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Amity!

Journal #11 - Into Darkness

by Amity Pell

After the sun comes up, Variel gets here around the same time Max, Swindle, and Rhogkun come out looking for me. Everybody says they slept fine. I try to explain how I didn’t, but they don’t really get it…. So I ask Prim if he can show them, and he doesn’t want to, ‘cause he’s so tired, but I ask super nice, and he sends the picture anyhow. Rhogkun is just scratching his beard, so I don’t think he got it, but everyone else looks real surprised.
 
We go to talk to Jimmy (Peter, whatever). He doesn’t want to open the door for Swindle, but I tell him we’re not with the temple or anything, and he lets us in. He looks real tired too, and he tells us how a few weeks ago, right before the bad dreams started he found like… a kinda cave out in the woods. It wasn’t marked, or on any kind of path, so anyone would’ve missed it unless they were lucky or looking for it.
 
But he figured he’d check it out and see if there was anything neat or valuable inside. Why not? You’ve seen Blackbough, right? Any kinda treasure at all might be a ticket out of here. Inside the cave was some kind of burial tomb, and he didn’t go very far in, but there was a big stone coffin, and he opened it up to have a look… and then he heard something real scary, so he left. That’s it, that’s the whole story. When he got back, he told Lynden about it, ‘cause he was worried and scared, and Lynden didn’t really do much besides get mad at him for messing with it. Big help.
 
Oh yeah - Peter says that one of the stories locals tell to kids is that they better be good or the wizards buried in the hills will come and eat you.
 
He gives us directions and Rhogkun and Swindle lead the long trek out to where it is. They’re both in a big hurry to deal with this, for different reasons. Rhogkun is worried about the missing kids, but Swindle seems offended just on principle that someone’s messing with people’s dreams. Also he talks to a boar and asks it nicely to leave us all alone, and it does!
 
The cave thing is basically like Peter said. There’s a big rock in front of it, and Maxwell pushes it aside so that we can all get in easier. Inside the only tracks are Peter’s going in and out again. There’s nothing in the stone coffin. It doesn’t really even look like there ever was. There sure is a lot of bad feeling in this place though. I don’t like it. I can tell that Prim doesn’t either, he’s got his tail wrapped around my neck real tight.
 
But we go further in… ‘cause we’re here…. and we have to… I guess.
 
I’ve got Max’s lamp, and Variel is sneaking ahead ‘cause she can see in the dark. Max snaps his finger a few times, it makes a strange sound and he says that it lets him tell if there’s any ghosts or zombies around. He says there aren’t any… which is weird because that’s what we thought for sure this was. Is it good or bad that we can’t find any?
 
The further in we go, the worse everything feels. The carvings go from kinda normal to kinda scary. We find some writing that somebody scratched on the walls, but none of us can read it. I really wonder what it said. Probably said… get out. I bet.
 
The ceiling gets lower. The lantern light starts fighting a losing battle against the darkness. Pretty soon it’s just gonna be a little bubble around us and we’re gonna be barely able to see anything at all… and then the walls start to get even closer, and… wet… and the ground gets covered in squirming worms. Wh- why…..
 
Swindle picks one up, but as soon as it gets more than a foot off the floor it disappears. They look and sound and feel real though. Rhogkun says really powerful illusion magic could still do that, but it’s weird they only work around the ground. Variel says maybe they’re extra-planar, that maybe there’s an overlap. Whatever that means.
 
Finally we get somewhere different. It feels like we cross over some kind of bubble or maybe a magic threshold and we’re in a big plain room with a big stone door. No handle, no lock. It’s got a design on it, like a star with an eye in the middle. I’ve never seen it before, but Swindle says that maybe it reminds him of something, only he can’t remember what.
 
Nobody wants to open the door.
 
I’m really ready to get all the way out of here, and to heck with Blackbough, to be honest, but Variel says we should backtrack just a bit and see if there’s something else down the other path we saw, and I’ll settle for that. Cept when we go back across the sorta-barrier again, only three of us make it: Me, Max, and Rhogkun. I -
 
We turn back around and cross over again. Real fast. We don’t see them! But Rhogkun calls out and they come back, and they’re okay! But it seems like they can’t… They can’t cross back. When they go across where the barrier should be, they go somewhere else. Variel says she heard like, river or something down that way.
 
We’re trying to decide if this is like, a fey trap or what, since Variel is a faerie and Swindle is kinda faerie-adjacent. And OH YEAH also how we’re gonna get everybody out…. And did I say that I really really really wanna just go back outside into the sun and away from here because - suddenly Swindle says he can hear somebody crying behind the door.
 
Rhogkun and him try and talk to whoever it is, and I guess they decide it’s probably the girl that went missing, Katherine. All I know is I heard Swindle go “she wants to know if you’re her mom” and Rhogkun went “NO” real loud.
 
So I guuuessss we’re gonna try and open it, and that’s what Max does. He goes up to lift it and it opens in like…. every direction, not just one. It’s kind of hard to look at honestly.
 
On the other side it’s another stone room. There’s no worms this time, and there’s four sconces with torches in them, so we go and light them. Also I feel weird…. Everywhere I look it’s like there’s rainbows just on the edge my vision, and when I move further into the room to get the last two torches, it gets way worse. Suddenly I can’t see anything except rainbows, but I manage to stumble back to the doorway and it gets mostly better.
 
After I rub my eyes and look up again I can see that everyone’s staring at something across the room. It’s a person and…. Three not-persons. They look like the thing I saw in my dream!! Only worse, cause they’re real. They look awful. I think one of them says “....mama...” real quiet. The guy in the middle has red skin and horns and wings, and he says that he’s glad we’re here, we can witness his transformation. Variel asks him what exactly he’s turning into… and also from…. but he says that we should just wait and see if we want to know.
 
I don’t… really.

Continue reading...

  1. Journal #1
    Amity!
  2. Journal #2
    Amity!
  3. Journal #3
    Amity!
  4. Amity & Prim
    Amity!
  5. Journal #4
    Amity!
  6. Journal #5
    Amity!
  7. Journal #6
    Amity!
  8. Journal #6 AKA I Got Stabbed!!
    Amity!
  9. Journal #7 Flowers
    Amity!
  10. RP w/ Prim and Variel- Royalty, Family, and Luck
    Amity!
  11. RP w/ Rhogkun - Familiars and Spellbooks
    Amity!
  12. RP w/ Rhogkun and Delebean - Secrets
    Amity!
  13. RP - The first one. Amity and her Fortune.
    Amity!
  14. RP - the second one. At the Siren's Sigh w/ Rhogkun.
    Amity!
  15. Journal #9 - Arriving in Blackbough
    Amity!
  16. zoop
    Amity!
  17. Journal #9 - Arriving in Blackbough
    Amity!
  18. RP w/ Swindle - AKA You Cant Bullshit a Bullshitter
    Amity!
  19. Journal #10
    Amity!
  20. Journal #11 - Into Darkness
    Amity!
  21. Journal #11 - Into Darkness
    Amity!
  22. Journal #12 - Inside the Nightmare
    Amity!
  23. RP - With Azalea. Very Short.
    Amity!
  24. Journal #13 - The Trial
    Amity!
  25. RP - w/ the group - Night Before the Trial, Actually
    Amity!
  26. RP w/ Swindle (secrets?)
    Amity!
  27. RP w/ Rhogkun and Prim - Pockets
    Amity!
  28. Journal #14 - Back on the Road
    Amity!
  29. RP w/ Variel - In Between
    Amity!
  30. Journal #14 - Back on the Road
    Amity!
  31. RP w/ the group - We're Going to Riverpuddle!
    Amity!
  32. Journal #15 Back in Town
    Amity!
  33. Journal #16 - River Night and Golden Day
    Amity!
  34. Journal #17 - The New Old House
    Amity!
  35. Journal #18 - The Terrible Room
    Amity!
  36. Journal #19 - Ghosts
    Amity!
  37. Journal #20 - More Ghosts
    Amity!
  38. Journal #21 - Everything Falls Down
    Amity!
  39. RP w/ Rhogkun, Swindle - Two Conversations That Go Just Fine
    Amity!
  40. Journal #22 - Dogged
    Amity!
  41. Journal #23 - Treya....
    Amity!
  42. RP w/ Everyone - Tale Telling
    Amity!
  43. RP w/ Rhogkun - Dad Talk
    Amity!
  44. Journal #24 - The Next Day
  45. Journal #25 - Heading North
  46. Journal #26 - On the Road
  47. Journal #27 - Vimgalier
  48. Journal #28 - Instructions...
  49. Journal #29 - Rigani's Tower pt 1
  50. Journal #30 - Rigani's Tower pt 2
  51. Journal #31 - Rigani's Tower pt 3
  52. RP w/ Variel and Swindle - the god plate
  53. Journal #32 - Ambush
  54. Journal #33 - Music
  55. Incident Reports
  56. Journal #34 - Ivorfall
  57. Journal #35 - Shire!
  58. Journal #36 - Escalation
  59. Journal #37 - Giving Up
  60. Journal #38 - It's Fine. Let's Go to Another Wizard Tower.
  61. Journal #39 - Memories, All Bad
  62. (out of order) RP w/ Variel at the Bergwin Inn
  63. (out of order) RP w/ Max - Caravan Guards
  64. (out of order) RP w/ Katya - Taking a Break
  65. That Dream Again
  66. Journal #40 - Talking Too Much
  67. RP w/ Swindle - Asking for Help is Hard
  68. Journal #41 - The Wizard's Friend part 1
  69. Journal #42 - The Wizard's Friend part 2
  70. Journal #43 - The Wizard's Friend part 3
  71. RP - Checking In

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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.050 © 2017-2025 [en] | Anvil Time: 13:45, Jul 28 2026