The daily journal of Grimmoch Drummel
Title: The daily journal of Grimmoch Drummel
Author: Grimmoch
Day One:
'Tis a grand sight, this primeval tomb, I agree with Tavara on that. And we've a good crew here, they've strong backs and a good attitude. I'm a bit concerned by those that worked as guides for us, however. All seemed well enough until we revealed the immense stone doors of the tomb structure itself. Seemed to send a shiver up their spines and get them all stirred up with whispering. I'll watch the lot of them with a close eye, but I'm confidant we won't have any real problems on the dig. I'm especially proud to see Thomas standing out - he was a good hire despite the warnings from his previous employers. He's drummed up the workers into a furious pace - we've nearly halved the estimate on the timeline for excavating he Tomb's entrance.
Day Two:
We managed to dig out the last of the remaining rubble today , revealing the entirety of the giant stone doors that sealed ol Khal Ankur and his folks up ages ago. Actually getting them open was another matter altogether, however. As the workers set to the task with picks and crowbars, I could have sworn I saw Lysander Gathenwale fiddling with something in that musty old tome of his. I've no great knowledge of things magical, but the way his hand moved over that book, and the look of concentration on his face as he whispered something to himself looked like every description of an incantation I've ever heard. The strange thing is, this set of doors that an entire crew of excavators was laboring over for hours, right then when Gathenwale finishes with his mumbling... well I swore the doors just gave open at the exact moment he spoke his last bit of whisper and shut the tome tight in his hands. When he looked up, it was almost as if hew was expecting the doors to be open, rather than shocked that they'd finally given way.
Day Three - Day Five:
I might have written too hastily in my first entry - this place doesn't seem too bent on giving up any secrets. Though the main antechamber is open to us, the main exit hall is blocked by yet another pile of rubble. Doesn't look a bit like anything caused by a quake or instability in the stonework... I swear it looks as if someone actually piled the stones up themselves, some time after the tomb was built. The stones aren't of the same set nor quality of the carved work that surrounds them - if anything, they resemble the grade of common rock we saw in great quantities on the trip here. Which makes it feel all the more like someone hauled them in and covered this passage. But then why not decorate them in the same ornate manner as the rest of the stone in this place? Lysander wouldn't hear a work of what I had to say - to him, it was a quake sometime in the history of the tomb, and that was it, shut up and move on. So I shut up, and got back to work.
Day Six:
The camp was attacked last night by a pack of, well, I don't have a clue. I've never seen the likes of these beasts anywhere. Huge things, with fangs the size of your forefinger, covered in hair and with the strangest arched back I've ever seen. And so many of them. We were forced back into the Tomb for the night, just to keep our hides on us. And today Gathenwale practically orders us all to move the entire exterior camp into the Tomb. Now, I don't disagree that we'd be well off to use the place as a point of fortification... but I don't like it one bit, in anycase. I don't like the looks of this place, nore the sound of it. The way the wind gets into the passageways, whistling up the strangest noises. Deep, sustained echoes of the wind, not so much flute-like as...well, it sounds ridiculous. In any case, we've set to work moving the bulk of the exterior camp into the main antechamber so there's no moaning about it now.
Day Seven - Day Ten:
I cannot stand this place, I cannot bear it. I've got to get out. Something evil lurks in this ancient place, something best left alone. I hear them, yet none of the others do. And yet they must. Hands, claws, scratching at stone, the awful scratching and the piteous cries that sound almost like laughter. I can hear them above even the cracks of the workmen's picks, and at night they are all I can hear. And yet the others hear nothing. We must leave this place, we must. Three workers have gone missing - Tavara expects they've abandoned us - and I count them lucky if they have. I don't care what the others say, we must leave this place. We must do as those before and pile up the stones, block all access to this primeval crypt, seal it up again for all eternity.
Day Eleven - Day Thirteen: Lysander is gone, and two more workers with him. Good riddance to the first. He knows something. He heard them too, I know he did - and yet he scowled at me when I mentioned them. I cannot stop the noise in my head, the scratching, the clawing tears at my senses. What is it? What does Lysander seek that I can only turn from? Where has he gone? The only answer to my questions comes as laughter from behind the stones.
Day Fourteen - Day Sixteen
We are lost ... we are lost ... all is lost. The dead are piled up at my feet. Bergen and I managed somehow in the madness to piece together a barricade, barring access to the camp antechamber. He knows as well as I that we cannot hold it forever. The dead come. They took Lysander before our eyes. I pity the soul of even such a madman - no one should die in such a manner. And yet so many have. We're trapped in this horror. So many have died, and for what? What curse have we stumbled upon? I cannot bear it, the moaning, wailing cries of the dead. Poor Thomas, cut to pieces by their blades. We had only an hour to properly bury those we could, before the undead legions struck again. I cannot go on... I cannot go on.
Day Seventeen - Day Twenty-Two:
The fighting never ceases... the blood never stop flowing, like a river through the bloated corpses of the dead. And yet there are still more. Always more, with the red fire gleaming in their eyes. My arm aches, I'v taken to the sword as my bow seems to do little good... the dull ache in my arm... so many swings, cleavig a mountain of decaying flesh. And Thomas... he was there, in the thick of it.. Thomas was beside me... his face cleaved in twain - and yet beside me, fighting with us against the horde until he was cut down once again. And I swear I see him even now, there in the dark corner of the antechamber, his eyes flickering in the last dying embers of the fire... and he stares at me, and a scream fills the vault - wheather his or mine, I can no longer tell.
Day Twenty-Three:
We no longer bury the dead.
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