Day 11, 7128

Weather: Fine
Mood: Consternation

Today we made some progress replacing the beans that were uprooted by our night visitor, which Eldun maintains is a racoon of some kind. We harvested what beans the visitor had left untouched and the servants suggested using the fishing nets to set a barrier around the plants, but I refused. Our quarterly supply train is now a week overdue, and we may yet need the nets before the next train arrives.

Day 13, 7128

Weather: Cloudy
Mood: Excitement

Our junior astronomer Katya reports that she has found a new constellation! With today’s cloud cover she cannot show us her findings, but everyone is very intrigued. If it is a new constellation, our reputation in the home caverns will grow enormously! But if it is not Katya will need to be warned about another display of typical over-exuberance. Of course it is months of work to confirm such a finding, including exhaustive research through the celestial records to confirm it is not simply a rare sighting of an existing phenomenon. Katya insists it is too bright to be an overlooked existing system, but we will see when the work is done.

Day 31, 7128

Weather: Cloudy
Mood: Anticipation

With a week of clear skies behind us I can report wtih some fragile confidence that Katya’s discovery appears to be correct, and it certainly looks like a new constellation has appeared in the sky. We cannot say for sure, because we must check old records, but it burns so bright in the sky that it is very difficult to believe that such a brilliant set of stars could have been there before and not been noticed. Either a very strange atmospheric phenomenon is at play, or something new has appeared in the sky. We have all been very busy with this work, preparing experiments during clear days and scouring the old records during cloudy days, and today is the first day of rest we have taken since Katya’s announcement. I confess that in this sudden burst of research activity I completely missed the dwindling of our supplies, and had to be reminded that our quarterly supply train is now 27 days overdue. I have not had time to check records, but I belive this is not so unusual. Nonetheless, I should make contact with the home caverns if it does not arrive soon.

Day 33, 7128

Weather: Storm
Mood: Consternation

A strange day! A storm gathers over the ocean and threatens to cover our island for some days, forcing us to close the observatory covers and retire to our rooms for the next few days. We will no doubt have to then waste days of research time recalibrating the telescope, since closing the covers seems to always slightly move it (oh if only they had sent technicians to investigate this those years ago when I took over this outpost!) Everyone is eager to continue confirmatory observations of Katya’s new constellation, and the recalibrations will be a frustrating delay.

Katya herself now cannot participate, at least for a few days – with our supplies dwindling we have been on the lookout for our nocturnal visitor and last night she caught it, a racoon as we suspected, plundering our bean stores. She scared it away but somehow sustained a bite. Our Wizard Agrila healed the wound, but she is under orders to rest for a few days under observation in case it has given her the fever – we have treatments for it but they are limited in number and I prefer she be observed and administered some of our remaining supply only if need be, a policy I put in place until at least the next supply arrives, when I can send in a request for more. In fact our medicinal herbs and apothecary are disturbingly low, mismanagement on my part, and I should do a complete stocktake before the next supply train arrives.

More tedious distractions from the big project of confirming Katya’s constellation!

Day 40, 7128

Weather: Cloudy
Mood: Frustration

It is now 27 days since Katya made her potential huge discovery, but we have had barely one week of clear skies in which to ascertain the facts of it. We had a single break in the weather yesterday, and yet made no progress due to the need to recalibrate the telescope. Fortunately Katya’s consternation is still there, but we were unable to proceed with measurements and will need to wait until this abominable cloud bank is gone to continue. I have never cursed the open sky as much as I do in this season!

Katya suffered no further ill effects of the bite, and our medicinal supplies were not consumed tending to her healed wound. However, our supply shipment has still not arrived, and being now more than one month overdue I opted to communicate with our authorities using the Mirror. I oculd not though, because Agrila could not make it work! He tried all he could but it simply would not hold any vision, and was dark and lifeless as if it were a normal piece of metal. He did some investigation and research but no message or signal could pass through it, and he does not know why. So we are now 36 days past the due date for our supplies, and no message can pass in or out of the caverns.

Day 102, 7128

Weather: Clear
Mood: Concern

Katya’s constellation hangs over us still, and we have pored through records going back 1000 years and found no record of it. We can only conclude it is new. However, we have had to divert some effort from our continued study, because not only is our new year supply run now more than 3 months late, but the next supply was supposed to arrive a week ago and it, too, has not arrived. Further attempts to contact our superiors with the Mirror also failed, for reasons Agrila cannot understand. We are truly alone here and beginning to worry.

We have hastily drafted an initial report on the constellation, and this morning we sent it with one of our junior scholars, two servants and two guards to the caverns. Having no mounts, we believe the nearest outpost in the tunnels is two weeks’ walk from here; a return party will take some days to organize at least, assuming all is well in the caverns and this loss of supplies is just an oversight. We cannot therefore expect even a partial resupply for nearly a month. So while our little expedition heads underground to the caverns, the rest of us have set about a reduced research load and increased activities on the island. We have regular fishing shifts, and I have organized for some of the scholars and servants to put some work into preparing and repairing vegetable patches in the garden – these last few years we have become lazy about gardening, and use it primarily for tomatoes and a few fresh herbs, but now we have laid in other over-ground crops that might mature within the next six months. Potatoes, a little corn, that sort of thing.

Also we have begun rationing the wine.

Day 132, 7128

Weather: Sunshine
Mood: Hopeful

Today is now 30 days since we sent our expedition into the caverns, and we can begin to hope that from now we might see a response from our elders and connections underground. We opened the last of the wine today in anticipation.

Day 185, 7128

Weather: Sun
Mood: Worried

It is now more than two months since our expedition entered the caverns, and there has been no word from our homes. We have now missed the third supply run of the year, which was due today or yesterday, and I fear that no more will come within this year. We still have significant supplies of basics – our fungal stocks are high, as are beans and other staples – but we have now very little fruit, oil, only the worst of our preserved meats and vegetables, and very little sugar. We also run low on basic supplies for our research, and discovered to our horror yesterday that we cannot replace an important lens if it breaks – our supplies of highest grade glass are gone, and we cannot produce more here. Our supplies were sufficient to live comfortably through two missed deliveries, and I wisely instituted some measures after two, but it is still a concern. Our one blessing still is that we have been living well on fish and shellfish, and we have extended the garden to include a little barley and more corn. Also we daily forage the island picking berries and little sour apples that we would normally reject, and we have laid in some seeds in hope we can grow some more.

Still, it is a matter of concern to us all. What has happened down there?

Day 191, 7128

Weather: Ill-omened storms
Mood: Determined

Two days ago we completed the final draft of our dissertation on Katya’s constellation, which we have been working on in a more and more desultory fashion these last months. With the completion of the dissertation it is safe to say that we have a legitimate reason to return to the caverns, but we are torn, so yesterday I called a meeting of all here present – servants, guards and scholars – to discuss what we should do. Official policy from our elders is that we should wait for two full lost supply wagons before considering return, and weigh up our circumstances with the needs of the mission before deciding to abandon our post – recall all of us were to be here for a five year term, and those whose term was closest to ending were sent back with the ill-fated messenger expedition on day 102.

Discussion was heated but not acrimonious. The guards are happy to stay provided that food can be supplied. Some of the scholars believe that we have simply been overlooked for a while as part of some stupid inter-departmental conflict, and should wait a little longer before panicking, and I confess I share the concern of Katya that our biggest pressure is to ensure that our dissertation is published before one of the two other observatories reports the same findings. Normally we would send our thesis back with the supply wagon post, but since we cannot something must be done.

Finally we agreed to send Katya with a single guard and one servant to deliver the thesis, and to try and push for our resupply. This time we gave the guard, at least, strict instructions to return here within the month, or to send a message if unable. If we do not receive word from them before the next supply is due, we will all return to the caverns. I have also insisted two guards be posted on the tunnel entrance daily – some of my colleagues believe I am being alarmist but I am concerned about the delay in supplies and the loss of the Mirror.

Now we are down to five guards, five servants, three scholars, myself and Agrila. At least our food will last a little longer, but we must also do more shared work on smaller rations. We are now more fishers and farmers than scholars!

Day 233, 7128

Weather: Treacherously sunny
Mood: Terrified

Disaster! We have been attacked, and many of our number horribly slaughtered!

The attack was yesterday but I could not until today write about it. We were fortunately at our research stations in the afternoon when it happened, and all but three of our number inside the tower. They came up through the tunnel, and our guards, thinking the situation resolved, rang the bell to call us all to attention, and then went to meet them. But they were not met with hails of joy or even stern reproval from some unpleasant academic oversight board – rather, they were attacked by a gang of our fellow folk, accompanied by some form of hideous new soldier! They defended themselves but one was killed in the tunnel and the other had to retreat. Fortunately he was joined by our other guards who had come down after the bell was rung, as had we all. They fought valiantly but the three other guards were unarmoured, and two were killed before we could close the gate to the supply room and seal it from within.

They were so horrid! I watched myself! They were of our own kind, but like terrible crazed monsters! They had scarified their faces, and held aloft a banner that was an emblem of a snake coiled around a battered bleeding skull, crudely drawn. They screamed and yelled, and one of them used some horrific magic that fired bolts of actual shadow, which hurt our soldier horribly.

Worst of all though, was that amongst them they had a new ally, shambling, slow-moving humanoid figures with dark bronze coloured skin, who wore rags over their bodies and stared at us with sightless eyes. They did not seem to understand speech or to respond to pleas, and … and … they ate the guard they killed. They dragged him down before our eyes, clubbing him with terrible ferocity, and then began to eat his still struggling, half-conscious body. Such horror!

They stank, and one was riddled with worms. We spoke with Agrila and he believes that they were somehow the bodies of animated dead, made to move by some terrible marionette magic. He said he has never before sensed the magic they use, but that it is of ineffable evil.

Something terrible has happened in the caverns, and now it emerges to find us. I can only think that Katya and her retinue have been slaughtered by these horrors.

Day 237, 7128

Weather: Terrible
Mood: Terrible

They have lurked in the tunnel for days, and today they began battering the door with some terrible magic that sallied against it for hours. We thought the door would hold but by mid-morning it was beginning to splinter and crumble. The magic stopped but then those shambling bronze-skinned automatons were set upon it and began beating at it. We had no choice but to go out and do battle with them, our three remaining guards charging forth in full battle gear while Agrila supported them with flashes of light, and the rest of us fired bows as best we could. They pushed the beasts back as best they could, killed two and forced the other three back, but then theywere submerged in bodies – there were many more of the brown-skinned dead than before, and they were torn apart by the pack.

Agrila, who knows no combat magic, had little choice. He collapsed the tunnel, crushing all those of our kinsfolk who had been attacking us and driving the dead away. We won the battle but lost our last three valiant guards and another servant.

Now there are just four servants, the three scholars, Agrila and I. Our numbers dwindle.

Worse still, the dead are in the gardens. Our exit into the caverns of our homes is blocked, something terrible has happened down there that we perhaps cannot return to, and there are murderous dead wandering the lands around our castle.

Day 238, 7128

Today we realized that collapsing the tunnel without sealing in the dead has also cut us off from our garden. The tunnel ran under the rise on which our observatory and garden were built; collapsing it created a kind of trench between us and the garden. To reach the garden we must go outside, down the trench and up again. But the dead prowl around, and we would have to fight them to reach the garden.

Day 241, 7128

Today we tried to reach the garden. We set a distraction in the front while others of us ran to the garden to dig up potatoes and cut corn. One of the servants and a scholar died, and we gathered only a few sacks of potatoes. Now we are but 7.

Day 267, 7128

We ran out of arrows today. Our shooting has killed some of the dead, but a large number remain. They seem never to sleep or rest, wandering by night or day. We cannot evade them easily, though occasionally we try to slip away to set fish nets. It is a risky business that will not end well.

Day 268, 7128

Little Cornet, our youngest servant, fell from the tower today, trying to gather eggs from a seabird nest on the outside of the observatory. No one had authorized him to do this, but none of us have eaten an egg or anything fresh in so long. We ran to the window when we heard his cries, but it was a terrible scene. He had fallen through brush that broke some of his fall, and he did not die when he hit the ground. He lay there feebly moving as the dead ate him. It took hours for his cries to end. Now the crows feast on the parts of him the dead left – after he died they seemed to lose interest, and left him to the wilds.

We are now 6.

Day 297, 7128

A failed attack on the dead. Agrila has been working on some magical repellents, and we prepared spears from the armoury, trained a little with armour, and tried to round them up with a distraction. We killed two of them, but lost three of our own, including Agrila.

Now we have no healer. Any mistake now is fatal.

Day 331, 7128

We saw a ship on the horizon, one of the maritime folk, but only too late thought to flash it a message with a mirror from the observatory. We might as well have used the Mirror, for all the good it has done us. They did not see, or ignored the message. Perhaps we would only have lured them to their deaths on the beach, anyhow.

What terrible, evil magic can animate the bodies of the bronze-skinned dead for so many days, without relent? It is a sin against all of nature.

Day 352, 7128

Eldun took his life today, threw himself from the top of the observatory. We did not know until the afternoon, when I found his note in the observatory and, looking out, saw his body.

Every day now we are hungry. I am keeping rations low, so that we can stay alive as long as possible. We sit in the observatory every day, hoping to see another ship and to send a message.

Day 3, 7129

A bitter, cold new year. We have no firewood, and without Agrila we cannot heat the rooms. We sit cold and hungry in the wind-blasted observatory, hoping for some sign from the ocean.

It gives us nothing but the cold railing of winter storms.

The dead do not feel the cold. They prowl the dark of the winter, waiting for our next desperate error.

Day 27, 7129

Some winter fever took my last companion, Evret, the last servant. It is no surprise, we are wind-chapped and exhausted in the tower, staring with dry eyes at the empty, uncaring sea. Its callous indifference may have seeped into her bones and killed her as surely as any disease.

By some curse of the uncaring fates I have been spared her infection. I must die here cold, hungry and alone.

The days pass. It is just a question of when.

Day 39, 7129

There is no point in continuing. The food is exhausted, as am I, exhausted and alone. My fellow scientists and all the people who worked here are gone, something terrible has happened in the caverns of our homeland, and there is no hope now that I can return to them. We have done all we can to find a way to survive here, but without communication from below we have no food and no way to know what catastrophe has caused this terrible isolation. I have a last draught of a sleeping drug. I will take it, and see no more lonely frozen mornings on this outpost.

I fear no one will ever read this, the last entry of the southern Observatory, but I hope that if you do you will find the answers I could not, and save my people from whatever horrors have befallen them.

Farewell from Velor, chief scientist and last survivor of the Southern Observatory.