Analul Nedefinit - The Indefinite Annal

Known as the Analul Nedefinit in the Old Venisian dialect spoken in Foraoise de Venin, this journal is more commonly referred to by its Avalonian name, L'annale Indéfinie (Common trans. "The Indefinite Annal").

According to High Reminiscentia Archaeamphora An Venimeux Inmortui regarding the Annal, it was given this name due to the mysterious circumstances under which it was written, recovered, and researched: following her discovery of the pristinely preserved book in the so-called 'Disappearing Lighthouse' mobile research center off the eastern shore Offing of Lumieres Morte in 183 EG/LL The Reminiscentia was able to date the text to approximately the year 9 EG/LL, but have found few to no indicators as to the identity of its author. 

Historical Details

Background

Though little is known about the background of the Indefinite Annal itself, history and the Reminiscentia have provided us with 10,000 years worth of research on the subject - while much of it remains hypothetical and unconfirmed, countless forensic historical inquiries by Reminiscentienne have been able to determine a few concrete facts about it:

Trace amounts of soil found between the pages of L'Annale Indéfinie at the time of its discovery confirm that the text was written or at least begun before the year 10 L'ere de L'aube. Further analysis of the soil following consultation with the Racine of House Alluvium found minute amounts of Síoraín Pitch, Incarnadine, bone fragments, Nescian Lucide, and Abyssopelagic salt concurrent with normal levels recorded between 1 and 33 L'ere de L'aube and gravitational drift following An Riomh.

 Notably later deposits traditionally show exponentially increased deposits of preternatural residue in the soil, likely a result of the battles of Lumieres Mortes and Malicia. 

From the Field Journals of 
Memoria/m Sojourne Seiliegh, Magical Preternaturalist

Legacy

Despite millennia of study, little is known of the background of this book. Due to the numerous layers of magical protection and concealment placed upon the text, High Reminiscentia An Venimeux is noted as speculating that the Annal does not want to be known and is in fact working to keep its secrets and its author concealed. Considered one of Anima's greatest unsolved mysteries, numerous attempts to guess or determine the identity of the author have been made but none have been bolstered by indefatigable evidence and it remains a common thought exercise used to teach initiates of the Reminiscentia.

Recent research efforts made by Tiptoe Gilgeira of the Burgess Renitentia have resulted in the translation of the first 10 pages of the Analul, which is more than has been translated previously and has brought new and perplexing information to light with regard to the identity of the author.

Read the Document

Analul Nedefinit - The Indefinite Annal

12 DARKLIS
OFFING OF LUMIERES MORTES


Since the birth of our high houses, the sky over Les Lumieres Mortes has been awash with twinkling blue lights overhead which could almost double for stars, if not for the way they whisper to and of the dead.

I have at last been given leave by the unliving, ever-living King Sauvage to traverse the Offing to its furthest point and report my findings herein. The King supposes he will spearhead some iteration of academic organization in Avalon but as these things take time and much of our world remains unknown to us he is tasking me with this solitary expedition (proof of concept).

We know so little about the lights of the dead. In fact, the list of what we do not know far outstrips the list of that which we do! We know not from whence they come, nor what message they carry with them, nor if the message delivered can be trusted. It is my intent (and my great hope) to find the answers to these questions.

The Offing of Lumieres Mortes holds some...strange, vague sway over the lush lands of Anima, it would seem. Even standing on the shore as I do now I feel some unintelligible pull to its dark waters, as though some great mystery lies in wait for me even now.

Wherever shall I begin?

27 DARKLIS
OFFING OF LUMIERES MORTES


It is transcendent to stand on the bonemeal colored shore of The Mazarine and watch the metronomic ebb and tide of glittering black waves crawling inexorably toward the horizon beneath a realtaic sea of ever-present - omnipresent?- mazarine lights. The wail and crash of the red tide is a battering ram at the gates of Terremorte to the East where our unliving cousins try to unravel their own existence. Standing here I begin to wonder just what lies beyond — this offing seems to reach on into eternity but surely, there must be an end. Only the Mazarine knows with all certainty what waits there, yet we understand that whatever is seen there fundamentally metamorphoses dead flesh into gods.



There is more. After wading out into the red deep I found myself



What could work such wonders but the hand of Cridhe Loch Fae?

13 DARKLIS

OFFING OF LUMIERES MORTES


Time is strange here. Malleable and transmutative, it slips through my fingers, or was never in my grasp at all. I watch Caliban march steadily backward across the sky before time again draws itself forward with claws dug in. There is no Racine nor Pelerine who governs time or its passage and thus it operates unchecked.


My footprints disappear behind me as I walk. Shades of myself past and presumably future wander this beach in variegated stages of disarray, taunting me with mays and may nots.


Am I going backward or forward? Am I the real me writing at this very moment, or are the fragments the real? I call for Cridhe and only the shallows answer. The edges of the world shimmer and shudder in my peripheral.


What is this place?

6 NATALE OFFING OF LUMIERES MORTES

Something different from the dead lights. Not blue, not mazarine, but something which quite literally makes them pale in comparison. An unknown element on the fringes of existence, where normally only I and my fellows walk.


It was like a green flash on the horizon. I saw it and then it was gone, ephemeral and perfect in its inconstancy.


I say ‘like,’ but this color has no like. This color has no name. This color is new.


Caliban Livide rules the daytime sky, and yet before this moment I have never seen a more glorious dawn.

3 SANASSIS OFFING OF LUMIERES MORTES

Time slips away like the bone white sand.


The question is not who I am, but when

21 SIORAI

THE DOLDRUMS, OFFING OF LUMIERES MORTES


Just off Nomen Nescio. The glaciers are not glaciers at all. They are something of much greater value and the Serous have no idea. The potential. The sheer potential. They sing to me from across the waves, calling me to come and build a house of glittering glass stronger than any stone I have ever touched.



I will make a home in which I cannot escape the dawn on the other side of the Offing.

4 moribund?

Doldrums. Offing. Avalon


I am going to the Edge. I am crossing the Offing. I will touch the Dead Shore with my own hand if it unmakes me to do so, but first the wind must rise to carry me forward. Another of Cridhe’s tests? A trick to keep me landlocked? Payment for the Cauchemar Cascade? It has been days and those days have doubled end over end on themselves, stretching until the seams sing and settling into years. The very elements betray me and no breeze will heed my call nor carry it to one who would. Madness advances and recedes like a less stubborn tide - it has followed me from the Doubtwood, and the Cascade, and the Venom. It will follow me forever, I think. There is no corner of this realm where les cauchemar cannot and will not tread in my wake. There is no escape.


The nightmare, always.


On Cridhe’s shore I could begin again. What have I but time? The fortune teller is right. Time is nothing. We came before it and are not subject to its whims. If my voice will not carry, I must make a noise that will.

5 moribund?

...Avalon?


So simple. A whistle.


The note cut across the water like a blade through bone and before the refrain of it had died in the doldrums a great wind stirred, and then a greater, and then one greater still, whipping the Doldrums into a froth and pitching the Echivor across the Offing not to the Shore, but somewhere else. I sailed across a crimson tide in a sea over which only darklings flew, the tempest before my tempest still clinging to the hull of the vessel; I traversed its nearest sister, a shattered sea above a trench that falls into forever; Beyond that approximately 3 days' hard sail (as the dragonfly soars) off what I believe to be the northeastern edge of the isle of Nomen Nescio where the Mer de Eaux Mortes empties into and mixes with the Lucidian Estuary lies a heart-shaped valley I have called Căutare, or “Quest”, in honor of my journey. Căutare is bisected by a long, deep, narrow body of water known as The Incercare, or "The Trials" that appears to reach far inland in the adjoining realm. Further still, the high, glittering walls of the valley of Căutare are formed by glaciers of long-frozen saltwater and pure lucide, which I will call the Fjords of Incercare.


I have never seen anything so beautiful.


I do not know if I am even still in Avalon.


Time means nothing. I keep sailing toward the sun.

?

Nastronde at last



I have done it

11 Cathasach, 6001?

Avalon?


It has been so long. I think the Eternal Fury must have woken me from my intermediary state, but the magical disturbance has…altered the process. I am without eye and ear and hand and yet i see and hear and trace the words in the air.



There is nothing here but the fourth color. There is no here. Where and what am I? Did all those souls have to go to a permanent end to rouse me from my stasis?

I must find her. I must. She will know the truth of it. She always does.

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Type

Journal, Personal

Medium

Paper

Authoring Date

9 EG/LL

Ratification Date

183 EG/LL

Signatories (Characters)

• Archaeamphora An Venimeux Inmortui
• Mathghamhan Le Fay Sauvage