Expedition 001: Elira's Entry — Beneath the Crystalline Veil
Field Entry – Day 14, 03:17 AM
Beneath the sable veil of night, slumber fled from the weary voyagers, as if the stars themselves conspired to keep them wakeful. Their thoughts surged like tempests upon a haunted sea, stirred by voices not born of mortal breath. From the beacon’s core throbbed a cadence—primordial, inexorable—resonating through sinew and soul, a song crafted not for comfort, but for awakening.
The city, cloaked in frost and the hush of forgotten epochs, whispered in tongues older than time. Its silent hymn wove through their dreams like spectral thread, drawing them ever inward, ever deeper. And though their bodies longed for rest, their spirits remained vigilant—haunted by the sense that eyes unseen watched from beyond the veil of reality… from a place not merely alien, but utterly other. A dimension untouched by light, yet intimately aware of their presence.
In the morning, the team began exploring other areas of the frozen city. They soon discovered what Dr. Varis decided to call the Nytherion Subsurface Chamber, Sector 7 in an attempt to make divisions inside the city and create a map they could use to determine when and where they made discoveries.
In this chamber, Dr. Elira Vahn took the lead and made some notes while observing:
The chamber walls responded to heat pulses again today—more rapidly than before. I suspect the ice itself is evolving, adapting to our presence. Using the plasma torch, I activated a new sequence of glyphs along the northern curvature. The etchings shimmered, then rearranged, revealing what I now believe to be a continuous narrative—an origin myth, perhaps, but encoded with such precision it borders on historical record.
The translation, guided by the Cryoglyph Codex Dr. Varis had assembled and was continuing to work on—a lore book of glyphs and definitions formed from research done by examining the various glyphs on the different walls—speaks of a time “before time,” when the gods of the North forged Nytherion from the breath of winter itself. It describes the city not as a place, but as a living entity—a “Heart of Stillness” where winds were taught to sing and stars were bound to crystalline spires. The poetic structure of the glyphs suggests ritualistic intent, yet the mathematical symmetry in their arrangement implies advanced knowledge of harmonic resonance and spatial geometry. This civilization didn’t just build with ice—they conversed with it.
Further down the wall, the glyphs shift tone. They speak of the Elemental Crown, said to lie beneath the Temple of Hollow Echoes. Forged from the tears of the last frost giant, the Crown grants dominion over the seasons—but only to those who “walk without shadow.” I’ve examined the temple’s architecture; its refractive columns eliminate all cast shadows at solar zenith. Whether this is symbolic or literal remains unclear, but the implication is profound: purity of intent may have been measured by light itself.
The final passage chilled me more than the chamber’s air. It reads: “The city remembers all who enter. Their thoughts become frost, their regrets etched into the walls.” I’ve begun to notice patterns in the ice—faces, moments, fragments of memory. Some belong to my team. Some… do not. The ice is sentient, or at least reactive to cognition. Hallucinations have increased among the crew. I’ve recorded instances of shared visions—memories not our own. The walls may be a neural archive, storing emotional residue across centuries.
And then, the last glyph. A name erased. A figure walking into the wind. “The seeker who found the Crown chose silence. He buried his name in the ice and walked into the wind. Thus, the Dr. Varis’s Codex was born—not as a guide, but as a warning.” The wearer of the artifacts final act wasn’t discovery—it was sacrifice. The Crown, an artifact to be searched for and even lusted after, is not a map. It’s a tombstone.
I’ve sealed the chamber for now. The glyphs continue to shift. I believe they’re responding to us—perhaps even learning from us. Tomorrow, I’ll attempt a deeper resonance scan. But tonight, I dream in frost.
— Dr. Elira Vahn, Expedition 001
