Abysal Records

[RIFT SCROLLS ARCHIVE]

Magitek Audio Device — Recovered Records

Entry 001 — Abyssal Scroll

"First successful test today. The vortex that opened was dark. Not the darkness of an unlit room, nor that of a cavern without torchlight. Something deeper. As though the very absence of light were a substance unto itself, dense and alive. Subject 04 was absorbed in three seconds. The transmitter held for forty-one minutes before falling silent. Forty-one minutes. I had expected seconds. Whatever exists on the other side of that threshold... it is patient."

Entry 002 — Abyssal Scroll

"Subject 07 lasted fifty-three minutes. The adrenal readings were unlike anything I have documented before, not the sudden spike of immediate fear, but a sustained, climbing terror, as though something were circling them. Deliberate. Unhurried. I am beginning to suspect that the darkness on the other side is not empty. That it has shape. That it has hunger."

Entry 003 — Corrupt Scroll

"A different scroll today. The vortex carried another color entirely. Sickly. Wrong in a way I cannot adequately put into words. Subject 09 was absorbed as expected, but the transmitter returned something I cannot explain. The signal came back. Briefly. From inside the room. Subject 09 was standing in the corner when I turned around. I do not know how they returned. I do not know what they were. They were put down before I could document further. I will need better subjects. I will need more of them."

Entry 004 — Corrupt Scroll

"Subject 12 returned as well. Same corner. Same stillness. Same silence where breathing should have been. It was the eyes that I had failed to properly observe in subject 09. There was nothing behind them, no fear, no confusion, no pain. Whatever came back through that portal was wearing the body, not inhabiting it. The dimension on the other side does not kill. It displaces. It replaces. I have not slept in two days and I find I do not particularly mind."

Entry 005 — Celestial Scroll

"A third variant. The vortex was white. Painfully, searingly white, the kind of light that does not illuminate but erases. Subject 14 was gone before I could register the portal fully opening. No transmitter data. Not signal loss. Zero. As though subject 14 had ceased to exist in the same instant the scroll activated. I have reviewed the recording seventeen times. In a single frame, between the moment the mana was applied and the moment subject 14 vanished, the subject is smiling. I do not know what to make of this. I am not sure I want to."

Entry 006 — Celestial Scroll

"No transmitter data again. But this time I noticed something within the vortex itself, in the half-second before it closed. Something was looking back at me. It was not hostile. It was not curious. It wore the expression of something that had already made a decision about me a very long time ago, and was simply waiting for me to catch up. I have not slept since. I find, to my own surprise, that I am not afraid. I am fascinated. There is a considerable difference, and I am beginning to wonder if the distinction matters."

Entry 007 — Primordial Scroll

"I have done it. The three variants were never separate discoveries. They were components. The Abyssal, the Corrupt, the Celestial, three membranes, three frequencies, three doors that were always meant to be read as a single key. Fusing their base mana signatures took eleven attempts and cost me four more subjects in the process, a price I considered reasonable. The scroll that emerged from the fusion is something that should not exist by any principle I was taught. The mana density is an order of magnitude beyond anything I have handled individually. I do not know which dimension this one opens to. Only that it does not belong to any of the three I have studied. The membrane it targets feels ancient. Worn thin. As though whatever presses against it from the other side has been doing so for a very, very long time. Subject 17 will apply the mana tomorrow morning. I have a feeling this will be my most significant entry."

Entry 008 — Primordial Scroll

[Recording begins mid-session. The ambient hum of magitek equipment. The sound of a scroll being placed upon a stone surface.]

"Subject 17 is applying mana now. The vortex is already considerably larger than any previous iteration. The color is something I have no name for. Something between all three and none of them. It is—"

[The sound of the vortex opening. Deeper than before. A resonance that seems to pass through the walls rather than bounce off them.]

"...that is not right. Something is wrong. That is not—"

[Silence. Four seconds.]

[A laugh. Low, and slow, and deeply, genuinely amused. The laugh of someone who has just been pleasantly surprised for the first time in a very long while, and finds the sensation worth savoring.]

"...hm hm hm hm. How terribly interesting."

[The sound of movement through the portal. Unhurried. Deliberate. The footsteps of something that has never once needed to rush.]

"A Primordial Scroll, constructed from scratch. Assembled from its component membranes by mortal hands. I have not felt this particular seal disturbed in... well. It has been quite some time. Longer than your civilization has existed, I should think."

[A pause. One set of footsteps crossing the stone floor. Then silence where a second set should be.]

"You there. The one holding the recording device. You have been sending things through these portals for quite some time now, have you not? I could feel them arriving on the other side. Small things. Terrified things."

[The scientist's voice. Barely audible. The first time in eight entries it wavers.]

"I— yes. For research purposes. I was only documenting. The scrolls, I didn't know what was on the other—"

"Of course you didn't."

[The laugh again. Shorter. Almost fond.]

"That is precisely what makes it interesting. You were knocking on a door without the faintest idea of what lived behind it. And yet you kept knocking. Months, I would guess. Perhaps longer. Driven by nothing more than the need to know."

[A pause.]

"I can respect that. Truly."

[A wet sound. Brief and total. The kind that should not come from a human body.]

[Something drops.]

[The laugh fades slowly, growing distant, as though whoever is laughing has already moved on to other thoughts and the room is simply no longer interesting.]

"Hm hm hm..."

[The recording continues for eleven more minutes. No further voices. Only the hum of the magitek device, and occasionally, the sound of something moving through the archive with no particular urgency, as though browsing. As though curious.]

[As though it has nowhere else to be.]

[End of file.]

[No further entries.]