Entry 1: The Mountain Homes
I am Geallen, one of the many skilled Blacksmiths based here in the Mountain Homes. You may ask, what business does a smith have with writing!? I get this all the time from my fellow, and unfortunately ignorant companions. A Blacksmith learns the Dwarven language so they may brand their works with their name, as to prevent another blasphemous Human or Dwarf from claiming it was forged by them! And also to engrave *Troll Bane* or *Boatmurdered ftw* if the customer demands it.
Now onto the real reason for starting this entry. I have been based within the mountain homes almost since its founding, working the forge. With my skill and devotion, the lord thought me to become a legendary smith any time soon. It has been 5 years since I achieved master smith, and not once have I received a vision from the beyond to create the impossible, the magnificent, or even the perfect!
I prayed to the gods for guidance every night, begged, showed them that I Geallen was a worthy vessel. The dark chapel walls remained silent, the statues stared. But never was there an answer to my prayer!
On one of my lunch breaks with Roshev, my miner friend we were talking about the potential use for platinum in a Warhammer; when I started to over hear a well known merchant talk about a cursed place. His beard rumbled as if in fear when he spoke"Last spring we came to Necrochambers, and not a soul to speak of, the halls are empty, and we only heard the sharp cry of the crows above! The place is damned I tell you, there was more we saw, but so blasphemous so incredibly evil; that I had forgotten so I wouldn't be traumatized by the experience." it sent shivers down my spine many halls of late have come to this conclusion. But the way this man expressed the story, and how short he had made it; only emphasized how truly malevolent Necrochambers must have been.
That night I had decided to retreat to my quarters earlier than usual, as the days work had taken a toll on my mind and body. I went under the covers, and quickly darkness swelled over my vision.
Appropriate Music
There in the rolling landscape, was the inlaid Mountain Hall, at first glance the engraved walls, and drawbridge that was the entrance was normal. But I looked around, and across the the rolling flatlands precious metal, and stone craft alike littered in vain of purpose. A few corpses even here and there, now but sprigs of calcium entrenched in the grass. Then I flew past the sordid entrance into the halls. I glided through the traps like a wisp of wind no one knowing the better.
But then I went down a floor, the madness that was Necrochambers truly bursted into view, countless twisting stair ways with no real purpose dotted my vision, any true sense of architecture lost upon me as the miasma of death, and Gothic stone artifices sent me into confusion. I was forced deeper know by something else of non-Dwarven nature; deeper into the horror, the Dining hall was a maze of chairs and table, not a single morsel of logic remaining in what it had become. The billowing halls dotted with corpses preserved through time, rotted black, its essence invading my nose.
Now the litter seen on the surface was present in the dark foreboding halls, the inanimate items bearing no meaning through the passage of time. Their owners purpose long gone, in the necrotic chamber, that was Necrochambers.
But when I thought all else couldn't become worse, I was forced through the solid earth deep where the Miners of my Mountain Home would never venture. And there I entered the acrid chambers of the magma seas, sparkling with the wondrous hue of blue steel. On my own I came closer to the aura of metal, enticing me like a Siren to a Human. Then I was pulled into the abyss beyond the Blue steel. I fell for an eternity, a deep isolation driving me mad. Then I hit the hot and unforgiving rock at the bottom, the shattering pain filling me to the brim.
I slowly stood up, and realized I was surrounded by pairs of red orbs, intently staring back at me. Then I felt death.
I surely thought that it would end there that I was actually dead, but now I was above the land called Necrochambers. I saw myself and my friends we dug into the small spire of rock east of the horrid halls. And through labor we created something awe-inspiring, a hall of mind blowing complexity.
To survive and thrive in this land you don't simply take the place of the predecessors, you feed upon them like a crow to a corpse. Taking the morsels of food home, to a safer place so your child could grow.
Indeed this would be...
An Artifice of Crows
This was Armok's command.