The Diaries of Cordelia Chan

Undershadow

Since I'm still writing this narrative my assumptions were correct although its a little harder to actually do it than write it. Once down from the tower I instinctively knew which way to proceed to Dworkin. I knew that with concentration I could get there. The problem was the others. After a period they each worked out how to move here, but it seems each of us moves according to our abilities and skills, and Charity and I, are far better than the Sorcha or Alfred. I have a feeling that this is because we can both Shadow walk and movement here is similar in process. The major difference is that when shadow walking another can follow if they can see the walker. That is not the case here. To achieve the same here it seems we must be psychically linked.

This does mean that we can now access one another's strengths and weaknesses, although I've not noticed any of the others actively doing so. Charity has been acting as a buffer between myself and the others as we traveled, which is somewhat of a relief given the amount of side thoughts I was picking up from Alfred.

From what I've been able to determine so far is that of the four of us I'm currently the strongest mentally followed by Charity, then Alfred, then Sorcha. With Charity between us it is difficult to determine much else but I have a feeling that Alfred may have a greater potential than either of us. I may yet get the opportunity to find out.

Undershadow itself initially appeared to be an uninteresting place but we are currently resting by a large obelisk whilst I recover my strength. The obelisk measures nearly 10m per side and about 100m in height. There are inscriptions in panels on each of its four sides, but none of us can read any of them. This is most unusual and both the Pattern and Logrus confer the ability to read and understand most languages. Alfred has shown an almost obsessive interest in the obelisk despite the fact that he appears unable to copy the-2013 symbols down or create a physical representation of them. Perhaps, that obelisk and heiroglyphic panels appear as they do because that is the only way in which we can perceive them. If this is the case then we have no means of translating them into a physical representaion since our terms of reference are completely different.

How long I actually rested for I cannot tell as time appears to have no reference here. In shadow gauging the time is usually a matter of mind walking the pattern, exactly how it works I'm not sure but you always know the time in relation to the imprint walked to within a few minutes.Mind walking the pattern here results in a fluctuating sense of both time and direction, similar to a compass in a rapidly fluctuating magnetic field.

Any way when I awoke again Alfred was still reading the first part of the Book of Selheim I had given him in Deirdre's Tower. From his look I doubt he slept at all. However long I had slept had provided me with sufficient ret that I now felt able to continue.Gathering everybody we set off as before, Charity towing Allagahn and Alfred and me towing Charity. After several hours we could see what appeared to be a town in the distance, although from our course it was not our destination. As we closed on it I degan to feel that it was not a place I wanted to be and was relived to see that we would pass it by at a distance of a couple of miles.

Time wore on and I began to tire again. Ahead of us I could see another obelisk and pushed on determined to reach it before resting again. By the time we reached it I was glad of the rest. Whilst no physically tired I was mentally tired but I was beginning to suspect that in the same way repeated strenuous exercise improves physical capabilities, this level of mental exercise would have a similar affect on my mental capabilities.

Whilst the period of rest allowed me to recover most of my strength I was beginning to suspect that prolonged activity here out eventually lead to the collapse of my real body and hence my death. I hoped that we would get to where we were going without to much further travelling.

Several hours passed, and I was beginning to fear that this was going to turn into a life threatening marathon, when a town appeared on the horizon. This time I was sure it was our destination, and I hastened towards it.

As we approached and we were struck by the architecture of the place, I began to wonder if these towns are a representation of the psyche of the inhabitants. My father in his diaries had indicated that Dworkin endured periods of severe psychiatric disturbance, and by the architecture of the town it looked like it had been designed, if that is the correct work, by somebody in a severly unhinged state. There was not a straight building in sight, and most of them contravened all the laws of physics I knew. I recalled the drawings of xxxx and his mobius strips, where everything wraps around on itself, and the town in someway resembled these, althoguh you could see the heavy Gothic influence and somebody fascinated by the Adams Family. To say that it had a dark brooding atmosphere would be an understatement.

As we entered through the crippled gatehouse, and made our way up the dark cobbled winding main street, ducking under dark timber framed overhanging buildings, we were struck by the complete absence of inhabitents, even though there were sufficient residences, shops, inn's etc to house several hundred.

The main street eventually brought us to a reasonably normal, in relation to the rest of the buildings, Great Hall, whose mains doors were shut, in complete contrast to those of every other building.

I can't recall which on of us knocked on the doors in the end, but we were rewarded by them swinging open. to reveal a long vaulted entrance hall. We entered and made our way along the hall towards a second pair of double doors. The outer doors banged ominously shut behind us.

Approaching the interior doors, they swung open as if triggered by our presence, to reveal a magnificent medieval Great Hall. On a dias about three quarters the way along the hall stood a pair of magnificent thrones, slumped into one of which was a body. It looked like Dworkin.

Cautiously we entered the hall. A shriek of maniacal laughter rang out and the doors swung shut with a reverberating thud. I looked around. Apart from the thrones the hall was sparsely decorated, although the magnificnce of the black wood carvings supporting the roof and round the upper gallery would most likely have been diminished by additional decorations. the exception was the tapestry of a large black demonic horned horse haning at the far end of the hall. I had seen something like this somewhere before. It took me a while to remember - it resembled the picture on the reverse of the Trump Dworkin had given me.

I was woken from my thoughts by more maniacle laughter and a dull thudding sound as Alfred was knocked down by something which appeared to come from the upper gallery. I started scanning more carefully.

Something moved again and Charity was knocked back down the hall. It was difficult to follow for it moved with incredible speed and apparently force as Alfred went flying agian. The figure appeared to be some sort of imp and seemed disinclined to allow anybody to appraoch the throne.

After several more abortive attempts Charity and Alfred decided it was my turn to get beaten up. Cautiously I made my way down the hall, but the imp remained where it was. As I neared the body, the imp faded, and Dworkin as I had seen him as a ghost appeared. It thanked me for bringing him here, turned to the body and removed several items, causing the body to crumple to dust and his appearence to solidify. He then turned back to me and gave me the remainder of the Book Of Selheim - although it was now badly damaged.

We made our way out of the hall and out of the town. I didn't feel up to a long journey and was relieved when Charity volountered to be prime hauler on the way back. This left me to handle Alfred and Sorcha. We hadn't gone far when I grew tired of Alfred's undiscerplined surface thought radiation - atleast Sorcha was trying to control her thoughts. When I tried to admonish him he got shirty and tried to pull away forcing me to mentally grab him by the scruff of his neck. His reaction to this was akin to a 3 year old that's had its favourite toy taken away. When he failed to desist, I built a cacoon and shut him inside it where his ranting and raging would bother no body but himself.

Charity did well and we reached to first obelisk we had come to on our way inbound before she grew too tired to continue. We decide to rest and I let Alfred out of his mental prison, although he continued to rant and rage for a while. He was going to return to reading the book until it was suggested resting would be a good idea since he had a sorcery ritual to perform shortly and it exhausted him last time.

We didn't spend long resting, and resumed our journey, with me leading this time - Alfred was in no mood to make mental contact with me again. We reached the tower and ascended the stairs to the 'crystal' level. We we then faced with getting back to the roof.

With everyone assembled in the center of the pentacle we linked minds again. Alfred had no choice since I was the only other one capable of extracting and shunting life force energy to sustain him whilst he cast the ritual necessary to get us back to shadow. As we all were already tired this took far more out of us than the initial ritual, and I found myself drawing more and more energy from Charity and Sorcha, to keep the ritual going. It seems both have a greater capability for this than Alfred or I.

By the time Alfred reached the climax of the ritual it was barely all I could do to remain conscious. When I came too we were back in Shadow and Charity and Sorcha were hovering over both of us. I just lay there although I indicated that I was ok. Alfred remained out for several minutes more before he to groggily came to, by which time I was capable of moving again.

Tor 8 Nusome Ji'Tal : Tower of Elysium

I pulled Deirdre's Trump and made contact. Tendrils appeared and we were whisked inside. Deirdre wanted to know how we'd gotten on but all we wanted to do was eat, drink and rest. We did learn that we'd been 'gone' for just over 3 days.