Redacted report of an unknown subject

SC: '''''''''' '''''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''' '''''''' '''''''''''''''''''' valuable ''''''' dangerous object and risked the wrath of Iksladzord ''''''' ''''''''''''' bug ?!

SUBJECT: Well now its true you never asked me our-right direcly just ta 'steal' anything, but you know folks usually don't. What Ah'm sayin' buddy is that the assumption of theft kinda goes along with the whole 'breakin-an-enterin' situation. If you wanted me to break into this creatures abode and not steal anything then well hell, you shoulda told me that.

SC:  ' '''''' '''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''' '''' '''''''' '''''''''''''''''''!?!

SUBJECT: Like "Get in there, take a look around AND DON'T TAKE NOTHIN ''''''' YOU DUMBASS", cause any other way you say it kinda sounds like "find this place, get in there and take a look around".

SC: ''''''''''''''' '''''''''' '''''''''''''''''' '''''''' ''' context ''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''' '''''''' '''''''''''''''''!

SUBJECT: The context is implied you horses ass! You hired a thief to not steal!

SC: '''''''''' ' '''''''' '''''''''''' ''''''''''''''' revoking '''''''''' fee ''''''' '''''''''''''' '''' legal action ''''' ''''''''' ''''' '''''' deniability '''' ''''''''' ''''''' ''''''''' '''''''' ''' ''''''''''' ''''' '''''' ''' wiped from the record and disavowed.

SUBJECT: Hell son you do get frantic don’t you?

SC: I am '''''' '''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''' of '''''''''' You will not '''''''''' '''' '''''' '''' “son”!

SUBJECT: Alright buddy, sorry “'''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''”. You won’t mind if ah actually disclose that information you sent me to acquire?

SC: '''''''''''' ''''''''' '''''''' '' ''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''' '''' ''''' ''''''

SUBJECT: No. Well it’s done now so ah may as well tell you what ah saw.

It was pretty much right where you put it on the map, we went up that golden river for a long while, curvin off into the streams that fed the streams that fed the streams. Then we see the gates. Big stone river gates came up just before the river got too small for a boat to manage. They was somewhat encrusted with the discards of Time but the lock behind em worked well enough.

Once we got through the lock was a long canal. Hell of a thing. Stone banks, straight like an arrow, stagnant quiet and overgrown. We poled up that pond for a long while with those queer trees with the red leaves growin closer.

SC: '''''''' '''''''' '''' ''''''' ''''''''''''' ''''' Rhodopsin ?

SUBJECT: Yeah ,those leaves had fallen and made the canal kind of a still red road. Ah reckon it was Autumn for those trees regardless of what season it was for everythin else.

Ah kept an lookout for Owls and singin' women like you said, and we battened down and kept still and under cover in the night. Guess we got lucky. Took us a day or two and then I see it risin' up over the trees.

SC: ''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''' '''' ''''''' '''''''''''''

SUBJECT: Well it’s difficult to say exactly, looked kinda like one of those kids toys you get to teach em shapes, but fitted together. Like a puzzle you was just in the middle of solvin', but it made a pleasin' form so you just kinda left it like that. It was wood, mainly ah think but ah can't be sure. There were stone foundations ahm certain and stone within. On top of that there was kinda like a suspension-bridge getup included with wires or somethin' comin out like bones in a birds wing.

SC: '''''''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''''''' ''' '''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ?

SUBJECT: Yeah the whole thing looked kinds ay-symmetrical. Like it was fallin or foldin into or outa itself. It looked like some parts we sorta hangin or balanced against other parts with these fine fine wires. Looked kinda beautiful actually. Whole thing did.

SC: '''''''''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''''''' ''''''''''' '''' ''' vulnerability '''' ''''''' '''''''''''' ?

SUBJECT: No ah had the same idea but ah don't reckon you could. When ah got up close a saw that they were cables, woven with metal like it was wool. Very strong indeed. You would need a lot of force to break one.

Well we could see it and we thought we were close so we kept goin'. Turned out we weren't that close at all. Place was just so fuckin huge you could see it from three miles off. Bigger than any castle tower I ever saw. No idea how it stayed up.

At the end of the canal was stone docks. Strange and well made, and beyond them was the Palace.

SC: ''''''''''' '''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''''''''''' '''' ''''''' '''''''''''' ?

SUBJECT: Old too, but clean, like your grandma's house. It was dammm quiet there and somethin kept the trees from growin too close. You had a good bowshot an-then-some from the walls to any cover. And the ground was flagged and almost-flat. The floor was waved and smooth like the surface of a swellin’ sea. Real odd. I guess that’s how they like it though.

Well it was getting pretty late. Ah didn’t want to stay right outside the place and we reckoned last night we had heard the cry of Owls, so ah decided to just get on in there, get the job done, see what was what.

SC: '''''''''' ''''''' ''''''' surface ''''''''' '''''''' ''''''' outer '''''''?

SUBJECT: looked kinda like a loose shell of stone. Like a tortoise shell you know but with all the bits of the shell separated and hangin in some kinda frame of wood and wire. Those shell parts were about six feet wide ah think, larger the further up you got. The shell pieces moved a little, they weren't quite securely fit, not like a brick or a flagstone. Turned out later they could move around quite a bit. Ah looked behind one and all ah could see was a great complexity of suspension. Every time the wind changed the shells moved a little and ah don't think no rain or snow could have got in there, not because it was solid but because it kinda responded. It was a little like a skin and a little like feathers in the way it moved and a lot like a wall.

SC: ''''''''' '''''''''' '''''''''''''''''' ''''' '''''' ''''''''''' Art?

SUBJECT:  No ah don't think it was magic. You could kinda see that everythin got attached to everythin else at some point and it never seemed to put out more than got put in, if you get my meaning, which is the clearest sign of magic to me.

That was the basics of it. The bigger frame was made of wood and metal and light strong stone, all carved and cut very exactly and arranged with each other with great ease and fluid thought. Ah never saw any person or thing mix together materials so complexly and in such diffuse ways. it wasn't like it was impossible, ah reckon people could do it, but it wouldn’t make sense to them to do so as you'd need to plan every single tiny flourish, right down to the carvings and the tiny joints, and then snap it all together in sequence and if any single thing went wrong then maybe the whole thing would be screwed, so I don't see how we would ever make a thing that way.

There wasn't much goin' on there with colour. Almost everything was its natural shade, just polished and worked right down to the fine details. You touched it and it was smooth. No splinters, no cracks.

SC: ''''''''' '''''' '''''''' '''''''' '''''''''''?

SUBJECT: Well its always been mah principle that if you're breakin into a place you do best to start at the top and work your way down. So that’s what ah did. I myself am just about the best climber that I have ever seen and it took me a good half an hour to get to the top of that thing. Up its sides and those suspended iron ropes.

SC: '''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''?

SUBJECT: A vent that  popped open to let gusts of air come through. It’s warm in there, and dry too. Which aint that much of a surprise considering what lives there.

SC: '''''''''' ''''''' '''''''' '''''''?

SUBJECT: Whoo boy! It is crazy in there.

SC: ''''''

SUBJECT: Yeah, well…its like a nest of poles but the poles are straws.

SC: '''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''.

SUBJECT: Like kinda how if you grab a bunch of straws and get em in a box without breaking them, till they are all mixed up in there then you take the box away and they still hang together, keeping its shape, its like climbing through a maze of those, its gots its passages and its roads, like how if you were small and climbing through a skeleton then the ribs would be a ladder and the spine a kind of passage, but its still pretty crazy. There are rooms, kind of, hard flat floors suspended or hung up amidst the pyolns and there are the tops of stone towers. The towers are real real thin but they stay up cause they were made as one with the rest, all the cables and the suspensions, and all the forces and the weights balance out just right. The stone tops of those thin towers are floors where work is done and things are made, like workshops. There are iron cauldrons there and winches and cranes. Sometimes it seems like the whole thing is just a nest of cranes and carriers. The forging inly happens on the ground floor though, or below, that’s where the big crucibles are. Its light at the top  - there are panes of glass (huge panes) in the roof and they let through light, and the forges down below are a deep red, but in the middle it can get pretty dark, and night was coming on so it was hard to see. It feels alive inside, but still, if the outside was like an old persons house, or the clean house of some fellah thatjust died then the inside is like a workshop where they guy has just stepped out and you feel he’s coming back soon cause there are things happening.

SC: '''''' ''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''''''' '''' ''''''''''' '''''''''''''''?

SUBJECT: No, it could have been a day or a year or ten since something did something, but it felt occupied, “''''''''''''' '''''''” ah says (it’s  always been a habit of mine to name myself in my own mind whenever ah address myself, its kinda for the record you know, ah got multiple gods watchin’me, “''''''''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''''''', you know sure as hell this goddamm ''''''''''''''' '''''''''''' aint gone, or if he is, it aint for long. By dammn ah know an empty house when ah feel on and when ah don't, that’s professional intutition you might say.

Shit ah aint mentioned the poles yet.

SC: '''''''''' '''''''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''?

SUBJECT: I mean, they was all carved up, everything in there is, everythin is carved and cut and decorated, right down to the size of your fingernail there. Most curious arrangements, lines and waves, vivid but unreal, unnatural but fine and beautifully expressed

SC: '''''''' '''''' '''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''''?

SUBJECT: Climbin! There aint barely no way to get anywhere except by climbin around. Some climbs are easier than others, but you know the spaces this thing slides through are pretty huge. Bigger than a man is by quite a way, so the routes it made for itself to curl and wave around and through the house it made won't work for you. You gotta kinda scamper and improvise from flat surface to flat surface. And don't fall!

SC: ''''''''''''' '''''' ''''''' '''''''''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''' '''''''''''?

SUBJECT: Well I encountered these, I guess you'd call them 'chests' cept they was spherical and metallic and made of kinda layers of material all locked together like a puzzle. I got to thinkin "''''''" for its always been my habit and iron-shod personal law to name mysself in mah own head in case it mah memory was suddenly wiped "Old '''''''''''''' ''''''', this whole place is like one big puzzle made by that creature that lives here, and those look ery much like smaller puzzles made by the same hands. And if you was that creature and you had things to keep, well maybe you'd just keep them in a thing exactly like that, because by damn you wouldn’t have no problem opening them.

SC: '''''''''' '''''' ''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''?

SUBJECT: Hggmm. Well ah happened to have with me.. tell me son. you ever heard of a 'Thieves Eagle?'.

SC: ''''''' ''''''' ''''' '''''' '''''''''''''''''''''! '''''''' '''''''''''''''' ''''''''' ''''''' ''''''''' ''''''' '''''''! '''''''''''''''''''! '''''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''''' '''''''''''' '''''''' ''''''''''''''''''' '''' '''''''!

SUBJECT: Ah found mine. Just warmed her up and she got one of those spheres open right away. Found your doodad there inside.

SC: '''''''' ''' '''''''' '''''''''' '''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''' Iksladzord?

SUBJECT: Yeah he turned up pretty much as things started to go to shit. Never seen anything like it before and never want to see anything like it again. Huge! And those goddamm hands! Ah don't reckon he saw me straight away be he sure as hell knew something was up. The way he moved through that place. Incredible. Course he made it for just that purpose. Ah knew ah wouldn’t last a second against something like that, he was arming his teeth for war right enough, with all kinds a crazy weapons, and wherever he went he would kinda reach out with his teeth and feel the strands and the pylons. Ah knew to pause dead still whenever he did but it still seemed like some kinda secret information was makin its way back to him. maybe he could feel mah heart beatin, ah don't know.

SC: '''''''''' '''''' ''''''' ''''''''''''''?

SUBJECT: Hah, weeelll. Ah kinda made a commotion.

SC: ''''''''''''''''''''?

SUBJECT: Ah found a way ta turn over the feeds for one of those forges on the ground floor, got boiling Iron spreading all over the place. Knocked the safeties out so the floor went up. Whooo he was pissed off I can tell you. Ah ran for it. When ah looked back that thing was pulling some kinda leaver. Musta had it prepared, water from the canal was gushing in from some kid of hydraulic system. That thing had a whole safety plan worked out ahead of time! Hell of a mind ah tell you, hell of a mind.

When that water hit the iron it calmed the fire down but the steam was explosive in the extreme, whole place was full of it. I coudn't see shit and ah reckon even that thing coudn't sense shit. Must have pulled some other leaver cause the shells that made up the walls just kinda rippled open to let out the steam.

It was dark out there by then. Out I go and runnin back to the boat quick as ah can. From there we just pole'd it you know? No sense on sticken around I thought.

SC: ''' ''''''''''' ''''''' '''''''' Iksladzord '''''''''' '''''''''''''''' ''''''''' '''''''''''''''' '''''''''' '''' ''''''''''?

SUBJECT: Shit it's not like ah leave a callin' card in the places ah steal from with the name of the guys that hired me on it. That Thieves Eagle might still be running around in there (she got away from me, they always do) but hell, no-one at all can catch them, and it ain’t like they learn in the egg.

SC: '''' '''''''', ''''''''' ''''', '''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''' ''''''''' '''' ''''''' '''''''.

SUBJECT: Ohhhh. Oh shit, well that aint good.