Field Notes from Diamonds Hadder: On the topic of finding the Doorway to the hidden city of Europa and learning of his true identity.
“We came over another ridge, it was me and Ezra and our new mysterious friend who saved me and Ezra from that dreadful encounter at the outer rim of the forest. I’ll talk in more detail about that another time, for now I wanted to make note of this journey to the hidden doorway of Europa. I think these notes will come in handy for lord Zabble. He’ll be happy to hear about the black forest and what truly lies beyond it, it’s a place he’s only read about in secret books but never had the chance to see for himself.. perhaps someday I can take him here. We approached a large cliff face at the top of "Black Mountain"… the mountain is covered in Black Dolomite rocks.. loose to the touch as though they just fell from the sky or were placed methodically to teeter and totter purposefully as a deterrent… occasionally as you step they move and shift and strange critters run from the cracks and creases, never a dull moment with Ezra as she seems to enjoy the occurrence again and again… and again… to the point it’s become quite funny actually, and annoying at times. I’m tired and sometimes it shows. I’m happy for her, I don’t think she enjoys the castle life much and it’s obvious to me that she belongs out here in the wild rather than chasing magic books around all day. I think perhaps that I hold her back but she’s so loyal to me I can’t image us ever being apart. There’s a glimmer in her eyes these adventurous days and it warms my heart to see her happy. It’s been days climbing this wretched face of the mountain… I’m told there’s a way to the hidden city at the top, though I don’t see any city and we are getting pretty high I must say. It’s quite the view out over the black forest… I can almost see BOK from here… occasionally we run across a kill and carcass or bones and it’s rather obvious that we are not alone up here. Ezra seems to freak out once and a while chasing an invisible scent of something and her hair stands on end… as she sticks her nose in holes and cracks and paces back and forth at the excitement of what it was or where it could be. It’s fun to watch. At the second ridge on day three we approached what looked like a white rock face that seemed to extend up into the clouds with glowing red dots marking the face of it… only these clouds never seemed to diminish or move for that matter. I noticed it a few days ago and slowly we’ve been inching towards it. Carved into the white rock face are small notches, almost like they were perfectly placed as some puzzle to solve… one possible solution would seem to take you into the clouds while any other would leave you there stranded on a rock face. My eyes seem to solve the puzzle instantly as though the notches have some sort of magic attached to them… I can’t imagine any human being able to make the choices needed to solve this puzzle and scale the wall correctly, but who knows. When I look up I see a strange red glow almost like a solved map.. I can’t explain it although it makes me think that maybe It was designed for me to see it… or people like me perhaps… I don’t know. Our mysterious friend surely knows the way as he doesn’t seem to skip a beat placing his hands and feet in the proper holes without hesitation. He’s rather poetic in his motion I must say… he moves rather effortlessly and doesn’t seem to tire much, to say nothing of what he did back at the forest to save us… he’s an interesting fellow for sure with an interesting weapon. Ezra will need to be strapped to a harness and carried up from here although she is quite a jumper and there are a few ledges that are within her reach… not for a human…but a Fanglor could certainly attempt the jumps as long as she follows us up. I decided to let her do it her way, judging by the look on her face when I reached for the harness... she didn’t appear very interested in the notion of being lifted, ha, grumble grumble… I don’t blame her… although I would have rather enjoyed seeing that. As we reached the clouds, we were suddenly climbing in a dream… a milky white nothingness… just glowing red lights and a rock face and us… this went on for a few hours and I recall thinking there was no way a normal man could accomplish such a thing. Suddenly we reached the cloud tops and broke through into an open sky… the cloud base looked as though we could walk on it… it was so thick and distinct. The ledge flattened out to plateau rather abruptly and we rested a brief moment in complete awe of the view. Ezra lay on her side exhausted from the adventure… panting with a sneaky gin on her face as though she was ready to do it again. Our friend was already on the move towards a strange rectangular shape hovering a few inches above the white polished plateau… a strange red glow outlined it…. It appears to be the same magic that outlined the path up the face of the cliff. It’s obvious now that this wasn’t meant to be found and that it was conjured by some very intense magic, that somehow I seem to be related to. Inside the window you could see another place… it was amazing… my first glimpse of the giant red diamond city… with pointed diamond spires that glimmered in the sun like crystal’s sparkling in a rainbow reflection. I felt an overwhelming peace come over me staring at it as my eyes glowed bright red and every inch of me felt whole again… I was lost in the moment of its beauty… Ezra and I both were still and frozen staring out into this strange place inside the glowing red window above the clouds…. it seems like we stood there forever, I’ll never forget it… or what happened next… when our mysterious companion approached slowly from behind, glowing red diamonds now shimmered under his hooded cloak…… he turned to me and said “Welcome home my Lord, we’ve missed you.” with a strange smile I’ll never forget.”
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