I've been writing short stories again lately, attempting to improve as much as I can. I originally was going to write this for the Lovecraft Reddit, however like so many other things in my life procrastination got the better of me and I never finished it.
I did want to share it here though despite it's unfinished nature and get some feedback on the writing style and prose itself. Keep in mind this hasn't been spell checked, or looked at for grammatical errors. It's a raw, come-as-is rough draft (though, there is one word you might take as a spelling error - investigador. This isn't an error, but rather the proper Spanish inquisitorial title and spelling). If you see anything in green text, it's because that was originally a link.
The original story was of a Spanish inquisitor being posted to Spain's holdings in Mexico, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in order to root out heresy and move the natives along the path of conversion quicker. In time, he receives notifications of a small village nearby which is just barely within the range of his jurisdiction that has been experiencing odd happenings: people sleep walking experiencing bouts of madness at a specific time of night then having no recollection of what they did, people having increasingly strange, lucid and realistic dreams, disappearances, a strange sign unlike any in the local Nahuatl language showing up in and around the village, and rumors of a cult and long forgotten pyramid with a lost city beneath it that is said to predate both the Aztecs and even the Toltecs and Olmecs.
At first our protag dismisses these rumors as just that - rumors, but eventually goes to investigate after the plague of strange dreams and disappearances start happening in the town that he's posted in. He will soon discover the existence of a god not featured in either local or Aztec mythology, a forgotten god that has lain dormant for longer than mankind has been on the Earth... the slumbering heart, the sleepwalker.... The Heart Relentless.
With that said:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
February 21st, 1771 - the year of our Lord.
Viceroyalty of New Spain, Reinos of Mexico, Province of Oaxaca
Ruin has come to this place.
My name is Fernando de Léon, and I serve... I served God and King as a investigador of the Tribunal of the Most Holy Office of the Inquisition. I was offered to the Church by my family as a yet only a mere babe, a young pup who hath never even grown old enough to speak the word "mother". I never knew either of my parents, only that they were peasantry that were to poor to put food in my mouth, and I was taught that they had performed the will of God by offering me to the priesthood. I was raised at a small little chapel on a hillcrest overlooking the quiet town of Peñafiel, in Leon. There I received an education I otherwise never would have had my parents decided to raise me. I was taught mathematics, and how to read and write both in Spanish and Latin. In my teenage years I began receiving tutelage to become a priest, however it soon became apparent to both my mentors and my peers that my investigative abilities and physical prowess far outweighed my oratorical skills or my ability to move the hearts of the masses. It was decided that I would be of better service to God and the Church in a different way. Alas, I would still be tending to the masses, the uneducated peasantry and the decadent nobility alike, though my services rendered would come in a slightly different form. There are many different ways to instill faith in the hearts of men and women, so my child-like mind would soon learn.
At the age of fourteen I arrived in the city of Madrid. It had been the largest city my naive young eyes ever set sight upon, streets which stretched on for so long they'd disappear off into the horizon. The building of which I would spend my teenage years was cold and of hard stone, humble yet with at the same time held a contradictory brazen self-entitled sense of worth. It stood taller and stronger than it's surrounding hoddles, yet had a bland exterior with a barebones interior decor. In all honestly, it was a very bland and boring place, but it was there that I would spend my teenage years. Life in Madrid was certainly different to anything my young mind had experienced before, and unlike in Peñafiel, here I was encouraged to go out, interact with, and watch the local populace. No longer would my teachings take the form of books, but rather my education had now become physical and the lesson was often taught by way of words or blood. My curious nature despised by some of my elders in Peñafiel here was appraised, and then honed into a weapon of deadly intellect. I taught that the heresies against God could take many forms, and could be combated both spiritually and physically.
At the age of sixteen I formally finished my tutelage before I became apprenticed to a local inquisitor in Valencia for the next four years, and when he decided I was of the capability to perform my sacrosanct duties on my own, I was assigned the full title of investigador and given my post to replace my to-be predecessor who had recently fallen ill with flu and died of pneumonia. I set sail from Cadiz in January of 1770, and it was thanks to fair weather that I was able to swiftly arrive in Tlacotalpan in just a little over fourteen weeks. The overland journey to the town of Oaxaca lasted another week.
While in Oaxaca, I took to my duties of uprooting the blasphemous pagan practices of the locals with fervent religiosity. I quickly mustered a reputation amongst the peasantry here, and learned that in passing secret when they believed no one was around to hear, they would refer to me as "tlaminqui", or 'the hunter'. It was during my fourth week there that I had begun investigating and hunting a rather strange group of individuals. My hunt began just moments after sunrise on the eve of the passing month of June. I had grown accustomed to strange surprises at odd hours, for I had long prepared myself to expect the unexpected in the barbaric and alien land. One of my servitors entered my home without prior announcement who I had begun to trust and grown fond of the reliability of the information he would feed me about the local populace, the latest gossip and rumors regarding the goings-on in the villages. I learned to trust his word he had led me to a shrine to Quetzalcoatl some of the locals had been visiting which had been nestled away in a cleverly hidden small underground tunnel beneath the home of a local family.
A small child had recently gone missing in a village nearby, a village under my jurisdiction that I had yet to find the time to visit as my investigations in Oaxaca had kept me busy. Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored this information, lest a peculiar symbol regarding - - - [END / UNFINISHED]
I did want to share it here though despite it's unfinished nature and get some feedback on the writing style and prose itself. Keep in mind this hasn't been spell checked, or looked at for grammatical errors. It's a raw, come-as-is rough draft (though, there is one word you might take as a spelling error - investigador. This isn't an error, but rather the proper Spanish inquisitorial title and spelling). If you see anything in green text, it's because that was originally a link.
The original story was of a Spanish inquisitor being posted to Spain's holdings in Mexico, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in order to root out heresy and move the natives along the path of conversion quicker. In time, he receives notifications of a small village nearby which is just barely within the range of his jurisdiction that has been experiencing odd happenings: people sleep walking experiencing bouts of madness at a specific time of night then having no recollection of what they did, people having increasingly strange, lucid and realistic dreams, disappearances, a strange sign unlike any in the local Nahuatl language showing up in and around the village, and rumors of a cult and long forgotten pyramid with a lost city beneath it that is said to predate both the Aztecs and even the Toltecs and Olmecs.
At first our protag dismisses these rumors as just that - rumors, but eventually goes to investigate after the plague of strange dreams and disappearances start happening in the town that he's posted in. He will soon discover the existence of a god not featured in either local or Aztec mythology, a forgotten god that has lain dormant for longer than mankind has been on the Earth... the slumbering heart, the sleepwalker.... The Heart Relentless.
With that said:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
February 21st, 1771 - the year of our Lord.
Viceroyalty of New Spain, Reinos of Mexico, Province of Oaxaca
Ruin has come to this place.
My name is Fernando de Léon, and I serve... I served God and King as a investigador of the Tribunal of the Most Holy Office of the Inquisition. I was offered to the Church by my family as a yet only a mere babe, a young pup who hath never even grown old enough to speak the word "mother". I never knew either of my parents, only that they were peasantry that were to poor to put food in my mouth, and I was taught that they had performed the will of God by offering me to the priesthood. I was raised at a small little chapel on a hillcrest overlooking the quiet town of Peñafiel, in Leon. There I received an education I otherwise never would have had my parents decided to raise me. I was taught mathematics, and how to read and write both in Spanish and Latin. In my teenage years I began receiving tutelage to become a priest, however it soon became apparent to both my mentors and my peers that my investigative abilities and physical prowess far outweighed my oratorical skills or my ability to move the hearts of the masses. It was decided that I would be of better service to God and the Church in a different way. Alas, I would still be tending to the masses, the uneducated peasantry and the decadent nobility alike, though my services rendered would come in a slightly different form. There are many different ways to instill faith in the hearts of men and women, so my child-like mind would soon learn.
At the age of fourteen I arrived in the city of Madrid. It had been the largest city my naive young eyes ever set sight upon, streets which stretched on for so long they'd disappear off into the horizon. The building of which I would spend my teenage years was cold and of hard stone, humble yet with at the same time held a contradictory brazen self-entitled sense of worth. It stood taller and stronger than it's surrounding hoddles, yet had a bland exterior with a barebones interior decor. In all honestly, it was a very bland and boring place, but it was there that I would spend my teenage years. Life in Madrid was certainly different to anything my young mind had experienced before, and unlike in Peñafiel, here I was encouraged to go out, interact with, and watch the local populace. No longer would my teachings take the form of books, but rather my education had now become physical and the lesson was often taught by way of words or blood. My curious nature despised by some of my elders in Peñafiel here was appraised, and then honed into a weapon of deadly intellect. I taught that the heresies against God could take many forms, and could be combated both spiritually and physically.
At the age of sixteen I formally finished my tutelage before I became apprenticed to a local inquisitor in Valencia for the next four years, and when he decided I was of the capability to perform my sacrosanct duties on my own, I was assigned the full title of investigador and given my post to replace my to-be predecessor who had recently fallen ill with flu and died of pneumonia. I set sail from Cadiz in January of 1770, and it was thanks to fair weather that I was able to swiftly arrive in Tlacotalpan in just a little over fourteen weeks. The overland journey to the town of Oaxaca lasted another week.
While in Oaxaca, I took to my duties of uprooting the blasphemous pagan practices of the locals with fervent religiosity. I quickly mustered a reputation amongst the peasantry here, and learned that in passing secret when they believed no one was around to hear, they would refer to me as "tlaminqui", or 'the hunter'. It was during my fourth week there that I had begun investigating and hunting a rather strange group of individuals. My hunt began just moments after sunrise on the eve of the passing month of June. I had grown accustomed to strange surprises at odd hours, for I had long prepared myself to expect the unexpected in the barbaric and alien land. One of my servitors entered my home without prior announcement who I had begun to trust and grown fond of the reliability of the information he would feed me about the local populace, the latest gossip and rumors regarding the goings-on in the villages. I learned to trust his word he had led me to a shrine to Quetzalcoatl some of the locals had been visiting which had been nestled away in a cleverly hidden small underground tunnel beneath the home of a local family.
A small child had recently gone missing in a village nearby, a village under my jurisdiction that I had yet to find the time to visit as my investigations in Oaxaca had kept me busy. Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored this information, lest a peculiar symbol regarding - - - [END / UNFINISHED]
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