The Dark Below

We found something. Something so very very beyond terrible. Something that wasn’t meant to be found way down her in the backmines. And if you’re reading this, then you have as well. Prey to the great Earth Goddess of Balance that whatever we have found in these dark caves doesn’t escape. I pity you and pray for you to escape, which is something me and my family hasn't done.
Allow me to tell you my story. My name is Gaven. A simple miner from the town not far from Ciria City. Approximately 30 miles below it to be precise. We are a town of miners, carved our town, our homes, our… well everything from the bedrock around us. We take pride in what we have done and will gladly fight for it. From last I heard, we were at peace with the land  dwellers above.
Was but a fortnight that has passed since we’ve been in contact with our clan. We were tasked with locating the lost miners to the eastern corridors, some who declared the tunnel as haunted or cursed due to the amount of cave-ins and disappearances. We were expecting to find nothing but the bones of our fallen compatriots, or at best some alive and needing rescue. We found something that both froze us to our molten cores and captivated our minds.
Standing before the lot of us lie the greatest and worst discovery of our generation. What looked to be a massive gate. Half buried beneath a thick layer of rubble. From it we felt what glory laid behind it’s doors. We should have turned back, but alas we were tempted by the siren’s song. Into the wondrous stone-carved doors we went, never to see the light of the magma again. Instead out vision was filled with a glowing ancient light of blue. A light I only ever saw as bright as the glittering star above the land. It was… alluring to say the least. It went on and on into the deep corridors of the structure we found so close to our home. Pulsating as we followed.

I set my drill off to the side of the door, a dumb move in hindsight but it was indeed becoming cumbersome. Armed with only my father’s axe and the other various tools, we explored the enamoring labyrinth before us. We could have run, we still had the chance, but we didn’t. We ignored all the signs and red flags. We barely could make sense of the clear carvings on the walls. We didn’t even notice the movement. We were too fascinated by what we found and how much we could gain from raiding it dry. Even though it was against our clan’s moral code, we thought to clean it and sell what we found to the surface dwellers for some money to help out our village.
Oh what fools we were.
As we descended, the less and less interested we were in clearing the already empty temple we have found and more on what the source of it all was. I found myself in wonder at the carvings at depicting a bewildering beast.It sent chills when I saw the emblem. So familiar yet I couldn’t recognize it immediately.The deeper we went, the more we saw it. Past the room where all the water is stored through a massive hall with countless pillars.
It was something straight out of one of my old kidhood stories. Something that was meant to either terrify me or inspire me. This place did both as we passed under the massive arches between buildings. There, I noticed it. The movement near the bottom of the schism. It wasn’t pronounced but it certainly lead my eyes to that monstrous structure before me. A towering thing of rock and metal. A monster, same as the ones in the carvings. A massive wormlike creature with tusks as long as the bridge we were on. A mouth etched across its face wide open like the rift we were standing on. Staring back at us from within the mouth, an Eye. Located right behind it’s twisted and mangled teeth. From the mouth, a peculiar liquid poured into the dark below. It wasn’t water, that’s for sure, for the liquid grouped up and had what I can only perceive as a high viscosity. 

When I went to ask if we should turn around, it was already too late. They were moving on without me. Deeper into the temple we went. Them being completely unphased by the things we’ve seen thus far. I tried my damnedest to stop them, but they insisted they keep moving. What else could I do but follow them. Family stuck together. Soon after that, though, my desire for running would rise above that of familial bonds.
We reached the antechamber of the Temple, right before the room where it all ended. The lights have almost faded this far in, crusted over by some sort of substance emanating from the room. Pulsating as if it were alive. All throughout the hall, the overwhelming drum of a heartbeat filled out ears and cores. A sense of dread filled every inch of my aura. Yet my compatriots seemed the opposite. Full of valor, as we’ve been told to be. Ready to face whatever was behind that door with honor. I wish I were the same. Perhaps the massacre in that room would have happened differently had I not run from the damned beast that was within that room.
I stayed back from the group, trying to recollect myself from the sensory overload that this place was giving me. You could have heard a pin drop after the door stopped moving. Both of them had frozen in place making eye contact with the twisted monstrosity that resided there. All light that had gone in there never returned. All life that had entered the chamber of the daemon within the walls never returned.
It took me a second to see what they were petrified of, and I wish I ran sooner. Before them was a towering hulk of pieces of stuff. Rock, metal, the walls of the room, the same black liquid surging through its body, and I am certain I briefly saw a person within there. Taking the shape of whatever that statue was in the chasm. What stung me right to my core was the piercing eye that was glaring right back at us from it’s semifluid of a body. 

I ran.

I ran and didn’t stop. Not to the horrendous wretch from the beast. Not for the screams of my family. Not for the sickening silence not long after. I dropped my axe while running, didn’t care at the time because I just needed to get away.
It chased me, I know it did. We left the door wide open, we opened pandora’s box. All the way to the closed entrance of the Temple. I tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t budge. As if it had never been a door to begin with. Nothing but a decoration in these infinitely winding halls. What else could I do but run and hide. Playing cat and mouse to this eldritch creature that shouldn’t exist. Can’t exist, but it is right there on the other side of these walls. It’s everywhere at once. Watching, listening to my soft whines as I write this.
I’m left with no weapons, no anything except these notes. Surrounded by a creature that is getting closer as I finish this. We made a mistake in letting that thing free. It takes, slaughters, and corrupts. Taking what you love and mangling it into an amalgamation of hatred.

I hear their voices coming closer. Of the ones I know who are dead. The miners. My family. Everyone. If you are reading this, then I pray you escape and not suffer the same fate as us. Don’t fight the beast, in fact, don’t go further into the temple. There is nothing but hatred here. It took me a long while, but I finally remember who’s home this is. They built it a long time ago. A place of worship for the god of chaos. Oviceris. Pray that what we have let loose into these halls never makes it outside. Pray you never meet it. Pray.