I don't know how long has passed since we entered the earth, only that we still remain in her bowels.

We found the first nest.

The creatures here appeared to be dessicated dead children but their flesh was more gelatinous, rubbery. Their necks were the most vulnerable, and only by beheading them were any dispatched. They would attain physical form again, perhaps in a decade or two, but for the moment destroying them was enough to keep them at bay. I must admit that even this grisly task was somewhat enjoyable, for these creatures were vicious, spiteful things.

Their "mother," however, was more difficult foe. An image of the fearsome combination of horrendous ugliness and seductive beauty, she was clad in a ragged gown. Her eyes were wildly moving, sometimes rolling sarcastically and at others with an intense stare. Her hair grew from short to long, changing colors from a light brown to dark red and back. Her misshapen teeth alternatively gnashing and her contradictory mouth uttered words of great love and intense hate. Some of my companions were drawn in towards her presence (among them Ragna), somehow entranced by the Brood-Mother, but this was a trap.

Once her victims were close enough, her jaws opened wide and a wailing cry vomited forth, filling our thoughts with her life's suffering, with thoughts of those who she felt had wronged her no matter how slight, thoughts of anyone who disagreed with her (whom she then considered her enemy), thoughts of paranoid persecution. The sound alone cut the flesh of those who were too close to her, and yet they remained in place before the Brood-Mother, some breaking down and begging her forgiveness for wrongs they did not commit.

Our wise woman began her counter-attack. "Foul bitch! Self-absorbed whore!" she screamed at the Brood-Mother. The angel of death's voice was clear, with no hint of age or illness. The Brood-Mother screeched at the old woman in anger, and began to take in a deep breath before the old sage interrupted her.

"You have blamed all others in your life, and yet you NEVER took responsibility for your own actions! Did you not think that it is YOU who has ruined herself?! Look here, Brood-Mother, and see what you have made of yourself!" and with that, she drew a metal mirror. Almost immediately the Brood-Mother was entranced by her image in the mirror, the creature's face showing both revulsion and narcissistic obsession.

"Quickly! Strike now!" the angel of death hissed at the rest of us, "before she takes her wrath on you as she did all her children!" And thus we did, descending on the Brood-Mother much as she thought others were doing throughout her life, the lot of us hacked away at her limbs joyfully as she wildly attempted to defend herself.

Ragna smashed the creature's jaw shut as she attempted to scream her dirge of self-pity at us again, and with a final stroke Aelfried removed her head. All that was left of the Brood-Mother were her bones and a mound of gelatinous flesh.

=============
We treated the wounded, their flesh appearing as if cut by many small blades. The wounds were not too deep, but they covered any bit of exposed skin by the hundreds. Strangely, neither cloth nor armor was disturbed in any way. I addressed Ragna's wounds, speaking small words of healing from the dawn of creation, and they closed.

"Although she constantly mistreated those around her, the Brood-Mother was filled with spite because she was jilted by men and women alike, acting as if she was never to blame," the angel of death explained to us as we rested. "It was an endless cycle of hate for others as she dealt out contempt to them. She felt entitled to all the pleasures of the world itself without giving anything in return, and was angry that the world did not feel the same towards her," she spat on the ground. "In her loneliness she stole the children because she could not find a mate, and kept them until they died. With their death, so did she, but her hate lived on. She will not return for at least twenty years."

In the morning, my leg was asleep, but I didn't have the heart to wake up Ragna, or any of the others for that matter. Our guide was very thorough in her instructions to us the day before -- how to walk, what to strike, what to distract, and leaving the dead. Last night would have been only restful peace we could ever expect.

We began to dig at the foot of the monolith, until we found a seal upon a capstone. It was hard work, for although there were fourteen of us and the area around the ancient rock was warm, the soil was tough as though the earth did not want to reveal its secrets. The sage wiped her brow with an old cloth and took a rasping, wheezing breath as she checked our work.

"This is the sign of our Elders," the old woman said to me, "their ancient blood runs through our veins, and it is our blood that those who lie beneath this stone cry out for. They are not dead, for you cannot kill those from Beyond. I shall call for the Key and the Gate once the stone is moved, and we shall descend into the darkness." Turning to the others, she said in her language, and then to me in my own, "Be ready."

One by one we descended into the hole, the angel of death taking the lead. Why she continued to demand to be called the angel of death, I do not know. It is a role she only took when there was a funeral, otherwise she was the wise woman of the kingdom.

In her hand was a crystal that gave off light, which she called the Sun Stone. She told me there were several kinds of these, some of them used to draw down the sun's light to show its position when the sky was cloudy, but this particular Sun Stone could draw the sun's light even at night and below the earth. It was this kind of light that the creatures below feared most, so even if the light betrayed our position they would not be able to bear the sight of it, and that would give us an advantage. The only issue was that the bearer of the Sun Stone could only hold it for a while until she would receive burns on her skin as if naked before the sun on a cloudless day, so we would have to take turns holding the stone. The sage would still need to be at the front, however, so each of us would need to take a turn holding the stone over her shoulder.

We trekked forward in this manner, a single-file line in a small tunnel, ever descending downwards...

We continued north as we followed the thin line made of the old sage's blood. The ritual melted away the accumulated ice and snow as the blood traveled ahead of us and it would reveal a small groove gouged into the stony ground hidden beneath our feet. She called it the blóðrefill, "blood-gutter" or "blood-stripe." The angel of death continued to speak both in her tongue and in mine as much as her knowledge allowed her, but that made it difficult for me to understand what she was saying. As they saw the confusion on my face, my fellows told me that the term was also used to describe the fuller of a sword, but in this case the literal meaning appropriately applied to the mystical path we followed.

"She says the blood in the gutter is still alive, and as such, it is quick," said Dómari, one of the elder explorers. "If we were to be too slow the ice would soon come back to cover the path, and we would be lost here forever as ghosts, always searching for the path we could no longer make. Do not look back, whomever falls behind. Out here, the gods typically do not favor fools, nor shall we."

We lost no one, by the grace of Eld Magnil.

=============
The path led to a large standing stone, towering over us with the height of three-and-a-half men, untouched by weather of any kind. It was warm to the touch, a smooth polished granite. It was covered in stylized spirals and letters, of which whose meaning I was not entirely sure, yet it was eerily familiar. None of my companions knew of what they meant. Our guide only looked at me and cackled a bit.

"We camp here," the angel of death said, "it is fine to rest here. You will need your strength. Nothing will bother us this night, save for anything you meet in your sleep."

=============
So far only a few of the explorers have noticed I do not sleep, and of those only one has been brave enough to ask. Ragna Red-Hair nervously sat next to me, telling me she would take my place on the fire-watch and I could sleep. I told her it would be all right, that the flames were comforting to me, and I used them to meditate. She refused to leave, and eventually fell asleep with her head upon my thigh until morning.

We walked across the snow-covered landscape, with frosted beards and our eyes blinded by the foggy air. At every step, the cramping cold seized our muscles with agony but still we pushed forward until the "angel of death" told us to cease.

Kneeling down, she chipped away the snow and the icy layer beneath from a stone whose carvings are older than the races of Men, chisled by hands whose descendants no longer stalk the plains in our current age. Drawing a blade from her belongings, she made a small incision in her palm and let fly drops of her ancient blood into the grooves and crevices of the rock.

"The Light and the Way," she hoarsely croaked.

"The Way and the Life," my companions, in unison, responded.

I remained silent and refrained from further judgment. For all of their foreign ways, my traveling companions are a good people - harsh and hardy folk due to the fact that in their world life is short and nature brutal; daily survival among them is not a reward, but a privilege exercised by hard work and a bit of luck.

The Man of the Desert returned to me last night.

"Your gods are buzzing little things compared to the Great Old Ones. We of the Outside have nothing to fear from your Nemesis. We are waiting until the stars are made right, and this spawn of lesser beings shall fall like all the others."

Ni-Yarlat-Hotep appeared to me tonight dressed from head to toe in black fabric, both wrapped tightly around him like a buried king of the desert sands and draped upon him like a robe of the lord of beggars.

He said little, other than this would be the first of many nights.

The first "raid" was a complete success. The local natives welcomed us as honored guests, giving the crew trinkets and some food, catching us up on the most recent pirate activity among the islands.

These jewels are tarnished indeed with the tales I have been told.

This is not my purpose, nor my goal. I travel to find my doppelganger, my enemy, for I now have knowledge that the Enemy of Us All, is going to wake He-Who-Is-Dead-But-Dreaming in an ancient city beneath the waves, and devour him whole.

The stars are almost right.

I am named Oarsman. The man on my right is also called Oarsman.

And to my left, too, is likewise named Oarsman. Together with the rest of the crew not assigned to anything but an oar, we are called The Oarsmen. Each beat of the drum drives us, engines of bone and muscle and sweat giving life to this wooden dragon.

Windless seas remind the crew that without us, the Oarsmen, we will not move. The waters are as black as pitch, the sea-foam a sickened gray. Onward we row. Our final destination is a place called Acheron, or at least it was called that long ago, much of the civilization there turned to dust and ash.

But for now we row towards a series of islands, home to pirates and thieves who refer to them as the "jewels" of these waters. Will we pluck these jewels from their grasp? Or merely plunder them for supplies? I do not know. I only know I must use this oar until called to fight. For together the people of this ship, we are called the wolves of the seas.

I am looking forward to the dawn, as I stand here in the night, watching for the signs of the new age.

I feel the air within my lungs, the cold sting piercing my flesh.

I feel the heat of my campfire upon my skin, giving me warmth.

I smell the ocean upon the breeze, tasting the moisture just slightly.

I feel the strength of the earth beneath my feet, rooting me to the ground.

With a renewed spirit I see the first ray of the sun rising in the east, a beacon of hope guiding me home.