August Submissions for the Lore Contest
Avatar: Fatteus Fatty Thorsson
Date Submitted: 08/28/2022
Time Submitted: 10:30 PM
Entry #1
Follow up on the Magic Flower Report
Research by Fatteus “Fatty” Thorsson
Well, it’s been a month since my last report about the Next Island infamous Magic flower. The DNA analysis is in. Actually, it’s been in for a couple weeks. I just finally got off my fat rear and wrote the research article on it. Prepare to be surprised. Or not. I don’t know what you were expecting, to be honest. It turns out I was… wrong. The Magic Flower is, in fact, not a Blue Baobab sapling. See my previous reports for more details on my theory.
Needless to say, I had mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I was disappointed. I really wanted the Magic Flower and the Blue Baobab tree to be the same organism. There certainly are many similarities between the two plants. It turns out the Magic Flower is in the same phylum as the Blue Baobab, though! I wasn’t completely wrong! The Blue Baobab is basically a larger cousin of the Magic Flower. This is groundbreaking stuff! That’s why the other part of me was as giddy as a schoolgirl when I got this exciting news. Who knows what advances can be made due to this discovery.
Which brings us to the next question. What can we use Magic Flowers for aside from decoration and using their resonance to get into the Magic Forest? According to tests, Magic Flowers might actually hold the key to solving even more scientific mysteries. I’m not an expert in chemical science, but a colleague of mine has informed me that there is a chemical, one which causes the magic flower’s distinguishing color, that can assuage certain ailments and even aid in relieving pain. I cannot recall the name of the compound, but it is similar to aspirin. I wonder if my colleague will publish their findings here as well. I’ll keep bugging them about it. Until then, I’m going to wrap this up. The future of this magical herb (oh, didn’t I mention it is an herb?) is looking up. Now I’m going to finish drinking my Magic Flower Tea. I think I can feel my fingers and toes tingling already!
Fatty Out.
Entry #2
The Ancient Ones
Research by Fatteus “Fatty” Thorsson
In my journeys through Next Island, I happened upon many of the crumbling ruins that dot the various regions. Many questions have come up regarding their origin. From what I understand, the first people to arrive on Next Island were asylum seekers from Earth pursuing solace from a world that did not accept them. They traveled through a portal, some intergalactic tesseract of some sort, which folded space to allow them to travel millions, perhaps billions of light years. I’m unsure of whether they knew where it led or not. Let’s just say they were extremely fortunate that it led here. From what I recollect, the ruins were here when they arrived. Theories abound as to these structures and their origins, but I have a novel theory of my own. Clearly, these were not made by Human hands, unless they were made by a civilization of people who went extinct or left the planet some other way. That is actually one theory. My hypothesis is that the makers of the ruins are still among us here on Next Island, or more accurately, their progeny are. What creature is anywhere close to being able to use tools and build things? I think you know where I am going with this.
Yes, the Papoo. It had to be their ancestors who made the ruins! I’m guessing some time before the colonists from Earth arrived, their civilization died out, possibly due to a general dumbing down of the populace. I don’t think Papoo were always so savage and animalistic. They still speak a language of sorts, though it just sounds like grunting and chattering to us. It is possible that they became SO advanced that they simply got lazy. Technology has a tendency to make people complacent. When survival is easy, first people create their own problems so that they have a problem to solve. Then they take the easy route and just let technology take care of them. It’s a cautionary tale to be sure.
It’s also plausible that there was a great extinction event that wiped most of them out, along with most of their structures and civilization soon collapsed. The survivors eventually forgot the knowledge that no doubt was gathered over the course of their reign on Next Island. It is very likely that Next Island had a very different name prior to this event. Unless we can translate the symbols and writing on these ruins, we’ll never find out. There’s your food for thought for today. I hope you enjoyed my thesis on the possibility of an ancient Papoo civilization. Let’s hope that thousands of years from now, archaeologists don’t find the wreckage of our own civilization.
Fatty out.
Entry #3
The Mystery of the Magical Forest
Research by Fatteus “Fatty” Thorsson
From the Pyramid to the Massive Mushroom that makes the gateway into it, the Magical Forest is a mystery of monumental proportions. But alliteration aside, we can try to unravel these illusory threads of enigma. Like a friend of mine used to say, “it is an enigma, wrapped in a conundrum, wrapped in a waffle cone.” He wasn’t a very funny guy, but he tried. Let’s start with what we know, move into what we suspect, and end with questions that yet have any answers.
First of all, we know the entrance to the Magical Forest is under the cap of a massive fungus we simply call “the fungi,” but other less nuanced individuals refer to it as “the magic mushroom.” A lot have speculated that aliens had something to do with this whole subject. There is the pyramid, which couldn’t have been built by the Humans now living on Next Island. I think “aliens” is too convenient of a theory. I recently wrote a thesis on the possibility of an ancient Papoo civilization which may have once been very advanced. The pyramid may have been built by them; don’t you think? Like I mentioned in my second article about the Magic Flower, the frequency created by the blue flowers we call “Magic Flowers,” opens a portal into this realm we refer to as the Magical Forest. Maybe the Magic Flower was engineered by advanced scientists to do precisely that? As for The Fungi, maybe it too was engineered to be the conduit that served as the gateway to this realm.
For that matter, is the Magical Forest a realm apart from Next Island or a part of Next Island that we haven’t yet found on foot? It could be a world parallel to this one, a sort of alternative dimension. One thing is for certain, though. There is but one denizen of this plane of existence: the Ghostly Screecher. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck to think about, but perhaps one thing we can all agree on is that the Ghostly Screecher is not, in fact, an apparition of a deceased Screecher, but rather an avatar of sorts. It would appear that it is made of the energies of many living things here on Next Island. Actually, it also seems that it possesses the loot dropped by nearly everything that lives on Next Island, save for the super rare things such as special armor (much to some hunters’ disliking). This is another mystery. That’s one of the questions we still have no answers to. Why, in his wisdom, did the great Tommy not let these drop the rare armors? Do they drop Incision Plates for that matter? Finally, we also don’t know why only one person may enter the Magical Forest at a time.
Well, if you want to unravel the mystery for yourself, why not start by talking to Frederick at Tanzanite View. He’ll set you on a quest to find 50 Magic Flowers, and then he’ll have you collect the stuff needed to make them into the version that will allow you to enter the Magical Forest. Finally, look for the Pyramid and follow the instructions provided there. You’ll eventually find The Fungi. I have yet to do so as per this essay’s writing, but I will do so soon. I have everything prepared for my next great adventure.
Fatty Out.
Entry #4
Megladon – Jaws of Fury
Research by Fatteus “Fatty” Thorsson
Stalking the great seas, lurking under the cyan waves of Next Island is a beast of epic size and no small amount of fury. It is one of the more horrible sights to behold on Next Island. A sea monster with bloody jaws, the mother of all sharks. That is the Megladon. It derives its name from the prehistoric sea creature Megalodon, an equally harrowing monster. But what do we know about this terrifying tyrant of the seas?
The Megladon appears to be the matriarch of all sharks in the area. Without fail, test after test points to Megladon being the progenitor of every shark we can get our hands on. A very strange occurrence called matriarchal homologeny and isn’t observed in any other creature known to man. In other words, all other creatures have different parents unless they are siblings. Literally every shark on Next Island is the son or daughter of Megladon. We’ll call her Meg for short. So, Meg has many children, but most of them have different fathers, so all of the Next Island sharks, even the great whites, are homologous, meaning they are all genetically identical, and not with just similar DNA, THE SAME. Evidence to the contrary has yet to come forth.
Another fascinating thing about Meg is how she seems to keep order with all of her offspring. The sons never mate with the daughters and make an offspring that has a different mother. We’re not sure how she is able to keep that from happening, but we assume it is by her own imposing presence. Many hunters have found, to their dismay, that hunting sharks sometimes brings mama out to get revenge, and Meg is a mean mama. She’s no pushover. Countless settlers have found their fate due to her ferocious fervor. It also appears that no matter how many times a lucky or skilled hunter can bring her down, she always reappears. It is almost as though she were immortal!
If one day you find yourself unlucky enough to cross Meg’s path, at least you would have been forewarned of her fury. If you are hunting sharks, be prepared. She may turn up to avenge her lesser progeny. She reminds me of my mother, actually. Still, there’s nothing tender or loving about Meg. I have yet to see Meg, and I hope to keep it that way. That is all I’ve got for now. Be safe, everyone.
Fatty Out.
Entry #5
Making Asclarias
A Report by Fatteus “Fatty” Thorsson
It is truly amazing, the ingenuity of the Ancient Greeks. One such fellow, Perik, is not your average citizen of Ancient Greece. He has the curiosity and prodigious skill to be able to create technology that rivals even the tech of the first wavers from Next Island. His most proud accomplishment, however, is the robot he calls Asclarias. Creating Asclarias was both difficult and dangerous, though. We’ll get into that in more detail now.
Perik’s fascination with technology started when he was only a child. Though there was not much in the form of advanced tech on Ancient Greece, there were machines such as balistae and catapults that he found quite interesting. He studied engineering at the academy in Thebes and it is said that many of the defensive balistae around Ancient Greece were made by his hands. When the First Wavers came from “the door,” it was the best day of his life. He saw machines and tech that he wouldn’t have imagined even in his wildest dreams! One such piece of tech he saw was the humble L.A.R.A bot. He was absolutely intrigued. He questioned the First Wavers and learned that she was an inorganic machine made life-like by engineers back on their home world. He asked if he could take her apart and study her. Reluctantly, they allowed him to study one L.A.R.A they had spare.
Perik was amazed at what he found. L.A.R.A was complex, but not too complex for him to understand. A lot of the same principles applied to her creation as did to the creation of machines of war. And now that the First Wavers had taken care of the enemies of Ancient Greece enough that there was a relative peace, he had time to figure it out. What he came up with was a Blueprint for the first Asclarias. The First Wavers had given the L.A.R.A a mind of its own with something they called Artificial Intelligence and Programming. That was the one thing Perik didn’t quite have the hang of, but he found through research that it could be replicated by using the blood of either Cyclops or Myrinians and other organic material. The Haruspex, a race of living energy, taught him to draw the mind from these materials, thus essentially reviving the dead creature’s minds inside the Asclarias. This backfired, however.
As soon as Perik brought Asclarias online, it went berserk. This may have been due to the fact that the minds of many Cyclops and Myrinians were essentially trapped inside it and vying for control. It had to be contained in a Colosseum and tamed by a skilled Tamer to be manageable. And thus, Perik gave his creation to the one who tamed it, deeming them worthy to raise his creation. Of course, Asclarias was an improvement upon the base L.A.R.A model. It allowed the owner to either run faster or pick up loot easier. Creating Asclarias wasn’t as simple as I described, though. 20 L.A.R.A. were required to make it, due to trial and error. Maybe you too could claim an Asclarias of your own? Just go through the teleporter from Orpheus Cave in Next Island to Ancient Greece. Perik waits for you there just on the other side. Until next time.
Fatty Out.
I hope you enjoyed these new entries. 