"The leathery carcasses of hollowed-out beasts line the ventricles of this stone heart. Ancient blubber bubbles up around paths of bone and hide that squelch with every step. A distant drip carves eternity into hours."[1]
The Gant Pole is a gigantic calcified heart, and the place where the creatures of the Unterzee go to die.[2]
The Corridors of The Heart[]
The Pole possesses a powerful attractive force that calls out to any being nearing the end of its life, from the largest of behemoths[3] to the simple humans.[4] The Pole's pull extends beyond the Neath, and can even attract people from the Surface.[5]
The humans that have followed the call tend to congregate at the very center of the stone heart that makes up the Pole, inside a big pool of gant.[6] These old zailors only leave the pool to feed on the zee-beasts that have just arrived at the Pole.[7] While all of the pool's zailors are elderly, some of them are truly ancient, and might even date back to the First City.[8]
Elbow Deep in the Nearly Dead[]
A notable exception to the Pole's usual inhabitants is a group of haruspices, who divine answers to questions from the last moments of the dying zee-beasts. They are led by an old Third City woman called the Fading Haruspex,[9] who was exiled from Whither for breaking its laws to spare a child's tears. She wishes to find an answer to a fabled Question that can only be answered with truth.[10]
IT TORE OUT THE HEART. THE SHAME REMAINED[]
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This giant stone heart once belonged to an enormous Shame, a defilement of The Great Chain.[11] The Gant Pole was created when the Shame fell in love; its advances were spurned, and the lovelorn Shame tore out its own heart.[12] The organ sunk beneath the zee-waves, and began to emit sadness and melancholy, which was mistaken by the various zee-monsters for a sense of peace that could comfort them in their dying days.[13]
References[]
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