smile, but don't answer him. To his credit, he doesn't seem put off by the fact that I have four or five inches, and at least fifty pounds of muscle on him. It's not going to get him a coffee date obviously, but it reduces his jackass quotient by quite a bit.
The interior of the house is walking a fine line between cozy and cluttered. Everything inside is old and battered, he led me through the living room and past a couch that must be as old as the paint job. The walls are lined with cabinets and bookshelves, the cabinets are filled with local native art that, it occurs to me, are probably legit and likely belong in a museum. The books are all old and faded, titles nearly unreadable and pages yellowed.
The man leads me through the main room and down a hallway into a bedroom. Like the rest of the house it's full of antiques, that I really believe were placed in their current home when they were new. Right up to the old CRT TV at one end of the room, and the bed facing it. To either side of the bed near the head board are a pair of chairs for visitors to sit on. On the bed cocooned in ancient handmade patchwork quilts, is an equally ancient woman. White wispy hair floats around her head, and dark eyes peer at us from deep within an old wrinkled face.
"Who is this woman, grandson?" The old woman speaks in a rough, but clearly understandable, voice and in a language I've never heard before.
Her grandson replies in English, "She's working on a history project, wanted to talk to you about Roanoke."
The old woman snorts, "Smart to want a better account than what the white histories say. But how will she understand my words? Will you play translator?"
"That won't be necessary." The strange words fall out of my mouth like it's the only language I've ever spoken.
Allspeak, for the win.
The old woman breaks into a fit of wheezing cackles, and the young man stares at me with open mouthed shock. "You speak the people's tongue girl?" the old woman asks, with a huge smile displaying her few remaining blackened teeth.
"Evidently." I reply back to her, smiling slightly.
"Good. I am impressed. Now tell me your questions and I will try to answer." She waves me to take a seat on one of the chairs by her bed, which I do, setting Sclamhaire's carrying case upright next to me where I can easily keep a hand on it.
"I really only have one. What happened to Roanoke?" Some part of me is hoping that she'll be able to tell me something that will give me a lead on who might have taken the Excalibur when the colony fell, and where. If I'm really lucky, I won't even have to go to the island.
"I do not know for certain." The woman starts slowly, "I am old, but not that old, I was not there. But I can tell you what I was told." I nod to her, that's about what I'm hoping for, "The white men came and built their houses on the island that they called Roanoke, and for a time everything was fine. We had no use for the island, our own lands providing for us everything we needed. We thought that would be it, they would stay on their island, and we would stay on the mainland." She sighs, "It was not to be. First came their missionaries, and when we were not interested in listening to them, the missionaries brought men to make us listen. So we listened, and ignored them. We were not a warlike people, and hunters are not soldiers, we had little other choice. The missionaries grew frustrated and angry at our dismissal of them, so they picked somebody to make an example of. They took the chief's daughter and burned her alive, telling us that they were saving her soul, purifying her of sin in fire. That if we accepted their god such measures would not be necessary." She makes a disgusted noise, "The implication was that they would continue to kill us one at time until we either gave in or were all dead. We were not warriors so we could not fight them, but we had shamans. The shamans did something to the island itself, laid a curse on it perhaps, I am not a shaman, I do not know." The old woman lets out a rattling sigh and closed her eyes, "What I do know is that the white men were never heard from again, nor was anybody who went to investigate."
"Nobody has been to the island since then?" I ask.
"People have gone, none have returned." She opens her eyes and looks at me again, "Do not go there girl, life is more precious than whatever you seek."
I, of course, plan to ignore the old woman's advice completely.
Actually getting to Roanoke is more difficult than I thought it would be. Manns Harbor has plenty of boats moving in and out of it. Harbor is right there in the name after all. And every single one of them is perfectly happy to take an attractive young woman out on the water.
At least until I tell them where I want to go. Then there's a slew of refusals. Some of them suddenly remember that they have prior commitments, others have sudden and inexplicable mechanical problems with their boats, some just flat out refuse. The change always comes when I mention Roanoke.
It takes a couple of days to find a boat that will take me out, and doesn't balk at my destination. That boat belongs to an old fisherman that doesn't do a lot of fishing any more. He agrees to take me out to Roanoke, and even to check back a day or so later to pick me up should I want to leave. The way he says that implies that I'd either want to leave, or be dead. And after implying it he flat out tells me that anybody who's gone to the island has never left it again.
A warning that I, again, ignore.
Well not entirely. Every time I hear about how much of a death trap this island is, the more paranoid I become. Nobody can tell me why it's dangerous though, which means I can't really judge how large the risk factor is. So I go in planning for the worst, and hoping for the best.
I don't spend those two days just looking for a ride to the island. I learned my lesson from my last attempt at a camping trip, so I check what the weather is going to be like, what kind of terrain I'll be in, and buy supplies and equipment, suitable to what I learn in my free time. This time I intend to be prepared.
Which is why, in the late afternoon, I'm standing on the deck of an old fishing boat near the prow with two large duffel bags of gear around my feet. I watch the coast of the island approach in the distance. I'm in full armor, with my hood down, Sclamhaire is on my back, and my athame is across my hips. Every time I put it all on after having not worn it for a while, I get a lesser version of that feeling of completeness that I felt the first time I touched them. The feeling of being whole again after being in too many pieces, spread too far, for too long.
The armor got a weird look from the fisherman, my eyes without the sunglasses got a second one. He doesn't say anything though, just crosses himself, and when I don't react he just shrugs and moves on.
As we approach the island I get my first real information about it, as it comes in range of my mana senses. It doesn't help as much as I could wish for. Thanks to the way Mana Breathing approaches the energy of the world, and what mana is, there's no such thing as twisted or corrupted mana. Just mana balanced differently, more of some kinds of things that make up mana and less of others. Which isn't to say that being able to read how mana is balanced can't tell you about a thing.
Unfortunately I'm not experienced enough to separate out all the different parts of the mana I'm feeling to figure out what it all means. I can feel that the mana of Roanoke is... darker than the area around it for lack of a better term. There are so many options to explain what could be causing what I'm feeling, that picking one is impossible. There could be a secret cadre of fallen angels hiding on the island. There could be a natural portal to the underworld hidden somewhere on it. The island could be full of angry ghosts. Some other monster could have moved in. The spirits of the island could be angry about something. A lot of people could have been very pissed off or miserable there for a long time. Or it could be the lingering effects of an ancient shaman's curse.
The feeling puts me on edge though, because whatever is causing it, there's a lot more mana concentrated in Roanoke than there is in the surroundings. So whatever it is, it's powerful. Though again, how much of a problem that is depends on what that powerful thing is and what it can do with that power. The island could just have the weight of a lot more dark history than I'm aware of.
Whatever it is, I'm not going to find out, or find the Excalibur, standing on this boat.
The fishing boat pulls up next to the remnants of an old wooden dock. The wood is rotten, and coming apart, and still looking far too good for it's five hundred years of age. I don't have a lot of choice though, so I pick up my camping gear and head for the pier.
"Are ya sure ya want to do this, lass?" The rough voice of the fisherman calls to me as I reach the edge of the boat.
I pause to look back at him, and find him looking genuinely concerned. I give a brief laugh, and a shrug, "Not really. Needs must though." No devil driving this time though, just a Fae.
I wonder which is worse.
The old man nods and sighs, "Aye, I can see that. I'll be back around tomorrow evening to check on ya, and get ya off should ya need it."
"Thanks. Hopefully I'll see you and get out of here then." The old man just snorts and waves me off.
So with a hop, I land on the dock which immediately begins coming apart under my feet. Twenty or so hurried steps, and I set foot on the island of Roanoke for the first time.
The path from the pier to the colony itself is completely overgrown, but still clearly visible despite that. Trees lined a trail of bushes and uneven grass that hid ancient wagon ruts. The entire island seems to be covered in lush green. I'm very quickly glad that I have my armor on, as every twig, branch, and burr tries it's best to catch on my armor. Wood and grass find no purchase on enchanted cloth or fairy metal, but the constant irregular tugs at what I'm wearing as I break free of the grasping vegetation, gets annoying very quickly.
The trail ends as I reach a set of barely recognizable wooden gates. I step through them and am in the Roanoke colony proper. The decaying remains of five hundred year old wooden buildings erupt out of the tall, dry, dead grass like tombstones. An impression accented by the random skeletal trees scattered about. At the center of the colony are the remnants of the town well, stacked stone partially collapsed surrounded by what was once the village square. Circling the entire colony is a log palisade that by some miracle, is still standing more or less intact.
It honestly feels like I've walked onto the set of a horror movie.
Well, my first step is to set up camp.
I find a mostly clear space where the rocky ground is solid enough stone that nothing has managed to grow there, even better I can set up under the shelter of several of the trees. They're barren of leaves, which is odd for this time of year, especially considering the rest of the island, but still better than nothing. Moving quickly I set up my tent under the shelter of two of them, putting the back of my tent up against one of their trunks, and used the other tree close by as a windbreak for my fire pit.
A fire pit which becomes my next priority. I clear out an area of the mostly bare stone of even the smallest bit of flammables. Next I make a circle of smaller stones, then set about preparing a fire so that when the sun goes down, and I need it, all I'll have to do is put a match to the dry grass I'm using as tinder.
With that finished, my last task is suspending all my food supplies in a sack hung from a cord stretched between the two trees giving me shelter. I'm pretty sure that there are no bears on Roanoke, but there's enough wildlife in general that I'm unwilling to take the chance. There are plenty of other animals that would love to hit me up for a free meal, and I'm not willing to feed them either.
Finally with my camp set, fire prepared, and food secured I'm ready to get to what I came here for.
When I heard of the Lost Colony I imagined a grand mystery. A small town where one day everybody living there just inexplicably vanished. Food left uneaten on the tables, clothes left hanging in the closets. An entire population that just up and disappeared without a trace.
What I find exploring the still standing buildings is nothing like that. Whatever happened to the colonists they fought, and fought hard. Bullet holes and ancient burn scars are everywhere. I find a wood axe lodged deeply into the wall of a house, a suspicious stain that I suspect of being long vanished dried blood clings to the rusted metal of the axe head. More telling is the skeleton covered in some of the only green vegetation I've found inside the palisade, right underneath the axe. The bones of its neck are clearly broken by something at least passably sharp and heavy.
With that discovery I start looking for bits of color. I find other patches of green scattered everywhere around the colony. Each of them marks the location of a skeleton. A place where one of the original colonists died. Or more accurately was killed. I find pitchforks lodged in rib cages, bullet holes in skulls. In one case a skull crushed with the sad remains of an ancient rolling pin still lodged in the bone. Even the livestock wasn't spared whatever happened here. I find the heavy bones of horses, oxen, and goats in what used to be pens. Each of them killed by some man made tool.
Whatever happened here it was a massacre, and the people here had fought like hell to save their homes. They'd failed spectacularly, but I can respect that drive to go down swinging. I'm not sure how many colonists there were, or how many little spots of green I found, but it feels like I found enough bones to account for everyone who lived here.
Moving through the houses and other buildings is strange. The mana in the ruins is thick, and heavily weighted towards something I've never encountered before... Or maybe something vaguely like a Fallen? Whatever I'm feeling definitely isn't a fallen angel, but now that the idea has entered my head I can't shake the feeling of similarity.
More than the mana though, is how well preserved everything is. Despite the centuries of age that the wooden buildings have survived, they still stand remarkably intact. Despite the rot that's visible in every board, I can still move around the second floor of the few buildings that have one. Doing so is nerve wracking though, my ears are tuned to every creak and groan, listening for the pop or snap that would indicate a board failure.
Pushing open a door is even more anxiety inducing, as most of the hinges have rusted in place, so pushing on them makes it even more likely that I'll push myself through the floor. The third door I try to open the floor finally gives way, my armored boot plunges through the rotted wood under it. Fortunately my other foot still has purchase, so I end up flinging myself through the stubborn door in an effort to escape falling to my doom. The door is reduced to splinters, even as the floor I'd been standing on gives up completely, falling with a loud clatter to the floor below.
The room I find myself in is a bedroom, even more well preserved than the rest of the town. The furnishings are largely intact, a simple desk and a bed. Or rather bed frame, the mattress and ropes that would have held it up have not survived the passage of time. Lying on the ground in the bed frame though, is something even more odd.
A skeleton lays there in a way that makes me think that they'd been laying on the bed when they died. The bones, unlike all the others I've found, aren't covered in greenery though. The body wears armor, a cuirass, and has a metallic scabbard laying next to him. Once it was probably belted around his waist, now though the belt is long gone and it simply lays next to him on the floor. No sign of a sword though, which ignites all sorts of suspicions about who this might have been. What really grabs attention though, is the small leather bound book clutched in the skeletons' hands.
The book looks to be mostly intact, and might prove to be invaluable. Though every genre savvy bone in my body is screaming at me that if I move that book, the skeleton will come to life and try to kill me. On the other hand this is the best lead I've found yet.
So, carefully, I reach down, tug the book free, and then jump back, cringing slightly. I have the book clutched in one hand, the other resting on the hilt of my athame. I hold my breath for several moments staring at the bed frame, waiting for the skeleton to get up and do something... anything?
Nothing happens.
After several minutes I start breathing again, and relax slightly.
Maybe this isn't a horror movie after all...?
Finally, I look away from the bed frame on the other side of the room, and focus instead on my prize. Carefully I open the first page to see what I've found. Allspeak is a wonderful thing, instant knowledge of the spoken and written form of any language I see or hear. This is the first time I've seen a language before hearing though, and the experience is a little odd. For just a moment all that's there are scribbles on a page. They might make letters, but the idea that there are words, or information contained within them is just absurd. Then the world blinks slightly, and suddenly... well the book still makes no sense, but for completely different reasons. Instead of being incomprehensible because I don't know the language, it's incomprehensible because the penmanship is awful, and time has caused the ink to both bleed and fade in various places.
I can, however, make out a little bit right at the top of the first page, 'Field Journal -orcist...'
The field journal is about half filled with mostly illegible writing. If I want anything out of it I'll have to go looking for the bits and pieces that are still legible and hope. But that's not something I'm going to do on a floor of questionable structural integrity, next to a five hundred year old corpse. Especially not since I have a campfire waiting for me, and the temperature is beginning to drop.
My breath fogs the air as I make my way back towards my campsite. Clouds have covered the sky since I went into the last building, making it seem later than it is. The sun's still up, if on it's way down, but it's already dark enough that I'm grateful for my night vision. The ground has become damp as well, making moving a little bit harder. The softened footing sucking at my boots, and roots that had been safely contained underground are now available for me to trip on. Having that fire ready to go is going to be spectacular...
My thinking grinds to a halt at what I find where my camp site used to be. One of the branches I tied the rope I suspended my food from, has snapped letting the food bag hit the ground. Squirrels are fleeing with my granola bars and trail mix. A team of four raccoons has my fruit, and a few canned goods that I brought just in case I ended up stuck here longer than I planned, and are slinking into the night. Finally a single coyote has somehow stuffed all my jerky, and the hotdogs I planned to roast for dinner, into his mouth. He gives me a challenging look, before casually trotting away. The hotdog buns, and remaining food, have all been torn open and scattered on the ground, rendering them inedible.
The branch that had broken has somehow impaled my tent. The poor cloth edifice had one wall ripped open and the floor impaled to the ground, causing the entire thing to collapse and become entangled with the branch. To top it all off somehow the ground around my campsite had flooded, soaking my sleeping bag, the campfire, and the hotdog buns.
I suck in a deep breath, and exhale hard through my nose, white plumes drift in the air for a moment before blowing away, "It's okay." I assure myself, "I can still make this work. Most of the wood for the fire is still good and dry, and grass is easy to find. The matches ought to be around here somewhere." I nod to myself reaffirming my determination, "I'll just..."
With a sound like a gunshot, the trunk of the second tree's trunk shatters, and without even the grace to be slow and ponderous about it, the tree crashes into the campsite. Annihilating the campfire, and anything left of my tent and sleeping bag.
"Fuck it." I mutter. I stand quietly for a moment as the temperature continues to drop, the ground now beginning to freeze, "Fuck it!" I shout that time. With determined stomping that my five year old self would be proud of, I go to find a dry spot to set up my new camp. Such as it is. I find another open area of rock that I somehow missed my first time through. How I have no idea, but it's the top of a slightly raised area, so whatever is causing the flooding hasn't managed to get any water up here yet.
With no ceremony whatsoever I draw Sclamhaire, and drive her half way into the stone under my feet. Immediately her pommel gem lights up as she drinks down the unusually abundant mana on the island, and vents the energy out again as light and heat. As it turns out she's better than any campfire. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.
With a sigh I sit down, and lean my back against the flat of Sclamhaire's exposed blade, using her as a back rest. The gem keeps me warm, and provides more than enough light to try and read by.
Try turns out to be the right word.
The majority of the journal has been rendered illegible. I can read maybe three words on every page, and figure out another five or six. Which is entirely inadequate for extracting any sort of information from the journal. Still, it's all I've got to go on, so I go through it one page, one line, one Rorschachesque blob of ink that were once words, at a time.
I almost don't notice when the sun goes down, and it begins to snow. Which is entirely unseasonable, but at this point I'm anything but surprised. The storm clouds overhead continue to grow thicker and darker, the air colder and colder, but Sclamhaire takes care of me, and keeps me in a bubble of light and warmth.
As I reach the end of the journal, something jerks my attention away from the book to my surroundings. Something has moved out there... I'd almost swear that it's human shaped, but I'm more than familiar with how the human mind can find a familiar outline absolutely anywhere. I turn back to the book with only a few pages to go. I'm not really hoping for much, the further along I go the more erratic and messy the writing becomes. That on top of the degradation I'd been dealing with already, and I haven't found anything legible in the last ten pages, and don't expect to find anything in the few pages that are left.
Finally I get to the last page, and blink. Across the last used pages are just two words written large enough that even time hasn't been able to render them illegible. My attention is jerks back to the world around me by a rattling, clicking sound that's only just audible to my improved hearing. I drop the book, and slowly stand, gripping Sclamhaire's hilt, instantly snuffing out the light and heat she produced. The cold comes crashing in on me, and I begin to shiver almost at once. I'm not too worried though. The exercise I'm about to get with the army of vegetation covered skeletons that have surrounded me, their approach muffled by the snow, will be more than enough to keep me warm.
And while I'm doing that, I'll hopefully be able to work out just what an army of animated bones has to do with a genius loci.
Roanoke.
The Lost Colony.
Founded in 1585 on the island of Roanoke off the coast of North Carolina. It lasted, for sure, until 1588, the last time anybody saw it intact. The next time somebody checked on it in 1590 the entire place was found fortified to within an inch of its life, and empty. The entire 120 or so colonists vanished without a trace, the only clue being the word CROATOAN carved into one of the trees inside the colony palisade. It was assumed that the word was a reference to the nearby Croatoan peninsula where a native tribe was known to live, a message left saying where the colonists had fled to. No evidence had ever been produced to prove that theory beyond some rumors that Caucasians were seen among the local tribes in the area.
No hard proof of where the colonists went had ever been found. Even why they left or had to fortify to the extent they had is still a complete unknown. Roanoke island was abandoned, and no attempt had ever been made to reclaim it.
At least that's all the official mundane history has to tell.
The records that Lucifer sent me, and how he got sealed Church records I have no idea and I'm not really sure I want to know, add some rather interesting additional information. According to the Church, they received word in 1587 that the colony was being beset by monsters and suffering under some pagan curse. The colony begged for aid and, in response, the Church sent an Exorcist armed with Excalibur Blessing to defeat the monsters and free the colony from the curse. The ship the Exorcist sailed on should have arrived at the colony in 1589. Of course whether it had or not is unknown as the ship was never heard from again. The colony was found empty and no sign of the Excalibur or the Exorcist was ever found.
Not for a lack of trying though. Several subsequent expeditions had been sent to the island to try and determine what had happened and to recover the sacred blade. None of them were ever heard from again, either.
This is where I'm going.
Island of Death.
I go to all the best vacation spots.
Well, I'm certainly not going in there without as much information as I can get.
I wonder if any of the tribe native to the Croatoan peninsula are still around?
###
It takes almost a week to get out of Kuoh, even after I know where I'm going. I have to make sure Mia won't burn the house down or starve without me there. I have to make sure that my students will have things to work on without me. I have to find my way to the east coast of the US, which is a place I've never been so I don't have an address Script anywhere useful. Which means I'm reduced to mundane travel.
The entire trip takes just about three days. Two days of flights, with layovers, eventually ending in the Pitt-Greenville Airport. A rented car and another day of driving lands me in a little town called Manns Harbor, which is as close as one can get to Roanoke island without physically being on it. It's also one of the few pieces of civilization in the area that, back in the day, was called Croatoan.
Finding surviving members of the native tribe of Croatoan is both easy and hard. Easy because all it takes is a few internet searches to discover that they do in fact still exist. Hard because there's maybe four of them. They all belong to the same family, and do live in Manns Harbor.
The house I eventually find is... well it's a single story, the exterior is painted in a sort of lime green that can't have been considered a good color even in the sixties. Which given how faded and peeling the paint is, has to be when it was last painted. The windows are clean, but the lawn, surrounded by a waist high chain link fence, is filled with weeds and in dire need of a cutting. A single path made of concrete runs from the sidewalk up to the front door of the house.
I pause to take the entire place in, and for the first time I'm actively glad that my life has turned into the bizarre urban fantasy novel that it has. The constant risk of getting torn apart or enslaved by supernatural monstrosities is vastly preferable to getting trapped in the existential hopelessness and despair of a place like this. I let out a shuddering breath and shake off the feeling of mild creeping dread at the idea that I could have ended up being so much less than I am, and headed up the path to the door.
The front door is covered in the same peeling horrendous color as the rest of the house, and is blocked by a rusted screen door. Set into the wall next to the door is a battered doorbell. After a moment's hesitation I press the button, and can hear a staticy electronic bell go off deeper within the house.
After a short pause the sound of footsteps heads towards the door, and moments later the inner door is pulled open. The man on the other side is about my age, maybe a few years older. He has Native American coloring, and his long black hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail. He's dressed in a pair of battered jeans and a loose flannel shirt. His expression goes from one of irritation, to a rather awkward looking smile once he gets a good look at me.
I think he's trying to be flirtatious?
I give him my best come hither smile back, which is terrible I have no doubt, since I've never tried to make such an expression before in my life. It seems to work on him though, as his smile becomes a little more natural.
"Can I help you?" He asks, sounding hopeful.
"Yes!" I try to sing my words just a bit as I speak, to try and get a little bit of the sirens' mesmerizing voice. Not sure how well it works but I don't sound forced, so at least I'm not making things worse. "I'm working on a project, and I was hoping to get some native accounts of some famous historical events."
"Oh, what events?" He asks, leaning against the door frame, in a voice that I think is supposed to be smooth. It comes off as slimy, instead.
That's possibly just me though.
"Roanoke colony primarily." I try as hard as I can to maintain my smile without letting it curdle. Why is it so much easier to spot that this guy is flirting with me when I really don't want him to, when spotting Lei do the same thing was so hard, even though I was interested?
He makes a face at the name then sighs, "Come on in, I'll see if my grandmother will speak to you. She's the one that knows all the old stories." He pushes open the screen door to lets me in, and smirks slightly as I squeeze past him. "Maybe afterwards I can get you a coffee or something."
I maintain my smile, but don't answer him. To his credit, he doesn't seem put off by the fact that I have four or five inches, and at least fifty pounds of muscle on him. It's not going to get him a coffee date obviously, but it reduces his jackass quotient by quite a bit.
The interior of the house is walking a fine line between cozy and cluttered. Everything inside is old and battered, he led me through the living room and past a couch that must be as old as the paint job. The walls are lined with cabinets and bookshelves, the cabinets are filled with local native art that, it occurs to me, are probably legit and likely belong in a museum. The books are all old and faded, titles nearly unreadable and pages yellowed.
The man leads me through the main room and down a hallway into a bedroom. Like the rest of the house it's full of antiques, that I really believe were placed in their current home when they were new. Right up to the old CRT TV at one end of the room, and the bed facing it. To either side of the bed near the head board are a pair of chairs for visitors to sit on. On the bed cocooned in ancient handmade patchwork quilts, is an equally ancient woman. White wispy hair floats around her head, and dark eyes peer at us from deep within an old wrinkled face.
"Who is this woman, grandson?" The old woman speaks in a rough, but clearly understandable, voice and in a language I've never heard before.
Her grandson replies in English, "She's working on a history project, wanted to talk to you about Roanoke."
The old woman snorts, "Smart to want a better account than what the white histories say. But how will she understand my words? Will you play translator?"
"That won't be necessary." The strange words fall out of my mouth like it's the only language I've ever spoken.
Allspeak, for the win.
The old woman breaks into a fit of wheezing cackles, and the young man stares at me with open mouthed shock. "You speak the people's tongue girl?" the old woman asks, with a huge smile displaying her few remaining blackened teeth.
"Evidently." I reply back to her, smiling slightly.
"Good. I am impressed. Now tell me your questions and I will try to answer." She waves me to take a seat on one of the chairs by her bed, which I do, setting Sclamhaire's carrying case upright next to me where I can easily keep a hand on it.
"I really only have one. What happened to Roanoke?" Some part of me is hoping that she'll be able to tell me something that will give me a lead on who might have taken the Excalibur when the colony fell, and where. If I'm really lucky, I won't even have to go to the island.
"I do not know for certain." The woman starts slowly, "I am old, but not that old, I was not there. But I can tell you what I was told." I nod to her, that's about what I'm hoping for, "The white men came and built their houses on the island that they called Roanoke, and for a time everything was fine. We had no use for the island, our own lands providing for us everything we needed. We thought that would be it, they would stay on their island, and we would stay on the mainland." She sighs, "It was not to be. First came their missionaries, and when we were not interested in listening to them, the missionaries brought men to make us listen. So we listened, and ignored them. We were not a warlike people, and hunters are not soldiers, we had little other choice. The missionaries grew frustrated and angry at our dismissal of them, so they picked somebody to make an example of. They took the chief's daughter and burned her alive, telling us that they were saving her soul, purifying her of sin in fire. That if we accepted their god such measures would not be necessary." She makes a disgusted noise, "The implication was that they would continue to kill us one at time until we either gave in or were all dead. We were not warriors so we could not fight them, but we had shamans. The shamans did something to the island itself, laid a curse on it perhaps, I am not a shaman, I do not know." The old woman lets out a rattling sigh and closed her eyes, "What I do know is that the white men were never heard from again, nor was anybody who went to investigate."
"Nobody has been to the island since then?" I ask.
"People have gone, none have returned." She opens her eyes and looks at me again, "Do not go there girl, life is more precious than whatever you seek."
I, of course, plan to ignore the old woman's advice completely.
###
Actually getting to Roanoke is more difficult than I thought it would be. Manns Harbor has plenty of boats moving in and out of it. Harbor is right there in the name after all. And every single one of them is perfectly happy to take an attractive young woman out on the water.
At least until I tell them where I want to go. Then there's a slew of refusals. Some of them suddenly remember that they have prior commitments, others have sudden and inexplicable mechanical problems with their boats, some just flat out refuse. The change always comes when I mention Roanoke.
It takes a couple of days to find a boat that will take me out, and doesn't balk at my destination. That boat belongs to an old fisherman that doesn't do a lot of fishing any more. He agrees to take me out to Roanoke, and even to check back a day or so later to pick me up should I want to leave. The way he says that implies that I'd either want to leave, or be dead. And after implying it he flat out tells me that anybody who's gone to the island has never left it again.
A warning that I, again, ignore.
Well not entirely. Every time I hear about how much of a death trap this island is, the more paranoid I become. Nobody can tell me why it's dangerous though, which means I can't really judge how large the risk factor is. So I go in planning for the worst, and hoping for the best.
I don't spend those two days just looking for a ride to the island. I learned my lesson from my last attempt at a camping trip, so I check what the weather is going to be like, what kind of terrain I'll be in, and buy supplies and equipment, suitable to what I learn in my free time. This time I intend to be prepared.
Which is why, in the late afternoon, I'm standing on the deck of an old fishing boat near the prow with two large duffel bags of gear around my feet. I watch the coast of the island approach in the distance. I'm in full armor, with my hood down, Sclamhaire is on my back, and my athame is across my hips. Every time I put it all on after having not worn it for a while, I get a lesser version of that feeling of completeness that I felt the first time I touched them. The feeling of being whole again after being in too many pieces, spread too far, for too long.
The armor got a weird look from the fisherman, my eyes without the sunglasses got a second one. He doesn't say anything though, just crosses himself, and when I don't react he just shrugs and moves on.
As we approach the island I get my first real information about it, as it comes in range of my mana senses. It doesn't help as much as I could wish for. Thanks to the way Mana Breathing approaches the energy of the world, and what mana is, there's no such thing as twisted or corrupted mana. Just mana balanced differently, more of some kinds of things that make up mana and less of others. Which isn't to say that being able to read how mana is balanced can't tell you about a thing.
Unfortunately I'm not experienced enough to separate out all the different parts of the mana I'm feeling to figure out what it all means. I can feel that the mana of Roanoke is... darker than the area around it for lack of a better term. There are so many options to explain what could be causing what I'm feeling, that picking one is impossible. There could be a secret cadre of fallen angels hiding on the island. There could be a natural portal to the underworld hidden somewhere on it. The island could be full of angry ghosts. Some other monster could have moved in. The spirits of the island could be angry about something. A lot of people could have been very pissed off or miserable there for a long time. Or it could be the lingering effects of an ancient shaman's curse.
The feeling puts me on edge though, because whatever is causing it, there's a lot more mana concentrated in Roanoke than there is in the surroundings. So whatever it is, it's powerful. Though again, how much of a problem that is depends on what that powerful thing is and what it can do with that power. The island could just have the weight of a lot more dark history than I'm aware of.
Whatever it is, I'm not going to find out, or find the Excalibur, standing on this boat.
The fishing boat pulls up next to the remnants of an old wooden dock. The wood is rotten, and coming apart, and still looking far too good for it's five hundred years of age. I don't have a lot of choice though, so I pick up my camping gear and head for the pier.
"Are ya sure ya want to do this, lass?" The rough voice of the fisherman calls to me as I reach the edge of the boat.
I pause to look back at him, and find him looking genuinely concerned. I give a brief laugh, and a shrug, "Not really. Needs must though." No devil driving this time though, just a Fae.
I wonder which is worse.
The old man nods and sighs, "Aye, I can see that. I'll be back around tomorrow evening to check on ya, and get ya off should ya need it."
"Thanks. Hopefully I'll see you and get out of here then." The old man just snorts and waves me off.
So with a hop, I land on the dock which immediately begins coming apart under my feet. Twenty or so hurried steps, and I set foot on the island of Roanoke for the first time.
###
The path from the pier to the colony itself is completely overgrown, but still clearly visible despite that. Trees lined a trail of bushes and uneven grass that hid ancient wagon ruts. The entire island seems to be covered in lush green. I'm very quickly glad that I have my armor on, as every twig, branch, and burr tries it's best to catch on my armor. Wood and grass find no purchase on enchanted cloth or fairy metal, but the constant irregular tugs at what I'm wearing as I break free of the grasping vegetation, gets annoying very quickly.
The trail ends as I reach a set of barely recognizable wooden gates. I step through them and am in the Roanoke colony proper. The decaying remains of five hundred year old wooden buildings erupt out of the tall, dry, dead grass like tombstones. An impression accented by the random skeletal trees scattered about. At the center of the colony are the remnants of the town well, stacked stone partially collapsed surrounded by what was once the village square. Circling the entire colony is a log palisade that by some miracle, is still standing more or less intact.
It honestly feels like I've walked onto the set of a horror movie.
Well, my first step is to set up camp.
I find a mostly clear space where the rocky ground is solid enough stone that nothing has managed to grow there, even better I can set up under the shelter of several of the trees. They're barren of leaves, which is odd for this time of year, especially considering the rest of the island, but still better than nothing. Moving quickly I set up my tent under the shelter of two of them, putting the back of my tent up against one of their trunks, and used the other tree close by as a windbreak for my fire pit.
A fire pit which becomes my next priority. I clear out an area of the mostly bare stone of even the smallest bit of flammables. Next I make a circle of smaller stones, then set about preparing a fire so that when the sun goes down, and I need it, all I'll have to do is put a match to the dry grass I'm using as tinder.
With that finished, my last task is suspending all my food supplies in a sack hung from a cord stretched between the two trees giving me shelter. I'm pretty sure that there are no bears on Roanoke, but there's enough wildlife in general that I'm unwilling to take the chance. There are plenty of other animals that would love to hit me up for a free meal, and I'm not willing to feed them either.
Finally with my camp set, fire prepared, and food secured I'm ready to get to what I came here for.
###
When I heard of the Lost Colony I imagined a grand mystery. A small town where one day everybody living there just inexplicably vanished. Food left uneaten on the tables, clothes left hanging in the closets. An entire population that just up and disappeared without a trace.
What I find exploring the still standing buildings is nothing like that. Whatever happened to the colonists they fought, and fought hard. Bullet holes and ancient burn scars are everywhere. I find a wood axe lodged deeply into the wall of a house, a suspicious stain that I suspect of being long vanished dried blood clings to the rusted metal of the axe head. More telling is the skeleton covered in some of the only green vegetation I've found inside the palisade, right underneath the axe. The bones of its neck are clearly broken by something at least passably sharp and heavy.
With that discovery I start looking for bits of color. I find other patches of green scattered everywhere around the colony. Each of them marks the location of a skeleton. A place where one of the original colonists died. Or more accurately was killed. I find pitchforks lodged in rib cages, bullet holes in skulls. In one case a skull crushed with the sad remains of an ancient rolling pin still lodged in the bone. Even the livestock wasn't spared whatever happened here. I find the heavy bones of horses, oxen, and goats in what used to be pens. Each of them killed by some man made tool.
Whatever happened here it was a massacre, and the people here had fought like hell to save their homes. They'd failed spectacularly, but I can respect that drive to go down swinging. I'm not sure how many colonists there were, or how many little spots of green I found, but it feels like I found enough bones to account for everyone who lived here.
Moving through the houses and other buildings is strange. The mana in the ruins is thick, and heavily weighted towards something I've never encountered before... Or maybe something vaguely like a Fallen? Whatever I'm feeling definitely isn't a fallen angel, but now that the idea has entered my head I can't shake the feeling of similarity.
More than the mana though, is how well preserved everything is. Despite the centuries of age that the wooden buildings have survived, they still stand remarkably intact. Despite the rot that's visible in every board, I can still move around the second floor of the few buildings that have one. Doing so is nerve wracking though, my ears are tuned to every creak and groan, listening for the pop or snap that would indicate a board failure.
Pushing open a door is even more anxiety inducing, as most of the hinges have rusted in place, so pushing on them makes it even more likely that I'll push myself through the floor. The third door I try to open the floor finally gives way, my armored boot plunges through the rotted wood under it. Fortunately my other foot still has purchase, so I end up flinging myself through the stubborn door in an effort to escape falling to my doom. The door is reduced to splinters, even as the floor I'd been standing on gives up completely, falling with a loud clatter to the floor below.
The room I find myself in is a bedroom, even more well preserved than the rest of the town. The furnishings are largely intact, a simple desk and a bed. Or rather bed frame, the mattress and ropes that would have held it up have not survived the passage of time. Lying on the ground in the bed frame though, is something even more odd.
A skeleton lays there in a way that makes me think that they'd been laying on the bed when they died. The bones, unlike all the others I've found, aren't covered in greenery though. The body wears armor, a cuirass, and has a metallic scabbard laying next to him. Once it was probably belted around his waist, now though the belt is long gone and it simply lays next to him on the floor. No sign of a sword though, which ignites all sorts of suspicions about who this might have been. What really grabs attention though, is the small leather bound book clutched in the skeletons' hands.
The book looks to be mostly intact, and might prove to be invaluable. Though every genre savvy bone in my body is screaming at me that if I move that book, the skeleton will come to life and try to kill me. On the other hand this is the best lead I've found yet.
So, carefully, I reach down, tug the book free, and then jump back, cringing slightly. I have the book clutched in one hand, the other resting on the hilt of my athame. I hold my breath for several moments staring at the bed frame, waiting for the skeleton to get up and do something... anything?
Nothing happens.
After several minutes I start breathing again, and relax slightly.
Maybe this isn't a horror movie after all...?
Finally, I look away from the bed frame on the other side of the room, and focus instead on my prize. Carefully I open the first page to see what I've found. Allspeak is a wonderful thing, instant knowledge of the spoken and written form of any language I see or hear. This is the first time I've seen a language before hearing though, and the experience is a little odd. For just a moment all that's there are scribbles on a page. They might make letters, but the idea that there are words, or information contained within them is just absurd. Then the world blinks slightly, and suddenly... well the book still makes no sense, but for completely different reasons. Instead of being incomprehensible because I don't know the language, it's incomprehensible because the penmanship is awful, and time has caused the ink to both bleed and fade in various places.
I can, however, make out a little bit right at the top of the first page, 'Field Journal -orcist...'
###
The field journal is about half filled with mostly illegible writing. If I want anything out of it I'll have to go looking for the bits and pieces that are still legible and hope. But that's not something I'm going to do on a floor of questionable structural integrity, next to a five hundred year old corpse. Especially not since I have a campfire waiting for me, and the temperature is beginning to drop.
My breath fogs the air as I make my way back towards my campsite. Clouds have covered the sky since I went into the last building, making it seem later than it is. The sun's still up, if on it's way down, but it's already dark enough that I'm grateful for my night vision. The ground has become damp as well, making moving a little bit harder. The softened footing sucking at my boots, and roots that had been safely contained underground are now available for me to trip on. Having that fire ready to go is going to be spectacular...
My thinking grinds to a halt at what I find where my camp site used to be. One of the branches I tied the rope I suspended my food from, has snapped letting the food bag hit the ground. Squirrels are fleeing with my granola bars and trail mix. A team of four raccoons has my fruit, and a few canned goods that I brought just in case I ended up stuck here longer than I planned, and are slinking into the night. Finally a single coyote has somehow stuffed all my jerky, and the hotdogs I planned to roast for dinner, into his mouth. He gives me a challenging look, before casually trotting away. The hotdog buns, and remaining food, have all been torn open and scattered on the ground, rendering them inedible.
The branch that had broken has somehow impaled my tent. The poor cloth edifice had one wall ripped open and the floor impaled to the ground, causing the entire thing to collapse and become entangled with the branch. To top it all off somehow the ground around my campsite had flooded, soaking my sleeping bag, the campfire, and the hotdog buns.
I suck in a deep breath, and exhale hard through my nose, white plumes drift in the air for a moment before blowing away, "It's okay." I assure myself, "I can still make this work. Most of the wood for the fire is still good and dry, and grass is easy to find. The matches ought to be around here somewhere." I nod to myself reaffirming my determination, "I'll just..."
With a sound like a gunshot, the trunk of the second tree's trunk shatters, and without even the grace to be slow and ponderous about it, the tree crashes into the campsite. Annihilating the campfire, and anything left of my tent and sleeping bag.
"Fuck it." I mutter. I stand quietly for a moment as the temperature continues to drop, the ground now beginning to freeze, "Fuck it!" I shout that time. With determined stomping that my five year old self would be proud of, I go to find a dry spot to set up my new camp. Such as it is. I find another open area of rock that I somehow missed my first time through. How I have no idea, but it's the top of a slightly raised area, so whatever is causing the flooding hasn't managed to get any water up here yet.
With no ceremony whatsoever I draw Sclamhaire, and drive her half way into the stone under my feet. Immediately her pommel gem lights up as she drinks down the unusually abundant mana on the island, and vents the energy out again as light and heat. As it turns out she's better than any campfire. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.
With a sigh I sit down, and lean my back against the flat of Sclamhaire's exposed blade, using her as a back rest. The gem keeps me warm, and provides more than enough light to try and read by.
Try turns out to be the right word.
The majority of the journal has been rendered illegible. I can read maybe three words on every page, and figure out another five or six. Which is entirely inadequate for extracting any sort of information from the journal. Still, it's all I've got to go on, so I go through it one page, one line, one Rorschachesque blob of ink that were once words, at a time.
I almost don't notice when the sun goes down, and it begins to snow. Which is entirely unseasonable, but at this point I'm anything but surprised. The storm clouds overhead continue to grow thicker and darker, the air colder and colder, but Sclamhaire takes care of me, and keeps me in a bubble of light and warmth.
As I reach the end of the journal, something jerks my attention away from the book to my surroundings. Something has moved out there... I'd almost swear that it's human shaped, but I'm more than familiar with how the human mind can find a familiar outline absolutely anywhere. I turn back to the book with only a few pages to go. I'm not really hoping for much, the further along I go the more erratic and messy the writing becomes. That on top of the degradation I'd been dealing with already, and I haven't found anything legible in the last ten pages, and don't expect to find anything in the few pages that are left.
Finally I get to the last page, and blink. Across the last used pages are just two words written large enough that even time hasn't been able to render them illegible. My attention is jerks back to the world around me by a rattling, clicking sound that's only just audible to my improved hearing. I drop the book, and slowly stand, gripping Sclamhaire's hilt, instantly snuffing out the light and heat she produced. The cold comes crashing in on me, and I begin to shiver almost at once. I'm not too worried though. The exercise I'm about to get with the army of vegetation covered skeletons that have surrounded me, their approach muffled by the snow, will be more than enough to keep me warm.
And while I'm doing that, I'll hopefully be able to work out just what an army of animated bones has to do with a genius loci.
