Subject: Charybdis Sea Source: Single waterlogged page found adrift near the Reef. The rest of the log is missing.
...the whirlpool took the rest of the crew yesterday. I am the last. My skiff is breaking apart. I write this tethered to the mast. But the strangest thing... I am not afraid.
A man was here. Appeared on the shore as if from nowhere. Clad in rust. Said nothing. He walked into the sea. I thought him a madman, but the vortex... it bent to him. The churning chaos became a gentle, spiraling path. He walked down into the throat of Charybdis as if returning to his own keep. He was not pulled. He descended.
Before he disappeared, he looked at me. He didn't speak, but a thought bloomed in my mind like a black orchid. A terrible, beautiful question.
Is a whirlpool a monster's maw, or is it a cradle? Is its chaos the scream of destruction, or the rhythmic breath of a god's long slumber? If one can walk its walls willingly, is it a tomb, or is it the most direct path home?
I am untying myself from the mast. The sailor's fear of the whirlpool is a land-dweller's lie. The log ends here. I see the path now. It is beautiful.
Entered by: 0x0D36…0E6A
Subject: Sighting, Kelpie's Bay Source: A garbled secondhand account from a travelling blacksmith.
A farrier, new to the coast, was making his way along the shores of Kelpie's Bay at dusk. He sought shelter, and saw a strange sight: a magnificent pony, its coat the color of a deep teal sea, stood placidly by the water's edge, its mane a tangled, living mass of dark green kelp. But it was favoring one leg, holding a hoof aloft.
Thinking to earn a night's lodging through his craft, the farrier approached. The pony did not startle. Standing beside it was its master, a youth of impossible, heartbreaking beauty, with sea-foam hair and skin that shimmered with an opalescent sheen.
"He's cast a shoe," the youth said, his voice the sound of waves on stone. "Can you help?"
The farrier, captivated, knelt to inspect the pony's hoof. It was perfect, unmarked, and unshod. Confused, he looked up to ask, but the youth simply smiled a sad, gentle smile. "Ah," he said softly. "I see. You are looking for what is missing. You should be looking at what has been found."
The farrier felt a sudden, profound desire to touch the beautiful, strange creature. He reached out his hand. The youth's smile widened. In that moment, a single, horrifyingly beautiful thought bloomed in the farrier's mind, a perfect and inescapable piece of logic:
A horse is shod with iron to protect its hoof from the harshness of the land. But what if the land is the source of all pain? What if true freedom is not found in walking upon the world, but in dissolving back into it? Is the greatest kindness, then, not to offer a shoe, but to gently, lovingly, remove the hoof? The account ends there. The farrier was found days later, miles from the bay, wandering naked and weeping, unable to speak of what happened after he reached out. He could only repeat, over and over, that he finally understood what it meant to be "unburdened."
Entered by: 0x0D36…0E6A
