I never feel quite so alone as in the lifts. I close my eyes, taking in the sensation as I plummet deep below the surface, and to the Blackreach beyond. Outside my gated cage, the millennia fly past, encased in earth and stone and ash, the sky a distant memory. The darkness presses closer, the air thick and heavy, yet at the same time, somehow fresh, new, undiscovered. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back here… Maybe –
The lift stops as the cavern bottoms out, only the faintest of creaks announcing its arrival. Dropping into a crouch, I reach out with my mind, unbinding, as I’ve done so many times before, some small part of the deep magic. Reflections, light, that which gives us vision. Optics the sages call it, and free from its laws, I pass from visibility, stalking out into the eternal shadow of Fal Zhardum, or the Blackreach, as it is known now. Silent as the grave, I slip to a nearby alcove, pulling out my working notes, and checking my maps one last time, dropping the enchantment only enough to see the pages on pages of blood spattered parchment. An account I found tells of a rare species of magical plant found here beneath the lands of the living. A plant so rare, its very leaves were said to echo with the voices of its many seekers. With skill, perseverance, and dare I say it, perhaps even a little luck, I plan to bring one of these specimen back to the surface for study. I can only hope the trial will not take too many – wait… is that? Hey look, that’s one over there. Well that was easy. Maybe the fates really do have an eye out for me today. What do you know, hardly a foot off the lift and I already have a sampl- oh hey look, another one…
Huh.