"We have been attacked.

When at first the enemy forces arrived, no one was sure what was happening; it was still early morning just past daybreak and the men were finishing up their routine training exercises and preparing for their duties.

It started as a low whisper from deep within the forest, rapidly getting louder and louder until ear-piercing shrieks were all around us. They spoke, or rather, screamed in an odd tongue somewhat like that of other known foreigners, but still one not quite distinguishable as any I had ever encountered. Though I had no time for accurate estimation, the magnitude of their unified speech made it seem like they were tens of thousands strong, possibly more.

On the note of their form, however, I must refuse outright to try and recall their twisted appearance for you, lest I might chain both of us to madness permanently. This is all I will say on that matter, and you must trust me that it is in both of our best interests.

What began as a whisper had become a great roar before any man could think to take action. Perhaps I have chosen to forget some of the events, or - as I suspect - something much stranger happened. In any case, before I had time to blink the dead of night was upon us as if time itself had forgotten to play out properly. Most all of the men lay dead and the gatekeeper was struggling to seal the entrance to the keep. It was far too late and all of his efforts proved futile. The barricade had been sabotaged; destroyed completely at some point when no one was looking.

That's when I saw him run out towards them - a lone soldier yelling all the way straight through the indiscernible mass of their horror. As he disappeared into them, his screams gradually became equally terrifying as theirs were. In an instant he was gone completely... devoured by their darkness.

Then, just as quickly as they had come, they were gone - retreating to a slow whisper in the distance and fading to complete silence. I can't for any logical reason explain why their assault ended so abruptly and so strangely, but, as soon as the unknown infantryman had disappeared among their numbers, they turned and left. It was as if these otherworldly abominations had been appeased by receiving an eager participant as opposed to remaining agitated from having to work against us. Speculation and peculiarity aside, I thank The Father for each breath I draw in that man's stead.

The aftermath had left us all quite miserable, to say the very least. With the devastating onslaught finally over, a crack of lightning and the approaching sound of rain brought with them the moonlit view of our fort turned to a battlefield and littered with bodies. The total dead numbered 1762 with 255 either missing, obliterated entirely, or otherwise unaccounted for. 23 of us remain alive. The situation is dismal and this has been a crushing blow to our defenses.

Out of understandable suspicion, those of us left alive and physically capable have searched through everyone's living quarters and found little of interest aside from a journal containing only one entry. The single page had a scribbled drawing of a rocky pit surrounded by trees and a map to its location in the woodlands southwest of the main gate. Accompanying the drawing there was also a great deal of indecipherable text in an unknown language, though there were a few statements we could make out clearly: 'An existence dominated by fear, this is your test. Be wary of those who cannot see the darkness for the light — the road to hell may well be paved with good intention, but the halls themselves are filled with people who would tell you it was worth it. Life does a lot to a man, the least concerning of which is change him. The Father himself could not and would not answer my questions; these are human problems that require human solutions. Run through decay.'

We await your orders."

- Gundahar



Dedicated to every being who has lost their life in the fight for survival and moved forward to something more.
Maximum volume yields maximum results.
Experience will be intensified by abuse of consciousness-enhancing substances.



Special thanks to Greg Shurina for session recording and the late nights.