Terror of the Beasts

Entry: October 29, 2291

Preface

The excerpt "Terror of the Beasts", which was left to us by the Witch Doctor, is dated around 5200s BCE. It was discovered, like most data of this type, during the process of Magical Re-Evaluation of archaeological findings in Tel Akko, an on and off Human settlement in Northern Israel. The item activating the Witch Doctor's spell's lasting effect appears to be a tool of some kind, most likely a weapon dropped by one of the subjects of this particular recollection. The memories were held in fragments of bones, found scattered in various parts of modern Eastern Mediterranean, found with the help of the aforementioned weapon.

Structure

Exposition

The initial data on the subjects is limited. We know that all four of them were relatively adult by Prehistoric standards: 15 to 19 years old. All four of them served as Sentinels (something akin to modern policemen) in the fishing settlement of Ekha. That role is needed due to an anomalously huge population for this era, which wasn't as enormous mere two generations before that. The subjects usually stop fights between their neighbors and sometimes escort rare visitors to this town. To read more about the subjects, please see reference 1: "Protagonists".
The settlement itself is assessed to be an anomaly not only for its population, though. It also has a number of traditions and norms which aren't usually associated with a pre-historic town or village. They do not keep livestock, which means that the only source of protein for them is fish. They don't even have pets, since they consider it an offense towards their Goddess, She Of The Depths. The settlement rarely has visitors due to Bestia activity around. To learn more about them, please see reference 2: "Threats". Because of the Bestia, there were only very rare visitors to Ekha, and only a handful of the settlement's denizens ever left it.
The events analyzed in this instance start with the arrival of The Witch Doctor. The subjects are ordered to escort him around the settlement. Usually the visitors are traders coming in to barter their goods for fish or boneworks, but in this case the outsider started by asking one single question.

Why are there so many of you?

— The Witch Doctor

Conflict

Failing to provide an answer, the Sentinels decided to let The Witch Doctor meet with three of their rulers: Elder of She Of The Depths, Elder of He Who Works With Hands, and their direct manager - Elder Of The Sentinels. The Elders told them that when they were young, there were but a few families in the village. But then, the envoys of She Of The Depths came, from the land, and offered a gift from the Goddess: an ability to craft fishing nets. The amount of fish caught by Ekhans rose substantially, which led to a boom in population.
The Witch Doctor started questioning the motive of these bestial good samaritans: why would they need to make the life of Ekhans better, for what purpose? This question resonated only with skeptical Keen Eyed One, as well as the Elder Of The Sentinels. To the others, The Witch Doctor tried to explain his concerns by an analogy in animal husbandry, but they weren't familiar with the concept enough. Together with the Elder of He Who Works With Hands he managed to work out an agricultural one: a farmer tends to his crops and wants them to multiply, just for them to end up on his table in the form of bread. The Witch Doctor added that he noticed some of the Bestia converging around Ekha and assumed an imminent attack.
Convincing the Sentinels of this threat wasn't easy: Chanru that Returned with Tide refused to listen to anything concerning potential bad intentions of his Goddess, Mirk and Keen Eyed One required proof, and only slightly eccentric Han of The Dream Realm was eager to leave the settlement for once. The Witch Doctor claimed he knew their town's, and the entire region's future because he "came from there recently". As proof of his ability to "move through seasons in any direction" he cast a powerful spell and pulled a bronze dagger out of what looked like a pocket dimension, commenting that "there's nobody to punish him for that anymore". It mostly impressed Keen Eyed One, since he and his peers used bone and flint to make weapons.
After arguing whether to believe the stranger, the Sentinels with the help of two of the Elders worked out that assuming The Witch Doctor was right was the safest course of action. Now they were primed to go on a quest: find an old settlement of Teliekh which was on a hill east of Ekha, find an old Teleportation Circle there and use it to get to the nation of Ethea which could provide some help against The Beasts...

Rising Action

Before the Sentinels went on the quest, The Witch Doctor cast on them a Cobbe's Memory Retention spell, as well as a spell that would activate the dormant Teleportation Circles. He gave them a short lecture on the type of Bestia they would probably encounter, see reference 2: "Threats".
The journey was shaping up to be dangerous, and the Sentinels scrambled to leave Ekha before sunset. They had three potential routes:

• A long way around, through the dense forest where it would be easier to hide, but harder to notice any threats.
• A moderately long one where would have to find a way to cross a river
• A short but the most dangerous one, basically an open space where one of the Thunderbirds would easily spot them.

They chose the middle one.
The journey tempted them with various distractions: smoke rising from behind a line of palm trees, piles of fermented fruit ripe for the taking, angry prehistoric chickens, and, of course, the Bestia roaming around. But The Sentinels ignored all of those, rushing towards their goal, only letting one thing distract them. They've met a horse, and Mirk decided to talk to it using his nature-tuned magic. Han of The Dream Realm told his companions about "one-horned ones" (what we know, in concept, as "unicorns") he claimed he saw in his visions, and they were sure that they met one of those. A mix-up in terminology made them think that the animal they talked to was a "unicorn by the name of Horse". One of our operatives involved in research of this memory to this day thinks that the word "Horse", or at least a root for it in semitic languages, came from this or a similar instance. Due to this, we humbly request a re-evaluation of how this research might influence a researcher's mind.

Climax

The Sentinels got to Teliekh in under 5 hours, excluding a rest, which is commendable: not many modern humans would be able to make a 3-mile trek in the environment of constant danger. Unfortunately for the subjects, a group of three Bestia waited for them on the slope of the hill on which Teliekh was situated. We have identified a sleeping Kimbaro, a hidden Serpentite whom the Sentinels didn't notice, and a Rukh Thunderbird in the sky not far away from there.
Even though the Sentinels tried to avoid any combat, they failed to sneak past the sleeping Lion-shaped Inhuman, and a fight ensued. Quickly realizing that they were way over their heads, most of the Sentinels dashed towards the hill of Teliekh while Mirk decided to draw the beastial ire towards himself. As a result, while his peers were teleporting away to the outskirts of the city of Etho-Jero, Mirk was attacked by all three Bestia and fell...

Falling Action

The city of Etho-Jero turned out to be what we know as Jericho, a naturally big city in this era, complete with its famous walls. The surviving Sentinels were greeted by an Awi. Han of The Dream World recognized his similarity to this Inhuman species. The Sentinels hurried to explain their appearance and motives behind their visit...
At this point, the active part of the memory provided by The Witch Doctor ends, but scrolling to the additional data, we've learned that the population of Ekha was evacuated by Etheans. Later some of them returned to their home region, building a fortified settlement in Teliekh. The fate of that incarnation of The Witch Doctor is unknown.

Resolution

The exerpt allows us to make a number of conclusions about the state of the Middle East and of the world in 5200s BCE:

1. Goddess She of the Depths appears to be none other than the entity called Tiamath, the proclaimed main subject of our research.


2. Tiamath appeared to insight growth of Human settlements built in what we define as her "sphere of influence" in order to harvest them later. The motives behind this behavior are, as of yet, unknown.


3. We've defined two organized entities to which we can't yet assign a proper term. The choice is between "unions", "countries" and "empires".


4. The first entity is Tiamath's sphere of influence. The Bestia and the Humans living in it appear to conform to a semblance of an autocratic or even totalitarian style of organization mixed with tribal governance, with most actors' actions clearly based upon the will of one leader.


5. The other entity is less known. Unlike the previous one, it has a name - Ethea, which is an indicator of more state-oriented governance, including usage of symbols. Ethea's city (or even a capital) appears to be a well-organized town, and their power is, evidently, adequate enough to challenge Tiamath.


6. The phenomenon of The Witch Doctor doesn't conform to anything we know about Time Travelers. They are not supposed to be able to get this far, nor they can use high-end magic we know of only from scarse descriptions collected over the years, nor they're powerful enough to pull something from another time period without travelling via Sending Stones.


End of the report.

Relations

Protagonists

The subjects are four Human males that lived circa 5200 BCE in a fishing settlement on the Mediterranean coast, where currently the Old Town of Akko is situated. These men appear to have a special social function of peacekeepers of their unnaturally inflated settlement (more on that below). Evidence doesn't suggest any of the subjects a "leader" of their group, and they tend to take a more democratic approach to problem solving.
Keen Eyed One

Mirk

Chandru that Returned with Tide

Han of the Dream Realm

An especially observant human, the only one of the group that can be considered a skeptic. Despite never leaving Ekha, he is aware that many things can roam the lands beyond, not only the terrifying Beasts.

A strong and potent specimen, that seemingly doesn't concern himself with thinking about the world around, letting his companions do that for him. Always goes for the straightforward option. Feels himself rather close to nature.

A very pious follower of one of the main deities of Ekha, goddess She of The Depths. He once drowned in the sea, but came back with a high tide. Denisens of Ekha considered it a miracle, and his fate to become a priest for the goddess of depths was sealed from then on. The Foundation would want to take a look at his previous memories, since it very well may have been that he met his goddess, known to us as Tiamat. His story is a probable firsthand account of her interference on a local level. Alternatively, it is a convenient way to explain something unexplainable to a primitive minds of neolithic people.

The only person in the group that doesn't share the others' anthropological features. While their skin is bronze, noses are rather wide and hair mostly black and on a curly side, Han's is blonde and he's fair-skinned, with green-ish eyes. He's considered a bit strange by the peers, and it is our team's conclusion that he might have Awi or Elven blood, but there is no way to know how he ended up in Ekha.

Click to inspect the Watchers of Ekha

Backdrops

Locations

Ekha

Ekha is a fishing village in 5200s BCE, situated on a small peninsula where the modern Old Town of the city of Acre is situated. The settlement lives off fishing and rudimentary agriculture, but doesn't practice animal husbandry, since the population considers it an affront to the goddess She-Of-The-Depths, whose servants are known to be various types of beasts. Evidently, the village has experienced a huge boost of population not so long ago: accounts of the elders mention that no more than 100 people lived there when they were kids, but now it's ten times that number.

Teliekh

Teliekh in 5200 BCE is an old abandoned city situated on top of what's known today as Napoleon Hill in Acre, Israel. According to our data, a settlement on that place periodically sprawled into existence just to be abandoned later for better lands. The ancestors of people of Ekha most probably lived there, and after the events of Terror of the Beasts, descendants of Ekhans also moved back there.

Etho-Jero

The walled city of Etho-Jero that we see in the end of the Witch Doctor's account is none other than what we know as Jericho. According to the old notes of the Fringe Society, it belonged to the Awi, an Inhuman species that resembles religious concepts of angels and demons combined. Thanks to The Witch Doctor, we now know that Jericho was outfitted with its famed walls in 5200s BCE already. In the Witch Doctor's revelation Etho-Jero is mentioned as a part of "Ethea", a concept mentioned before in his "works", but not yet clarified.

Threats

The sheer size of Ekha is considered a threat according to The Witch Doctor. In this time period humans haven't yet possessed knowledge that would've let them have such populated settlements. Jericho is considered the biggest Mesolithic city with a population of 2000, and it has city planning, infrastructure, access to fresh water and security, and most probably a lot of magic. Ekho has none or almost none of that but still manages to sustain half of that. The sheer amount of people in Ekha considering their self-containment in the city, is a humanitarian crisis waiting to happen, maybe the very first in recorded history. But according to the Witch Doctor, the reason for this population boom might be way more sinister, and he shows us with this memory, how sinister it actually is.
The term "Beasts" that is mentioned throughout this latest memory is reffered to both animals and the Bestia Inhumans that used to roam about Ekha. The latter are of greater interest to us, as they shed some light onto the Inhuman dynamics in prehistoric times. Three types of Bestia are represented in the memory.

White Lions

"The White Lions", known to us as Kimbaro, were way less civilized back in 5200s BCE than two centuries ago. It seems that this species wasn't too far removed from actual lions, considering the specimen we can observe in Witch Doctor's revelation sleeps outside, behaves like an animal and has no social coherence, preferring to keep away from its peers.

Snake Overlords

The other type of an Inhuman we encounter is a poetically named "Snake Overlord". We know a lot about the race of Serpentites from a failed experiment conducted in XX-XXI centuries. They could control people's minds and even procreate using this power, but their ambition to keep their blood "pure" led to their eventual extinction.

Thunderbirds

The last of the Bestia aren't a species we know of now, and it never existed independently, at least not in the New World. Thunderbirds, more commonly referred as Rukh, not only had superior eyesight and an ability to fly, but also knew enough lightning magic to control the atmosphere. They bear some resemblance with Lecocefali of North America.

____

Chronicler:

The Thracian Foundation

by Teyvill via Midjourney

The Thracian Foundation is a group of dedicated specialists from the XXIII century that research the Prehistoric Era with the use of technomagic. Their only two sources of information are archaeological findings, and the recordings left by a mysterious entity known as The Witch Doctor. The Foundation's articles are written in a style of report, mainly based on observations and conclusions, with a healthy dose of speculation.

The Subjects

Chandru Who Returned With Tide by Teyvill via Midjourney

Mirk by Teyvill via Midjourney

Keen Eyed One by Teyvill via Midjourney

Han Of The Dream World by Teyvill via Midjourney

The Locations

Map of Ekha and Teliekh by Teyvill via Inkarnate

Settlement of Ekha by Teyvill via Midjourney

City of Etho-Jero by Teyvill via Midjourney

The Adversaries

by Teyvill via Midjourney

by Teyvill via Midjourney

by Teyvill via Midjourney