ABYSS
A great rumbling roused me from sleep. Though distant, it was yet enough to draw me to the balcony.
As I stepped beyond the threshold I saw the cloudless sky turned black. Before my eyes the remaining stars quenched in fitful bursts and the moon soon followed, swallowing herself into nothing. As bitter dark enveloped the world I cried out -- surely I must be dreaming!
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The ground trembled and my tower shook violently. I realized as I scrabbled for a handhold that it had been shaking since I stepped outside, but the shock of stars and moon had numbed the sensation. As I slipped toward the balcony's edge I heard the mountains crack and split and as the last of the stars guttered out I pitched over the edge.
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The fall was longer than it should have been. The corner of my eye caught a flash of red; as I turned to look my periphery caught another flash, this one purple. A flash, a flash... and then a riot of colors erupted around me with a deafening sound like a wet cloth torn asunder. Pinpricks of light flit past, and with a shock I realized they were worlds -- countless, fantastic worlds speeding by as I fell through nothing. Lush forests; dead deserts; sheer cliffs, winding caves, flora and fauna and all manner of strange, alien creatures like nothing I'd seen nor researched. They terrified me, and I closed my eyes to will away this night terror.
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At a sudden jolt I opened my eyes to find myself standing barefoot upon stone beside a massive cavern. My left arm burned with pulsing agony, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled with the feeling of being watched.
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My worst fear had come to pass -- this was no dream.
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~ Excerpt from the journal of Jürgen von Oberhain
In the story of Abyss, you are a lucky survivor of a bizarre abduction -- wrenched from your home by unknown means amidst a violent rainbow of light, you awaken in the depths of a seemingly endless network of caverns. Beasts and monsters beyond imagination haunt these halls, but perhaps more dangerous is the mystery of the strange growth in your arm...
What's more, you are not alone in this hellish pit. From the abandoned camps to the strange messages found scrawled upon the walls, there is abundant evidence that you are not the only one wandering the caves. And from the bloodstains, you suspect not all of them are friendly.
Survival is paramount. Will you seek out your fellows and band together for strength, or will you carve out a place for yourself from these cold stone walls? Whatever your plan, you must be ever vigilant; for there is something else here, something worse than bandits and bloodthirsty beasts. Something that stalks the dead dark tunnels, something that chitters to the gloom in what almost sounds like words...
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Perhaps you are not so lucky a survivor after all.
With sufficient time to study the foreign body lodged in my forearm I have determined it to be some kind of symbiotic fungus; I have taken to calling it a Spore. It appears to have a number of magical properties, including but not limited to: serving as an extradimensional space in which to store supplies; psychically translating the speech of other folk I have encountered; and, most ominously, returning me to life whenever I meet an untimely end. Awakening in my bed is equal parts relieving and horrifying -- for I cannot shake the feeling I am being observed...
I have spoken with many other peoples and creatures here and have come to the conclusion that we were not brought here by chance. No great mistake was this; no unhappy accident. Someone -- or something -- brought us here against our will; the Spore in the arm of every soul I meet is proof enough. But despite the clear intent behind our summoning, our host or hosts have yet to appear. I suspect that my feelings were not unfounded; that They yet watch. They yet wait. But...for what?
