Day 188. I found myself victim to a clever trap set by our ancestors, but whether it was for intruders or the Shadows I do not know. Darts sprang forth from a wall when I pressed my foot upon a loose tile. I barely managed to dodge out of the way so as not to wound myself fatally, but still I was struck in the shoulder by a lone dart. I suspect the poison was too old for it to have any effect upon my body for I still live and breathe. I am in awe of our ancestor’s capabilities to create a trap that lasts through the ages.

Day 189. I can feel them all around me, looking at me through the darkness and into my very soul. I see them through the eyes of the cursed statue that looms tall over all. I have passed by it every day now, and each day I feel it watching me though I see no movement in its eyes. They are carved deep into the face and I know that the Evil in the Shadows has taken over, for to look into them was to see nothing. I feel it deep upon and in myself each time I pass by it’s gaze and I know they will attack when I am least prepared.

I narrowly escaped them today for I took a corner and saw a set of large wooden doors wrought with iron and steel. They swung open at my touch and the room beckoned me inside. My feet reacted before my mind and I was inside before I had made the decision not to be. Around me rotten tapestries covered the walls and I saw that my entry door too had become hidden behind the thick fabrics.

I pulled them aside to find nothing but a stone wall. I know that I had not been turned around and that the shadows had claimed my entry for themselves. I pulled fast and hard on the worn tapestries around me until they were in a heap at my feet. I shone my lanter at the stone all around me until I saw through the corner of my eye the doors. I cast the light upon the stones and saw the shadows crawl and slink away to reveal the entry once again and I fled from the tapestries.

Day 189. I found myself in a great hall today; the same one we had passed by naught three weeks time ago. All of us were alive then, too. I paused, too tired to think of the past. I pray that their souls find rest from the Evil but I fear they have been consumed. 

I turned over the table and brought it into a nearby room, the ones with the holy thuribles upon the walls. I lit each one and placed the table against the alcove which cast more shadows. The room was brightly lit and smelled almost of home when I collapsed on the floor to sleep. It was dreamless and hardly restful.  

Day 190. When I awoke half of the grand hall had collapsed and my way back was completely blocked. I had heard nothing in the night and I know this to be unnatural. The shadows are far more evil than I had ever suspected. 

I found a helmet, tucked away in the rubble of the great hall. Upon it, in both ours and Divine Script, was written the name Guteanea a great King of the Mother Mountain and an ancestor to all of DwarvenKind. I held it in my hands for a long time before I placed it upon my head. The safety I felt was an illusion but it protected my heart more than my head and I will forever be grateful to King Guteanea. 

I feel the shadows licking at my skin as the light from my lantern cannot encapsulate myself in its entirety. I hardly find time to write but this may be the last remembrances of my crew and of myself. I feel as though the Evil in the Shadows will not let me escape. It knows me and through me it is no longer nothing. I feel as though it seeks to become something by consumption. I will not be it’s meal. 

Day 191. I awoke from a long dream today. I saw, clearly, visions of the past. Before an altar to the Mother Mountain a high priest drew a holy rune in sacred oils and herbs upon a large stone slab. They chanted the sacred words, “Existence is here and Nothing will not claim us.” 

These words thrust me back into the waking world and I saw upon the helmet the same holy rune. I feel safer with it upon my brow but I cannot know if it will truly repel the Evil. 

I passed through many chambers today, each long and twisting and filled with doors to the nothing. The Shadows twist and defile the stoneworks into impossible shapes and are only dispelled by my lantern. It seems they have grown bolder since I first saw them in the tapestry room. 

I thought that I had lost all grips on reality until I reached the chasm. Before me it stretched wide and into the yawning darkness. There was no end to the vastness below and to look into it was to see Nothing. 

My chest tightened when I saw it and I could feel the air around me grow thin. The Shadows were behind me and in my lungs then upon my back. I turned my gaze to the bridge ahead and crossed, cautiously at first, but when I felt the stones beneath my feet shift I ran. The helmet bounced along on my head, shifting and slipping from my brow but I held it close to my skin with my hand.

The bridge behind me crumbled and fell into the darkness as I placed my feet upon the solid ground. I stumbled through the dark passage before me until I reached another large chamber. I used my lantern to light the sconces and found myself to be in a room filled with statues. 

Each was in an alcove, illuminated by a small stone above them. They were carved with an expert hand, impossible details upon each, and a look of fear and judgement in their hollow eyes. 

None had name plaques but I knew them to be my own ancestors. I stopped in front of the center one. It was a life size statue bearing an uncanny resemblance to myself except for the clothing. Were I an expert in history or fashion I would know what era they were from but I had nothing but my own guesses as to the age. All I knew is this statue of my ancestor was old, perhaps the oldest one here. I recognized the fear in it’s eyes and wondered if they too had seen the Shadows. 

Day 193. I fear that I will not be long for this world. It is almost upon me and I will be felled within the week. I hear it in the footsteps behind me. I see it in the shadows and the absence of warmth from my lantern. 

There is more down here than there was before. The Nothing is consuming and becoming Something. I see it in the insects and maggots that crawl from the wretched shadows. They were brought into being. It is removing the nothing from itself and I am being pursued by Existence itself. This is sacred knowledge and I do not know if I should remove it from this diary. 

It threw a corpse at me today of a rotten beast with many limbs and milky white eyes. It fell from the ceiling in a heap of limbs and claws. It’s rotten stench and twisted hands assaulted me and I lost what little food I had left in my stomach. I ran from it, far away from the twisting corpse until I felt the wound on my leg split open. 

I had received it earlier from another creature in the dark and now it is consuming my every thought. It is hot to the touch and I feel a fever taking over my body. I almost welcome the heat as it is a reprieve from the wretched cold. 

I stumbled down a long corridor, my vision blurred and my body heavy. I shambled along until my foot hit something. I had found a lost diary, one from Kiltelne, one of the companions lost to the Dark. 

I ripped the last page out and put it here:

At least, that is what I believed when I was in my fever. Looking upon these pages now there is nothing. No diary, no entries, nothing but a mad dream of a fever.

Day 194. I can see them all around me and feel their cold presence. The Darkness will never let me leave. It has taken my water from me, along with anything in my pockets, anything touched by the shadows and the darkness. I fear that I will no longer see my body if I remove my clothes. I doubt I will go far without water and I must resolve myself to do what is necessary, whether that is saving my own waste, licking the walls, or searching for any small puddle from the ground. 

To abade the shadows, I managed to remove hanging sconces from the walls and attached them to my person so I am received by the light at all times. I clatter and clang through the hallways, heard and seen by all it has created but I am safe for now. 

I write of desperation and acceptance of my fate and to you dear reader who has found my lonely journal. If you are able, I implore you to tell my family, the Hittern-Belks of Mother Mountain, that I loved them more than the Darkness loves me and that I was not able to escape it’s grasp. Do not tell them of my misery, and speak only of how I fought bravely to my end. There is no glory down here, dear reader, turn your back to this wretched place and return to a sun that I will never see. 

Day 196. My leg has impeded my ability to move and I have lost a day to the pain that encompasses me. I cannot move it without daggers flowing through my blood and my own voice betraying me in hollow screams.

Nothing is here too and I feel it’s tendrils around me. My body is feverish and I have no doubt that I would have left this world if it had allowed it. It wants me more than anything but it has not claimed me yet. I fear that it is waiting for me to embrace it with loving arms instead of harrowed resistance, but I will for as long as I am myself I will bring myself to the surface and see the sun once more.

Day 197. I can hear them in the walls and in every new crack that appears below my feet. I see them peering through the keyholes and slithering behind each pillar. 

Each step I take is agony and my body is crumbling like the stones beneath me. If this place claims me in it’s rubble, does the Shadow take me as well, or will I be free? 

The Nothing has stolen their voices and uses them against me. I hear the voices of my companions call out to me, reminding me of how they had been felled and how they are at peace in the Dark. They sing of an intimacy far greater than mortal comprehension and how foolish they were for resisting it. They sing of each sacrifice, Dwalinte joining the dark after falling, Geshinet dragged into the deep by the creatures, and so many others. But far worse,in voices dripping with love and compassion they tell me that they had wanted it. They wanted the Darkness to take them, as is the nature of sacrifice, and that I too will want it soon.

Day 198. I have found The Bag of Mist. It was as light as the legend claims and no bigger than a large egg. It is plain in all aspects except the strings, darker than any woven fabric I have known. 

I found it upon an altar upon a large circular dias made of a single mirror. Around me candles flickered alive when I stepped up to the center and claimed it for myself.

I opened it and poured forth the dark mists into my hands. It was dark like the shadows around me and I knew in that moment what it was. Contained in this bag was a piece of Existence. It was of the Shadows, gifted to my people in a Grand Decision, but for what purpose I know not. 

The candles around me illuminated a larger shrine at the end of the room. A large, Holy Shrine dedicated to the Mother Mountain herself, Goddess of Dwarves and Passage Decider. Laid at her feet was the slate I had seen in my dreams. The oil slick was dried but still I saw the holy symbol protecting me from the Dark. I am safe in this room and under her guidance and I pray for a passage out of this wretched place. 

Around her on the ground are other carved runes, ones of protection and prayer. I was not the only person to have come into this room after being lost in the dark. They are warnings and pleadings to the Deciders and to Nothingness. Some write of a joyous conglomeration, others speaking of the candles and how holy the light is. 

All are worn and none fill me with hope.

Day 199. It has taken from me again. I have seen the bodies of my companions and of my ancestors and of all of dwarvenkind beneath this mountain. I heard the drums but thought myself safe in the light. I was a fool. 

I felt it, deep in my bones and coursing through my blood, the rhythm of the drums, louder and louder with each crumbling step. And then, out from the shadows they poured, animate bodies of the dead. They screeched at me, and clawed in a desperate act to consume and conjoin ourselves. They pulled at me and scraped together and I could see their bodies melding in the light like the rotten beast from before. Their hands reached and grasped, desperate for my flesh; they cut deep into my body as they grasped and I fled, wildly and blindly down a corridor as I did before. 

I heard the voice of Meirmack pleading me not to abandon her again as I had before, but through the darkness I stumbled. 

Eventually I did lose the creature, but I found something as equally terrible. Before me I saw the bodies of my companions, laid out in front of me in neat rows, their heads in the light and their feet in darkness.  The dirt beneath my feet was soft and fresh and I knew what they were calling to me to return them to the earth. 

Was this a gift from Existence? Is this enticement? I laid them to rest as these thoughts swirled in my head. We crawled from the Passage of the Earth and to The Earth we will return. 

I have been partially returned to the earth as well… I write to you as a one-armed dwarf now. Through the passages I continued, searing and hoping for the light, when in front of me, the ceiling collapsed and I found myself entangled in the rubble. I managed to free all of myself except my left arm.

 It was pinned under hundreds of tons of stone and I could feel neither my fingers or my arm and I knew it to be crushed. I will spare the details as it turns my stomach to think of it but I removed myself by removing my arm. 

I pray that the earth has claimed it instead of the Dark. 

Day 200. My lantern would not stay lit today. The dark is growing restless but I will not take it. I repeat to myself over and over until it becomes the background noise of the deep. “There will always be light.” I say this as I feel the cold seeping into my skin and I wonder if this is what a grave feels like.

 I say this as I saw the remains of what chased me yesterday. The bodies of other victims were twisted and melded together into a beast with legs and arms protruded from its body. I saw skin begin to stretch and sightless eyes protrude. 

And I saw this as I found a single set of stairs leading up and I know that I am closer to the sky once more. 

 Day 201.  The winds have blown out my lanterns again and I am alone in the dark. I can feel the shadows all around me, embracing me like an old lover. I have discarded what remains of my rations, for the insects of the dark have devoured it. 

I find myself in the throne room of the ancient kings. Before me sits a large stone throne, carved from dark’s rock. I cannot continue. I cannot be alone. I will sit myself upon it, The Bag of Mist in my only remaining hand, the helmet upon my brow and this journal upon my feet. 

I will embrace extinction and give myself over to Existence Itself and become one with everything.