In my previous life I was a researcher, delving up to and beyond where the bounds of the human consciousness meld with A'therys itself. We are beings of creation, as Yeor hath wrought, though tainted by the world built in our image; therefore, to peer inwards is to look beyond. The great hypothesis proven correct at last, though at what cost? Llyrrh preserve me, I sought that final limit, where mortality rested upon the firmament - and I surely found it, for now I have slipped beneath. Only this wandering rock remains: Mialura, a cradle for my soul. One final bulwark against the infinite.
When I opened my eyes, having fallen for so long that I had forgotten the misstep that sent me tumbling, I beheld only stars. An endless sea of twinkling light against the pitch, swirling with the color of nebulae. From upon the surface of the world, none has witnessed this, the true splendor of the cosmos. On stranger tides I washed ashore, landfall in a place where none should have been. But there was, and I was pulled to by smiling faces, jesterly in appearance. A pair of them, beckoning me towards some infernal carnival, but I had little interest in games. Only questions, to which they paid no mind; instead, I was pointed towards a fountain and handed a coin. “Cast it in,” they told me, “envisioning the place you seek.” A path home, I had foolishly thought, but the way did not open so easily.
Instead, the current carried me to the helm of the ship, to the castle of myth. Impossibly, there is a town here, filled with those like and… unlike myself. Wanderers out of time and space. As I seek my answers, they care patiently for me, even as I try incessantly to leave them. When I need rest, the inn accommodates me; when I hunger, the kitchen provides for me. Even the most incongruous of folk have their stories to tell, though clearly fewer with time, and this fading concerns me. I cling to the memories of my life before. One of scholarly pursuits, at Cyridon I think... though perhaps that is merely the name I remember. This place eats away at one’s very being, not destroying but... replacing. Blurring the edges of what I am, and what I remember of who I was. How long it has been since then, I do not know.
As such, I have been inspired to write this letter, both to mark my time here and to try and send word back to the world. I will bottle it safely and drop it into a fountain with payment, in hopes that the waters will carry my message home - a destination my body has been so far been refused. The denizens here will not confirm my suspicions outright, but their placating words and the way they have watched my many failed attempts tells me all I need. There is no returning; as I have visited this place, so too has it visited irrevocably upon me. Only one course of action remains, now. If Mialura exists, then so too does its queen, and surely she has the power to turn back the tide. Perhaps both I and my letter will make it home, or perhaps not. May the mercy of Corata Aiya be upon me.
