Submechanophobia
Hello? Hello! This thing is finally working, and I can finally create a log! It’s great that people will know I exist 300 years from now, if there are people then. Hopefully. Of course, I could just be doing this for no reason because there’s no hope any humans ever find their way onto this continent ever again, but there’s always the hope that it could happen.
Anyway, for the sake of preservation, I am talking while I journey to fix up Ys, the little hole in the floor with actual oxygen I call my home, but this is also being transmitted to the black box underneath the billiards table in the rec room, which now that I think about it, there’s no need to mention the location because that’s the only possible place to get these records from, so of course that would be found before I said this, and I’m just gonna stop talking for now.
But! If you found yourself here that means that you are either stuck here like me or you have come to drag me to some other trench in the deep blue. I am going to assume that you can understand speech and talk about my life. Because I am an interesting person. Yeah. Me. I’m interesting. Please?
But! Since you are stuck here, hopefully without me because that would mean the systems have to support two people and that was not sustainable after the Atlantis was destroyed so please come here after I’m done and gone which, to be fair, could be anywhere between two seconds and two decades. Maybe longer if I shut up and get on with what I should be doing.
But you know what, I like talking, so I’m gonna keep doing it. I liked it when there were people here. When me and Val and No and So and all the others were actually sticking together and supporting each other, instead of just being a random idiot who got stuck staying alive because he was too cautious for his own good.
Take risks, kids. Might kill you when you should die instead of leaving you alive.
But no, I had to take my time and live by the rules and stay in this godforsaken ocean, and I don’t even know why I’m still here. Maybe it’s because I keep finding books in places books should probably not be and maybe I just want to read everything I can. It’s totally not because I have things to take care of and someone waiting for me.
Yes, I left my pets back in Ys, and no, I’m not taking them out with me. None of them know exactly where you should step while traversing the Rainbow Rocks, and I doubt any of them have the patience to wait for the seas to be absolutely clear before crossing the Trench, so I think I’m gonna leave them in the hole for now.
Maybe that’s why I’m staying. Maybe I’m just here because I don’t want to leave knowing that four cats, two dogs, a bird, and the few fish that are friendly enough to stick around are all gonna starve to death because I stopped bringing them food. Well, maybe the fish won’t starve–maybe they’ll just get eaten by a random orxynth and live the rest of their pitifully short lives in the stomach of something that doesn’t even know when it’s about to swim into a rock. I hope my fish are smarter than that.
So pets, books, any other reason I’m still here? I don’t think so, probably just those two things. To be fair, there’s not much at the bottom of the ocean. And what little there is, you’d probably want to avoid. For example, right in front of me is a school of cleavers. These cleavers are pretty small, about the size of a fist, but their teeth look like they’re about 50 percent of the body mass.
See, cleavers are interesting. They’re probably the thing I encounter the most when journeying outside, and they’re somehow also the most dangerous. I think that’s because they’re the reason for five of the twelve rules, while no other fish comes close. Since I’m gonna be standing here a while I might as well go over them while we– while I wait for the group to leave. Listen close because I’m not saying this again.
Rule one: Stick to the ocean floor.
If you, for any reason, are ever tasked with moving around in the oceans, your number one priority should be to avoid swimming. Walk everywhere. There’s no reason not to.
The easiest way to think about it is this: how would you move if there was no water? Which is a silly question, because there’s always water, but the principle still applies. Just because you have the opportunity to float around like a very small fish in a very large pond doesn’t mean you should.
Take Valentina for example. She decided to swim upwards because there was some scrap metal stuck to a reaver. About halfway there marine life started to react to the new face, and the suit was ripped off. Her femur and parts of her skull can be found about 30 yards to the east of my current position, with a lot of other parts scattered around the ocean floor.
“But what about Noah?” you might ask. “He stayed on the ocean floor, but he still died too? How do you explain that?”
Well, that is exactly why we have rule three–but we can get to that in a minute because I want to go in order. It’s actually really important we do this in order because I don’t know them in any other way and making me skip around is not going to be helpful for any of you.
All you need to know is that the floor is your friend because it’s really hard for things to see you when looking down as opposed to looking up. Or maybe your suit is really white and you blend in perfectly with the light from above for some reason. I encourage you to try in a safe environment with a good method of escape if some random fish decides it’s kinda hungry.
But you really shouldn’t leave the floor. That’s it. Don’t swim, walk. No questions, comments, or concerns will be accepted. Maybe I should accept them? Not like I’ll be around to answer them, though. I am getting off topic, so maybe I should just continue.
Rule two: lights on.
I don’t know why, but for some reason nothing down here has good eyesight. The small ones tend to stay some distance away and the large ones seem to get a whole lot more inaccurate whenever there’s some brightness around. Am I using that word right? Is brightness a word? Maybe, but that doesn’t matter. But, a quick note on that subject, that is quickly becoming more relevant given I am standing still with the lights off right now, which I just realized you would not know while listening to me, so my apologies for not narrating everything I am doing.
Should I do that? Would that be helpful? Do my actions every minute matter enough to make it into the log? I don’t think so, so I’m gonna not do that. Just listen to me talk and don’t be surprised when I stop talking because I had a heart attack thanks to another fish appearing right in front of me and trying to eat me.
And I got distracted again. Wonderful. Rule three! Rule three, rule three, rule three, rule three. That’s what I’m doing right now. What I’m doing right now is standing very still and trying my best not to turn my light on because I can already see the grouping of fish with glowing bulbs that I would like to avoid letting know I am here.
Rule three: if you are to ever encounter a cleaver, turn your lights off immediately and hope that staying still is enough to make sure that nothing can see you.
See, Noah may have obeyed rule one. But he obeyed rule two as well, and I can safely say I will not be making the same mistake. That is because! I will wait to explain because it is safe to start moving again and I don’t want to spend any more time outside than I have to.
Okay so I am back on my journey to the crash site of the Atlantis which is way too far away for no good reason;well, there is a good reason, so I will get to that later, but back to rule three.
So, basically what you want to know is that cleavers–these little round things with a weird springy fishhook that attaches to a lightbulb–are really good at seeing in the light. Much too good. Now, one day, Noah and I are walking around with his lights on, doing everything right. Then we see cleavers. I go and hide because they have light and we have light and that does not mean anything good but Noah does not because Noah is brave and now there is no Noah. No Noah. Huh, that does not rhyme, but damn, I wish it did.
Lesson learned: do not mess with cleavers. Stay still, because they’re really bad at spotting immobile targets, and let them run after something much bigger and less dangerous than hopefully you are.
Rule four: stay dangerous.
You have access to slashers, right? Those haven’t been lost yet? Short little things that are really sharp and can be attached to the outside of your suit so that you can slash at things you probably shouldn’t? I hope you do because when something eventually does see you it’s gonna be really helpful to make sure you can fight back.
Sure, water slows down a slash. And sure, most fish have skin hard enough to where you’re not going to be able to cut too deep. But! But, if you make a cut and run away, some real magic happens. Magic that hopefully does not involve someone dying because when I figured out how to do this, Sophie was right next to me and did not run fast enough.
So, you know how fish are really good at finding bloody things? Yeah, if you make a big thing bleed, quite a few fish are gonna start gathering around. This… frenzy? I think that’s what the old guy in the book called it. Yeah. The frenzy gets crazy and there’s just a lot of red stuff because things bite without knowing what things are biting and this kinda cascades until it looks like half of the ocean is squirming around.
Now, neither me nor Sophie knew that. And when I saw the first few fish arrive, I thought it was interesting. Then, a few more fish arrived, and I wanted to leave. Sophie wanted to stay though, because she really really liked seeing fish. This was probably not the right place to see fish, but I let her stay because, despite being half my height, she was twice my age and could probably take care of herself better than I could. I think parts of her suit ended up in my meal a few months later after I managed to kill one of the reavers.
You’re probably sensing a pretty big pattern of “someone dies, new rule is made.” And that would be fair, but you see, there are no more rules that resulted from someone dying! That’s great, because there were four people who died in ways that could have been prevented while the other 19 I’ve known all perished in the Atlantis crash, which took place where I am right now.
If you’re listening to this, which, why would you not be? Why would I even say that? Who says that? If someone’s got this playing but isn’t listening, are they gonna be snapped back to listening by me asking? Is the fact they weren’t listening because I’m boring or because I’m background noise to something else they’re doing? Should I stop asking questions and get back on track? Yes, probably. I think I’m going insane but I’m gonna do just that.
The Atlantis crash happened a while back–how long ago, I don’t remember, so don’t ask because I won’t know. Or I won’t be around to answer. Either way, date doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the Atlantis was really big and had a lot of stuff. Stuff that I wish was near Ys and that sometimes makes me wish that I had built Ys a lot closer to the wreckage than I did, but then I look around and remember why I don’t walk here every chance I get.
Well, first it would be extremely tiring, which is not something I’m ready for. Sure, I can move around, but I don’t want to spend all day lugging scrap back and forth between a giant metal husk and a small metal husk. Second, if you were to look at what I am, you’d probably know why I don’t come here very often.
That doesn’t sound right. If you were to look at what I’m seeing, you’d probably understand. All you need to know is that there are very big carnivorous fish over here, so you probably shouldn’t be in this area if you value living. Where is this area, you ask? I don’t really know how to explain to someone who isn’t here. I could give directions but that would be weird and you’d probably get lost, so good luck–and I hope you don’t end up here.
That’s pretty much rule five. Do not approach the Atlantis unless you are either going to die without something from its corpse or if you want to die. Neither of which you should be doing. I hope.
So yeah, I’m going to delve into that giant wreck in front of me and try to find some spare parts that will hopefully allow me to repair the door to Ys because that thing is cracked and, oh boy, I hope it doesn’t go further. All I’m really looking for is some extra plating and screws, as the tools are mostly at Ys, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue to find things. All I really need is to grab some of the sheets and trek the few hours back to Ys and–
Wow, I am just realizing this is going to be a majorly unpleasant experience for me.
I would say nothing is going to go wrong, but that would be in direct opposition to rule nine, which we will get to eventually, but not right now. So! I walk forward, enter the ship, avoid the gangs of roaming carnivorous giants eager to eat me, and lug some scrap metal nearly two klicks back to where I really should be.
Oh, you better be glad that this recording doesn’t have visuals because I would be glad if I never saw a cannibalized reaver, but there is a sizable corpse a few meters away from me. I think I’m just gonna go around that. Probably for the best.
Did I mention that a lot of species are cannibals? Yeah, they’re really willing to eat anything that bleeds down here. To be fair, so am I, but as far as I’m aware, I am the only human down here, so it doesn’t qualify as cannibalism. At what point on the timeline of living solely with fish do I become a fish? I don’t think I’m a fish, does that mean I’m not one? What classifies a fish? Am I asking too many questions on strange topics? Will I stop? The answer to all of these is no and you cannot tell me otherwise.
It would be really nice if I could actually walk five feet without having to freeze, though. I’d ask why there were so many fish in the ocean but oh I guess I just did ask that. It just gets really annoying when you see the big blob of dark blue moving among some bigger blobs of dark gray and don’t know whether it’s food or foe. ‘Maybe it’s friendly,’ I’d love to say sometime, but no, it’s always a cephalanth.
I really like cephalanths. It’s like they have no brain or mouth, which means they have the potential to be the best creatures I’ve ever seen, but touch one and you’ll be impaled by quite a few spikes, so maybe don’t do that. If you want me to explain how, it boils down to some combination of a feeding frenzy and running for my life when a reaver swam into a cephalanth that was floating around and died faster than I could make this trip, which is to say nothing because this trip is going to take forever at this rate.
If only the damn cephalanth could grow a brain and leave the doorway, maybe I could get back and give Bella a hug before I’m forced to address the issues in Ys. Maybe Eliza would put her hand on mine and I would be forced to sit down for the next half hour because she got comfortable and refused to move.
I love my cats. Do you have cats in your time? Would they still be alive? There’s no chance they survive underwater so maybe they’re in your ship, just like they were in mine. Are they annoying in your time? Do they demand attention and then run away whenever you try to stroke them? Are they called cats?
Why would they even exist? Why would I exist? If all the things I’ve seen are able to go out in water without dying unless they get eaten, why am I different? Why are Bella and Eliza and Adrienne and Eva and Carlita and Blake all unable to swim? Why can Captain fly through air but not through water?
I wish the answers were in the books. Instead all I get is tales of a guy who rides birds to a valley of diamonds, of three swordsmen teaming up against a cardinal, of a family journeying to put their son in a grave.
Maybe it’s better I don’t know. Maybe I should just silently do my job and maintain this little habitat so that Bella and Eliza and Eva and Blake and Adrienne and Carlita don’t eat each other waiting for me to return. Maybe I should sit down and stay quiet for a while without doing anything and reach that little peace that so often comes just before I fall asleep. Maybe I should stay like that all the time.
It would probably be extremely boring though, so I guess I won’t do that. Instead, I’ll do what I do right now, mainly lugging titanium doors through titanium rooms in titanium habitats on my way to a titanium pod in a cave with titanium that I can’t make into titanium because titanium has been said way too many times in this sentence and I should probably stop. Is titanium a fun word to say? I don’t think so.
Titanium is pretty helpful though. Not a lot of things can survive outside the pod, but titanium stays. I like titanium. You probably should too. I wish I knew how to make more without salvaging because it might help avoid journeys like this. Journeys like this are when I wish rule six didn’t exist because then maybe I would actually be able to return home before Eva starts smacking at Carlita and Blake cries way too loudly.
Rule six: keep your speed below five klicks per hour at all times. Rule seven: exceptions to be made to rule six if you are in a vessel made of reinforced titanium or if there’s some other material nearby that can withstand over 50,000 PSI and can travel faster than 80 klicks per hour. At that speed, most things can’t catch up to you, and the ones that can are the ones with weaker bites.
Below five klicks, most of the bigger things won’t notice you, and the smaller ones will treat you as a medium sized meal if you’re not careful. Faster, you start getting noticed by a lot more things that are a lot more dangerous. That’s why the Atlantis crashed. It went too slow and did not notice the thing much larger than it. To be fair, there are probably other things the Atlantis was doing that it shouldn’t have, such as poking around the corpse of an coraclin emperor that was definitely too small to be an adult, but we can say rule six would’ve helped too.
Coraclins are interesting things because they all have the same structure but wildly differ in size. I’m actually not sure if there are multiple classes of them or if they’re born really tiny and can grow really big over hundreds of years, but that’s not something I’m going to be able to study. Maybe if a coraclin bonds with me I could try it, but that’s not going to happen because those things eat everything. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a coraclin in the proximity of another fish unless that fish is either dead or a larger coraclin. There might be some kind of hierarchy in coraclin society.
Coraclins are also right in front of me, which makes me very nervous. There are two, one of which is kinda small, maybe three and a half meters long. Probably an adult class. It doesn’t have the antenna that so many giant and emperor class coraclins do, so maybe I’m right with my theory that these things grow for hundreds of years. The bigger one is about ten or eleven meters long, but is resting on the seafloor. It’s either injured or tired, which is a big sign that I should be getting out of here right about now.
It only makes sense that the one day I choose to step out in the past two months is the one where some injured coraclin ends up crashing into the seafloor while I’m at the Atlantis. Normally, this isn’t much of an issue since I can go around into the black lagoon, but since that’s close to the geothermal vents and the depths, it’s going to be impossible to navigate with the titanium sheet I have. So, I think I’m going to climb a mountain.
I normally avoid heading to the mountain because of rule one, mainly, the mountain and anything around it requires me to swim upwards, but I am willing to make an exception when I have titanium nearby as it can provide protection as random creatures damage the titanium and not me, which I think is good. I can work with broken titanium, probably can’t do the same with a broken body.
So yeah. I’m gonna summit a mountain. I’m going to hold the rock in one hand and the metal in the other and hide behind the metal every time something passes by. If I stick to the side, I should be able to avoid being seen as I make my way around it, meaning I might actually survive this trip. That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?
I think I might stop transmitting for now as well. This part isn’t gonna be that interesting, you know everything you need to for the most part with only a few niche exceptions that I should probably mention but I don’t feel like it. If you made it to Ys and found this recording, you’re probably better at surviving here than me, so good on you. Not like I’m doing anything interesting either. So yeah. I suppose you’ll hear my voice soon enough? Not sure how recordings work. I should also probably shut up now.
End transmission.