Journals From The Dead Zone Tombs

Chapter 1: Threshold

"Let's try again, Hairy." Livia cleared her throat, adjusting the wide brim of her hat. "Drawn to the mysteries of Aethel, Livia Everground has searched every corner of the vast Faph Desert in search of clues to its origins, clues of lost tribes and cities and…" Livia paused, tapping a quill against her lips. "Is that too over the top? This is only my fourteenth adventure, you know."

Hairy, the camel, offered no response, continuing its steady, rhythmic thump-thump across the sand.

Livia moaned, a soft sound of frustration mixed with amusement. She was a striking figure against the endless dunes. Her long, flowing blonde hair was mostly tucked beneath a wide-brimmed camel hide hat that had become a signature aspect of her look. Her gently freckled face was tilted slightly upward, hazel eyes scanning the horizon. She wore sturdy, practical travelling clothes and her trusty leather backpack, packed tight with research gear, was strapped securely to her shoulders.

She was currently riding toward the most northeastern part of the Faph Desert, an area well known to everyone who lived in the region but rarely mentioned.

"Should I also mention that I am a mother or that I am a doctor, Hairy?" Livia mused aloud, addressing her silent audience. Hairy merely gave a soft snort. Not a particularly responsive sound, just a noise Hairy would sometimes make. "Yeah, you are right," she decided with a decisive nod. "This book should be just focused on my adventuring."

Livia continued to write notes. At first, the thoughts came in small bursts of inspiration, then Livia entered her flow state, her mind racing far ahead of her quill. The outside world became a distant memory as Livia was completely absorbed in her writing, charting theories and observations with frantic dedication.

Suddenly, Hairy stopped.

The halt was immediate and entirely unexpected. Livia was not ready, and she slid forward in her saddle, becoming loose on the camel’s back. She quickly dropped her quill and wrapped her arm around Hairy's thick neck, holding herself securely in place. The rough fur scratched her cheek.

"Hairy, what was that for?" Livia demanded, her voice annoyed by the interruption.

As the words left her lips, Livia looked up and saw, for the first time, The Dead Zone.

The sight was unworldly, a grotesque, impossible scar drawn across the desert floor. The vast ochre sands she had been riding across ended abruptly, marked by a visible, sharp line that looked like a border etched into the continent itself. Beyond that threshold, the world was drained of colour, a landscape of profound, monochrome grey. It was as if a higher entity had taken a sponge and wiped clean the vibrancy from the land.

Every living thing inside the boundary was frozen in a state of corrupted preservation. Trees, impossibly large, stood like skeletal giants, their branches gnarled and twisted, covered in bone-dry leaves that should have crumbled to dust decades ago but remained, perfectly formed yet utterly lifeless. The ground looked hard, compacted, littered with a fine, uniform powder that coated everything. The very air looked different, it was heavy, still, and utterly silent. No wind stirred the dead leaves, no insects buzzed, and no birds cried overhead. The profound absence of sound was more terrifying than any roar.

The terrifying truth was not just the lack of life, but the preservation of death. She could see the intricate, dried network of what looked like dead coral or fungi clinging to the rocks, perfectly formed, yet unnaturally grey. The scene screamed of a cataclysm that didn't just kill, but stopped time on a microscopic scale, changing the land in an instant while simultaneously holding it in a perpetual, silent stasis. It was the antithesis of the vibrant life she knew; it was a museum of instantaneous decay, utterly unnatural, and deeply, viscerally frightening.

Livia stared at the landscape before her, taking in everything and trying desperately to understand the impossible stillness of the grey world. She blinked and looked away for a second. Now conscious of her own body again, Livia sucked in a huge breath that she only now realised she was holding.

She took a second to gather herself. She reached up and touched her hat, ensuring it was still firmly in place. She unshouldered her backpack, opened it, and quickly checked her supplies. Then, satisfied yet still terrified, she shouldered the pack again. She looked as far right and then as far left as she could; the threshold did not break. It was a perfect, unwavering line.

"There is no time like the present, let's go, Hairy," Livia said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silence. She slowly slid off Hairy’s back, landing on the sandy surface of the desert. The threshold was about twenty meters in front of her. She reached up and grabbed the reins, slowly beginning to walk forward. The reins suddenly became taut, pulling her up short. Livia stepped back, regaining her balance, and looked back. Hairy was perfectly still, the camel’s large body planted firmly, refusing to budge. Livia tried to pull, putting her weight into it, but Hairy remained a statue.

Livia's eyes met Hairy's. The camel’s large, dark eyes seemed to hold a profound, stubborn reluctance. Livia softened, a gentle smile touching her lips. "Okay, okay, I will walk," she conceded. Then, her expression turned serious, and she pointed a firm finger at Hairy. "But you don't move. Because I need you to take me back home, okay?"

She waited for a response. A gentle breeze, the last breath of the living desert, blew between Livia and Hairy. Livia giggled to herself, amused by the stubbornness and the quiet moment of connection. She took a step toward Hairy and gave the camel a small pat on the muzzle. "I will see you soon," Livia whispered.

She turned and slowly walked toward the unnatural line of the threshold.

 

Chapter 2: The Silent Cradle

Livia stood at the edge of the world, one step away from crossing the threshold. The transition was unnatural, a shimmering, invisible barrier separating the living ochre sands from the bone-grey silence of The Dead Zone. She was hesitant, her mind racing with the unknown consequences of moving her living body across that line. There was a fear, cold and sharp, but she forced it down with a mantra forged from necessity: There is no gain from adventure without risk.

She slowly penetrated the barrier with her left hand, her non-dominant hand. The instant her fingers crossed the invisible line, a sensation that made her entire body shiver and instinctively flinch seized her. The air seemed to cling to her skin like a tight glove. It felt like thousands of cold, tiny spiders were crawling over her hand, an unnerving, hyper-sensory prickle. Livia took a slow, calming breath and tried again. Her left hand penetrated the barrier once again. Her body wanted to recoil immediately, but she forced herself to endure. The strange, internal sensation intensified, and her mind began to play tricks: she could feel the cluster of spiders crawling up her spine and around the back of her neck.

Livia pushed forward, her will overcoming instinct. Her forearm crossed, then her shoulder, and finally her left leg, moving into the grey zone. The crawling, cold sensation did not subside; if anything, the air felt heavier, denser. She was dreading her face, the inevitable contact with the oppressive atmosphere. Livia held her breath and, with a final surge of strained determination, pushed her head through the barrier and fell forward onto the fine, lifeless dust of The Dead Zone. At this point, Livia didn't know if it was stubbornness that kept her from turning back or the deep, ingrained duty of an adventurer to see the mystery through.

Livia stood up and examined her body. She felt like there was nothing wrong. She looked at her hands, then her legs, and touched her face. Everything felt normal. She focused on her breath as she drew it in. There was no smell, no taste in the air; she was not suffocating. But she felt profoundly tired, a weariness that settled in her bones, as if she hadn't slept for days. I have to be quick, she thought.

Livia reached up to touch her hat only to realise it was gone. She looked behind her and saw it resting on the grey ground where it had fallen off when she tumbled across the threshold. She picked it up, and as she looked back, she could see Hairy standing perfectly still, waiting for her outside the border. She gave the camel a small smile and a wave. On I go, she thought.

Livia looked around, examining the landscape. She did not have a destination or a planned route. How could I? she mused. No one had been here. As her eyes scanned the vast, monotonous landscape, she saw a low hill in the distance, a landmark. That is a good start, she thought. She marked it as her goal and began walking, slowly.

After a while, the spidery sensation that had covered her body disappeared, fading entirely, much like the feeling of a ring that finally becomes an unnoticed part of you. The journey so far in The Dead Zone was hard on Livia. Not from the crawling sensation of the dead air or the absolute, crushing weariness in her body, but from the relentless boredom. She had become an adventurer to see the world, to see new things. Everything around her at the moment was the same bone-grey colour. It was just... tedious. Livia crossed a tree, not the first, but she just wanted to do something, so she stopped and examined the strange, skeletal growth.

Livia approached the tree. She looked closely at the bark, a uniform, grey colour that lacked any depth or variation. She could see the intricate details of the lines and ridges in the bark, unnaturally preserved. Livia hesitantly reached out and pressed a finger to the trunk. As she did, a small cloud of grey dust fell off the bark where Livia touched and hung suspended in the air. Livia examined the cloud for a few seconds. The cloud did not move; it did not fall or dissipate, remaining stubbornly static in the heavy, still atmosphere.

She looked up and saw a low-hanging branch. Her eyes travelled along the branch and confirmed it ended with leaves. It was low enough to reach. Livia reached up and gently plucked a leaf. It came off with unnatural ease. Livia held the leaf in her hand and brought it close to her face to examine. The leaf was the same monochrome colour as the tree, but was slightly transparent. She could clearly see the vein-like network within the leaf. Livia gently poked the leaf with her thumb. As soon as she did, another small cloud of dust appeared, and the leaf crumbled under the slightest pressure, like it was extremely dried, aged parchment.

Livia pulled out her notepad from her bag and began to record her findings. She was about to move on when she noticed a small twig on the ground below the tree. The twig was about half the length of her palm and was covered in little thorns. She looked up at the tree; its branches were smooth, possessing no thorns. Must be from a different species of tree, maybe a fruit tree, she assumed to herself. She decided to keep the twig and placed it in her bag along with her notepad. Livia decided to move forward toward the hill.

Chapter 3: The Womb of the Unsouled

Livia continued her trek toward the distant hill. One sore and strained leg followed the other, and with every dull step through the landscape, a tide of doubt began to rise. She questioned her purpose, her destination, and the entire sanity of entering this dead place. Yet, driven by stubbornness or duty, she pushed on. Finally, after an internity, the terrain shifted. She reached the rise and found a rocky, low hill with a small clearing nestled along one of its sides, her destination. She approached cautiously, her heart giving a faint, unfamiliar knock against her ribs, and found a dark opening: a small cave, its entrance barely large enough for her to pass.

As she neared the entrance, she saw it: a human body. It lay on its side, partially concealed by a low rise of rock. The body was dead, pale and unnaturally pristine, but from the looks of it, the clothes were soft, pale, and untouched by decay, it had recently died. The style of the garments, however, was ancient; they were the kind of simple, flowing clothes she remembered historians talking about. 

Livia, driven by a nosey desire to understand, slowly reached down and touched the hand of the corpse. It felt soft and disturbingly neutral, neither cold nor hot. As she pulled her hand away, she noticed a faint, shallow concavity where her fingers had rested. The body was gaunt and skinny, the bones visible beneath the skin, and she saw that even the bone running along where she had touched the hand was also slightly concave.

No decay, but no structure, Livia thought, her mind racing. She was slowly piecing together a terrifying theory: there is no life here, not even the slow microbial life required for rot. The matter was instantly drained and preserved. If death is impossible here, she realised, I must test the opposite.

She knelt beside the body, her face grim. She reached her hands out in front of her, palms almost touching the pale flesh of the corpse. This was the moment. She closed her eyes and concentrated, willing her Prana to flow, intending to send a brief, minuscule surge of Light School Magic to restart the flow of life. Nothing happened.

Livia opened her eyes in shock. She moved her palms to her face, examining them. She tried again, forcing the Prana flow from the centre of her chest, pushing her will against the heavy air. Nothing. A fresh wave of cold dread draped over her body. She could not use her healing powers at all; the energy was entirely nullified. Livia decided she had to turn back immediately. As she was about to ready herself for the long walk back, she remembered the dark cave entrance. She decided to give the cave a quick look, while she was already out here, her adventurer’s curiosity overcoming her fear, then she would return to Hairy. She had to leave this place soon.

Livia was on guard now as she moved towards the cave, expecting everything and also nothing to appear after seeing the corpse. As she crossed out of the open and into the cave she looked back, noting the position where the body lay. It was definitely trying to escape. With that final thought, she pushed on.

The cave was… also boring. No colour, no interesting features. Livia relaxed her stance and moved with less care as she quickened her pace- it was just a large hole in the hill. Nothing special stood out until she reached a large, flat wall of smooth rock. She noticed scratchings that did not look natural, but deliberate and patterned. She followed the lines with her eyes and decided to take a few steps back. The random marks coalesced into a massive illustration: a cloaked figure, standing between a divided sun and moon. Livia followed the wall deeper into the cave, and lines of dense text appeared to be scratched onto the wall. Livia looked around and found a section where she believed the ancient text started. She reached for her bag and pulled out her notepad and quill.

She began to transcribe the chilling message:

"The Pact is broken. I record this now, standing where the world itself died. We, the Eldest, observed the Sacred Pact: that the Light of Life may not burn save it be shadowed by the necessary Dark of Ending. I see it now. All things flow from the womb of the tomb to the tomb of the womb, a beautiful, fragile incursion into the solid matter that swiftly melts from my grasp. This was the sacred truth we held. But I bear witness to the mad hand that sought to claim absolute dominion over the Turning! He who masters the fading and the flourishing has violated the Eternal Thread. That singular ambition birthed the Great Stillness. We are fading. I know the truth: to control the cycle entirely is to claim dominion over Time, and the cost is the unending doom that now consumes Aethel.”

Livia finished recording the message, every word making her heart race with the stunning conclusion: someone caused this to happen. Someone created The Dead Zone.

She left the cave, passing the dead body, then the skeletal tree, and walked toward the threshold. Livia took in no details of her journey back as her mind raced, focused on her findings. It took her approximately an hour to get back, much quicker than her strenuous journey deep into the Dead Zone. Livia was incredibly weak and tired by the time the familiar outline of Hairy came into view. She felt exhausted, drained to the marrow.

The instant Livia stepped back across the invisible threshold, life flushed her body. She took a massive, shuddering breath, filling her lungs with the living desert air, feeling a rush of energy like she had been deep underwater and finally surfaced. Her body instantly felt energised and replenished, soaking up life for the first time since leaving the desert. Livia enjoyed the moment for a few seconds before approaching Hairy. She raced over and hugged the camel's face, then got back onto Hairy and made her way home. 

 

Chapter 4: Thorn of the Reaper

It had been one week since Livia first crossed into The Dead Zone. For the initial few days of her ride back, she simply enjoyed being back in the living desert. Even though she had spent less than three hours beyond the threshold, the experience had left a lasting, chilling toll on her mental state. The simple act of breathing in the warm, desert air, air that smelled of dust, salt, and life, reconfirmed the knowledge that she was safely home. She realised that the air in The Dead Zone held no substance, a thought too abstract to grasp, yet the only way she could describe the profound vacuum she had experienced.

Livia was now stopped at a small, remote inn to rest for the night, marking her halfway point for the long journey back home. She missed her family fiercely, her husband, her daughter, and even her daughter’s best friend,  whom she considered her surrogate son. She was sitting alone at a rough wooden table, scrutinising her field notes on The Dead Zone and cross-referencing them with past journals from her other adventures.

She looked over the cryptic text she had transcribed from the cave wall, her mind snagging on a single, terrifying line: “He who masters the Fading and the Flourishing.” She pondered this line for several frustrated minutes, the pieces refusing to connect.

A loud clank brought her abruptly out of her concentration. She looked up and saw a large bowl of steaming food and a mug of ale placed in front of her. She looked up at the server, a round, elderly man, who smiled cheerfully at her. "Your meal, miss," he stated before plopping off.

"Thank you," Livia called out before returning to her notes. She looked over them again, unable to connect the dots or make any sense of the findings. Fuck it, she thought, slamming her notepad shut. She seized the mug and downed the ale in one long gulp. The bitterness settled her nerves instantly.

She leaned back in her chair and decided to look around the inn for the first time since arriving. It was quiet, a scattering of patrons occupying less than half the seating. She noticed something odd about the locals. She scanned the room again, and it confirmed her observation: They all wore white. All the men and women in the inn wore the same style of long, flowing white clothing. She remembered visiting another desert village on a previous adventure, where they also wore white.

Livia tried to recall what the locals had explained when she asked about their clothing choices. “The white reflects the sun,” she recalled. Yes, that was it. Wearing white was significantly cooler for the locals working in the desert. Livia also distinctly remembered the villager adding that black clothing absorbs the sun, which is why no one ever wears black.

Livia chuckled at the memory, amazed that clothes could attract and reflect light in such a direct way. Hmm. Black attracts, white... Livia placed a hand to her forehead. Dark attracts, light reflect.. Dark.. light..There was something there, a profound concept hovering just on the edge of her understanding. Livia pulled out her notepad and jotted that down. While the notepad was out, she decided to quickly flip back through and give everything a glance with this new concept.

Defeated, Livia placed the notepad back into her bag when she felt a sharp and short pain as something stabbed into her hand. Livia instinctively pulled her hand away and out of the bag. She looked at her right palm and found a small pool of blood, bright crimson against her pale skin, pooled at the base of her thumb. She grabbed one of the napkins that were delivered with her food and placed it against her wound. There was no longer any pain, and Livia was left with just confusion. She didn't remember having anything sharp in her bag. She removed the blood-stained napkin and examined the wound, but felt nothing inside her palm or protruding out.

Livia reached down to her bag and opened it wider. She looked in and saw nothing unusual. She carefully pulled out her belongings and saw nothing. As she moved her notepad, she saw something small and dark. And Livia remembered. It must have moved to the bottom of the bag and was forgotten. The small twig that Livia took from The Dead Zone. She remembered the thorns and gently pulled it out. The twig looked different.

The wound left Livia’s mind as she examined the twig. Gone was the bone colour of The Dead Zone. Livia gently rubbed her finger along the twig. It felt solid, Livia felt no fine dust, and the colour, it was brown, it was... alive. Livia’s mind turned to the thorns where she must have poked herself. They were sharp. The base of the thorns followed the same colour as the twig, but the tips were black. Livia’s mind raced. This was a huge finding.

Livia found her notepad again and opened it. This must be recorded. She found a blank page. Oh, yes, she thought. She looked around at all the belongings she had discarded and found her quill. She put the quill to parchment and… she flipped the page back over and read her notes. Then she turned back to the blank page. A wave of confusion washed over her.

She placed her quill on the table and looked at her hand. She found a wound. She examined it. Her brows furrowed. Then she saw the twig and then the thorns. She remembered. She licked her lips and picked up the quill. She licked her lips again. Dry. She reached for the mug and was about to drink, but it was empty. She was utterly parched.

She went to place the mug back down. Something was off. The table was angled. Livia blinked her eyes; her vision swam. She tried to focus on the bottom edge of the mug and the table, trying to line them up. Something was wrong. Livia focused intensely, and the mug and the table finally lined up. She placed the mug, but it fell, toppled over and rolled off the table.

Livia felt weak. Her body felt numb. She looked at her palm, then the twig, the thorn, and the notepad. "What was I…" Livia murmured. The words came out sounding distant, hollow. Was that not my voice? Edges of her vision darkened. She heard voices around her; they were muffled, indistinct. She fought she heard “Ms Everground,” but she was not sure. She felt overwhelmingly tired. The feeling of the stool underneath her faded, and the table before her slowly vanished.