DELVE NOTES

Entry #1

[1D6 = 1, Card = 10♠]

One cannot blame me for the actions I have taken, nor may they assume them to be cowardice. A Guard does not desert his post, nor does a Knight flee his honor yet here I find myself writing by the light of dwindling coals. The sounds of battle above have grown distant long ago, and I fear now that I may never know the fates of my brothers in arms, but what I do know is this; I have hold of my humanity yet, and with it I may cling to hope.

The siege has been vicious up until now, our forces refusing to either relent or take proper hold of our quarry. Our Lord called for forward progress at any cost, and when I noticed the old cellar entry near the base of the hill I assumed it would lead inward, toward some sort of scullery at the heart of the Fortress; an obvious strategic move if I were to trust my gut in the moment, though in hindsight it was lacking in some forethought. Regardless, I broke from my unit and dropped through the overgrown portal. At the angle it lay it would've been almost impossible to notice if we hadn't been camping on the hills above the night prior, and had I not been on the watch last evening before the fires had been lit perhaps some other poor soul would find themself lost in this place in y stead. Ne'ertheless, I proceed.

The space I entered was immediately alien to me. No shelves lined this room, only long forgotten brick and overgrown roots as mortar, a few rats scurrying to the far corners as I allowed my eyes to adjust. What I had foolhardily assumed to be a cellar door had in fact been a loft hatch, and I had fallen into a room easily over double my height. With no rafters of any kind, or at least none still withstanding, it became apparent now that my eyes had acclimated to the dim that the ceiling above me was hardly a sturdy thing; from below the room was illuminated by pockmarked light, filtered through a variety of hole ranging from the size of a man's fist to nearly the size of a Kalahari Melon. It made me shiver to think of the men marching above, though I could not hear their footfall even here, only the distant clashing of steel and shouting. I turned back to the room with my eyes narrowed, scanning the surrounding floor just outside my circle of light. 

The room had three doorways, though one had clearly caved in under the weight of crumbling wall supports, and another seemed to be full of tangled roots as far as I could see. Gathered in two of the four corners were large piles of what appeared to be long grasses, padded and matted down into a sort of pallet-shaped nest. The stench had become too familiar to me over the last weeks, but bits of carrion clung to the fibers, and larger bones were littered about where I had originally seen scattered branches and stones. A beast lived here, perhaps many, and of the short list of beasts I knew capable of claiming such a space whilst going unnoticed was almost entirely made up of the sort of creatures one would never hope to meet. I froze in place at the thought, the oiled plates of my armor making barely a sound as I turned my head left and then right, craning to hear perhaps a hungry growl or slothful breath. After holding my own for a moment, I was satisfied having observed nothing. I took my first step out of that bright spot, orienting myself in the direction I believed the fort had been in, and headed onward down the only path available.

[1d6 = 5, Card = J♥]

It did not take long for me to find the inhabitant of this first room. As I probed deeper into this strange subterranean place I began to feel as though my eyes were playing tricks on me, only to realize the faint, warm glow in the distance was not deception but indeed light! A fire, or perhaps a torch, flickered around a bend just ahead and it required all of my willpower not to rush into the next room. What I found however was far less welcoming than a bountiful hearth; laying in wait, with eyes yet too young to fully open, lay the fat, grotesque, limpid form of a great Salamander; 6 limbs sprawled out flat, three on each side, with a rudder-like tail to put a salmon to shame and a mouth almost as wide as the doorway I now filled. The orange, ember-like light dancing along it's hide was enough sign to me that this adolescent, though still tremendous and likely very strong, was not yet grown enough to belch the sort of flame it's parent most certainly could. I paused in the doorway, eyes straining in this new sort of light, before spying my next path; A stairwell at the far end of the room, leading down. MY heart hitched into my throat at the thought of being forced deeper beyond this brutish thing, but I knew there be no way back the way I had came, certainly not now that I knew what had built those nests and that it now had a reason to return. 

The hulking thing did not react beyond a heavy breath as I took my first steps into the space. After the first yard or so the room had a noticeable shift in temperature, unsurprising given the fiery nature of the beast that lay within it. As I inched along the outer wall, trying to maintain a safe distance, I caught a glimpse of the fatty, yellow belly of the thing, like the last bits of yolk clinging to the belly of a duckling on a much vaster scale, peeking out from between the pair of aftlimbs. As the welcoming gape of the far away stairwell finally greeted me, I breathed a sigh of relief and pressed deeper. I will admit though that the beast did give me a great scare as I took those steps back into the dark, the shifting of its tail nearly sending my bones leaping out through the visor of my helmet.

[1D6= 4, Card = 6♠]

Now, I find myself resting here, in the fast of a new terror; uncertainty. I write this passage less than two-hundred paces from that slumbering beast, safe only in the knowledge that the passage I took is most certainly too narrow for such a lumbering, blind thing. I made camp with what little firewood I had in my pack and found a sturdy wall to rest against, with more questions laid before m than answers; what is this place? Who made it? Why is it here? Most importantly, where do I go now? The stairs I descended lead me to what initially appeared to be some sort of flooded hallway, but which I now believe is some sot of aqueduct. my camps rests on a raised platform at a nexus of these waters, stagnant is all directions and with a miasmic odor. From the remains that bob past now and then I am most certainly not alone down here, though I will not let such fears take hold of me. For now, I am relatively warm and dry, and I have plenty of supplies to last me in the field. My waterskin is heavy, my rations are well kept, and I have not yet needed to light a torch to find my way, though I am sure the darkness that stretches before me will become all consuming soon enough.

I hope to keep this record of my time here, not that it may aid in my rescue but that some other poor soul may find it and glean some sort of lesson from it. Perhaps they will find the exit where I did not. Perhaps they will die knowing they were not the first to do so.