The Whispers

Located in the cavers beneath the Hroan city of Sero'ak known as the Echoes, the Whispers are the heart and soul of Serpens artistic heritage and a place of respite for both Hroan and tourist alike. When a Serpens artist is recognized as having achieved mastery of their craft and having made significant contributions to the House’s culture, they are granted funding directly from the Den to transform a cave in the Echoes into their magnum opus.

Each Whisper is a unique work by the artist created specifically to be immortalized, never to be seen elsewhere before or afterward. The artist’s funding is used not only to create the work that will be housed in the Whisper, but to craft the cave itself into the ideal viewing space. The nature of these changes is up to the artist and depends on their personal style as well as their chosen means of expression. Whispers can represent any form of art, from literature to dance, from painting to puppetry.

Being chosen to create a Whisper is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a Serpens artist and is only granted to those who have reached the very pinnacle of their craft. The tradition of granting Whispers is nearly as old as Ananta itself and some of the oldest Whispers are rooted in a culture so different from what exists on Hroa today that their true meaning is a frequent subject of passionate debate for artistic scholars.

Examples of Whispers

Below are some examples of individual Whispers, but this list is by no means exhaustive as the tradition of bestowing Whispers on artists dates back hundreds of years.

Orphans of The Eagle

Created by playwright Seer Serpens Raj Srijan during the reign of the Blood Eagle, this Whisper is a holographic depiction of a play which tells the story of two brothers on an unnamed planet trying to survive as their homeworld is ravaged by war.

Seer Raj was a minimalist in his life and this is reflected in the space he created for his Whisper. The cavern is plain, it's walls unchanged from the natural stone of the rest of the Echoes. One side is a flat shelf onto which the holograms are projected. In front of the shelf is a series of plinths about chest height for an average human. On the top of each plinth is a depression in which a palm-sized stone rests.

The stones, a gift from House Lyra, are each inscribed with the ancient symbol of drama, the masks of comedy and tragedy. Despite their plain, smooth appearance the stones are actually imbued with Lyran psychometry and when held amplify the impact of the piece by allowing the holder to experience the emotions the stone's creator felt upon watching the original performance for the first time.

The Ten Thousand Visions

The Ten Thousand Visions are a complex network of blades mounted and balanced on rotating mechanisms embedded into the very structure of their containing cavern, the work of Reticulum born Seer Serpens Reichert Urehu. The blades are wrought of varying metals, bronze, steel, titanium, and some non-metal, bone, crystal, ceramic, and no two take the same shape. Each and every one has a look of fragility, delicateness, but, as they are of true Reticulum make, are nigh impervious to any such damage.

Parallel to the length of each blade, on both sides of the surface, is inscribed a word. The majority of these are in the Hroan native Lo’an, but they are followed closely by a number of words in Imperial common, and the script used for Aomori Pidgin. A single blade, wrought in malachite, with the sweeping curve of a long, broad spearhead, bears a word in Ðeykiu.

The many whirling mechanisms of the Ten Thousand Visions are all interlinked, carefully tuned so that the mass of the many blades are perfectly balanced. As a consequence, even the simple act of entering the cavern where the Visions are installed is enough to induce the necessary airflow to drive the mechanism to movement. This same feature lends the installation susceptible towards manipulation through telekinetic means, although incredibly precise control is necessary to operate it maximum efficiency.

As the mechanism works, scarcely a sound can be heard, only the eerie whirr of the blades cutting through the air, prescribing an eerie silence to all. Periodically, some message from the arrangement of the blades will appear. It isn’t believed that all of these are prophetic, as the mechanism of the device would repeat after ten years of constant operation, but there has been substantial debate on if the artist did embed a prophecy of some kind.

A one meter demarcation line was added following a number of unfortunate incidents involving injury and the Ten Thousand Visions. Although a benign art installation, each blade is of the highest quality make, and thus each blade forever holds a deadly edge, making the entire installation highly dangerous if the proper care is not taken around it.