(My journal from solo-playing Ker Nethalas. Slight spoilers ahead.)
Day 1
They accused me of Fraud. Yes, my guilt was real. But death!? They hung me! What possessed me to visit this land?
I woke underneath the city. They threw my body down a well into a cavern full of rotting corpses. My neck wrenched and in pain from the noose they tried to kill me with. I wanted to scream, but my throat hurt too much.
I sat on the fetid refuse, mostly naked, looking up at the hole in the high ceiling leading to freedom. The one way trip to this ancient catacomb might have an exit, but the one I looked up at wasn’t it.
Among the corpses, I found a half used torch.
I tried laughing. That hurt. No more laughing for now.
Dark vision was one of my few skills, … that and a good set of fists. I couldn’t even use the torch as a club. Not heavy enough.
I found etchings one the wall that led to a small crack just big enough for me to squeeze through. The crack led into an unknown underground domain. I needed resources, … food, cloths, and a weapon. I had none. My only chance lay in the darkness.
My eyes adjusted to the dark, far better than a normal human. My ears adjusted to the silence. I moved along a corridor to a carved room.
Skeletal horrors. Two of them. They saw me, even without a lit torch. I had no choice but to fight.
Room after room. Corridor after corridor. And a massive water trapped door that nearly washed me away.
I finally set up camp at deep drop-off. More catacombs existed down there, and maybe an exit to escape from. The drop-off was too steep and crumbly. If I went down there, I’d never come back this way. There were still rooms and corridors worth exploring and scavenging at this level of the catacomb.
Should I abandon this area and head further into another domain, knowing I could never return to the hole they threw me down?
Too much. I decided to sleep on it. I hoped nothing attacked me in my sleep.
Fear.