Alright, I need you to start from the beginning.

Uh, well, but– I've been here a week already, I really have to get back to my—

Look, we can get you back to your folks when this is all fixed up, OK? We need your cooperation.

…Can you get this fixed up?

Are you familiar with our organisation?

Vaguely, yes.

Then you know we can fix anything. But not without your testimony.

I’ll do it. You said from the beginning?

That’s right.

OK… I guess the best place to start would be my family's trip to Hy-Brasil.

Item#: UNNAMED

Containment Class: euclid

Secondary Class: {$secondary-class}

Disruption Class: {$disruption-class}

Risk Class: {$risk-class}

Special Containment Procedures: The Nameless Girl is to be kept in a standard humanoid containment cell at Site-03 until all of the circumstances regarding her anomaly have been identified and, if possible, neutralised.

Access to this file, due to its potential applicability concerning The Sullied Place, has been restricted only to those with Level 4 clearance and others on a need-to-know basis. This Anomaly should only be documented and interacted with by those with specialised semantic-hazard training.

Investigation into the cause and potential neutralisation of Her anomaly is ongoing (see Attachment.OI).

Description: Whom We’re Discussing is a female fae of Hy-Brasilian changeling descent, between 16 and 17 years of age. She stands at 173cm tall and weighs 62.4 kilograms. The Recreator has shown no anomalous capabilities beyond that of an average or even below-average fae of similar circumstances.

The primary anomaly This Woman represents was the sudden and unexplained creation of an Eshu-class nomenclative hazard making identification of The Faceless And Nameless extremely difficult. The Foundation was alerted to the nomenclative hazard's formation on 8/1/2012 at 10:34 PM—now confirmed to be the date in which The Almost Hy-Brasilian’s anomaly manifested—when an unusually large burst of magic was detected at Site-03 22 miles outside of the city of New Hy-Brasil. While Foundation presence on Hy-Brasil has severely diminished over the past twenty years, she was quickly located and apprehended 14 minutes later, and was subsequently entered into Foundation custody at Site-03.

Found amongst her belongings was a large stick with a blackened end, a lightly weathered bicycle, and a backpack itself containing a leatherbound book and a standard-issue camcorder with a 6 megabyte-per-second SD card inside.

► Organised Information Regarding The Before Mentioned ◀

▼ Hide attachment. ▼

Video recovered from camcorder SD card.

Shot begins overlooking the railing of a large boat. The waters below are grey and choppy, it is raining.

Murmurs can be heard between two or three voices from behind the camera. A low male voice says “Keep your eyes peeled.”

Panning over from the sea and back inward to the ferry’s deck, two adults come into shot, a woman and a man, both middle-aged. They acknowledge the camera and wave to it, smiling warmly. The camera spins, and a large window back inside of the ship is seen, open-plan and filled with fae of elvish and changeling lineage, particularly families with young children. Many of the children are filing into an arcade room. Suddenly, the earlier masculine voice says “There, look!” and the camera spins around again.

Ahead, obscured from view through the fog, is a large collection of structures consisting of numerous rock formations, with wisps of steam permeating the air around them. The largest two connect with an arch, others jut from the ground, and others still are small domes suspended on the water. As the ship grows nearer, it is seen more clearly: it is a man-made structure of some kind, around 45 feet tall at their peak, now fallen into ruin. Under the water, from where the steam is permeating, is a low, dim glow of green light. The camera zooms in to study the ruin, showing it to be made of grey stone bricks and in a state of severe disrepair, as the ship navigates between two columns and continues forward. Emphatic voices can be heard. Cutting through the rain and other voices, a younger, female voice says “What is this thing?”

The footage cuts to the inside of the ship, looking out a rectangular window. It is still raining. The room inside has red flooring and a number of tables at which different passengers are seated, all facing to the window. The camera zooms in as a dark grey piece of land comes into view through the fog.

There is a pause, before the deeper male voice says, “Welcome home.”

Dear journal,

Earlier today I packed up all of my stuff, and we drove out towards the port. There weren't many cars in the line onto the boat, but I guess that’s to be expected.

My dad knew the guy ticketing, started up a conversation with him and everything in the line. Apparently he was a jailer who’d settled down in Sligo in the 80s, seemed like a nice guy.

We drove our car onto the boat and waited for the all-clear to get onto the ferry. I got utterly scammed at the keymaster on the ride over.

In Calleus, our connection city, the first thing you notice is the quality of the air. Half of the town is on the water in a network of these modern crannogs, with huge fishing nets and lots of bustle. My people surround me. We got stopped by some elves at the dock, who asked us to identify why we were coming to the island. My father did the talking, warped his face into the security agent, and got us taken onto the land side of the city.

It was really difficult to take everything in, it’s just so beautiful. Everyone’s featureless out here, and the big gulf the town's built on, the Grave, seems to go on forever. It brings this thick fog out, obscuring the sheer cliffs. The town is in high spirits, people are preparing for the Lughnasa festival at the start of August. Apparently Lughnasa is the harvest festival for the summer, the crop is supposed to grow. As I write this my parents are negotiating us a rental car. I didn’t know they even had cars out here.

We’ll be in New Hy-Brasil by the end of the day if this rental service ever gets sorted out, I’ve been sat a half an hour already, but I’ve been reading all the travel brochures to pass the time. Lots of magic in the imagery, elves growing whole fields for Lughnasa, water-skating out on the Grave when the weather clears. Proper magic.

Video recovered from camcorder SD card.

Shot begins panning up and to the left window, revealing the plastic interior of an Austin Metro, with the adults from the previous recording in the front two seats. A Changeling is seen in the reflection of the window, before the camera presses against the glass and refocuses. Outside of the car is a densely packed forest, the trees gnarling together and casting shapes of light on the ground. The camera pans down to the narrow street, paved cobblestone with weeds blooming out of the cracks.

A gasp can be heard, and the camera suddenly pans up and zooms in to unremarkable tree coverage. A younger, female voice says “I swear I saw something move. It was small…are there squirrels in Hy-Brasil?” There’s a pause, the camera doesn’t move. Finally, a masculine voice to the right responds “Yes, there are squirrels. Jeez, we ought to come back more often.”

The footage abruptly cuts to a different shot in the same vehicle, zoomed in and pointing out of the car's windshield. Outside of the vehicle, a larger city begins to come into view. The shot switches from the windshield to the left window frequently, showing a vast network of cobblestone—paved and unpaved—streets with elves and changelings passing by. Large telephone poles each holding up three loudspeakers occasionally blare out. The words “Kaiju caviar by…” can be heard in the car amongst the noise. Numerous buskers play music on harps, lyres, and guitars throughout the streets.

The architecture is a mixture of medieval stone buildings retrofitted into shops, traditional plaster structures, and many smaller, newer homes built with wood, stacked and slotted between other structures. In many places, these architectural style mesh, ancient stone foundations built upon with newer wooden apartments. Some areas of the city are overcrowded with buildings, whilst others are extremely empty. Countless back alleys and side roads line the mass of public houses, book shops, clothing stores and residential buildings. Many of the structures hold minor dilapidation, and imply great age. Orange and green festival festival flags run across the telephone poles. Thaumaturgical runes are graffitied onto ancient stone walls, and a bell tower tolls out.

This continues for 14 minutes and 31 seconds, with the frequency of buildings gradually decreasing as the car enters the residential outer regions of the city. The shot finally lands on one building as the car parks in front of a two-story plaster house in a road of similar, colourful buildings, and the doors in the front of the car open. The footage cuts out.

Alright, so you just arrived in New Hy-Brasil? Any magical phenomena to note?

I don’t think so, no.

Noted. And how was the trip while you were there?

Well… exciting of course, finally being back home.

But not perfect?

I wouldn’t be here had it been perfect.

Point taken.

Back to writing. I’ll recap the past few days.

We’ve been going out to town a lot, everyone there seems to know my dad. A lot of our days out get bogged down in long catching up conversations between him and a man I don’t know anything about.

I bought a book of old fae stories and this large black sheep plushie. The book is crazy thus far, it's like Game of Thrones with a Brother's Grimm edge. It feels sort of unreal reading it.

I visited family at a hotel, or something called a hotel, at least. It’s really a large, regal looking house that gets used as a restaurant. I was eating with my nana, an aunt and an uncle, some in-laws and cousins I’ve never met, or never remembered meeting. They asked me a lot of stuff; how I’ve been, what it’s like in Three Ports, if I’m enjoying Hy-Brasil. They asked if I was going to town for Lughnasa, if I’d be volunteering to be a Firebringer (apparently the people that light the big burning man in the old city district), how fun the festival would be. So I told these people I was supposed to know all of the right responses, and smiled and nodded when they asked if I remembered them, and had my meal. A big sausage roll. It was damn good, too.

I got to meet with Conner again, with some of his new friends. We met out in a park, sat on a picnic blanket, and he introduced me. One of them even knew my family, which was nice.

We were all having a laugh, making fun of each other, when one of them—an elf named Siobhan—somehow got to calling me a “UIU-baby,” as a joke. I laughed it off, and then she kind of dropped her demeanour a bit and repeated it slower. So for a second or two that felt like an eternity, I sat awkwardly, kind of laughing, before the topic moved on.

They all started showing off their magic, which was cool. Conner has telekinesis, so he waved the trees and got us off the blanket so he could lift and fold it. Another girl, Maeve I think, could make the flowers bloom in a patch of the park, bursting open with pollen explosions. That Siobhan girl could move shadows, expanding the darkness around and casting all of us away from the sun. They were all really worn out from the exertion of those spells. I dodged and stalled a while, before admitting I couldn’t do it. They really didn’t seem to like that, any of them. All the energy of the group just fizzled.

I don’t get it. It isn’t clicking.

Video recovered from camcorder SD card.

Shot opens on a street in New Hy-Brasil, being traversed on foot. It is visible, but somewhat dark. Ahead is the man from earlier video logs, who can be heard saying “It should be right up here.” The frame ducks through side streets, where the cobblestone is cracked and rife with vegetation. They pass by the ruins of a small fort, with a long stone wall next to it, and move through another, darker alley out into a vast clearing. The buildings can be seen to be arranged in a large circular pattern around the central fixture of an otherwise empty town square.

Made out of a dull, brown metal and overgrown with plants is an extremely large circular structure covered in runes and wires, and anchored to the ground with vast quantities of defunct machinery. It is an artificially constructed Way, now in total disrepair. In front of it is four rows of black, stone benches and seven large upright rocks, each inscribed with hundreds of words. There are a number of Tuatha Dé Danann sat at the benches, looking over the inscriptions, and staring upwards from the bottom of the massive, metal ring. As the shot moves deeper into the area, the paved concrete of the square can be seen arranged into a large, mosaic crown.

A loud noise is heard from a masculine voice, and the camera pans quickly to the left. A elven man wearing weathered clothing, seemingly middle-aged, limps over to the man and woman from the earlier video logs, scowling. He loudly says, “Scab. Scab! Some nerve comin’ here. You think I forgot? Huh? We’ll never forget. Leaving us in the, the dirt?! Piss off, you piece of shit! Selfish… deserter! Scab!”

He presses his finger to the man's chest, and then pushes him in the shoulder, muttering and shouting and laughing as he walks past. For five seconds, it is silent.

The footage cuts out.

Jesus.

Yeah.

And when was this all happening?

Like, uh, July 26th, July 27th.

Ah, so then it was—

A few days out from Lughnasa. Yes, it was.

Footage recovered from a local news station.

Footage opens on a large crowd of people gathered in New Hy-Brasil, and a changeling newscaster standing in front of them. Far in the background is a makeshift stage, upon which a large torch is burning. The newscaster says “Hello fae, Seelie and Unseelie, and any other Hy-Brasilians watching, we are about to witness the annual firebringer selection ceremony. In a few short minutes the seven will be selected to bring the fires to the old ruins only three days from now, and rejuvenate the leylines and bring upon the harvest…”

Eventually, the camera angle switches to above the crowd and stage, and the torch is surrounded by three cloaked individuals. The audience goes silent. As the cloaked individuals speak a long incantation, a thaumaturgical rune on the ground suddenly alights. The torchfire grows giant and crackling, and an individual mote of magical fire bursts from it and into the audience, stagnating just above one individual member of the crowd. A screen graphic lists the name “Cillian Mac Brian.” The mote of fire settles about Cillian's head like a crown, and he jubilates. Another two motes of flame fire from the torch as the incantation continues, landing above another two onlookers. A fourth fires off from the torch, and pauses on a figure near the back of the crowd. The screen graphic displays “Nothing Anymore.” Her eyes widen, and she celebrates with her parents. Another mote of flame fires into the audience, and then another, landing above a crowd member nearby The Fourth Firebringer. The screen graphic displays “Conner Mac Sweeney.” He hugs his fellow Firebringer. One more fire bursts from the torch, landing to the left.

After the landing of the final fiery crown, the rune begins to die down, the incantation concludes, and the torch, now a large, blackened pole, goes out. The crowd disperses.

Video recovered from camcorder SD card.

Shot picks up in an excitable street outside of a public house. Festival decorations are everywhere, a harp, bodhrán, and banjo are playing in harmony together. Wisping light spells cross the sky. Many people of all ages are eating, talking, and walking down the street.

The shot pans and follows The Girl, wearing a long orange dress, out in the street. She is dancing raucously, flowing her dress around her to the music. For a moment, she makes eye contact with the camera, and then continues dancing, underscored by the band. Her face is turned upright to the sky, featureless as she spins, before melting into the face of her mother, then her father, then a number of unknown people, each face morphing into one conglomerate and then fading back into nothing and then flaring up again.

From behind, in the corner of the shot a group of four similarly aged girls walk past, holding trays of food. One of them points, and the others begin laughing, before walking away. This Dancer stops, acknowledges the camera, acknowledges the group, and looks downwards, walking towards the camera and pulling up the ends of her dress. The footage cuts out.

Footage recovered from a local news station.

Aerial footage, panning from above a section of Hy-Brasil that is left in charred ruins, on a slowly inclining hill. Large, blackened and overgrown stone-brick rock formations jut all across the ground. The shot zooms in on a group of seven fae ascending the hill, each with a lit torch in hand and a crown of fire. Surrounding the hill, the city of New Hy-Brasil can be seen. They are escorted by two security officers and one hooded thaumaturge on both sides. As they climb through the abandoned city district, the destination of their ascent comes into frame: inside of a particularly large ruin at the crest of the hill is a large, scaffolded wooden effigy in the form of a bull, overlooking both the Grave and New Hy-Brasil, with last maintenance being tended to by two workers barely seen inside of the bull effigy. Surrounding the bull is a crowd of at least a thousand, who begin cheering as the firebringers come into their view from below. Each firebringer takes a position surrounding the bull effigy, with one thaumaturge on each side, starting a prayer with which the audience and firebringers partake.

A bull is an interesting choice.

Yeah. I wish I could tell you what it meant, I honestly do. The Pagans love their animals, ya know? Actually, there’s a story in my book about this cattle run, which all started because of a fight over cows, pre-Christian Ireland placed importance on them.

I see. So you were selected to be the firebringer—

A firebringer.

Alright, sure, a firebringer. Sounds like a high honour, ringing in the festival.

…

So then what happened?

Don’t ask me that. You know what happened.

Excerpt from The New Hy-Brasil Post.

CHILD BURNED ALIVE IN TERRIBLE LUGHNASA ACCIDENT

During the Lughnasa harvest festival just a few hours ago, a seventeen year-old boy named Conner Mac Sweeney tragically passed away inside of the burning bull effigy while attempting to save a maintenance worker inside. It is currently understood that the fire was lit too early, whilst there was still a maintenance worker doing their final round of checks, and became trapped by the sudden burning structure around them. Sweeney heroically ran towards the fire upon realising a man was inside, and utilised thaumaturgy to move a large amount of debris, freeing the worker and allowing him to escape. However, the exertion of the spell cause Sweeney to grow exhausted, and he passed out due to smoke inhalation shortly thereafter. His body is unrecoverable.

It is currently under investigation why the fire was lit so early.

I thought I heard the cue. I was stressed, and angry, and needed to prove myself, and I thought I heard the cue in the prayer and I dropped my torch and everyone else followed my lead and I thought it was right. I thought it was right. And then he ran in, sprinted in, like a psycho… and then the guy came out, and Conner disappeared. We knew he was dead well before he was, probably.

I see.

I don’t know why people were in there. We weren’t told there’d be people in there, or I wasn’t told. And I felt a thousand people turn to me altogether and they didn’t have to say what they meant. Of course I did it, of course I did it. Because I can’t speak the language or because I… I don’t know.

And what then?

I ran. I sprinted down the hill, I ran home, I got on a bike and just rode and rode and rode because all I could think was “get away, get away.” Like it would be worse to stay where I don’t belong than to leave to somewhere on my own. Or just somewhere not here. I rode until my feet hurt, until I was out of breath, until I reached the hills and couldn’t ride anymore, and I collapsed. Sheer cliffs, looking down onto The Grave. The fog looming over me. I thought maybe I might just float off of the edge, but I didn’t. The waters weren’t welcoming.

And is this where you—

I was on my knees, covered in dirt and shit and grass-stains and I slammed my fist into the ground and screamed. I screamed, and my voice broke, and my voice gave out. And then it was like something deep within me bubbled, and rose from my stomach out through my mouth and a part of me forced its way out and combusted in the air, out in every direction. It was magic, proper magic. A part of my soul rended from me… and then, having casted a spell like that, everything went black.

And that, whatever spell you cast there, that was how you wound up with no name. Am I right?

Almost. It’s not quite no name. I still remember it.

…

…

Excuse me?

My name, I remember my name. How could I forget?

Well, Jesus Christ, if you remember your name, tell me, tell us, if you would.

Alright. My name… my identity. My name is Kate.

…I’m sorry, I must’ve… lost my train of thought somewhere, what were you saying?

Yeah. I thought as much.