Smooth Leather Journal
Smooth Leather Journal is a book found in the office of the Abandoned Factory. This item cannot be put into the player's inventory - the player must interact with it to read it.
Book Information
| Author | Pages | Preceded By | Followed By |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Advisor | 18 | n/a | n/a |
Sample
| ❝ It crystallizes and hardens, and the seedling's lowly denizens have given it the name glorite. ❞ | |
| — Smooth Leather Journal | |
Content
It's a journal. Bound in strangely smooth leather, the words are penned in a sickly elegant hand, and the ink used to write them shimmers and moves as if it has never fully dried. It takes a good bit of courage just to crack open the cover...
How many years has it been? Trapped here, on this miserable little ball of mana, silently suffering the inability to continue on my people's grand and noble crusade. This world has flourished too long. We have been made to tolerate its existence for too long.
I have been alone, since the fateful day the Usurper banished my fellows from the physical plane and trapped them in the outer reaches of the Wither. Our grand crusade has been halted, and the consumption of such a tantalizingly flawless seedling has grinded to a stop. It hasn't been easy without my brethren. Each day I curse the Usurper. As he sits on his hoard of useless trinkets and specks of power, growing fat and complacent, my banished compatriots claw at the edges of the world, desperate to rejoin the crusade. I've been on this seedling for so long, that I even find myself writing in the language of the mongrel races. It is not all insufferable, however. I use their own tongue against them, manipulating their meager minds into orchestrating their world's final twilight. Still, it has been a difficult task.
I have been confined to the deep seas of the world, so that I might avoid the Watchers and their accursed gazes. Though it turns out that beneath the waves, I have found a bounty. It seems this seedling has known the touch of my kind before, some early predecessors of mine have left a mark of darkness deep in its core. I have located a massive font of darkness. As it rises up from the seedling's pit, it mingles with the natural mana. It crystalizes and hardens, and the seedling's lowly denizens have given it the name Glorite. They are too ignorant to know what power it truly possesses, of course.
A rotten civilization has been founded on the site of the darkness font. No matter. The people of the waves are laughably weak-willed. They pledge loyalty to a single leader - I need only control the leader, and the herd shall follow. Brain slimes, I think. Yes, I'll use brain slimes. Such nifty things when it comes to domination and destruction. The whelps of this seedling are fascinating in their stupidity. Simply call something a hat, and they'll put it on their head without a second thought. With the local leader under my control, I shall construct a facility to process "Glorite" and return it to its base energy.
I shall nurture and support the budding font of darkness that lays beneath the bedrock of the sea. Soon, it shall spring up from the seedling's crust. It shall be sufficient, I believe, to tear open a hole and allow my kin to enter the physical plane once again. A fortuitous moment. A splendid moment. More than I could have anticipated, truly. It is no font of darkness that I have discovered, but something far greater. The mighty Qwiz'lothra, champion of O'aj'loza. The beast was long believed lost to us, but I have rediscovered him. I have found him again. And I have made contact.
Qwiz'lothra whispers to me in the black tongue. To finally once more hear the proper words of my kind tickles and electrocutes my brain. He needs only a bit more power before he can be fully free of the shackles he was caged in. Qwiz'lothra tells me that it was the Angels who imprisoned him. No surprise, and no doubt they meant to deal the final blow at some point after his capture. It seems his captors never got a chance to return to finish the job - perhaps they were among the flighty fools who charged headfirst into darkness and oblivion, only to be cast out by their own kind in disgust. Poetic justice, I call it.
The moment is rising, coming closer each passing second. I have employed an Elemental to supply my facility with Glorite. If I were physically capable of laughing, I would choke on the salt water. An ELEMENTAL is aiding in the doom of the seedling. Good things really do happen to bad people.
A problem. A very minor problem. For some reason that escapes me, I am told a strange whirlpool has suddenly formed on the outskirts of town. This would be meaningless news, but it seems as if the darkness is reacting to the whirlpool. Drawn to it... Is it the whirlpool itself? No. I sense something beyond. A new presence, somewhere above the waves. What is it? Why does it hold sway over darkness? Is it the Usurper? No. He's far too lazy and ignorant of my actions.
I shall redouble efforts. More citizens must be slimed. The facility must be operating around the clock. If anyone dares interfere with my grand design, I'll feed them to Qwiz'lothra myself! Ah, but first I'll have a cup of ink tea. It will soothe my raging brain. Then, it's off to destroy this miserable planet.