Grunting Fen

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"Flat but lumpy, like an improperly made bed. Marshes groan and gurgle wetly. Why do the Theosophists speak of this place?"[1]

Grunting Fen is an island in the Sea of Voices near Polythreme. It is flat and marshy, with only a few little hills dotting the landscape.[2] Access is permitted to archaeologists working with the Dilmun Club.

Like its better-known neighbor, the island of Grunting Fen itself is alive,[3] and it speaks.[4] Objects brought here also come to life,[5] to the point where even a ship can talk.[6] While there are scant traces of previous Fallen Cities,[7] nature remembers all[8] - and one pond is old enough to remember the Duchess, the Cantigaster, and the Second City.[9]

Grunting Fen once had inhabitants, but most of these were killed in a failed peasant revolt.[10] According to the ancient pond, Clay Men sometimes visit and tell the island of recent happenings.[11]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Grunting Fen, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Do a survey, Fallen London "You pace out a section of the island and plot what landmarks you can find – they're few and far between on this flat chunk of land, but you do your best. In the process, you draw a few interesting conclusions. Does the symmetry of those hillocks suggest ritual burial? Or just uniformity of geological forces?"
  3. ↑ What manner of things live here?, Fallen London "The island teems with life and movement. Everywhere you look, something is scurrying or flitting or squirming. But it's not until you plant your spade in the earth – and the earth talks back – that you realise that not everything that moves here is alive in the strictly... traditional sense."
  4. ↑ Listen to the island, Fallen London "Waves break on the shore, and pebbles rustle in the receding water as if whispering softly. The boulders on the beach creak and groan in the wind like giants in pain. If you were to give into fancy and imagine these were human voices, they'd be talking in languages you don't know."
  5. ↑ What can you learn of matters spiritual and supernatural?, Fallen London "Why does everything move, here? Why do the very rocks and stones seem to be alive? Perhaps the simplest explanation is the correct one. Perhaps they are alive. You observe some rolling pebbles. You catch a clod of mossy earth that's bumbling along the shore, and try dissecting it. Both halves jump out of your hands and go their separate ways. Then your knife follows. You're writing some notes on the possibility that every thing here has a soul, or a spirit, when your quill twists in your hand and starts scrawling gibberish across the paper. The paper resists the ink, crumpling and creasing, but you salvage what you can."
  6. ↑ No more peculiar than anything else here, Fallen London "After a long while, as if it was gathering its thoughts, or perhaps just bemused by the fact that it now has thoughts, your ship begins to speak. Its voice is a mixture of rusty shrieks, like unoiled hinges, and deep groans like shifting metal plates grinding on rocks."
  7. ↑ Knowledge that Seeped into the Water, Fallen London "Relics of previous cities are scarce on Grunting Fen."
  8. ↑ No more peculiar than anything else here, Fallen London "But at least you can understand its words – it must have learnt to speak from you and your crew. It tells you that a terrible bargain was made once in a far dry place, and that all water still remembers it because all water contains something that was once well-water. Your ship falls silent, unused to this kind of effort."
  9. ↑ Untapped wealth, Fallen London "Most of it is nonsense, of course – petty grumbles about the effects of the briny zee air or territorial bickering between rocks. But a deep pond comes up with something startling. It claims to remember when the Cantigaster was 'his real self, before the asp bit and the pact was sealed. That's why they won't abide talk of that place, you know. She's still there, though, isn't she? Sending him to Parabola when she wants, no doubt. Sometimes the Clay come back here and tell the rest of us these things. Don't you go thinking we live in the past all the time.'"
  10. ↑ Follow the trail of history, Fallen London "You set off across the Fen with but a sketchy idea of the facts – a peasants' revolt, sparked by crippling taxation and doomed to failure, led by the enigmatic Straw Walter. There's scant evidence here, and searching is made harder by the constant shifting of the mosses and stones that cover the land. Still, there are traces of a path here..."
  11. ↑ Untapped wealth, Fallen London "Sometimes the Clay come back here and tell the rest of us these things. Don't you go thinking we live in the past all the time."
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