Crawling Lemuria – Archaeologists log – Entry 001

I approached her hut. I was mesmerised by the dreamcatchers and glass bottles filled with liquids of various colours that hung from the tree the hut was built into. Gently knocking on the door I was expecting to be met with an ancient old frog, but instead a girl half my age answered. There must have been some mistake I thought, I asked if her mother, or more likely grandmother, was home. She laughed at me as she mockingly flirted that she wasn’t that kind of girl. Her name was Leyandra. She was very nice. It didn’t take long to work out the whole thing was a set up. Not only did my Auntie want to laugh at my foolishness but she thought I might even get a girlfriend out of the prank. 

It turned out the girl was in fact related to an old witch, or rather, the shaman of her tribe. But that old lady had died recently, hence the care package. The old witch, as the locals jokingly called her, was one of the refugees exiled from Lartak when the Elves fell into catastrophe. Leyandra and I went through some of her grandmother’s old things when I told her my role in the archaeological society. She showed me an old map that had a large warning sign on it. “Danger: Lizards.” I told Leyandra about the joke my Auntie had said. Leyandra didn’t think it was funny. Apparently her grandmother took the lizard people very seriously. She showed me several of her grandmother’s diaries. Entries where children were taken through the portal. Always at Kingsdawn celebrations. It was a warning everyone in their tribe took to heart. Whoever went into the portal never came back.

And so after almost a year of investigating, I have learnt much and am finally ready. I have read over the old witch’s notes and diaries carefully. I have compiled my own notes and researched what I am likely to find on the other side. The old witch had drawn a picture of the portal. She noted it never opened, only on Kingsdawn evening. It would open for a whole day and then close again. Everything they tried did nothing for the rest of the year, but like clockwork at sunset on Kingsdawn Eve until sunset on the first day of the year the portal would be active. 

Her notes say that some warriors had gone in and came back bloodied and wounded, that year they defended against the lizard people raids. It became an annual tradition until the community was deported by the Elves when the Undead began to attack. 

I shared the artwork and notes with my superior, Professor Wellington. He said that the designs looked Lemurian. I did much research about the Lemurian realm. Apparently it was once a vibrant forest on our plane but it was torn when the God Wars sunk the continent into the dark home. There are other portals to the surface, but most of them lie in the ocean and are impossible to locate reliably. The adventurers that have returned from Lemuria say it has evolved into its own wild world. Filled with new religions, cultures and races of creatures unique and wonderful.

My mission is to spend a year mapping what I can find there. Survive and try to find allies to help keep me safe from the hostile creatures that live on the other side of the portal. And hopefully I can make it back to report my findings. Either by finding another portal, or lasting a whole year.