June 3rd
Today, as I was exploring an ancient ruin, I came across a ruined epitaph, while exploring a recently uncovered part of the ruin. The locals that Murkil and I hired to do the heavy lifting, had been dragging their feet to move all the rubble. But after some healthy persuasion, they finally got to work.
Inside, was an eroded epitaph sitting in the centre of the room. Murkil was more interested in the decayed tapestries and the ruined stone carvings. I knew that we both shared a love for history, but after today, I realised that we had different focuses. I suppose that was a good thing.
June 9th
It's been a week since our discovery and haven't made much progress. What progress I had made, seemed to be a list of names but I had no idea what they could mean.
Murkil, on the other hand, had almost completely restored the tapestries. He was pretty excited about them and over our dinner last night, he bored my ears off with telling me about them. Apparently, they were coat of arms of the leading families of the ancient kingdom of Maguela.
It was an amazing discovery as we can finally prove the claims of some noble families, that they are related to these legendary houses.
However, I was just frustrated with my lack of progress on my part. But Murkil had given me some tips, that I reluctantly accepted. Although I hate to admit it, he had more experience in archaeology that I did.
June 14th
I'm in a great mood today. More of the epitaph's secrets have been revealed to me. I shared some of my findings with Murkil as I discovered that the list of names was in fact names of the great families of Maguela. I was still unsure why they were written here, but the fact that they written here made Murkil giddy with excitement.
June 15th
Today I heard loud shouting coming from the epitaph room. When I got there, I found Murkil holding a villager by the collar, with a look in his eyes that told me that he was ready to kill.
I quickly rushed to stop him and asked what had happened. He looked at me with a face of fury and pointed to one of the walls in the back, clearly unable to speak.
As I looked over, I saw that the carvings that had been on the wall had cracks running through the whole thing. So much so that parts had crumbled away to dust.
Even I, felt anger boiling up from within. However, I noticed something coming from the deepest part of the crack. As I got closer, I spotted that there seemed to be a space behind.
Murkil was still fuming. But as I explained, his scholar-self took control and began to examine.
We ordered the hired labour to carefully make an entrance.
June 18th
The progress on the new entrance has been going slow. But on the other hand, I have made tremendous progress on the epitaph. I learnt that it was a memorial of names who had lost their life to… something, that part had eluded me. I would even guess that it had been purposefully removed, for whatever reason.
But I was able to read the next part, that seemed to be a warning. 'Those who chase the realm of the gods are set to leave only destruction in their wake.'
I consulted Murkil on this, and he was stumped as much as I was. We were both well versed in ancient wars and plagues, but we both had never heard of something that had taken the lives of many major families in a single event.
We both found it troubling as well as a little exciting.
June 19th
Many of the villagers have been having nightmares over the past few nights. And today, many of them have abandoned the site, claiming that these ruins are cursed.
Because of the superstitions of those fools, progress of the new entrance had fallen to a crawl. Which meant that Murkil and I had to resort to manual labour. I wasn't too fond of the idea, though Murkil didn't seem to care much as he was driven to uncover whatever lurked behind this stone.
June 21st
It was finally done. We had to remove a large among of stone, as the crack was small. But what was truly strange was that the stone and dirt that we removed seemed to be cut or processed, as if this section of the ruin had been purposefully sealed.
However, Murkil and I kept going and eventually, we broke through into another chamber that was bathed in a green light that came from luminescent cave moss.
In the centre of the room was a pedestal that had a single stone tablet sitting on top of it.
Murkil and I were overcome with excitement and scholarly intrigue that we practically ran towards the tablet.
Thankfully, there wasn't any counter measures for intruders. I guessed that those who built the place, either didn't think this chamber would be discovered. Or thought that putting traps in a place where they remember the dead would be disrespectful. Either way, we were glad for whatever the reason.
Murkil and I decided to both work on the tablet, as it was far greater of a discovery to horde to just one of us.
Luckily, the tablet was in near perfect condition. So, all we needed to do was translate it, and that was my specialty. We split the tablet into two sections, Murkil would translate the top and I would do the bottom.
June 23rd
This is truly remarkable! I had finished the translation this morning and found out that this tablet holds a secret to immortality and limitless power!
At first, I was dubious and thought that it was fake. However, I actually began to translate Murkil's section in secret and became more convinced.
It was achieved by a ritual where you absorb the lifeforce of others into yourself. The younger the target, the more your life increases.
It was a grizzly ritual, but I couldn't deny that I was tempted. It would mean that I would have time to explore the world and learn all of its secrets. Though that was just a fantasy, as I don't think I could do something as sinister and would like to hope that everyone else felt the same way as I did.
June 24th
Murkil has been acting strangely. I woke up this morning to find that he hadn't slept and instead, been scrawling in his notebook.
I brought up the idea that we head back to town today to pick up some supplies, as we ate the last of our rations last night and have only enough food for tonight. He looked at me with suspicion and I honestly thought that he would have attacked me, if I kept mentioning it.
I don't want to think that he was taking this tablet seriously, but the thought wouldn't leave my mind for the whole day.
Tomorrow, I would leave, on my own if I had to.
June 25th
He attacked me! I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of mad ramblings. He had drawn the ritual circle under me while I slept, he must have slipped something in the food last night, the bastard!
I managed to fend him off with the dagger I kept by my side. I cut him pretty good, and he went running into the night. But he had also managed to stab me in the gut pretty badly.
He must have poisoned the knife as I've been feeling pretty weak since. I don't think I can make it to town in this state. I just hope that he doesn't come back.
The page was stained with blood and the next few pages had been sealed with blood. However, the next page I could read was a detailed description of the ritual and was written in a different handwriting.
That bastard Kellen had the gall to fight back. He even cut through my notebook, so I have to use his from now on. It's a good thing that he was so good at notetaking.
Luckily, the poison I put on my knife was effective, so when I came back to our camp, he had passed out, perfect condition to be my first sacrifice.
After that was rambling of a mad man and sadistic descriptions of how he sacrificed his own colleague.
It took some time to go through several ramblings and delusions until I found an entry about an interaction this mad man had between him and some bandit slavers.
They agreed on a deal where Murkil hired them to kidnap some locals and more interestingly, some elves. The meeting point was a small settlement, a few days away from Novrad.
Murkil mentioned that his hideout was in a hidden cave in the forest, in-between here and that village.