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The Mystery of Mesoamerica


CardiMuscleman

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Chapter One

"Good evening, gentlemen, and may I say before I begin how very kind and indeed a little unexpected it is to be addressing this evening. When I received the invitation to address this inaugural meeting of the British Archaeological Society, I did wonder whether or not there had been a spelling mistake and I was to address the British Physical Culturist Society, but no, the invitation was indeed to this august society and therefore enough though I must stick out like a sore thumb, I shall address you as if I were one of your own"

There was a polite ripple of applause as the speaker opened his bag and pulled out the biggest lump of gold ever seen in England. It was at least a foot in all directions and as the speaker noted "is twenty four karat gold and weighs 1,204 lbs, and let me tell you I am glad that my bag managed to contain it" which prompted a chuckle from the audience and with that the speaker gave a polite cough and formally started his talk.

"My name is Henry Cardigan, the seventh man to bear that name since the first Henry Cardigan, known as Henri de Ceredigion, in the seventeenth century. He was a Musketeer in the army of King Louis XIII and was said to have strength that matched or even rivalled the Titan, Porthos, himself. He disappeared in 1650 leaving no trace, save his son, Christophe. Since then there have been five other Henry's all of whom have excelled at some aspect of strength. The second Henry Cardigan was said to be the strongest man in all of France, the third was said to be stronger that Paul Bunyan, the fourth was formally declared the strongest man in England by Louis Stevenson, the fifth, my grandfather, was the first man to pull a steam locomotive and the sixth, my father, was formally declared to be the most powerful man in the world by none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Therefore you might look at me and wonder why I am talking to an archaeological society and not to the physical culture society founded by Mr. Sandow. Gentlemen, the picture I am about to show you was taken two years ago, in 1920, and despite appearances is me" and with that the speaker raised a photograph and gasps emerged.

"Gentlemen" announced the speaker, who stood nearly seven feet tall, "that was me two years ago"

Because both myself and @GymJunkieMuscle are in the same boat at the moment (both under a government ordered lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in our communities, I decided the best way to support him was to join his Patreon and asked if he wouldn't mind illustrating a story. He didn't seem to object and so am giving him carte blanche to take this photo (taken for a virtual cosplay competition) and go to town as much as he likes to turn it into the descriptions that will appear in this story.

_1020280 (2).JPG

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Chapter Two

"But, sir" exclaimed one of the members, "that cannot be you, you're..."

"A man?" asked Henry, "Bigger than the heaviest man in world, stronger than so called modern day Hercules Tony Sansone, bigger than that legend of the stage Eugene Sandow? Yes, gentlemen, I am, but that picture is also what I looked like. The first born son of my family was always one pound heavier at birth than their predecessor, my grandfather weighed ten pounds when he was born, my father eleven pounds, myself, six pounds! My grandfather could lift his father at the age of twenty, my father could lift his father at the age of eighteen, when that picture was taken the heaviest thing I could lift without any signs of effort was the briefcase I carried with me. It became apparent that I was the exception that proved the rule, the famed strength and power that was the hallmark of the Cardigan family had clearly skipped a generation, that is why when I finished my formal education whereas my grandfather made his name in the boxing rings of the world and my father on the stages of London emulating Eugene's acts of strength, I was in the hallowed halls of Oxford studying history. I spent the four years there looking for anything, anything that would help me become the man I should have been and it is there that I found the answer, an answer that led me to the Galapagos Islands two years ago today"

"You lied to me, sir!"

"Sir?"

"When you wrote to me asking to assist me with this expedition and signed the letter Henry Cardigan VII, I agreed thinking that the latest in the long time of incredibly strong and powerful men would be helping me hack my way through the jungles of the South American continent and when I met you in Acapulco, what did I find? A weed, sir, a living weed, you're no stronger than I am!"

"I did tell you, sir..."

"You told me to "look beyond my name" and by jingo, that's the first thing I should have done...and don't tell me about your first at Oxford in American History since Columbus. This expedition is to find out whether the legend of the boy of the sun is true or not and without a hint of strength to your name it is going to be doomed to faliure. Now, get out of my sight and find a suitable place to start our dig!"

As Henry walked away sadly he tried his best not to burst into tears. This was the story of his life, condemmed forever to be known as the Cardigan without the strength of the Cardigans, a literal pipsqueak of a man. At the same age his father was known for feats of strength that made women swoon, his grandfather had even lifted the famed Tsar Cannon when stationed in the Crimea, him, he could barely carry the equipment in the backpack he was shouldering to lay out the dig site and as he cut a lonely figure walking towards the top of the island they had landed on it all become too much and with that he sat down heavily on a cliff, the equipment dumped beside him and let out all of his frustations.

"IT'S NOT FAIR!" he wailed, sobbing into his jacket, "I'm six foot tall, I should weigh two hundred and twenty one pounds instead I weigh a hundred and forty seven pounds. I'm a failure, a miserable insignficant ant!" and with that kicked the cliff with his foot welcoming the pain that it brought. As he wiped his eyes, he looked up and down the cliff and as he did, he stopped crying and pondered what he was seeing. The island was a natural crescent moon shape and yet, the cliff to his left, the tip of the crescent moon just seemed to suddenly stop. This struck Henry as strange and so placing a marker five metres from the end of the cliff he reported back and was met with a barrage of "A cliff? You expect us to excavate a cliff. Henry, if this wasn't being funded by the British Museum I would throw you off that cliff!" and with that disappeared into his tent, his grumbles burning Henry's ears as he tried to get to sleep that night.

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Chapter Three

"The three weeks of that dig, gentlemen, I never want to experience again. Every single day from when the sun rose until the sun set, it was grumbles, grumbles, grumbles. It got so bad that on the night when the dig was formally abandoned for having found nothing, I did something that I had never done up to that moment in time. I lost my temper. I lost my temper and stomped into the jungle in the most foul mood I had ever been in in my life!"

"This is all my fault. If I were my father he wouldn't bawl at me like that, simply because if I were my father I'd grab him by the scruff of the neck, haul up to be level with my eyes and roar at him "YOU EVER USE THAT TONE OF LANGUAGE WITH ME AGAIN, SIR, AND YOU MAY NOT LIVE TO SEE THE SUN RISE TOMORROW!" but I am not, I cannot, I dare not and...ooooh, I don't know what to do!"

As Henry slumped against a coconut tree, he slid to the ground and bawled his eyes out. The next thing he remembered was opening his eyes to a glorious sunrise having come to the conclusion that he must have cried himself to sleep and as he stood up, wiping his eyes, he turned around with the intention of sighing and saying to the island "Well, you have kept your secrets well, perhaps we will have more luck in Peru" when he stopped and realised what he was looking at. A destroyed, presumably by fire, yet clearly evidence of intelligence, tree house on a scale ever before seen. Dashing towards the ruins he gasped as he declared "No, it cannot be, but they are just a legend!"

"The ruins, gentlemen, were in the unmistakable design of the people of the legendary island of Mu"

"But sir, it cannot have been. That island is legend for a reason!"

"Ah" smiled Henry, "Peru was to prove us both wrong, sir!"

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Chapter Four

"We arrived in Peru a week later by boat, during which time I tried to convince the dig leader about my discovery. As we sighted Lima he could so fed up, he threw me overboard. Of course I couldn't resist him, but as I entered the water about a mile offshore, I found more proof and declared as I came to the surface "A metal sail, I have found a metal sail!"

"A metal sail, sir, that's impossible?"

"Which is the reaction the dig leader gave me and yet, the following day guess what was hauled out of the Pacific Ocean? A sail, just like any sail used on a ship from the time of the ancient Greeks, made entirely of metal. Within a day, the local press were wanting to know everything about it...and the dig leader tossed me aside" and with that Henry bowed his head, whimpered and said "Would you excuse me a moment, I...I need to recover"

The chairman nodded and as the gentlemen looked at the displays around them, Henry made his way to the toilets, entered one, sat on the toilet and started to sniff. It should have been the day that made him an archaeologist, he had found proof, physical proof that the island of Mu existed and yet he'd been pushed to one side and as such the books now said "The sail, found in the waters off Lima, Peru, were discovered in the middle of 1920 by the now knighted Professor James Worthy, head of history at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland" and nothing, not even Henry's powerful body could help him reclaim the find that was truly his.

About ten minutes later, Henry resumed his talk, apologising, to which the members entirely sympathised with explaining the legend of Mu.

"Mu was an island that almost filled in the gap between South America and Africa that flourished about fifty thousand years ago. As an example, they were enjoying things that we are only just understanding today. They were able to communicate using radio waves, just as we do, but were able to send pictures as well as sounds. They were able to work all day and all night thanks to electric lighting and they were more powerful than even the strongest man today, why, even their children could tote bales that not even a grown man could manage today, and they did this all thanks to the power of the sun. However, there was another civilisation in existence, Atlantis, and through an act of petty theft, the two civilisations were set on a collision course as the theft produced a counter theft, which produced a guerrilla attack, that produced a battle, that produced a war, that produced what I believe to be the largest explosion ever recorded on this earth. My estimates are that it was at least fifty times more violent than "the bang heard around the world" and condemned both empires to the seas. But the emperor of Mu had a vision and so some thousand years before the war, asked for 14,000 volunteers from their population of 50 million. Those volunteers, a thousand men and a thousand women, were told to go to the landmasses around Mu and if the worst happened to repopulate their civilisation to keep their history alive. Gentlemen, we are the descendants of Mu, and it is Mu that I have to thank for my powers today"

"But, how, sir? How did you become such a powerhouse?"

"Through idle curiosity, sir!"

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Chapter Five

"For the next six months I was determined to find more evidence of Mu and I will admit, gentlemen, it did strain things even more than usual. So much so that just outside the town of Nazca I was formally dismissed from the expedition and had to make my own way back to London. This was a thankless task because all of my money, all £1,000 of it, was tied up in the expedition and indeed if it had not been for the kindness of the local Peruvians I believe I would never have got back here, but as I travelled with them more and more evidence of Mu appeared. The most clear cut evidence came from the 16th century, specifically 1533, when the local tribal elders thanks to their record of verbal history, told me that that summer a number of strange things happened. First, a mighty condor, larger than any condor recorded ever before that seemed to be made out of gold was seen streaking through the skies in a rectangular shape from the town of Nazca to the beginnings of the Amazon jungle, so following that route I found myself at a mountain dubbed "The Mountain of Golden Sunshine", a name handed down from the same time period and it was whilst having a nose around that I found this lump of gold. Of course, then I couldn't pick it up let alone carry it, but it wasn't alone, there seemed to have been a lake next to this mountain that seemed to have experienced something akin to a volcanic eruption as it was full of lumps of gold just sticking out of the ground and yet next to them was the remains of a boat and two skeletons, preserved completely, that thanks to the metal on them I could date to 1533"

"Sir, were the find of the boat and the legends connected?"

"At the time I didn't know, but decided to explore this mountain and found the most bizarre thing I have ever seen in my life gentlemen. A shaft, a shaft that led straight down. I lit a flare and threw it down and waited for it to hit the bottom. Gentlemen, after a good two minutes, it did. Thanks to what we know about gravity that flare hit the bottom at 44 miles per hour indicating it had to be at least...610 metres deep!"

As the gathered audience gasped Henry added "Need I remind you gentlemen, that this shaft had to have been created at the same time, 1533, and that it wasn't until a century ago that a hole was drilled that breached nearly 550 metres. I had found yet more evidence of Mu, for there was no other option and so decided to find out where this volcanic eruption had occurred. Following the trail of destruction all those years ago, I found the answer and, if you will pardon the phrase from our American friends, I hope that you are all sitting down. For gentlemen, this lump of gold and the reason that I am the size I am now comes from the same fact. Gentlemen, I discovered El Dorado, the legendary mysterious city of gold!"

Every single audience member gasped in shock and looked at each other and then Henry and begged him to continue

"Allow me a cup of tea please, gentlemen" he smiled, "then I shall tell you what I found and how I came to be this size!"

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Chapter Six

As Henry put down his cup of tea he found his audience sitting on the edge of their seats, literally, prompting him to reply with a chuckle "Okay, gentlemen, you win" and with that began the tale.

"There was no other explanation, gentlemen, the sole remaining building standing had to be the former quarters of the High Priest, the person who looked after El Dorado, and knowing just how much archaeology had been lost in the eruption, I was determined to record as much as I could so entered expecting wonders and found myself in a room made of gold that was so polished I could see my reflection in them. As I paused to take in my, well there was no other word for it gentlemen, patheticness, I heard a voice and span around to be greeted by the impossible!"

"Henri de Ceredigion, I always knew you would come back one day. Is it me or have you lost some of that strength that we held in such regard?"

"Forgive me, sir, but you must be confusing me with someone else!"

"No, the High Priest of El Dorado never forgets a face, but it is nice to see the old de Ceredigion humour at work. Come on, Henri, you must recognise me!"

"Sir, my name is Henry Cardigan VII, Henri de Ceredigion was my ancestor who disappeared in 1650"

"Henri, disappeared? Was he killed?"

"No, sir, I mean that he, he was seen on December 31st 1649 by his tenants at his farm just outside Paris, the following day and every day after that he wasn't seen. He just disappeared off the face of the earth!"

"And you are his descendent?"

"The seventh to bear the name Henry Cardigan, sir!"

"Well, your face looks like him, but the rest of you. You look nothing like him!"

"I know, sir, I fear that I am the exception that proves the rule!"

"Well, we cannot have that. Oh, spirits of the people of Mu, I, the High Priest of the city of El Dorado, famed as the Mysterious City of Gold hail you and ask "May I?"

"For a few moments he seemed to mumble and then raised his head and declared "Henry Cardigan, step forward and receive your ancestral gift"

"Ancestral gift?" asked a member of the audience, "what ancestral gift?"

"As I moved forwards towards the High Priest, I found myself stuck to the spot and looking down could see that my shoes were embedded in two footprints that were so akin to my shoes that they matched without a single gap anywhere. Then the High Priest, this time calling on the god of the sun, pulled a lever and...well, the next thing I can remember I was outside the city and looked like this, except my clothes were all tattered. Shaking my head wondering what had happened, I wandered around the site for a couple of hours eventually succumbing to sleep and that night had the most incredible dream I had ever experienced, so strange was it that when I woke up I instantly wrote it down in my journal. Gentlemen, I have never told anyone this before" and with that Henry reached into his pocket and took out his journal and started to read

"Power. Oh my god, power, power like never before. I...I can feel myself growing taller. What is the sun god doing to me? Wait, I...I can hear him speaking? Yes, I am the descendent of Henri de Ceredigion, yes. You...you are giving me the gift that was so cruelly denied me at birth, you are giving me my family's strength and power all in one go. No, please, sir, I...power incarnate....please sir, no, I....strength greater than any man alive....I want to be Henry not....a powerhouse without equal in the world YES, YES, GOD OF THE SUN, GIVE ME THE POWER OF THE CARDIGAN FAMILY, GIVE IT TO ME, MAKE ME A CARDIGAN"

As the audience watched, they started to note that Henry was started to get very hot and bothered as he read the extract and as he continued to read, several of them gasped as Henry appeared to be growing taller again. As he recited the journal, declaring himself the most powerful man in the world, able to perform feats of strength that even that legend of the stage Eugene Sandow would have found impossible, his jacket started to bulge as did his trousers. Whatever had transformed him from the person in the picture to his current state was now giving him a second transformation and panicked, the meeting room emptied just as the power made Henry's jacket and trousers explode into shreds as he concluded the reading and as he stood there, naked, puffing and panting he said "It was clear, gentlemen, that somehow or another I...gentlemen, gentlemen, where are you?"

As Henry looked around, completely oblivious to his nakedness, he just shrugged his shoulders and called "Juan, I believe the meeting is over, is the Rolls ready, I would like to go home now?"

Juan, his trusted butler for the last year, a man from the South American plains, entered the room and smiled as he saw Henry, therefore as he closed the door he replied "Certainly, sir, however I believe that sir will need some new clothes from Savile Row in the morning, therefore may I measure you, sir?"

As Henry looked down, he gasped and as he looked up he was struck by Juan's appearance and declared "You, the High Priest of El Dorado"

The High Priest nodded with a smile and taking out a tape measure explained with pauses for his measurements.

"Yes, Henry, it is I, the High Priest. When your ancestor came back in 1645 and discovered the city as you found me, he knew that something terrible must have happened...9 feet tall...and therefore resolved that nothing should happen to any such treasure in the world ever again. His nobility was clear to see and therefore I promised him that if an descendent of his...99 inch chest, with 9 inch long nipples...were to ever find the temple that was my home again, he should have some kind of reward. That reward was his strength and power, multiplied by the generations. The problem was that when you received it, you passed out only having received half the power therefore I placed you outside the city fearing that you wouldn't withstand the rest...50 inch waist...however that last Henri appeared to me in a dream so I made an incantation stating that when you next read that dream to an audience the rest of the power would fill you and knew that from that moment I would have to be by your side so that when the moment came...40 inch upper arms...I would be there to guide you through the after effects...51 inch upper legs"

"After effects?" asked Henry as the High Priest replied "After effects....39 inch lower legs!"

As the High Priest stood up Henry's eyes suddenly opened wide and he moaned "Manhood, measure my manhood!"

"Twelve inches by eight inches, flaccid!"

As if in a trance Henry said, with a French accent, "Come, mon amis, come, tie me to a place where the power of the skies can flow through me and rub me, rub me as I become the man that the world said could never happen and witness the birth of the second Titan!"

"Of course, master" came the reply as the High Priest picked up the lump of gold, placed it in Henry's bag and placing it so that Henry's growing member was holding it as if it was a finger, led Henry towards the Rolls Royce parked outside and after letting Henry in chuckled to himself "Henri, you always said you could resist the powers of the sky, does that apply to artificial means?" and with that drove off towards Henry's home looking forward to the torture he would inflict on his powerful master, torture that would complete the prophecy of "The Power of the Frenchman"

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