Statement of Domas Nethavuz, miner and only survivor of the Raukstvir "Tombsstars" expedition
My first anniversary here has come and gone. I don't know why I survived and the others didn't. I don't feel sad. I feel almost nothing but a molten urge for revenge on every piece of un-life that haunts this place.
Nothing moves below-ground but myself and the ghosts. Above, the husks of former comrades, the dismembered horrors that were our livestock and the local fauna limp aimlessly, moaning. I can hear then through the soil overhead. The dragging footsteps never stop.
Three times in the past year groups of settlers arrived. Families. Some made it to the half-unloaded wagon before the things outside tore them to bits, and they, in turn, joined the watch of the dead.
Below, I make slabs. I memorialize my friends and family. I make cold stone obelisks to lay the ghosts of dwarves I never knew.
It took the best part of a year, but I've built an airlock with twin bridges of reinforced oak. Someday I will open them wide and bring things to an end.
It would be funny. But I can't laugh any more.
I am not hopeful that any migrants will survive. The undead number in the dozens, now. Part of me hopes that no more try. The slabs seem to stare at me when I add another to the long, ever-growing rows.
In the chaos of the first attack I was injured. My left hand is still split and swollen, but so far it hasn't become infected. I can still hold a pick. If another comes, and by some miracle makes it through the undead and the fragments of their still-hate-filled corpses, maybe they can help me sew it up. I have thread, Helmet spawn and enough food and drink to last for years on my own.
But no one to talk to except the ghosts.
I've worked alone, in the dark, and tunneled down, past the aquifers at last, into the stone. I have coal. I have limestone and iron. Even if no-one comes, I have what I need, if only I can stay alive long enough.
Sometimes I hear whispers. At night, when I try to sleep. They remind me of the old, old stories. Forbidden history long forgotten. I will follow the old legends. I will make armor, weapons, and I will work ever deeper. I have learned much of the mechanic and engineer's art in my time alone.
I will dig. Down, always down, until I find the forbidden, the forsaken, the forgotten. I will build the pillars and set the mechanisms, in the dark, alone. And, when I am ready, I will lock myself in my room - my tomb to be - and I will pull the switch to collapse the final, deepest seal, and bring true hell to the dead that torment me.
I will have my revenge.