1

I have just been released from the asylum where I have spent the last six years of my miserable existence, chained to the walls and raving as mad as the day they found me in those hills. I have since learned to play along and act as though I now believe it to have all been a hallucination, brought on by stress and exhaustion, and not the horror that I still so clearly remember. While I was interred, the wardens forbade me from relating the memory of my experience to anyone, especially the other inmates, lest I provoke a relapse in one of those patients. It was agony to not be able to express my thoughts, especially since it was a visceral trauma I was working through and not an imagined fantasy. Now in my freedom the nightmares have only increased, so at the recommendation of my corporealage I am taking the time to write out my experience in order to help my poor brain process the events which have so effectively ruined my psyche.

I have had little in the way of news these last six years, and so I do not know the outcome of that horrible mining disaster, or what happened to that miserable operation or its greedy owners. With luck the tragedy was the last of it, and it is no longer in production. After I complete this writing exercise, I shall take it upon myself to discover its fate, and perhaps go to such lengths as is required to bury forever the horrors within.

My story starts in Spring, six long years ago. I was working in the foothills of the Alsat Mountains as a geologist, conducting an extensive mineral testing at a large open-pit mine in the company of several other laborers. They were excavating the hills for deposits of giant’s teardrop—that large, peculiar metallic formation that is found in all the mountain ranges that encircle the Central Desert. I was responsible for cataloging and quantifying the ore bodies within the deposit, and then using the information I gathered to help estimate the location of future deposits within the hills. My work was highly specialized within the industry, and I was well compensated as a result.

Of all the seasons, Spring witnesses some of the most intense sandstorms throughout the Central Desert. Our stripmine, far on the western edge of the desert, was fairly near the Eeod Gap and generally safe from those foul sandstorms of the Snaaland Wastes to the boreal-east. That Spring, however, the storms moved further australward than usual and ended up blowing out our pit. The sand filled the trenches and crumbled the sidewalls, until there was hardly anything recognizable remaining of our many seasons of work. Needless to say, the company let us go with no pay. Those bastards back in Eeod couldn’t have cared less about us, cutting us loose the moment their operation turned unprofitable. The rest of the crew and I were in a tight bind, and so we resolved to head nearer to the Gap to find work in a mine free from the ravaging sandstorms. They looked to me as their leader, as I was the most senior member of the crew, even though I was not myself a laborer.

News from the city was fairly current while at the mine, but nothing had yet reached us there about a new mining claim that had been struck deep within the Alsats. This operation was in a dangerous shaft mine, which claimed to have discovered a lode of lightstone deposits. A general call to work had been issued, and the rush it generated flooded the labor pool with fresh backs willing to work for next to nothing to get a chance to mine the lucrative lightstone. Needless to say, every mine we visited was no longer hiring—even reducing the wages of their current employees in response to the glut of cheap labor. We were of different minds as to what we should do next. Some of us gave up and decided to head back through the Gap into Eeod to find work in the city of Gablehaven, since that’s where most of the young miners were coming from—they figured that’s where the jobs would be now. Myself as well as a few others disagreed, thinking the reason these youngsters were willing to travel into the desert and break their backs for meager pay was exactly because there were no jobs to be had in the city. I was especially keen on finding another mine, as my specialized skill set was ill-fitted for general labor in the city. The mineral deposits in Eeod have all been mined out centuries ago, and the agrarian community doesn’t often see the benefits of proper soil sampling. Presently, our party split up, and the few of us that remained resolved to grit our teeth and swallow our pride, and head into the mountains to take up working in the lightstone mine.

2

It took two days to travel there on foot. The old mining roads were fortunately scattered with roadhouses with enough accommodations to make our journey at least a bit bearable. Prices are always high at these establishments, unfortunately, and by the time we reached the mine, our pockets were quite empty. The pay I had managed to put away lay uselessly in a bank in Gablehaven, unreachable and effectively nonexistent in that miserable backcountry. There was now nothing to be done but work in the lightstone mine, as we could not afford our way back. The dirt road up to the mine was fairly crowded with young men, the naive glint of hopefulness in their eyes. As we rounded the last bend, the towering headframe of the mine came into view. I felt sorry for the poor lads being lowered deep underground by that shoddy wooden contraption. Saying a quick prayer to Carnissus for strength, I shook off my reservations and made my way toward the little shack near the stone deck that was serving as the hiring office.

The area was abuzz with activity—people could be seen all over the site, constructing new headframes and outbuildings, servicing cables and winches, and loading and hauling the sandstone tailings and processed stones, carried off in covered bins to prevent it from exposure to sunlight. As I made my way to the hiring office, I was disheartened at the size of the line stretching out the door, but it ended up moving fairly quickly and I made it into the building in good time. I gave the clerk my name and occupation, and I enquired about the contract mineralogy opportunities at this seemingly productive operation. I was dismayed at the response of the smirking clerk as she informed me there were no such jobs available, and that if I wished to work there, my only option was as a general laborer. Unable to afford to reject her offer, I begrudgingly accepted. I was given a number and my name was recorded in the ledger, and for less than half my previous wages I was directed to the charter master with my ticket to receive my work orders.

I was separated off from the large group of recruits with a few other older miners and introduced to our new overman, who had us follow him to the outfitter. Inside the outfitter’s I was given a skein of water and a pickaxe. No more gloves or helmets remained, though I fortunately had my own gloves from before. After I was outfitted I was led to the far side of the hoist house to a fresh pit being dug by hand. Our group was told we were to be part of the crew that was sinking a new shaft down into the ground. Of all the miserable luck, the worst job in the mine was to be mine! Sinking a shaft, as it’s called, involves being lowered deep into a vertical hole and chipping away at the floor in a spiral, then loading the schist into buckets to be lifted up and out of the shaft. It is the most dangerous work one can do in a mine, subject to collapsing shaft walls and falling stones. The temporary headframe and deck had already been fully constructed, implying this hole was already fairly deep. I shuddered to imagine the danger I was about to face, and started counting in my head the number of weeks I would need to work before I could afford to leave and find proper employment.

As we were lining up awaiting the tub to appear out of the hole to bring us down, the overman came up to me and handed me a helmet, saying the poor lad whose it was is no longer in need of it. As if I wasn’t already anxious to descend into the abyss, this set off my nerves something terrible, to the point where I was nearly shaking when I finally entered that tub and started my descent into that yawning chasm. I muttered the Rites of Protection the whole way down, and though I didn’t have any sort of offering for Carnissus, I pleaded and bargained with him within my head for deliverance from this awful fate.

Life was hard for several days—I was very unaccustomed to the labor required to sink a shaft. I had never even been inside a shaft mine before, all my previous sampling work taking place above ground after the tailings had been unloaded. An interesting feature of a lightstone mine that I hadn’t put together before is that there is never a single shade of darkness within it. Lightstone refracts and seemingly amplifies nearly all light that touches it, projecting a brilliant glow in all directions. All one needs is a single cetuswax candle, and the host of lightstones will take care of all shadow. Even more lustrous are the cut lightstone gems, which sparkle a rainbow of glinting light. Though we only had roughly cut, freshly-hewn stones at our disposal, the glow was nevertheless magnificent and almost too bright for our poor eyes.

I became very close with my fellow hewers, with nothing for us to do all day but sing and jape with each other while breaking our backs spiraling ever downward. The shaft sank at a snail’s pace, but we eventually made it to our leveling-out mark and so began the process of constructing the subterranean shaft station in preparation for mining out the lode. It was refreshing, working in a different capacity than I had been the last several days, although the labor was just as grueling. My hands, not used to such constant work, were by now covered in seeping blisters that stung inside my gloves. Once the shaft station was completed and equipped, we were ready to begin the extraction process. We were to use a room-and-pillar method of extracting the ore, and once we started we were told that the tub was going to be reserved exclusively for stones so we would be bunking in the shaft station. The crew and I were taken aback at this new information, especially since we weren’t given any notice before being shut in below ground. A deputy overman was assigned to watch us down below, and he proved to be a ruthless taskmaster. He was quite tall with long, sharp facial features, and his hair shone silver in the lightstones’ glow. He worked us at all hours, and to this day I still don’t know when he caught any sleep. Day and night blended together in that shining prison, while we labored on in our confinement.

The lightstone lanterns we had were all traded out for ones with thick glass casings. These weren’t nearly as bright, but we had plenty of them and so it didn’t seem to matter. The standard lightstone lantern is an ancient invention that is still very relevant within the mining industry today. The lantern is made of a small wooden base with a metal dish upon it, with gem fasteners held above and slightly to the side of the dish by thin metal rods. A cut lightstone can then be inserted into the fasteners, allowing the stone to be suspended a few inches away from the metal dish. The cut lightstone will reflect and amplify any light that touches it, creating a beautiful rainbow-tinted glow. A small cetuswax candle can be placed in the metal dish if there are no other light sources around, or if the available light is not bright enough for the lightstone to amplify effectively. Now, for some reason, we were being made to use a style of encased lanterns I had never seen before, their intended purpose unknown to me at the time.

Another curious thing was the lack of lightstone in the rock we were extracting. All the lightstone from our lamps were the milky cast-offs from the other mine, presumably in full and free operation. It was strange and upsetting how we were kept apart from the other miners in our small crew of eleven, working a level that had no ore. The deputy overman was seemingly impatient for some sort of breakthrough and kept us hewing ever harder. Once or twice a miner would reach a breaking point and confront the deputy, but would always be promptly put back in place. The deputy possessed a physicality that impressed me completely, especially owing to his tall, lanky physique. We quickly realized the reason this individual was sent down to drive us: he was unmatched by any of us in bodily strength.

Further and further into that mountain’s core we dug, ever chipping away at the stone until eventually we came across a strange vein in the walls. The stone appeared warped and wrinkled, and reflected dark green in the glow of the lightstone lanterns. The deputy was thrilled at our discovery, and ordered us away from the wall while he inspected it himself. All hewing was ceased for the hour, and the deputy scribbled a message and sent it up with the tub, after which he went back to inspecting the new ore. He brushed his hands over the green stone with his eyes closed, and in general was acting quite strangely toward the discovery. We all sat idly on our makeshift bunks, enjoying our respite but not knowing when we would be resuming our labors, or what other implications this new rock brought us. As I sat waiting, a strange feeling came over me, a very unsettling feeling, like an invasion of worry into my mood.

Quite soon after the tub was sent up, it returned, and for the first time in days it was not lowered empty. It was full of more tall, silver-haired men, all dressed in black and grinning greedily as they stepped out of the tub. The deputy overman, whose name I never did learn, came up to them and started speaking in a strange language I couldn’t place. He gestured toward the wall, and they all hurried over to examine it. They all put their hands upon it and then all smiled the same sickening smile, looking from one to another silently, as though they were all in on one big scheme. All at once they looked over at us, then started approaching us where we sat. The deputy overman instructed us to grab our picks and checked we were all wearing gloves, then put us to task hewing exclusively upon the greenish wall. All the lightstone lanterns were removed to one side of the room, still casting enough light upon our work but oddly sequestered well out of our way. The silver-haired men posted up around the operation, with at least one pair of eyes monitoring everything we were doing. Two of them rode the tub up and down the shaft each lift, and the deputy was seemingly everywhere, inspecting our piles and keeping a tight control over every piece of stone we chipped off that wall.

Our time in that fetid chamber grew more tiresome by the hour. Those ghastly slave drivers worked us to the bone around the dial, with hardly enough food or sleep to function properly. We were kept at the wall for days, and the vein we were mining into grew wider and wider until all eleven of us were standing well apart from each other as we chipped away. The lightstone lanterns were never moved any closer, no matter how far into the rock we dug. One miner, on his way back from the piss jug, walked over to grab a lantern to carry back with him. He was instantly met with shouts of chastisement and then struck with a length of spare cable one of the silver-hairs had been carrying. He was then shoved back to his spot on the wall and made to keep hewing. In the dim light I could see the split in his shirt, slowly reddening down his back.

I have no concept of the length of time we were forced into laboring in that foul stone prison. At first I was furious, wanting nothing more than to drive my pickaxe into the skulls of my captors and ride the wooden tub to freedom. After several altercations with those overmen, however, I started to fear for my very life in that ever-dimming hole. Their strength compared to ours was astonishing, and the finality of their punishments were as cold as they were brutal. All that could be done to escape their ire was to face the wall, hewing for hours until they deigned you could eat or sleep. The only chance we miners had was to all rush the silver-hairs at once—since we usually outnumbered them two-to-one it would have been easy. However, we never had a chance to do so because they kept us apart except for on the wall, and there was no opportunity there to speak to one another and plan our mutiny.

One of our number collapsed at the wall from exhaustion. He was berated and whipped as our slave drivers demanded him to pick up his pickaxe and resume his work. He flatly refused, and without any circumstance the deputy overman grabbed the man’s pick and drove it straight through his heart, killing him instantly. The rest of us looked at each other and quickly resumed work as the slumped body of our comrade was dragged away and tossed into the tub. Was that to be my future? My only exit from this hell was in death, it seemed, and now that it had been made abundantly clear, the thought of dying started seeming sweeter and sweeter. My thoughts now started to consider how to effect the most casualties upon our captors before I was surely slain. I ran through my plan again and again, taking pleasure in the thought of driving my pick into each and every one of those vile goons in varying, gruesome ways.

The silver-hairs seemed to grow wise of my thoughts, presumably seeing the hatred all over my face, and so confiscated my pickaxe and reduced me to hauling everyone else’s piles of stones. I don’t know if I had it worse or if my companions did in this situation—hauling the greenish ore and loading the tub was a small window of rest from hewing, and now that I was doing it all, they had no chance to pause and stretch their legs. I could see our situation was starting to deteriorate and there would be fewer chances for me to cause a riot the longer we remained, all of us growing weaker by the day.

3

While loading the tub one day—or night, who knows—I happened to get a particularly dense clump of the warped green stone caught within my glove. I felt compelled to pull it out in order to inspect the curious stone—I had originally assumed it to be some sort of cyclosilicate, perhaps even related to tourmaline, but after spending countless hours loading it into the tub, I became convinced it was some sort of metallic mineral due to its highly reflective luster and opaque diaphaneity. Though I was very eager to analyze the stone, I feared a lashing for touching it, and so I continued loading the tub until I could find an opportunity to remove the intruder and inspect it in secret. The piece of ore felt strangely cold compared to the sweltering heat of the mine, and as my mind lingered on the lump in my glove, I could feel my thoughts widen, as though my mind was opening up to touch all the others around me. Most startlingly, I heard the silver-hairs, normally completely silent, all chatting aloud to each other in their native tongue, sounding jovial and light-hearted in their conversations. Looking around at each of them, their expressions were as closeted and stony as they had been the whole time, and their mouths weren’t moving at all. I then started to recognize that my ears were hearing the constant ringing of the others’ pickaxes, but it was within my very mind that the voices were being heard. Not wanting to give myself away, I kept on with my work while leaving the stone in my glove, all while silently listening to the silver-hairs as they talked amongst themselves.

I was unable to hear the thoughts of my fellow miners, but I was sure that this substance was the reason that my captors knew of my pickaxe plot and stuck me on tub duty. I did my best to keep my thoughts controlled so as not to give away my new knowledge. I began to test my theory, silently exclaiming things in my head. I noticed the slight reactions in the body language of those stoic taskmasters, but more tellingly I would hear them react through their thoughts, sometimes even repeating my exclamations back to each other in my own language. Once I was sure of the relationship between the stone and the thought-reading ability of the silver-hairs, I spent my time carefully concocting a plan to thwart the mining operation. In my plotting, I must confess, I did not make any considerations toward saving the lives of my companions, having already accepted that we were all fated to work until we died or were killed. The plan I crafted was simple: cause a bit of mayhem, and then yell for my comrades to join me in the attack until either only we or only they remained alive. They were stronger, but we had picks and we outnumbered them.

I do not know how long it had been when I finally put my plan into action. My confidence had been steadily growing, aided I think by the small cold stone in my glove. The worry I had felt the moment we struck that vein of warped green rock had all but vanished, and now I was feeling compelled to act. The first step was a mind game; giving the overmen a false thought and letting them react upon it. I singled out one of our number, one who I felt was the strongest and most likely to be able to resist the overmen long enough for my plan to work. I focused my thoughts on an imagined communication between him and myself, involving him being about to attack the overmen with his pickaxe. Sure enough, all of the silver-hairs ran over to the wall, seizing his pick and throwing him to the ground. The rest of our crew watched this happen, forming a semicircle around the commotion. I saw my opportunity and sprang into action. I ran over to the collection of lightstone lanterns and grabbed them all in my hands. I threw them toward the distracted overmen, shouting “now’s our chance!” The lanterns smashed on the ground, the glass splintering across the rocky floor as the lightstones themselves scattered across the ground. The cetuswax candles flickered out, and the cavern was plunged into total darkness.

The miners all leapt at the opportunity to exact revenge upon their harsh masters. Riotous yells gave way to clangs and smashing as the hewers to a man began fumbling through the inky blackness for their targets. The overmen were outwardly silent to keep from giving away their positions in the dark, but inwardly I heard profound panic in their thoughts. They began furiously fumbling across the mine floor, groping in vain for something specific. Their thoughts were a cacophony of terror, and curiously paid the marauding miners little attention as they crawled around in their blind search. One of the silver-hairs, I think it must have been the deputy overman, finally shouted at us through the darkness in our own tongue: “Find the lightstones! For the love of Carnissus, don’t let them touch the vormite!”

The call fell on deaf ears, and as he finished his plea he was struck with a pick and his thoughts fell silent. I suppose it didn’t help that none of us knew what he meant by “vormite” at that time, and even if we had, we most certainly would not have cared. Though it would have been wise for us to have heeded the overman’s words, our thirst for vengeance was too strong to have been swayed. In the ensuing melee, the miners’ careless shuffling kicked up the debris from the ground. Among this rubble were the lightstones, loose and freed from their smashed lanterns. The lightstones must have come in contact with the chipped hewings of the warped, green stone—vormite, as it were—and all at once there was an intense, bright explosion of enormous concussive force. The blast threw me backward from where I was standing, almost all the way across the hollowed-out room to the bunks. In the flash I could see a spray of glittering fragments, sparkling like rainbow fire as they clattered across the mine. A few whole lightstones, unmolested by the blast yet propelled backward like myself, shone like miniature suns as they streaked across the mine. I saw one stone skip across the floor toward the mineshaft and the overturned tub of vormite. My heart skipped a beat as I pushed myself up to standing and turned to run from the shaft. I jumped behind a pillar just as a second blast lit up the mine once more, sending another wave of brilliant shards in every direction. This second blast was less concussive, presumably because the force of the blast was able to find its way up the mineshaft and release most of its energy upward away from the floor. This, however, produced the added effect of rattling loose the shaft collar, causing it to crumble down into the shaft station, effectively sealing us in our own tomb.

4

My ears were ringing in the now complete silence. I laid on my stomach for several minutes, firstly in unbearable physical agony, and then soon afterward in a constricting horror at being sealed under the ground. Death, once a longed-for escape from the misery of my enslavement, was now a looming terror in the nightmarish darkness.

I willed myself to sit up, and it was then that I realized I could not hear any of the thoughts of the silver-hairs anymore. I could hear nothing at all save for the ringing in my ears, screamingly painful in the dead silence of the collapsed mine. I called out in the darkness for anyone, but I received no response. I slumped against the pillar which had surely saved my life, though which had also robbed me of a quick death and now cursed me into a long, slow, miserable march toward starvation. A wave of sadness and self-pity washed over me as I choked on my tears. I had no reason to pretend I was strong and so let myself wail into the silence. The tears were cathartic, and eventually I felt refreshed, and oddly at peace with my situation.

By now my eyes had adjusted and I could barely make out some thin points of light from around the rubble. One point was fairly close to me, and so I worked up the strength to get on my hands and knees and crawl over loose stones toward it. I saw that it was a milky lightstone, softly reflecting a subtle greenish glow. Looking around, I noticed a couple more greenish pinpoints of light, which I presumed were other lightstones that hadn’t been destroyed by the vormite explosions. I was instantly struck by a profound fear upon realizing the ingredients for another such blast were all sitting at my feet. I carefully pocketed the lump of vormite from my glove, then picked up the faint lightstone and held it up, hoping to use the meager glow to look around the rubble. There were stones strewn about everywhere, as well as shards of timber beams from the shaft station and bunks. Pieces of equipment and rope laid asunder, and within it all were the sickeningly twisted remains of countless unidentifiable bodies. As soon as I saw the pieces of bone and flesh the foul smell hit me, and I almost vomited where I stood at the thought of those mangled corpses all around.

After regaining my composure, I had the realization that the lightstone I was holding must be reflecting light from an outside source since all the candles had gone out. I poked around the base of the shaft, being careful to avoid the other lightstones lest I kick an errant piece of vormite in their direction. Upon close inspection, I could find no light source coming from the shaft; indeed, no opening of any kind could be seen, and I was once again plunged into despair at the confirmation of my entombment.

I continued my careful search for the source of light. Stepping over piles of rubble and bodies, I made my way slowly to the back of the cavern near to the vormite vein and our late hewing line. The carnage was the worst there, taking the full brunt of the first explosion which brought down much of the ceiling upon those poor, helpless miners (and fully-deserving overmen). I noticed the glow of my lightstone growing in strength, and became heartened in my search. Stepping further back, it became apparent that a whole side of the wall had been blown out and had crumbled into a small chamber which lay behind it. I carefully stepped over the rocky piles toward the opened chamber, noticing as I did the conspicuous wavy-green vormite stones on the ground and in the walls, and so held my lightstone tight within both hands. As I stepped through the hole in the wall, my stone started shining an even brighter shade of bluish-green, and I let out an involuntary gasp at what I saw before me. The chamber I was now in was cleanly hewn from the rock, with straightly-cut walls, ceiling, and floor. It was about twice my height and twice again in width, and seemed to continue deep into the mountain for a considerable distance. The floor was caked in a thick, even layer of dust, save for where the crumbling wall had fallen into the opening, and the chamber walls, though impressively straight-cut, displayed several cracks along the strata of the stone, betraying a geologic settling that suggested the chamber was profoundly ancient. A faint, eerie green light shone within the room. I noticed a small point of light further in, and having nothing else in the entire world to do, I followed the point of light into the chamber.

I came upon a standing brazier in the middle of the room, with a large, elegantly cut lightstone in the center of a raised dish. It was glowing a beautiful shade of bluish-green, flickering slightly in the cleanly-cut chamber. I looked further on toward the other end of the room, and I could make out a large opening in the far wall, with another greenish pinpoint of light in the distance. I was gripped by a curiosity that pulled stronger than my aching body, and so I continued on toward the next point of light. I followed the glow toward the end of the chamber I was in to a gaping threshold cut from the rock wall. Beyond the doorway I could see a larger chamber, with another standing brazier in the middle, glowing much brighter than the one I had just passed. Shuffling through ages of dust, I entered the new room and gawked around. The ceiling was at least twice as high as the previous one, and the room was cut in an octagonal shape, with large doorways cut into each wall much like the one I had just stepped through. My lightstone was now shining fairly brightly, reflecting this new light source, and I noticed through each doorway there was a dim greenish light just like in the room from which I had just come. I marveled at the straightness of the cuts into the walls, and wondered to myself who the miners must have been who knew how to make such clean lines and corners into solid rock.

While gazing around admiring the workmanship of the place, I noticed one chamber in particular which was emitting a much brighter light than the rest. I walked over to the threshold and looked inside. The light from this room was bright enough that I pocketed my own lightstone and navigated from the light of the hanging braziers alone. This chamber was an enormous hollow cylinder extending high up above and descending deep into the ground. I entered the chamber onto a platform that connected to stairs that wound around the outside of the cylindrical room, climbing up from my right, and continuing in a downward spiral to my left. Looking up I could see a ceiling with approximately three other levels of platforms above my own, but peering down into the abyss, I could not make out a bottom. The lights seemed to glow stronger the further down into the cylinder they hung, and so eschewing all sense of hesitation, I continued my exploration of that strange collection of chambers and promptly started to my left and descended the stone steps into the abyss.

I wound around that massive stairwell, carefully keeping to the wall since no rail stood between me and the open air. As I made my way down, I crossed over several other platforms like the one I had started from, and I could see within each threshold a similar collection of chambers to the one in which I entered this strange mine, although the further I descended, the more ornate and finished each collection of chambers appeared, as though whoever was carving and decorating each room had been working their way up from below. As the carvings became more intricate, I started making out peculiar hieroglyphs and strings of letters, although in an alphabet I could not recognize. Most languages in the world are branches of the Meringian, Plallish, or Tzaigonian language families and use their respective alphabets. This was something utterly unfamiliar to me, and try as I might to decipher the glyphs, I couldn’t understand a single image.

In the more completed chambers, there were incredible carved images out of the stone walls, beautiful bas-reliefs of natural scenes and animals and plants. There was a noticeable difference in the display of the life in the depictions, however, as there were several species displayed that are known to have gone extinct within the past few thousand years, and other creatures and plants which looked similar to those found in the wild, but were depicted with uncanny differences in their forms, more prehistoric in shape. These images were consistent within the many rooms I passed through, and I was becoming on edge as to the implication of the artwork therein. It should have followed in my brain that the same peculiar artistic mode would carry over into the people depicted, but I was wholly unprepared for the images that met my eye in one of those cursed chambers.

The most unsettling depictions of people that I could ever imagine stood carved out of the stone wall I now faced. Their faces were elongated with tall foreheads and strange, large eyes that slanted downward almost like a cat’s. Those with open mouths displayed rows of thin, needley teeth, and their ears appeared pointed at the top and bottom when not obscured by their long, straight hair. They stood tall and thin like skeletons wrapped in skin, and they were mostly dressed in long flowing robes that covered their feet. Very seldomly were these individuals shown with robes not fully obscuring their long bodies, and the suggestions of the anatomy hidden within startled me beyond all comfort.

The tall cat-eyed individuals were shown amongst a much shorter population of people, with similar-looking proportions but much more human features. These people had long hair and tall but not unusual foreheads, and they too dressed in robes. This collection of individuals seemed to be occupied with yet another population of people, this one much shorter again, and the most humanlike of the bunch. This population was seemingly the labor of whatever society was being imagined on these walls, with the middle-height people depicted as ruthless slave-drivers to the poor small humans. I felt sorry for the humans in the carvings, and found myself instinctively hating the larger individuals, the memory and physical pain of my own enslavement still very fresh in my mind. A hint of recognition flashed through my mind as I looked at the images of those middle-height slave drivers and thought I imagined some similarities with the overmen who until recently were my own masters. I shook away the thought immediately, and continued on down the hall to another set of reliefs.

These strange, tall people were shown engaged in all manner of activities, some recognizable, but mostly they were shown manipulating strange machines. Looking closely at some of the images, I could make out some of the purposes of the peculiar mechanisms. One seemed to be engaged in the process of harvesting a crop of grains, and another was clearly shown hollowing out a tunnel in the ground, leaving a trail of markings behind. My skin flashed cold in the warm cavern as recognition filled my brain. I stepped back from the wall and looked around at the room I was standing in, a long hallway cut with the same clean lines as I had admired before. There in the corners where the walls met the floor and ceiling were the very same track marks that appeared in the stone relief! The image on the wall wasn’t just a fantastical depiction, but a self-portrait of those creatures that mined the very hall I was standing in! I choked on my breath and glanced around quickly. I was now hyper-aware of how exposed I was in the mines of these horrific-looking people, as well as how clearly my own tracks had been laid all over their chambers. I hadn’t seen any evidence that the mines were at all still inhabited, yet I resolved to move along more cautiously from then on just as a precaution.

I left the hall back through the threshold into the cylindrical stairwell and continued my descent toward brighter light. After a few more rotations I finally hit the floor of the stairwell and was presented with several large doorways from which to choose. Once again there was one which was considerably brighter than the rest, so I crept carefully across the floor and then peered inside. There was no sign of habitation so I quietly slipped through the massive threshold into a grand, ornate room. The walls and ceiling of this room were filled with carvings and mosaics, even the floor was decorated in colorful stone tiles that peeked out from under the dust as I walked. Large metallic chandeliers hung from the ceiling, strung with cut lightstones that filled the massive chamber with glinting rainbow light. Gold-burnished carvings of the tall-foreheaded miners lined the walls, all facing toward the middle of one wall. There on a raised platform, cloaked in gold and precious stones, stood thirteen statues of even greater height than the miners, and even more alien-looking in their appearances. Each statue seemed to have its own unique physical features, and I took these to be representations of the deities of this culture. I marveled at the craftsmanship, gleaming in the light. I looked upon each strange face in the pantheon; some looked benevolent, some even sad, and others devious or just plain evil. One in particular caught my eye, one that I seemed to recognize from somewhere. I couldn’t place the face, until I thought to cover the tall forehead and ears with my hands. I gasped aloud as the image became recognizable to me—this statue’s face was identical to the depictions of Carnissus on the Great Temple in Plaam! Those images always feature a tall miter upon his head coming down over his forehead and ears. This ancient race appeared to include our own god in their pantheon, and gave him features similar to their own. My mind was rolling with questions—did our own civilization appropriate this image long ago and turn it into our own deity? If so, is Carnissus even real, or even the only god in existence? What happened to all the other deities over time, and why did Carnissus last through the ages and find his way into Merengian religious traditions?

I was in a fog. Here in front of me was the god I had worshiped my whole life, now standing among peers. Who were the other deities? Were they real and just forgotten? I looked around at each one individually. The ornateness and glow from their golden vestures gave me the feeling I was in a holy presence. I made a point to admire each image and individually offer a prayer to each one, just in case. I noticed each deity seemed to have a theme or its own purpose—one for animals, one for food, one for the weather, etc. One in particular caught my attention. The entire scene was displayed around a golden throne, with six deities standing on either side. Interestingly, the throne was left empty and a crown sat upon the dias, unworn. Underneath the throne, I now noticed, depicted in chains, was the thirteenth deity, sealed in a prison of stone. A tormented look was on the face of this god, with a few of the other deities seemingly gleeful at the imprisonment, Carnissus included. I studied this carving as I absentmindedly played with the vormite and lightstone in my two front pockets, and the more I looked upon the face of this trapped deity, the more I felt sorry for it, and I seemed to be drawn to it somehow.

The eyes of the giant statue were inset with beautiful purplish stones that shimmered in the rainbow light. The way they were cut made it appear as though they were looking straight at me no matter which way I turned. I drew nearer to the statue, which was right at my own height from being depicted on its side in its prison. I was enamored by the purplish stones, and as I stood there admiring the craftsmanship, I reached out and touched one.

5

I woke up on the floor. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious, but I was in the same place I had been before I passed out and seemingly no harm had come to me while I slept. I didn’t initially recall dreaming anything upon waking, but after brushing myself off and remembering what I had been doing before I lost consciousness, the visions started creeping back into my brain.

I began to remember bits and pieces at first, mostly feelings—anger, torment, loneliness, madness, rage. Something or someone was furious and desired wrathful vengeance. It was a very strange and unsettling dream, which I attributed to the strange wonders I had been gazing upon, and I tried to put it out of my mind.

As I stood there admiring the beautiful artwork and intricate stone carvings, I perceived the brilliant light, which once so radiantly flooded through the chamber, was now starting to wane, slowly but noticeably. My first thought was that the source of the light must clearly be reflected daylight, and my initial inkling—that I would find an exit if I were to follow the lightstones—was correct and I was on the right path. Very soon after, I was filled with the realization that if this light’s only source was the Bright Sun, it would eventually get dark once night arrived. I had no idea how long I had been walking down in those cavernous hallways, much less any concept of the time of day I started my explorations, and so I resolved to quicken my pace lest I be caught in that subterranean maze come nightfall.

I moved along the wall admiring more of the stone reliefs, making my way toward the doorway at the far end where the light was streaming in very particularly in a beam that hit the chandeliers exactly. Every now and again I would get another sharp memory of the dream I had, now more visual than just raw emotion. I kept seeing those strange, cat-like eyes, purple and unblinking as they stared into my mind. The vision grew stronger and stronger until I was unable to focus on the other stone images I was admiring and so I made my way quickly toward the doorway in an attempt to leave the statues and the vision behind.

What I saw next made me stop dead in my tracks. Indeed, I forgot all about the statues or my dream for the time being, for as I stepped through that doorway into the next room I was met with a sight so terrifying that I started involuntarily shaking and had to hold myself up against the wall to prevent my knees from collapsing underneath me. I had entered a long hallway that ran lengthwise between the doorway I had just exited and the next threshold in front of me. There in the middle of the hallway, only a few yards ahead, laid a noticeable streak through the dust, particularly large and regular as though disturbed by some sort of creature slinking through the ageless caverns. There was a fresh layer of dust upon the trail, which suggested it was made some time ago, but the implication of the existence of some other being down there with me shook me to my core and colored my thoughts from then on.

I was in a daze as I finally crossed the path of that unknown plodder. I passed over the trail, noticing the peculiar foot-shapes in the dust, small and circular, and far too numerous. I refused to envision what sort of creature made such markings as I hurried across the hallway into the opposing doorway. When I entered the next chamber I was met with a sight so strange and alien that I couldn’t even make out what I was seeing. I will try my best to remember and to describe it in detail, although my words will hardly do justice to the bizarre scene that now lay before me.

I found myself in an enormous circular room with a domed ceiling. The walls were decorated with a much more utilitarian design than before, with angular metal lines and beams that stuck out of the walls in seemingly random ways. Some of these beams had openings in the sides or ends and revealed a hollowness that was enclosed with metal grates. Shiny paneling was inlaid into the stone walls in different places, with peculiar assortments of bumps and protrusions. The unreadable language was imprinted in miniscule type all over these panels, but for what purpose I could not tell.

The most striking feature of this room was a colossal mechanical structure in the very center, sitting upon a raised stone platform and humming quietly. This gigantic mechanism had tubes and beams similar to those on the walls, but more robust-looking, and they led out from the bottom of the structure straight into the stone floor. The midsection of the strange contraption was wrapped in a shiny coppery substance, highly reflective and without much character. The top of the mechanism was the most interesting—it had all sorts of metal, glass, and stone objects connected to it, some interconnected, some standing alone. Some of the objects moved or spun slowly, and a couple of them glowed in the light.

A dark reddish metal pole ran from the top of the structure to the far side of the room. This was where all the light in the whole cavern was coming from, and looking closer I noticed an opening high up in the wall, about the size of a barn door, from which light was brilliantly streaming. A metal ladder hung down from the opening to the floor of the room, and figuring that opening was my way out, I walked over with the intention of climbing the ladder and entering the opening. As I rounded the large structure and neared the far wall, it became clear that the ladder I had observed from a distance was actually much larger than I first thought. A chill ran up my spine at this fresh evidence of the existence of those large cat-eyed people from the carvings. I did my best to scale the ladder, having to stretch almost my full arm span to reach each new rung.

Once at the top, I pulled myself up onto the floor of the opening and sat for a moment to catch my breath. From here I could see down into the middle of that enormous mechanical structure—it appeared even more bizarre than observing it from below. Five large stones sat within the belly of the contraption, each halfway encased in the same reddish metal as the pole that connected the mechanism to the room from which I was now looking out. I followed the metal pole with my eyes as it ran from the top of the structure to my vantage point, and I now noticed it terminated at a stone slab of a table with more of the peculiar metal paneling upon it. I stood up and walked over to the slab to inspect it closer. I blew away the dust and observed the metal panel, upon which were five small stones, identical to the ones I had seen inside the giant mechanism below. The stones were arranged in a line, with the rightmost two and leftmost two each upon a metal disc that could rotate with a handle in their middles. The middlemost stone was in the center of its own metal disc, which had tapering ends that extended out to the left and right toward the stones on either side. On closer inspection, the rotating discs incased their stones in such a way that the metal around each stone did not touch the other, so that only one stone per disc could ever be connected to the central stone at any time.

The reddish metal surrounding all of the stones I recognized as some sort of alloy of giant’s teardrop. Additionally, I recognized the two stones from the left rotating disc as the very two stones I had in my pockets: a warped green vormite stone, and a radiant lightstone shining blindingly bright in the lighted room. The other three stones I could not recognize, but the central stone was the same purplish stone as the eyes in the statue of the deity I touched a few rooms back. The other two were a semi-translucent amber-colored stone, and a silvery one with a very prominent acicularity.

I stared at the panel wondering as to its purpose in that bizarre, mechanical room. I absent-mindedly played with the stones in my pockets, and as I did, I had a flashback of the dream I had in the chamber of statues. I saw the purple eyes in my mind as clear as if I was seeing them with my own, only this time the eyes weren’t made of stones. I watched them looking me over as though sizing me up, then suddenly right into my own eyes. I was so startled I yelped aloud, and as my echo faded throughout the cavern I heard a strange clunking, as if something metal had hit the stone floor several rooms away. I panicked and turned to flee down the hallway which now had a faint reddish glow. As I did, I heard—or rather, felt within my mind—my name being called.

I stopped short. I felt compelled to turn back around and face the panel with the five inlaid stones. I felt my name being called again, and as I looked upon the panel, I could see clearly into those purple eyes in my mind. There was a hint of sadness in them, but also expectation. I felt connected to the eyes, and I was somehow sure they were associated with the central deity I had seen before.

Light was fading in the chamber, although the lightstone in the panel still shone too brightly to stare at. As I examined that paneled stone table once more, I was pulled out of my daze by that same metallic clunking noise, now sounding much closer than before. It clicked and scraped along the stone floors, a ghastly suggestion of several sets of feet, growing steadily louder as it made its way from hall to hall toward my location. A cold sweat covered my body as I recalled those terrible, fresh marks in the dust, but as frightened as I was I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and run. Those purple eyes were still burning into my mind, and whoever they belonged to was fighting me for control over my body.

I felt compelled to reach out to the handle in the middle of the leftmost disc. I grabbed onto it with both hands and turned. It was fairly stiff but I could move it without too much trouble. I spun the handle slowly, and when the disc was nearly perpendicular to the other ones, the gap in the metal released its contact with the central disc and I heard a faint click as the mammoth mechanical structure in the center of the domed chamber stopped humming and went dim. As I spun the disc further there was another click, and the mechanism hummed back to life, this time at a deeper pitch, and it glowed a different color, more of a sickly purple than the deep red from before. As the mechanism switched into this new configuration, with the vormite stone and lightstone having switched places on the panel, the curious artifacts on top of it started spinning and moving much faster than before.

It was not long after that the creeping metallic footsteps started quickening in pace, and a panic filled me once more. I was able to will myself into letting go of the handle of the disc, but still could not bring myself to turn and run down the hall toward my presumed exit. The beam of light coming down that hallway was becoming dimmer still, and I was terrified to think of what would happen should I lose my lighted path toward salvation.

Once more I felt my hands reaching out toward the panel on their own, this time toward the rightmost disc. I involuntarily grabbed its handle and my hands started turning the disc as I had before. The same clicking occurred around the perpendicular position, with the mechanism growing dim again, but this time when the disc was rotated around into its new position, switching the amber-colored stone with the spiky silver one, the enormous structure roared back to life in spectacular fashion. It glowed a brilliant green from within, and the devices on top were excited into rapid movement, sounding a whistling and whirring that echoed through the dim chamber.

It was at this moment that the ominous metallic clunking, ever nearing, seemed to scuttle into what I only could think of as a gallop. There were additional scraping sounds now that it was closer, and it was all I could do to let go of the disc handle and will myself to step back away from the panel. As I fought for control of my legs, I heard the clunking thing enter the doorway at the far side of the chamber below. It had entered the room on the far side of the large mechanical structure and so I could not see it, and fortunately it could not see me, if indeed it could see.

It seemed to come to a halt, not knowing my exact whereabouts, and as I listened through the hum of the whirring mechanisms, I could hear a faint scraping, as thought whatever was on the other side of the room was slowly inching around to try and sense me somehow.

The faint glow from the lightstone in the panel was reflecting a blood red color around the room, and over the green light shining upward from the large structure, the reddish light was having trouble piercing the dark corners of the chamber. I stared into the darkness, and as I did I saw a large metal leg reach out from behind the mechanism. More of a pointed stilt than a leg, and grotesquely jointed and angular, it filled me with a horrific revulsion. It took another step and several more legs came into view, just as unnatural and horrifying as the first. I gasped aloud in spite of myself, and the legs stopped still.

The last rays of reddish evening light flickered out of the lightstone, and the chamber—save for the inside of the large glowing structure—went completely dark. The metallic being, whatever it was, sprang into action and started scuttling unseen toward the ladder at the base of my platform! I was released from whatever mental block I had and my feet stumbled over themselves as I turned and raced back into the now-darkened hallway from where the light shone so recently. I pulled out my lightstone to try to shed any hint of light on my path but it was too dim—the stone only offered a faint greenish glow, not enough light to see by. As I fumblingly ran through the dark hallway, I heard behind me a terrible creaking, and as I looked over my shoulder I saw the dark silhouette of that horrifying metal terror cresting the last rung into the hall after me, with at least a dozen clanking legs and an abominably-shaped middle with queer appendages flailing and gnashing as it quickly made its way down the hall toward me.

I stumbled blindly, falling on my face and dropping my lightstone. With no time to retrieve it, I got up again to run, and only took a few steps before a mad idea slipped into my mind. Looking behind me, I could see the metallic creature hurrying ever nearer, but a few yards away between us I could make out the dim glow of my lightstone on the ground. Feeling into my left pocket to be sure of my plan, I ran backward several steps until I could only just make out the lightstone on the ground. I pulled the vormite stone out of my pocket and knelt on the hard floor. I only had one chance at success, and I had to have a clear head to pull it off. I waited until that chittering beast grew even closer, which almost broke my nerves, but right as the creature was almost atop the location of my distant lightstone, I carefully aimed the vormite and slid it across the floor hoping against hope for a connection.

I turned and sprinted down the dark hallway as fast as I could, not waiting for the results of my gambit. As either luck or providence would have it, I saw the hallway light up as a bright explosion sounded behind me. I was tossed forward by the blast, and I recall the relief I felt as I was thrown through the air, coming down to land hard on the stone floor, presumably hitting my head and losing all consciousness.

6

I am told they found me two days later in the desert hills, gibbering madly and raving about strange creatures and machines and old gods. I was badly injured and malnourished to the bone, and so I was taken with haste to Gablehaven for treatment. My madness has since ebbed, but the horrible memories of that foul dungeon have never left my mind, nor have the dreams I still have of those haunting purple eyes. I have made peace with the visions since then, and I have been gifted fuller and fuller images of the deity that came to inhabit my body that day. I see it in a prison of hollowed-out stone, filled with grief and anger at the suffering it endures. It wails to the sound of maddening flutes and pounding drums, the demon sultan of its own confinement in constant anguish and torment.

I must go to that dig site and be sure it was properly sealed six years ago. Then I will seek out this old god and serve it. I will work to bring about its freedom to exact revenge on those other deities that laugh at it from above. I will forsake Carnissus and the lies of the priests at the old temple in Plaam. They are the deceivers and will suffer most on the day the Demon Sultan is set free. My path is clear to me. Ia! Ia! Hail the dream-giver! All hail the Demon Sultan!