In life, Saint Lilith of the Sapphire Sea had been gentle, kind, benevolent, and beautiful. She had ruled over the Sapphire Sea with great success; her merfolk subjects revered her.
In death, Saint Lilith of the Sapphire Sea’s light had been dampened. She had grown embittered, for she was supposed to have been immortal.
I have taken an interest in Saint Lilith, as she was known for her acute knowledge in the art of bewitchery and charm. I have taken on many professions, but all have involved some form of mystique. As such, I believe it to be a sort of pilgrimage for me, to visit Saint Lilith, Saint of my forefathers whose civilization now lies in ruin, to attempt to access some of her arcane knowledge, and to learn of those things which may have so regrettably been lost to time.
I am a descendent of the merfolk; I am half fish, half man. I walk in a bipedal fashion and I can breathe underwater. I am the best of both worlds. I live in the city Balworth, which is close to the coast of the Sapphire Sea, in the Kingdom of Galmos. Most people are not kind to me, with hundreds of years of slavery causing them to think lesser of me and my ‘demented’ people. They believe us to be freaks of nature, destined to die young and alone, being incapable of love and compassion. This could not be further from true and it disgusts me to live in a society where the average person thinks of myself and my family in such a way. This being said, I do not have much family left. My mother passed away when I was young; my father was always absent and drank himself to death in my early adulthood. Of my siblings, I only remain in close contact with one of the three of them. I was always bullied amongst them due to being the youngest and the queerest. It was always an inevitability that I would cut contact with all except my kind, soft sister, in whom I often saw the wonderful aspects of Saint Lilith I had heard of.
It was a typical working day morning when I decided to make my pilgrimage. I was at the time a soothsayer of sorts and had decided that I needed to make my leave as soon as possible. I closed my tent for the day and packed my things. I posted the letter which I had written to my sister explaining that I would be absent for a while. It took me a whole days’ travel to make it to the shore. I was feverish; I had never been so excited. It finally felt as though my life had purpose.
The backpack with my travelling equipment inside was magically waterproof and I swam for hundreds of miles over the course of several weeks in search of the legendary tomb. No one else had visited it for nearly a thousand years, thus making credible sources on its exact location difficult to procure.
After spending numerous extra days searching than I had expected, I finally made it to a large stone structure on the bottom of the sea floor. A stone door several times larger than I depicted Saint Lilith in great detail. Around her chiselled body were eldritch engravings; some of these runes I recognised from old books I had read about the merfolk to be my forefathers’ language, although I could not decipher their meaning precisely. I swam down to the surface of this great stone entrance which lay horizontal to the surface of the water. I pressed my hands against the fake Saint Lilith’s and repeated an old incantation, which allowed me to teleport through the entrance and into the tomb.
Inside the tomb was a brightly lit hallway, the work of magical torches hanging on the stone walls, with braziers down the centre of the corridor adding to the ethereal feel. The way the stone was constructed was beautiful; it was as though every inch of the place had been shaped in the image of Saint Lilith herself, an utmost depiction of beauty and serenity. The corridor I was standing in was not very long, yet it was massively wide and tall. Above me I could see the back of the door through which I had teleported. Here were runes engraved that I could understand. They read: ‘Blessed are those who come to Saint Lilith.’ They were decipherable to me due to the fact that they had been plastered across all the ancient scripture I had been able to dig up, and written about countless times in the books of my people, forming a large part of the reason for my curiosity and fervent desire to visit her final resting place. As I approached the end of the corridor, it descended suddenly into a long stone staircase of which I could not see the end. I apprehensively followed it, the scale of the construction starting to unnerve me; I had not expected something so grandiose.
Along the sides as I made my way down were tapestries depicting historic battles, discoveries and the eventual rise and fall of Lilith’s merfolk empire, etched painstakingly in regal purple and gold. I recognised some of the figures in these depictions once again from the books I had read, like Colonel Nereus, a legendary military commander, Nerida the Wise, an ancient sage who some rumour to still roam the sea, and Deep Merrick of the Abyss, one of the Old Gods of the merfolk. As I made my way down the steps I began to feel more at ease; as though I had finally found a place where I could fit in; like I was home.
The staircase eventually ended in another hallway, this one darker and narrower than the former, with only a few torches lighting the path. This section of the building was constructed of faded, white sandstone, and it had a much more plain feel. I found this to be strange as I had thought that I must be nearing Lilith’s resting place. I followed the narrow corridor and soon it was so narrow that I had to shimmy sideways, making the journey quite uncomfortable. In this even narrower section the floor had glass boxes sunken into it with magical braziers to light the way.
When I finally made it out of the narrow corridor I was in a large, empty, sandstone room and I stopped for a beverage and snack from my pack. I scanned the room as I restored my vitality and noticed that the walls were covered in more of the antiquated etchings that I could not read. In part they were also difficult to read as they had faded over time. The ethereal light was once again present in this room, and it reassured me that I was not travelling in vain. The room was circular and at the far end was a large, grey, stone door. I walked towards it and above the door were more runes. They read: ‘Here lies Saint of Saints, Saint Lilith of the Sapphire Sea, the Merfolk Queen, [illegible] of the Golden Age.’ I smiled. I was finally here.
I walked up to the door and placed my palms against it. All at once I felt the warmth of the Saint, the beauty which she held in life; I felt captured in her embrace, and as though she were welcoming me with the most elegant of receptions. I prayed to her before commencing the ritual, thanking her for accepting me.
I took the magical dust out of my pack and sprinkled it on the door and covered my hands with it. Then I traced the ancient sigil into the door, three triangles around three concentric circles. Each triangle represented the cornerstones of Saint Lilith’s society: love, order, and beauty. Through love, it was said, one would inspire happiness and growth. Through order, stability was maintained, and empathy would be cultivated. Through the preservation of beauty, one would instil pride and care into oneself. The concentric circles represented the different layers of society. The first, typically drawn as a red circle, shewed the poor of society, those who needed the most love and care from others. The second circle, typically coloured green, shewed the more prosperous and privileged, and equally their duty to protect those shewn by the red circle. The third, inner circle, drawn in purple, shewed Saint Lilith herself, and that she was to be protected, else all else in society would fail. The number six, the total number of circles and triangles, was significant too, illustrating the six Old Gods of the merfolk, to whom respect was still given, despite their banishment to the Abyss.
As I finished the sigil it glowed with gold energy, and the old stone door struggled open. It was split down the middle and the two sides opened inwards. Inside, all along the walls, was the most intricate and complex beauty. Golden swirls and patterns, adorned with purple etchings covered the stone walls completely, and the confusing enclave of colours and motifs would normally have clashed yet in this tomb struck me with an inexplicable beauty. It was not a very large room in length or width but was very tall, the curved ceiling also enriched with paint. To my left stood the Saint’s stone tomb. Etched on the front was again, like the large door I teleported through at the start of this venture, her visage, etched even more beautifully and surrounded by more eldritch runes. These runes were ornate themselves, and far beyond my comprehension; they in fact looked so alien to me that I was convinced they were of some truly antediluvian language antiquated to even my forefathers, known only by sages such as Nerida the Wise in their time, who I am certain were involved in the masterful crafting of this beauty.
I laid my hands on the tomb and prayed for a long time to Lilith, my eyes closed the entire time. I was basking in the ethereal allure of the room when I heard Lilith speak to me. An elegant, spiritual, diaphanous avatar had risen out of the stone construction which held her corpse and was reaching out to me. I could not understand what she was saying but I did not care. I stepped towards her and she grasped me tightly on the head. Instantaneously I was simultaneously engulfed by a searing pain on my psyche and also flooded by the most inexplicable, paradisiacal knowledge, bestowing upon me both a blessing and a curse, which has both informed my existence and plagued it. I now had a purpose, but at what cost?