Editing Journal of Likang Ulin

[[The Wilderlands of Absalom]]

Found in the lair of the Lady of Shadows, there is a book that radiates magic. It is bound in red leather, on which are embossed the runes  አንድ . The runes on the magical book read as "Likang Ulin" and bears a date of the 105th year of the Fifteenth Cycle, a mere century prior to the companions' arrival at this place! It is written in Common in a strange dialect and grammar. The writing is cramped and difficult to read, and the subject matter is somewhat metaphorical.

There are frequent references to a "patron" for instance, that the writer refers to by the name "Saquahturcthon". Mostly, the journal records the writer's -- and it is clear that the writer was female -- early years. It refers to places and peoples unfamiliar to the Company, and the journal keeper practiced an unfamiliar form of magic.  It seems that early on in the writer's career she witnessed several of her comrades slain by creatures composed of nothing but shadowstuff, and felt their enervating touch herself. This is described in clinical, detached detail, and she reports seeking out similar creatures several times over for study; both their effects upon herself and others. There is a single, oblique reference to something the author simply refers to as the Shadowstaff . . .

The third section details the author's experimentation with shadowstuff; one such experimentation ended disastrously, and she found herself shunted into a world not unlike our own, but bleached of all color and vibrancy, and permantly in a half lit, half shadowed state. Ulin conjectures that she has entered a "shadow dimension" that she promptly names the Shadowlands. She has many adventurers within this place, where she neither ages nor needs to consume sustenance, although she writes she develops a craving for food and drink that is never thereafter satisfied. On one of her adventures she claims a magical staff as her own, and soon learns that it possesses mystical powers beyond her ken and abilities. She claims that it whispers secrets to her as she dozes -- for sleep never comes fully to her in this land -- and shows her how to manipulate the fabric of reality itself! Surely this, she writes excitedly, is the fabled Shadowstaff itself! 

In a later section, Likang Ulin has just passed through a mysterious portal, and finds herself in a place of total darkness. Feeling her way around, she finds herself to be in a circular stone room. Three exits are set into the walls, each with a lever set into the wall next to it and barred by an iron portcullis . . .

Finding herself in a totally dark room the diarist first attempts to conjure a magical light, but she finds that the darkness swallows it without a trace. She then spends no small amount of time attempting to discern, by feel, what might lay on the other sides of the three portcullises, bt can feel no difference between the three. Finally, picking one at random, she attempts to lift, bend and break the bars, then resorts to what magics she possesses that she feels might work, but to no avail. Even her mighty Shadowstaff, which allows her to travel between glooms, is no help, as in the pitch dark there are no shadows!

Finally, having almost given up hope, she throws the lever beside her chosen portcullis, and with a creak and groan the iron bars lift out of the way! The author finds herself in an open shaft of stone, with stairs leading up and down. This section of the journal details her exploration of this new place, which the savvy adventurers quickly realize is the Candle itself! She finds numerous levers; most of which control the lighting within certain rooms and areas, causing a radiant glow to emit from panels set into the ceiling. One room, a circular chamber just off the main shaft, three levels above the portcullis room, contains a throne like chair with a lever next to it; pushing the lever down causes the entire room to descend for what seems to be minutes, stopping in a large, natural cavern filled with enormous, clear crystals that glow and pulsate with an inner light, as well as some sort of inscrutable metal machine, all tubes and gears and pistons, the purpose of which Ulin is unable to suss out. Returning to the throne, she pushes the lever up, and the room travels upwards, stopping in a largely empty room lit by sunlight, streaming in from carefully crafted windows high in the wall. After so much time in the Shadowlands, the bright light stabs her eyes, and she is soon forced to retreat without an examination of the room itself.

Ulin spends, according to her journal, days upon days exploring her new home. She notes almost as an afterthought that whatever appetite suppressant property of the Shadowlands seems to have carried over to here, for she needs no food and only the rare sip of water. Finally, after much exploration, she opens the door on the landing of sublevel 10, as she reckons, and finds herself within what must have been a temple . . .

The end of the journal becomes more and more rambling; there are offhand comments and remarks about how weak the diarist is feeling, how . . . insubtantial. There are also numerous mentions of dreams she has been experiencing with increased frequency and vividness, of great mothlike wings beating away in the darkest recesses of her mind. At some point, she notes, the lights go out, but it doesn't seem to bother her.

On one of her exploratory journeys she stumbles across an idol, tucked away in a crate, that bears an uncanny resemblance to the creature in her dreams, and then in another room in the complex a great statue of the same figure; as she gazes upon it she becomes aware that she is surrounded by shadowy, insubtantial figures, beings who radiate a coldness that steals strength from the living. They do not attack, but instead bow low before her.

The last entry has her entering chamber behind the enormous moth-like statue, stowing her belongings in a trunk, and settling in to her new home.