Apprehension before the dive
Things had been calm since the last incident but we definitely weren’t. We anticipated a new crisis at any time. So much so that we arrived a day early at our destination. Hopping to outrun our faith maybe. There it…
The stone mouth mystery
On the windswept plateaus overseeing the bright Amarina sea, where the rubble from the monumental walls piles up, one can feel the stone mouth chanting. The haunted opening lies there, barely accessible above the rock piles blowing over the cobalt…
Amarina dive report 0-400m
The drone’s camera has been equipped with a retractable dark filter in the hope to prevent overexposure from the bioluminescence. I will be deploying the sub alone, equipped with one of our hazmat suits, on the southern shore of Vae’s…
The plumber coral
It is quite confusing at first, stumbling upon a modest cavity that is filled with what looks like a jumbled network of pipes. Perfectly straight tubular shapes coming out of the walls and floor at any angle and reaching out.…
A statue on the starry plateaus
Exploring the abyss alone is dangerous. Irresponsible and suicidal some would say. While being true the prospect that any accident, however small, could end the adventure never discouraged me. It made me overly cautious and motivated me to document my…
Subeden day 34, the stone mouth incident
I was surveying the wind directions and rates over the lands that suround the main camp when I was drawn closer to the cavern wall by an unusual disturbance in the general southbound airflow. There I was perplexed by the…
The nature of the drums
It would have been 5 am on the surface. The timid sunshine surely crawled gently on the humid carpet of moss while the trees emerged from the nocturnal chill. Despite the temptation of a peaceful walk in the woods turning…
Stranded in Agowl
I was left in the middle of nothing, on my side, against an irregular spire of black rock. I could breathe slowly and started moving but the recovery from this frantic trance had been harsh on the body and the…
The acceptance of emptiness
I find myself in the storm drains again. Almost unwillingly, I succumb to the usual urge of the converging lines and am pulled into a lone walk. At the circular mouth of the large concrete hall I chose, the path…
Of bark and foliage
I’ve told the tale of peculiar blossoms and outlandish fungi whose appearance diverges so much from the green normality that they paint the picture of a foreign world within the world itself. So strangely they grow, in fact, that their…
Meeting the eternal
It can understand what I’m saying. Maybe? It surely has heard my language before. If I have identified it correctly that is. But surely that is it. The translucent silverish substance is so alien to anything I have seen before…
The eternal ocean that vanished
Although retraced through sparse documents and even rarer artefacts the ancients’ culture clearly appears as alien to us as the dark world it blossomed in. Concepts of arts and belief have little to no place in the heritage they left.…
Testificate legacy
At first glance, the Testificate might seem helpless and vegetative yet its peculiar lifestyle is a testament to a biology far removed from our Darwinistic preconceptions. This eternal being has, in its radical organic distinction, been excluded from the competition…
Subeden, planning and sustained survival.
The camp has been moved to the eastern side of the cavern. There, the coast is vast and much more even. This area will be ideal for any long-term research camp and has the potential for some more permanent infrastructure…
The cage mines
These mines are unnamed and of their origin, little to nothing is known. Absent from all archives, hidden from view, they seem to exist in a cognitive blindspot. Deep within a small private forest is the forgotten ventilation well, the…
Puppet to the other world
The drums sounded again. I did not hear them starting, as if they were never gone. Deep and frenetic like an army from lands unknown they marched through the stone. They resonated through the still humid air of the upper…
Subeden, Day 5: Dead waters
Day 5 Note on the physiological effects of life in the Subeden:Despite being rich in discoveries my stay in the area had been quite uneventful so far. This environment felt surprisingly peaceful, one might say welcoming, and I had not…
Wait for me outside
Most days resemble each other, a peaceful routine of exploring nearby cavities, sketching maps, and maintaining the hydraulic power generator. Every now and then a minor discovery would punctuate the otherwise uneventful thread of my existence. A small artifact, a…
Three cascades and two thoughts
Out of the three consecutive cascades of the southern Sliin, where the waters fork and merge again, two are particularly noteworthy. Unique in their nature and absurd in their appearance these wonders can be approached by descending the river eastwards.…
The sinister grand halls of Agowl
No place is more unnatural than the treacherous geological scars they call Agowl. A series of vast elongated crevasses that tear through the sharp rock as if a titanic set of claws had eviscerated the earth from the inside. The…
The esoteric museum of curiosity
The dome. A place of modern underground culture and art buried overtop the Groïvern. Lost amongst other tragedies of the first world war this natural cavity was fortified and used as a bunker before sinking deeper into the ground due…
The swallowed metal beast
October the 3rd, By the time I took these notes, I had been walking for approximately two hours since my last rest amongst the shattered concrete slabs of a WW2 German coastal bunker. The crevasse that engulfed my efforts that…
Deep dark encounter
I encountered someone. An unthinkable event in the lands below. From almost a mile away we could distinguish each other’s lights in the straight central spine of this expansive salt mine. Like two fireflies in the empty night sky, the…
The living dead of Seïnn
The sandy landscapes of Seïnn must have existed for just as long as the Sliin itself. Despite not laying on the river’s main course anymore they are still hydrated by it and therefore still lay under a shallow drape of…
I met noone and he said:
For sure it is a weird wayYou know the styx has much to sayTo be strolling through the linesAbout the ghostly riversides I met noone and he said, listen to me stranger friend, darkness is better carried on the outside.Follow…
Crazyman’s mines of Cokala
The mines of Cokala are truly a sight to behold and an unforgettable experience in the higher layers of the abyss. While being a relatively little network in the far northern regions they stand out by the richness of their…
Subeden, Day 4
Day 4 They are usually seen in groups of five to ten individuals though there seems to be a complete lack of interaction between them. It almost looks like they manage to remain grouped and fly together while completely unaware…
Subeden, Day 1
Here it is, the starry dark blue slopes surrounding this immense fiery surface. The sunny sea nested in bouquets of towering vegetation filled me with an alleviating warmth that one rarely experiences in such depths. I took a moment to…
Mysterious passage to new lands
I was walking down the weak flow of rainwater in the underbelly of the city, having one-sided conversations with imaginary characters as long and twisted as the paths I was following. There was a warm and misty ambiance that morning…
Subeden, Day 0
Tomorrow I will see with my own eyes the subject of many tales and fantasies. A location first encountered by a fellow pioneer in the underground lifestyle who sadly was taken away by this place’s unpredictable moods. I will tread…
We extrapolate but never create
As I tirelessly shuffle over the snaking concretions – careful not to fall prey to the boiling waters underneath – I feel tempted to lean into some dark theories of my own, or maybe fears.A simple phrase triggered my lonely…
Ostracized from light
I had just emerged from a lengthy study of my transcripts and as the daylight started to fade away so did I. Like a drunken sailor in the bleak lights of old shady docks my mind was vagabonding through twisted…
Prominent tale in the Dome
As one sinks deeper into the meanders and limbo of the infrastructure below the city, water, concrete, and darkness become one. In this inhospitable maze, it is said that rumors can be heard coming from the deepest passages… myths that…
Accident 2; Vraenk main pit
As I tightened the linkages around my waste a deep instinct flooded my brain as if released from a crashing damn. That rope was the very fine line between the fear of certain death and crippling curiosity. At this instant…
Tragedy of Vraenk
One of the boldest attempts at breaking through the realm of reality by digging beyond its bounds was the ill-fated deep settlement of Vraenk. Its collapse was so impactful at the time that it became part of the magnificent mural…
To Jeremy
Jeremy was quite young when he got lost. A sudden flood of unprecedented proportions had forced him and his close ones to flee in a torrent of panic, rushing to higher grounds. Though he came from a lineage of renowned…
Vagabond in time
Eons, days, years, and lunations. Humans have shaped their conception of time to best fit their ephemeral existence. Bathing in the environmental clockwork of the surface we are predestined to perceive time as cycles of tangible duration. Shielding our minds…
The city’s backstage
Cities are inherently complex weavings, sponges for swarms of energetic routines. Ticking, sparking in the reassuring dissonance of mechanic rhythm. To some, it is an alienating cluster of social degeneration and to others a providential and handy distraction from life.…
Songs of the Groïvern
There are many hidden passages throughout the world’s superficial crust that lead to the Groïvern. I can still remember to this day the narrow chasm in which I descended, amongst the remains of caved-in medieval sewers. Like an eroded rocky…
Immortality and degeneration
I have long blabbered of strange creatures in my past records but out of these beasts, none is more influential to the abyss than the Testificate. Though completely passive and devoid of interactive skills, it has irreversibly affected the underworld…
Peace in the drains
Every now and then, before breaching to the surface like a sailor placidly landing on a coast he never missed, I find myself being a vagabond of the storm drains. Carved and shaped by humans, they are one of these…
Sailing amongst columns of light
In addition to being more expansive than anything conceivable by the average surface dweller, the undergrounds also push the limits of Euclidian space and structure through their infinite passages and cathedralesque chambers. Used as we are to the living conditions…
Nicholas of Cusa (1453)
“I do not know what I see, because I see nothing visible. I know this alone that I know that I do not know what I see and that I can never know. I do not know how to name…
Quest for a new seed
See, ideas can only be constructed, evolved upon preceding thought and observation. It is impossible to us mortals to conceptualize an idea, plant a seed in the expanse, far from any existing branch. I encourage any mind, as creative as…
The cosmic garden of thought
There is no shade to be thrown upon the extent of human imagination other than that it is inherently limited by its own extrapolative nature. In a certain way, knowledge, thought, imagination, the combined consciousness of our species since the…
Prologue to the quest
Throughout my fantastical wanders in-between worlds, at every step of my strolls, in my imaginative exploration, doubtful I remain. Why am I so hopelessly submitted to this helpless search? Why am I so desperate for the inconceivable? For the impossible…
Light through the layers
Not much different from the humble refuge of a shepherd’s shed among the storm-beaten highlands. So does the beaming glow of a torch feel in the endless meadows of darkness… Under the pavement our kind brings light. Not in the…
The spectral flower tides
One would think there’s not much to the flora of the depths. Inexistent light is an obstacle to most plant matter from the surface. Nevertheless, life in the abyss is nothing like the sunbathed surface and the mystical flora of…
The Hollows
“Effundensque Tenebris” is the name of one of the most incomprehensible wonders of the underground. Qualifying it as a monster or even an entity would not be justified as its nature alone transcends matter, is beyond space, and lives before…
Dripping companion
We are so used to water as a commodity, a drink, a mere result of an open faucet. But as you head deep into the darkness it becomes more, it speaks and dances, swirls and shines. Its seemingly incessant flow…
The Long Silver
Time for another legend from the depths. Light is mostly absent under the urban jungle. Only rarely does the sun pierce through the thick darkness, pouring its waterfall of light through a seam in a manhole cover. But not every…
Curse of the battalion
The forgotten medieval sewers are guarded by a battalion of rats that have been cursed for as long as their sharp little minds can remember. Over time their ranks grow in the relative peacefulness of their moist tunnels. Yet every…