Neptunian Lore 1

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  Sometimes I lie awake at night, staring blankly at the empty, yawning expanse stretching out before the viewport. The crew and I have become increasingly restless as of late, even with the steady hum of the great ship's organs attempting to lull us to tranquil sleep. Off in the infinitely far distance, small pinpricks of light twinkle teasingly, as if gloating over our plight. Our destination- Neptune -is so hopelessly far away.
  This great journey is slowly, surely driving us to the brink of insanity. Desperate crewmen have tried to establish communication with the main fleet, but their efforts were in vain. Several men have been lost to the cold void of space, and I daren't lose another. Our ship is nothing but a pale reflection of its former glory, and the comforting gleam of the emergency lights no longer shines in the hallways. Our ship is dead, drifting in this endless sea of stars.
  Only some vile, unknown force calls us to Neptune, guiding our ship through the celestial currents and meteor storms and into its hungering maw.

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                                                      +BEGINNING+

  In a time immemorial, Earth's elite became enamored with the Victorian culture of old. As the Terran aristocrats fled to Neptune, they took with them Victorianism, the seeds of which formed the basis of Neptunian culture. Many decades later, the sickened royalty has become obsessed with Victorianism, seeking to immerse itself in shallow, nostalgic fantasies of a world they left behind. Soon, their grandiose dream became a nightmare of unspeakable horrors, ushering in an age of utter hopelessness.
  Shocked into action by the failing economy, the desperate nobles turned to the aptly named "Soul Breakers," the dregs and remnants of the once prosperous TNC corporation. Soon, a slave trade was established between the two powers, cementing what would soon become a long-lasting relationship. The "Soul Breakers" knew not what they did, for they, having trodden upon this path, would soon become dependent on the booming Neptunian slave trade.


                                                       +AWAKENING+

  Foreign leaders begin to meet with one another and talk of the world beyond ours, glimmers of which can be seen only in each passing moment. The common man sees nothing, for they are not privy to the secrets of the universe. There are wise men, however, who can gaze deep into the vacuum of space and view the unreal, uncreated energies of the cosmos. Together, they form a beshadowed organization that guides the hand of genocide, war, and famine. They are the root of misery, and yet they are also the rope that tethers our plane of existence to the shore of reality. While sobbing soldiers die ingloriously on the battlefield and starships collide with the earth in terrifyingly beautiful explosions, these are the men that wage the silent war. These are the bulwarks against the depredations of the Great Adversary, he who would see mankind eradicated.
  Reality became a mockery, a pale imitation of its former self. The grotesque and visceral majesty of the Deep supplanted it, manifesting doppelgangers to replace loved ones and once-familiar faces. Sheer madness ensued, as man turned upon fellow man. First, the great generators gave out- then, the people's minds. Men began to consume each other's flesh, revelling in the sensation. Eschewing clothes, they instead painted their bodies with blood and gore. Eyes began to appear in the shadows, their half-lidded, unblinking glares unnerving passers-by. Then, the howls began- blood-curdling shrieks of those long-dead, reverberating endlessly through unlit corridors. Morbid occurences and apparations such as the aforementioned became almost commonplace, for such things seem normal to those who have already parted from their sanity.

                                                          +WATERS+

  Foreign researchers have discovered that everything stems from the water besieging Neptunia, surrounding it like the constricting coils of some great, loathsome worm. Neptune is like an elephants' graveyard for ancient entities, hollow whispers and fragments of their still-decaying corpses lingering in the atmosphere of Neptunia, dissolving in its waters and planting the seed of divine madness within the minds of the infected. If these ancient cadavers were visible to the naked eye, one would see that they are everywhere. The ichor leaking from their orifices dripping into the ocean, their vacant eyes, glazed over, forever peering into the infinity beyond infinities.
  One can confidently say that logic itself has loosened its viselike grip on this forsaken expanse of the universe. So, forget the comforting stories of the Grey God, Stalin, or other deities. The ever-shifting truth of the universe is beyond any one man's comprehension. Countless entities weave the tapestry of life and sing the song of death, their origins reaching far beyond time, life, and light


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