The Box

We made it down into the cavern..We climbed down the side of the cliff face early this morning to avoid the glare from the morning sun reflecting off of the pale walls. The entrance and passageway were much smaller than the old spirit's vision led me to believe. He must have been a smaller man in his time..

When we arrived, though, I could not believe the size of the cavern room itself. I didn't spend much time looking at it when the spirit showed it to me, but I didn't imagine it would be this large. I mean...the ceiling of the room has to be at least 40 feet above my head, and the oddly circular room must be at least 30 feet in diameter. And that box...What a strange and creepy object of the ancient world. As I said before, it is completely windowless, and at a glance, has no entrance. I wonder as to how the ancients even found this cavern, much less bothered to build a dwelling here. It is some sort of temple I assume...

We also found undeniable proof that we aren't the only ones to come here, and recently.. The old spirit spoke of a young boy and a wandering woman....I think I know who they are. The grandson, and Running Bear's mother..I found a necklace lying on the ground at the southern tip of the box. I showed it to him, not expecting him to gasp and fall to the floor..

~~That's...that belonged to my mother...I made it for her just before I left on my sacred journey to manhood. I made it so that she and I would share a physical link, so she would stop being afraid. She was here...
~She is the wandering woman, then..I wonder if the grandson is the young boy.. I wonder if he left anything behind.


Running Bear soon located what he had left behind. His hand. There were skeletal remains of a hand two steps to the left. On the hand was a ring with the symbol of the boy's tribe. This is, gruesomely enough, how he also located the hidden entrance to the box. Underneath the hand was a primitive latch hidden in the rock. In a circle around the latch were words in a very ancient Puebloan language..

When translated, they read:   This is where tragedy begins

Of the spirits

I walked among them today. Yes, I found spirits outside the sphere. Which tells me a few things. One, the spirits within it are either blocked or indeed have disappeared. I am not sure which would be worse. Two, I myself am not under a filter. Three, that the mysterious box dwelling is within this sphere. And four, something is causing enough of a disturbance in the spirit energy of this place to create a very noticeable field. In this case, a field almost completely devoid of energy. The boundary of the thing is as clear to trace as a mountain range on a map.

As soon as I exited this strange field, I immediately felt the pressure of presences...They were...Not hostile, exactly. Agitated is a better description. I reached out to the one with the strongest energy.

~Spirit of the land, what troubles thee?
~~It Comes. It Steals. Madness, Fear. Many are Taken.
~Who is taken?
~~Many are, spirits and souls, a young boy and a wandering woman.
~Can you tell me where to find the dwelling?
~~ Do you wish to lose yourself, little spirit?
~I only seek to know, old spirit.
~~To know is to die.
~I thought that knowledge brought life to the People.
~~This knowledge comes from the Under-realms. This knowledge forbids life. 
~Old spirit, my traveling companion lost his mother to madness. She drew a symbol in her flesh, the circle of life barred by an X. 
~~(The spirit becomes very agitated now) That symbol belongs to The One That Should Not Be. Speak no more of it.
~Old spirit, I need to find this box dwelling. Please help me find it?
~~I will show you as I have showed many, little wanderer.


My mind fades to black, and suddenly I am shown my camp. The ground rushes 30 feet to the north, where there is an abrupt drop-off. Down the drop we go, 40 feet down to a crack in the rock not visible from either above or below. Into the crack the scene rushes, 25 feet back into the rock, and the scene opens to a roomy cavern. In the center is the box, a story high and windowless.


I woke up a half hour ago, in my own body. I have no recollection of how or when I returned.
Running Bear and I immediately compared the his mother's map to the directions shown me by the spirit..They match up, now. Odd, I do not remember those lines there the first time. Perhaps I was just not paying attention.

I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow. Into the depths, to discover. Wish me luck, folks.

No one home

Running Bear and I have been scouring this area of Chaco for days...Sorry about being silent for so long. We kind of....got into the hunt, so much so that...The sun rose one morning, and neither Running Bear nor I stopped the search until the sunset the following day. This was several days ago...He and I have finally run out of non-spiritual options, though. We thought that maybe the map was backwards. It wasn't. That it was a dry riverbed, not a side canyon. Not that either. We even considered the possibility that the cut shown might be a cavern system. We've found nothing to show that this place exists.

And so, my walk in the spirit realm began again. Or, it would have if...Something went wrong. I tried to contact the spirits of the rocks in our area of the canyon. I knew that talking to them would be very alike to trying to strike up conversation with something just awakened from a 1000-year slumber, but I was not prepared to receive no answer at all. I felt nothing of the rock spirits. It's like they've abandoned this place. The spiritual phone lines have been disconnected, so to speak. I have been refused answers before, it's really not that uncommon. A few times, the spirits refused to even acknowledge me, but...They. Are. Not. Here.

So that's out. I am almost afraid to try to enter the spirit realm myself. I know that to solve this, I need to try. But I'm scared of what I'm going to find there.

Chaco

...is a big place. And this map makes no sense. It looked well drawn out when I looked at it before. In fact, I actually thought I knew right where to go. I have been here before on several occasions, scouting, walking with spirits, doing my usual thing. But I came to the place the map shows. There is nothing here. There is supposed to be a side canyon here, according to her drawings. All I see is a cliff.

Remind me again why I blindly followed the drawings of a madwoman?

On my way

Our way, I suppose I should say. Running Bear is accompanying me. There is nothing left for him here. I can see that as plainly as I saw my own outcasting. I couldn't say no after what I saw at the temple. Besides, he makes a good traveling companion. Sometimes, it is good to not be alone.

He was the first to pick the papers out of my traveling bag. Slowly, carefully, as if extracting a poisonous snake from its hole. Those papers have been the elephant in the room ever since we found them~We've both been avoiding the subject of them like that poisonous snake. Unfortunately, they are now my only link to the mystery of this madness. A mystery I still intend to solve, despite my deepest urges to run the other way. I have a theory, you see, a theory that, if true...There will be no escape if I am right. Therefore I earnestly hope I am wrong. I told Running Bear, and he sort of laughed at me and said that it was impossible. I'd like to believe it. I've grown up believing it.

The seventh realm is sealed. Nothing escapes from there. Because nothing good comes from there. Madness, death, torture, enslavement. The Greatest Spirits sealed that place a long time ago.

So, the papers. There are 10 in all. Five are covered in writing, three in similar drawings to the ones I have already seen, and two appear to be, oddly enough, maps. In fact, one is a map to a place I know of. And that is where we are going right now. Up into the back of Chaco Canyon, where there is rumored to be a boxed stone and wood dwelling with no doors. I have always dismissed this as simply rumor, because the people there did not build with stone and wood, and who would build a dwelling with no doors? It is not practical, and the Chaco dwellers dealt in practicality because they had to survive. I can no longer deny it, though. So, I am going to go find it, and look for a way in.
The map reads very clearly for a woman driven mad. It's quite strange, really. I wonder if she drew it before she went crazy and carved symbols into her flesh?

Time or Taint///The Temple

I think that it's both. What happened to me, when Running Bear and I first entered the temple to investigate.  You see, I have always been extra sensitive to things of the spirit nature. I expected to feel the passing of time around the temple, due to its nature. So, I must have accidentally opened myself up more to feel it. In other words, I unexpectedly made myself vulnerable.

When the sacredness of this place was violated, the only explanation that makes sense to me is that the blackness somehow combined with the naturally strong flow of time. It behaved much like two reacting chemicals. The violation and the taint reacted with the natural world to created a perversion. That I got sucked into. Running Bear said he didn't notice it much, which only furthers my theory. 

You'll have to forgive me, I am not much of a scientist. I look into what I find interesting. Which reminds me, I haven't yet looked at those papers. I am almost afraid to look. I can almost tell you what is there. The Faceless Figure. That curious symbol. But what if there is more? Where is the connection? That old grandmother warned me that research would be the death of me. I begin to wonder if she might actually be right.

Also, the temple...It's going on an indefinite temporary hold. I just..I can't go back in there. I can't. Cleaning the underground chamber...It scared me. It terrified me, actually. I lit some of the clover on fire and dropped it in there, but I doubt it did much if any good. Especially if this taint permeated into other realms, like I am almost certain it has. I struggle though..Do I owe the builders of this place more? Should I try harder? But no...I can't. Not now. I'll come back, someday. When I know more.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Running Bear's secret addition here: She's packing up and leaving in the morning. If I stay here much longer I'll lose it. I hope she will take me with her. If you believe in anything, whatever it is, ask your gods on my behalf. Please.