The Whispering Expanse, 1349

Recovered transcripts of the “Desert Chronicle,” authored by Aedric of Caervall, an exiled European knight turned chronicler. Found nearly undecipherable and scrawled erratically on fragments of parchment discovered in the catacombs of the Abbey of Saint-Michel in 1731. The text was dated to the Black Plague years, a time of death and desperation across Europe.

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In the Year of Our Lord 1349 – July 15th
We march through sands cursed even before the world was cursed by the plague.

We were fools to enter the desert. Yet desperation is more potent than wisdom. Across Europe, the Black Death has stolen homes, fields, faith. It has left men trembling, priests silent, kings without thrones. It has stained every city with the stench of corpses and broken every chapel with unheard prayers. And here we are, twenty-three desperate men, seeking salvation not in Scripture but in whispers carried on the winds of legend.

Elias, a wandering mystic cast from Italy, told us of visions: of a holy place deep in the sands. He spoke of salvation, of God’s hand hidden beneath the expanse. And, with no other hope left, we followed him.

The desert offers nothing but thirst and disquiet. Yet it feels alive. The sand has a rhythm, a scraping murmur that never ceases. I feel its noise behind my eyes when I sleep. I do not trust it.

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July 18th, 1349 – The Tower

It appeared with no warning, no gradual first glimpse, no distant shadow. We turned a corner between two rising dunes, and it was there.

A spire of black stone that drank the burning light of the sun. Its edges were sharp and alien, a shape that wounded the horizon and made the air around it feel heavier. The walls bore no banner. No sign of craftsmen, no chisel marks. We drew closer, but it was as smooth as still water, though it pulsed faintly beneath our calloused fingers.

And the hum. Oh, the sound. The tower whispered to me, not in words but in dread, a vibration that settled into my chest and coiled there.

Elias called this “the House of Purification,” his voice trembling in a way I had not heard before. He placed his hand—his faith—upon the stone, and at once a crack appeared, splitting the seamless wall like a wound ripped open. Sunlight died where it entered the breach, swallowed into ominous dark.

Some men hesitated. Some prayed. I did neither. I braced my sword and followed Elias inside.

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July 19th, 1349 – The Descent

We descended. That is all I can remember—down into something.

The corridors were endless yet wrong. The angles seemed to bend out of sight before the eye could truly fix on them. The walls felt as though they were breathing—cool against my fingertips one moment, then slick and pulsing with heat the next.

The others grew uneasy quickly. One man claimed the walls whispered in Latin, reciting the last rites. Another swore he saw the face of his dead mother down one of the shadowed corridors. None of them should have been possible.

The deeper we marched, the darker and louder it became. The hum vibrated through the black stone with every step. Something was awakening. Even Elias, so consumed by his divine vision, began muttering to himself, clutching the cross around his neck with desperate force.

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July 20th, 1349 – The Vision

We reached the sanctuary—or the heart—or perhaps the mouth of something that never should have been entered.

The room was vast. Cyclopean. The very air trembled as we stood at its fringes, looking upon what lay at its center—a pit, a chasm of utter blackness. Above it loomed… something. A shape, a figure, a presence. It was no creature nor god, not in any form we’ve imagined. It folded and blurred into itself, endlessly shifting. Watching us without eyes, yet knowing us in ways no mortal can understand.

My knees buckled, my sword clattering to the ground as its voice filled the void.

The words—if they were words—arrived not in sound but in feeling, in raw force. Images burned into my thoughts in rapid succession: a star splitting; a thousand towers crumbling; rivers of blood carving lines between burning cities. And always the same final image—a black sun devouring the sky.

“What you call God forgot you long ago.”

The voice—no, the knowledge—tore through my mind like fire. The men screamed, clawing at their faces. Elias fell to his knees, shouting in tongues, his eyes rolling back in their sockets. I barely held onto what little remained of my sanity. And then, all at once, I saw the truth.

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July 22nd, 1349 – Departure

I write now not as a man but as a husk.

Elias is lost. Most of my brothers threw themselves into the abyss long before we reached the surface again. Those who remained were not themselves by the time we emerged. Their faces had changed, becoming hollow, bloated with the weight of an unbearable fragility.

The sands have swallowed the tower again. It rises and falls on its own will, as though it allows itself to be glimpsed only by those it chooses.

What we touched, what we spoke to—it was not God, not the Devil. It was older than both. It has been here since before time began, a silent, slumbering wound at the heart of creation. The plague we fled from? Nothing. The monsters we feared in our myths? Shadows compared to what we have awoken.

I see it everywhere now. In the folds of cloth, in the patterns of firelight, in the grains of sand. I write this so that someone, one day, may understand what awaits beneath the earth when men dare seek truths not meant for them.

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Final Fragment

They come for me. The whispers rise and fall now, forming voices that speak my name even as I sit alone.

There is no God here to save me. There is no salvation. Only the truth:

We are children, insignificant dust swept along by forces we cannot comprehend. And these forces are growing awake, restless to finish what they once began.

You who read this—when the tower rises again, burn it to the ground. Say nothing of it. Forget its place on the map.

For if it rises fully and walks the earth once more, the death we know now will feel like mercy.

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Summary: Aedric of Caervall, driven by desperation during the Black Plague, accompanied a mystic to the Whispering Expanse in search of salvation. What they found instead was an ancient entity predating religion, time, and existence itself. Trapped in its labyrinth’s madness, Aedric chronicled their demise, leaving a warning: the tower awakens only to silence humanity, for the truth within it is nothing but oblivion.

You might be intrigued by the intertwining tales of desperation and the supernatural that resonate throughout history. Speaking of the Black Plague, you might be interested in exploring more about its devastating impact in Europe through this insightful Black Death article. Additionally, if the concept of ancient entities and their connection to mythology piques your interest, check out the mysterious world of mythology and how it shapes our understanding of existence. And for those fascinated by historical chronicles, delve into the life of chroniclers who documented these profound episodes in human history. Each of these topics unveils layers of knowledge that complement the narrative of “The Whispering Expanse.”