The Early Days

Book One

September 13th, 1939

I was anxiously pacing across my house after hearing news about World War 2. I was praying that I wouldn’t have to be in the war, and the universe listened. They did not do what I would’ve hoped. I was just hoping I wouldn’t receive a draft. Instead, I found myself falling through the ground. After what seemed like hours, I finally landed. By all means, I should have been dead. But yet here I was. After what I've experienced here, the fall was the least strange part. I found myself in a catacomb of mud. Seeming to extend forever, all I could see were buildings made of mud bricks. Strange lights, far ahead of my time, lined the roof, extending as far as the eye could see. It was later that day; I had my first encounter with one of them. After being dropped into these halls, I didn’t know what to do, so I walked. Hours passed. Nothing happened. At what I can assume to be 7:00 PM, I heard a noise. A terrifying creature stood before me. An eyeless face, with an oversized mouth. I did the only thing I could think of doing. I ran. After a few minutes, I outran it. I did not sleep well that night.

September 14th, 1939

Today I hoped to leave, or at least see another human. No such luck. After waking up, I began to walk again. The futuristic lights buzzed above me. An odd noise among the silence. I was beginning to get hungry, but there was no food in sight. It was at about 1:00 PM when I got to eat. I found a loaf of bread wrapped in brown paper inside of one of the mud brick buildings. I ate it quickly, and it left me wanting more. It was then I decided to check every building I came across. Later in the day, I found a knapsack in one of the buildings. This would come in handy. I was hoping to find more items or food, but it seemed my luck was up. I found nothing for the rest of the day.

September 15th, 1939

My wishes were granted. I met another lost soul today. The odd thing was, he said it had been 1847 when he got here. That was almost 100 years ago. When I told him I was from 1939, he seemed just as shocked as me. Peculiar. The man introduced himself as James. We chose to walk together. With the two of us, we made quick work of each building we found. We managed to find many supplies that day. We stopped in an overgrown castle-like structure for the night. James suggested we use the vines as a mattress, and so we did. We also found some bread in this building.

September 16th, 1939

It was today we discovered a strange property of our prison. We had woken up from our sleep, and discovered more bread, right where we had found bread last night. We checked our bags to see if it had somehow been moved back, but the bread was still there. We had discovered the first of many reality breaking rules of this dimension. Food can and will be regenerated. We continued onwards through the level. We had begun to throw around names for our newly discovered dimension. After about an hour of bickering, we decided on the name Mud Halls. It describes this place perfectly. Halls of mud. Later in the day, we discovered the second reality breaking rule. Teleportation. It may sound odd, but it is completely possible here. We had been traveling in silence when James pointed something out. There was a strange white blob about 1 mile in the distance. We walked towards it. Upon closer inspection, it was a machine. A relatively broken down one, with many holes. We stepped inside to see if any food was in there, and we found none. When we stepped out, we were in a new area. Gone were the Mud Halls. We had entered a seemingly different place. The reality breaking laws applied here. This area was an open expanse of light green concrete. It was also more enclosed than the Mud Halls. And the best part was the vegetation. Ever since I had become trapped here, I had longed to see trees. I didn’t see any trees, but there was moss and grass. We found a place to sleep and settled down for the night.

September 21st, 1939

Nothing much has happened in the last 5 days. As we walked, we encountered a few more of the creatures. We also found a small gray box that constantly makes noises and radio frequencies. We continued through the Verdant area, walking and walking, until we found a strange thing. It was a round object, and it was emanating some sort of energy. When we got within about 5 meters, our hair started to stand on end and the metal clips on our belts got drawn towards it. We left immediately, but I wish we had taken the orb. As we were walking away from that area, we found a strange rip. Not in our clothes, but in the reality we found ourselves in. It was a glowing white rift. James threw a chunk of bread through it, and it bounced back through the rift. We walked through, and yet again, our surroundings had changed. We were not back in the Mud Hall, nor in the Verdant, but in a new area. The walls were partially made of what I can assume were amethyst crystals. There were trees with pure white trunks and magenta leaves. There was bright lighting coming from no discernible source. Parts of the walls were made of a solid, white, smooth substance. After entering this new area, I felt at peace, as if the creatures that had been chasing us for the past few days were not able to enter this area. I mentioned this to James, and he agreed that this area seemed to be much safer than the first 2. We began to do the only thing we could do, walk. 10 minutes later, we heard a sound behind us. When we turned, we saw a humanoid figure. It was matte black, with amethyst crystals growing out of it. It had no face. The creature did not seem to want to harm us. It simply waved and turned. When it noticed we were not following, it waved again, impatiently. We began to follow the creature. It led us towards a small house-like structure. Inside there was an abundance of supplies. About 10 pounds of food, pocket knives, and strangest of all, a cat napping peacefully on a pedestal. The cat was slightly larger than your normal sized cat. It had green eyes, with orange fur. It was very fat. It got up and started following us. The first creature, seeming proud that it helped us, walked away. We began to walk in the opposite direction of the creature, and the cat kept following us. James named it Nathaniel.

September 22nd, 1939

I woke up with Nathaniel sleeping on my face. We began to walk again, with the occasional pause for Nathaniel to catch up. We came across a maze-like structure today. We were hesitant to enter until we saw something lodged in the wall someway in and decided to enter. Suddenly, we heard a sort of static-like noise, and I began to fall through the floor. I grabbed onto James, but instead pulled him in. I blacked out.

September 23rd, 1939

I awoke sometime later, I don’t know when, but it was probably the next day. I was in another of these places, this one made of snow and ice. It was cold here. Very cold. The place looked like a tunnel carved out from the snow, and it had a few branches off. There were wooden beams, but they seemed much too thin to support the ceiling. Oh, and Nathaniel is still here. We walked what I would say about a kilometer and found a hole blocking us from going any further. It was so deep you couldn’t see the bottom. We decided to take one of the offshoots. Eventually the ceiling began to lower until it became like a crawlspace. James was bigger than me, so he had to dig out some of the roof to fit. By some miracle, while he was digging, he found another room. The room was about as large as a section of the first tunnel. We decided to rest here for the night.

September 24th, 1939

The room was cold, and the floor was icy, but the walls were a sort of snow that seemed packed by hand. There were broken copper pipes with frozen water in them coming out of the walls that followed small tunnels, and there were strange wood idols sticking out of the walls, each shaped like weird animals or humanoid figures. When I woke up, Nathaniel was sleeping on me again, so I couldn’t move for a few minutes today. We took the clearest exit, through the small tunnels the pipes lined. The tunnel we took opened enough for us to stand, so that was nice. After about a mile with no offshoots, we hit the end of the tunnel. I think James was mad. “WE WALKED SO LONG IN THE FREEZING COLD JUST TO HIT A DEAD END!?” James punched the wall with all his might, then yelled out in pain. He had punched a tile wall so hard it cracked. We pushed the rest of the tiles away to discover a hall, similar to a school, but it had a layer of linear water covering the ground. It was also strangely futuristic, like many parts of this place. Happy to leave this cold place, we went in, but not before sleeping.

September 25th, 1939

I don’t know the date, but I will still say the next day. It feels like I aged a lot. My hair is longer, and my clothes are torn. My backpack I had stuff in is missing, so I am in a very bad situation, but worst of all, Nathaniel is gone. James is also gone. The hole to the next area was covered in snow again, so I reopened it and went through. The water went up to just below my waist. I walked a bit until I found a classroom. The classroom was weirdly empty except for a few desks made of some strange, smooth, rock. At least I assumed it was rock. There was a book on one of the desks labeled “Exogs Lengi”. It had a drawing of one of the big-faced creatures on the first page. The book was written in a different language that didn’t seem like something from earth. The creature was labeled “bogu” and had a few pictures of the places I had seen like the Mud Halls and the Verdant. I also saw one entity that was written in English. It was called an old voice and could imitate the voices of other people you once knew. A brief thought that James may be one hit me, but according to the book, they wouldn’t ever go without attacking for more than 3 days, so James is definitely not one. As I was reading, I came across another creature entry that described Nathaneil. I picked up the book and continued to walk. I wandered around the flooded school for a while, but somehow ended up back up where I had first entered this area. The hole was still there, so I went back through. I found the small area me and James had carved out last night(?). Fortunately, I found Nathaniel sleeping on my bag. I had no idea how Nathaniel and my bag had got back here. James was nowhere to be seen. I placed the book I found into my bag and began to search for James. I assumed he would be in the flooded area. I began to walk around, calling his name. In retrospect, this was a bad idea. After about 15 minutes, one of the “bogu” creatures found me. It was too close for me to run, and I was in an enclosed space. The creature was standing in front of the only exit. I couldn’t leave the room and run, so I grabbed a ruler and tried to fight it. Nathaniel finally woke up from sleeping in my bag and looked mildly annoyed that the creature had woken him up. After I hit the creature a few times, Nathaniel had had enough and attacked it. The creature ran, and I continued to search. I think I found James, but he doesn’t seem the same. He is slightly taller, and with longer hair. Maybe this was one of the old voices. I wasn’t going to risk it. After reading through the passage on old voices again, I decided watch out for certain behaviors in James to confirm if he was real.

September 27th, 1939

These have been an interesting past two days. Yesterday, I had determined that the James I had found was not the real James. I waited to attack though, with some foolish hope that the real James may show up. Today, I attacked. As I stabbed the fake James, his form flashed into the drawings from the book. I disposed of the body and waited for it to disappear, like the other creatures I killed. It began to dissipate. I knew I would never see the real James again, but I hoped.

September 28th, 1939

Alone again. I began to walk after waking up with Nathaniel. I waded through the waist-deep water while Nathaniel slept in my bag. I had no idea what the next area would be, or if there were any more areas. I walked half of the day without finding anything. Sometime in the late afternoon, I found a soft pillow in one of the classrooms. I put it in my bag, and Nathaniel immediately claimed it as his own. We walked farther into the area. I had been walking in a straight line for 3 days, so I was very confused about how large this place could be. I slept on a table in a lunchroom.

October 1st, 1939

Nothing worth noting had happened in the last 4 days. I found a new area today though, so that’s why I'm writing in here. I was expecting another boring day of wading through the water. I had been walking for about 6 hours through the futuristic flooded school, when I found an elevator in one of the halls filled with tall, black, metal boxes with numbers on them. This was unlike any elevator I had ever seen. I pressed the button, and it automatically opened. There was no operator. I didn’t trust this elevator. My distrust proved to be correct. I pressed floor 7 and began to climb upwards. I then fell through the floor, similarly to what happened when I first entered this place. I fell for about ten minutes before reaching the bottom of the black void. I blacked out before I hit. When I awoke, I was once again in a new area. This area was made entirely out of cardboard and some kind of really strong, black tape. I assumed that like the other areas, this one would be extremely large as well. I also had hope for this area, as that same calming sensation I felt in the magenta and quartz area fell over me. I began to crawl alongside Nathaniel. After what seemed like hours, I finally found somewhere to sleep. It was a five by five foot box I could comfortably fit in. It was filled with supplies. I managed to fit a lot of the supplies into my bag, but I couldn’t keep all of them. I fell asleep while Nathaniel snacked on some fish I had found.

October 2nd, 1939

I decided that I would try not to leave this area, as it seemed very safe. I also had an infinite source of food nearby. I tore down some of the cardboard walls and moved the box to the side of my small home. I attempted to break through the ceiling, but it was hard as rock. I opened up the book I had found in the school and began to see if they had any information about this area. It took me awhile to decipher the language, but it was similar enough to English that I could read it. According to the book, the ceiling of this level can only be broken with a “charjd starshard”. I had no idea what a “starshard” was, or how to charge it. I assumed with batteries. I didn’t know much about electricity, but I think I would need a battery and some copper. As I read through the book, I discovered something very useful. The cat box I found can be farmed, which I assume means you can maximize the supplies being generated. It also says that there is one of these boxes every mile. I used some of the really strong tape from the box and began a journey. I used the tape to mark where I’d been with small arrows pointing back home. I went out for about 8 hours, looking for the boxes. I found only one. It was still a huge find. I think I only need 2 to have sufficient supplies. I spent about 2 hours dragging the box back to my home.

October 3rd, 19389

I misspelled the date. I had the first good day since I entered this place. The boxes had both made more supplies while I was sleeping. I finally got a blanket and a new pillow. (Nathaniel had stolen the first pillow I found). I also got a bowl and some silverware. And there was a lot of food. I took Nathaniel out with me looking for more cat boxes. We found none, but we found an abandoned base. The walls were ripped and torn, with spiderwebs everywhere. We took a few of the remaining supplies from the base and went back to ours. It was a long walk home, but we were happy to have some supplies. Once we were home, I decided to read the book I found in the school. The people who wrote this book seemed to have extensive knowledge about this place. They referred to the areas as “levilz”, which I assume means levels. They had documented up to “levil wun hundrid and thertE fIv”, which I think means the hundred and thirty-fifth area of this place. They put each level into “clasiz”, which rates the danger of the level on a scale of one to seven. I noticed that many areas of the book had been ripped or blacked out with ink. There was also water damage, which I assume is from the school area / level. This made pages unreadable due to the ink bleeding. This book would still be a great help to me. I ate some canned beans for dinner and went to bed.

October 4th, 1939

Me and Nathaniel went out searching for cat boxes again. We found none. We did find some strange areas. We found a very tall stairwell that extended upwards for a very long time. Me and Nathaniel walked up the stairs for about 30 minutes before turning back. There were windows on the side, so I could see what was above the main area I could walk around in. The cardboard seemed to stretch on forever, with a gray mist obscuring the visibility. I stuck my head out the window and looked up. I could not see the top of the tower, as it too was obscured by the mist. Nathaniel seemed to enjoy the tower. After we left the tower, we spent a bit of time searching for other people. Of course, we didn’t find anybody.

October 18th, 1939

It’s been getting boring around here, just doing the same thing every day. I'm going to go on an adventure to find more people and establish a sizeable settlement. I'm leaving Nathaniel in charge of the base. I spent today preparing my bag with supplies. I brought 5 days of food and water, 10 rolls of strong tape to mark my way back to the base, pocketknives from the third area to cut through carboard, and the Exogs Lengi. I began my journey to socialize myself. Nothing much. I saw a few muddy footprints, but they ended about 50 feet later. I slept in a nearby cat box.

October 19th, 1939

I tracked the muddy footprints farther and farther. I found a base that seems to have been abandoned recently. Or perhaps it is still in use. There was a lot of mud around here too. I found a strange writing utensil and left a note in their base that I would be waiting nearby. 2 hours later, I heard someone scream some very inappropriate remarks retaining to surprise and anger. I went up to meet them. They introduced themselves as John, and they are from 1953. How does time even work here? I helped him gather his things and we began to walk to my place. Following the arrows, it took us about a day to get back. Nathaneil was very excited to see us. He sniffed John curiously before going back to his nap. I love Nathaniel. He is quite the rambunctious scallywag. We were both getting sleepy by this point, so we went to bed.

October 20th, 1939

I asked him about the mud that was around his base. He said he had just escaped a place that was a large swamp with old structures. He said the water drained, and then raised. He then blacked out and woke up here. I checked through the Exogs Lengi for information about this “level”, or what you would prefer to call it. I could not find any information about it. John suggested we add new levels that we find. Since he had been in this level, he wrote it in as level 136. I think I'm going to call these areas levels from now on as that seems to be what the smart people use. I asked John if we should try to find more people, and he agreed. Looks like we’re going to go on an adventure! We made the preparations today. We didn’t know how long we were going to be gone for, so we packed a lot of the strong tape. John told me it was called duct tape. That’s a much better name. We decided that we would leave tomorrow. While packing, we had no trouble finding supplies, as the cat boxes had been generating supplies for a while without anybody emptying them. Well, Nathaniel emptied them of all the fish. Armed with 2 bags of food each, we didn’t have anything to do for the rest of the day. John began to tear down the walls and expand our little home. He added a room just for supplies. I added 2 rooms for us to sleep in. Nathaneil was feeling left out, so he clawed at a wall until it fell down and pushed his bed into his newly made room. With a somewhat homier home, we went to sleep. Except for Nathaniel. He meowed for fish all night.

October 21st, 1939

We began to walk. We actually crawled. Going onwards, we quickly passed Johns old house. That place smells rank due to all the mud. Marking our way with duct tape, we passed many strange structures. We found a small area that appeared to be made of the same materials as the first level. We found another one of those large watchtowers too. Nothing much happened for the rest of the day. We slept in a cat box and took more supplies.

October 22nd, 1939

I consider this day to be the most successful day since I entered this place. Starting off our day with good old walking, we soon found our first good thing of the day. Passing a cat box, we looked inside. There was nothing inside. As we turned around, John said he heard a strange noise from the box. We checked again. It had been refilled, and there was a small kitten inside of it. Picking up our new companion, I named him Wilbert. He has white fur with black and orange splotches. He sat on my head for the rest of the day sleeping. Later that day, we found some stairs. We decided to check them. They led us to a strange place. This place was a house, but it was completely made of cardboard, except for the lights. This ended up being a very good decision. We heard some noises from the kitchen and John called out. We found another person there. He introduced himself as Russel. He said he entered here in 1923. He said that he had only been here for 2 days. This brought up the discussion about time. I had been here for 1 month and 9 days. John had been here for 2 years. There was no consistent speed for time here. Us three began to walk home with Wilbert taking a liking to Russel. On our way home, we found another person. I couldn’t believe his luck. We asked him standard questions, what's your name, how long have you been here, what year it was when you got here. He answered the first 2 questions normally. His name is Albert. He got here “like 3 minutes ago”. He looked at me like I was ridiculous when I asked him what year he got here. “Obviously 1978, bud”. When we finally made it back to our base, it was due for another addition. We tore down more walls and made space for 10 rooms, as it seemed we were growing at a fast pace. Nathaniel saw Wilbert and immediately brought him over to his bed. He then clawed away another wall and put Wilbert in it. Wilbert slept peacefully. I can not say the same for myself. Nathaniel kept waking me up and begging for food. He refuses to believe that 30 pounds is above average for a cat.

October 23rd, 1939

John and Russel went out to find more people. Albert said “yo, I'm gonna chill with the cats.” I went out looking for more cat boxes. Albert did indeed “chill with the cats”. I found 1 cat box. After I brought it back, I realized we once again had a need for more space. I recruited Albert to help me tear down many of the walls that surrounded our camp. We quickly got to work and eventually tore down enough walls around the camp. The area took about 1 minute to crawl across. We stored all of the walls in another room with duct tape to save for later. Wilbert enjoyed running around the large room until he hit his head on a wall. He then went to bed. Later, I constructed a new, big room for all of our cat boxes. We have about 7 now, so I also made a room for holding resources. This took the rest of the day. Russel and John hadn't made it back yet, but that didn’t bother me. I slept peacefully.

October 24th, 1939

John and Russel had returned to our base in the night. They had found 1 more person, from 1895 named Norbert. He had been here for 2 weeks. Since we now had 5 people in our group, I asked everyone if we should make a name for our group. We had a meeting in our main living room around the Exogs Lengi. We decided to name ourselves the Cardboard Dwellers. Albert said it was “a totally rad name”. It astounds me to how much language has changed in only 40 years. Are people going to be saying things like “schlawg” in 90 years? Shortly afterwards, Nathaneil found the new place that had all of our food and began to feast on the fish. After a few boring hours, Norbert suggested that we organize the supplies in the storage room. I told him that that sounded like a great idea, so we began to work. While we were sifting through the supplies from the cat boxes, we found a book called ”ogin skripcher: u brEf gId of ogin rElijin”. The book appeared to be written in the same language as the Exogs Lengi. It was some form of scripture. We also found some things for writing that Albert told me were called permanent markers. We wrote our names and the dates down in the center of our living room so people in the future(?)* could find out our history. *(I'm not sure if there is any real passage of time here). Also, it's good for drawings. While organizing, we also found a small object about 5 by 1.5 inches. It had a small button on the button with a few other symbols. There was a hole in the bottom of the object. Nearby, we found something attached to a cord that fit into the hole perfectly. The cord was attached to an electric generator of some sorts. After plugging in both ends, a small image appeared on the glass front of the object. We left it in my room for a while. We all ate dinner together before going to bed. I checked on the small object again. There were 3 buttons on the sides of the object with different symbols on them. On the back, there was some text that was in that strange language. It read “ogtek mObil thrE” which I think means Oogtech Mobile Three. There was also a raised section of the back with a dark blue orb in it covered by glass. On the front, there were three buttons with various symbols. One looked like an arrow, the other had three lines, and the middle one had a drawing of a house on it. Leaving the strange object alone for now, I went to bed with Wilbert.

October 25th, 1939

I woke up to find Wilbert missing. I thought nothing of it, as cats do tend to wander off. I searched around our base for a while but couldn’t find him. I assumed it was early, because nobody else was up. I didn’t want to worry them, so I didn’t wake them up. After about 10 minutes, Russel woke up. He was obviously worried about Wilbert. We woke the rest of the group up and told them what had happened. Albert was extremely worried and kept saying “bro”. He volunteered to go search for him. He left shortly after. I spent today working on our house again. I sure do hope this doesn’t become a theme, as I like adventure. Today I built rooms for 5 more people in case we get more people. I also decided to expand our main room and made a small case for the Exogs Lengi. This took up most of the day, so by the time I was done, Russel and John had returned from their daily excursions. Norbert had spent the day at home organizing everything in the storage room to such an extreme degree that he had made a section called: “Irregular futuristic small machine parts.” Albert still hadn't returned, so that was concerning. We all ate a dinner of some things called Yum foods with a drink called Almon’t water. Who produces these things? I also finally checked on the box that I had plugged in. It now showed a screen with the time, date, and a lock symbol on the bottom.

October 26th, 1939

Albert still wasn’t back. John and Norbert went out to look for more people. I swear I barely even see John that much. Russel and I spent the day figuring out the small box. Each button did something else. One of them would turn the object on and off. We could interact with the screen to do things. We figured out how to get past the main screen. There were symbols with words beneath them. We could tap them to open another screen. Apparently, that bump on the back of the object is a camera. It had color, which was very rare from my time. It was also extremely small for a normal camera. The quality of the camera was pretty good. We didn’t know how to get the picture out of the object, as there was no film. It still took many pictures that we could access in another area called “galerE”. It took us about 2 more hours to figure out the rest of the functions. The settings area gave us many tips. The camera is apparently a 12 “megupiksil”, which is megapixel in English. I have no idea what that means. The different icons we could tap on the main area were called apps. Putting the object down, we brainstormed things to do. I flipped through the Exogs Lengi again. It was at this point I remembered the “kharjd starshard” that could cut the roofs cardboard. I suggested we do research on this item, so we don’t have to crawl the entire time. We did more research and found out that we would have to go through the “hub” which could be accessed from the first level, the mudhalls. Once there, we would have to find a starry mineral and acquire some. The substance is called a starshard. Then, we would have to zap it with an “ojik zaper”. Thoese could be found from cat boxes, so we should be able to find one. We decided to try and get the “ojik zaper” first, as it would be easier than making a multi-level journey. Also, Russel found out that we could play music from the camera/recording thing/record player/game. There wasn’t much music from our time, so we just listened to a random song. If you ever happen to find one of these, do NOT PLAY “the biz is back” or “boutta get rizzy” by ‘Lil Bizzy or on the music app. I have permanently damaged my brain. Nathaneil had also disappeared this morning. I really hope we don’t lose both of our cats. Finding the OBM Eater would be a waiting game, we went to sleep.

October 27th, 1939

Nathaniel is back! He also brought another cat, which we named Ralph the Timid. He mostly hides in the base and only ever comes out for food. I hope he warms up to us soon. John and Norbert returned with another person, who is named Alfaxon. He entered here in 1904 exactly. January first. He had been here for 1 week. Albert still hadn't returned. We didn’t give Alfaxon Albert’s room though, I hope Albert comes back. I didn’t know what to do today, so I just read the Oogan Scripture and Exogs Lengi. I mostly studied the levels that Albert could possibly be on. The closest connected levels are level 6 and 8. 8 seems very safe. Level 6 is the school. It was also plausible that he was on an “en en el”. The particular NNL is called the “mud kuverd tunil”, which translates to Mud Covered Tunnel. About halfway through the day, I decided to go on an adventure for cat boxes. The cat box room was half empty. I just kept walking onwards. I came back at about midnight with 2 more boxes. I hoped this would boost our chances of obtaining the ojik zaper. Nathaniel and Ralph greeted me when I walked through the door. I went to bed.

October 28th, 1939

Ralph was sitting on my face when I woke up. He then realized I was awake and ran into one of our cat boxes. I was the last up, and everyone else had already begun to eat breakfast. Today's special: Big Newtons. Alfaxon had found them while organizing the cat boxes. After eating one, I felt taller. I measured myself. I was 2 inches taller. What. Is. This. Place. Albert still hadn't returned. I did some more exploring on the music app and found a song called “bagooga”. It was pretty good. We all decided to go out searching for people in different directions. We left Ralph and Nathaniel in charge of the base. I know it sounds stupid to leave the cats in charge, but the book says that those are not cats. I guess we’ll see if they stop hostiles. I partnered with Alfaxon and we walked south for about an hour. It was at this point he asked me if I thought we would ever get out. This actually wasn’t something I had thought about for quite a while. I told him I had no idea. We knew there were exits to this place because the Exogs Lengi had drawings of people exiting and leaving. Also, it says we can exit by walking through 1,000,000,000,000,000 doors on level 12. That does not sound fun. After thinking about it for a bit, I told Alfaxon that there was one way that we could leave for sure. On the first page, there is a small paragraph that contains a quote from another book. The quote reads as follows. “The [lost in translation]. A humanly infinite expanse of levels, [lost in translation], to get lost in. If you get here, you may as well make yourself comfortable. 585 years is a long time.” I told him I think this means that if we are here for 585 years, we will be spit back into reality. We continued walking in silence for around 2 hours when we found something. Among the infinite cardboard boxes, there was a random forest. More accurately, small forest. In the middle of the level, a plot of dirt had appeared, with 20-30 trees in it. It broke through the low roof of the rest of the level, so we could see sky. The entire sky was a foggy gray mist, just like what I saw when I was in the watchtower with Nathaniel. As we went through this small grove, we found a hatchet next to a grave. The grave was small. It read “Rest in peace Shalenfu, The Tree Chopper”. We decided to leave some flowers that we found in the grove. We walked in silence for the rest of the day.

October 29th, 1939

It’s been quite a while since I just wandered these halls. I feel better doing it with Alfaxon. While we were walking, or crawling, Alfaxon asked me what I was doing before I got here. I told him. Before that fateful day in September, I worked in a place where we would record records. It was kind of boring. Alfaxon told me he had worked at a car production plant. We didn’t know what to talk about, so we just walked onwards, hoping to find something remotely interesting. We didn’t find anything until about 2 hours later. It was a rusty door standing upright in a large room. It was surrounded by yellowish rocks. I did some reading in the Exogs Lengi to see if I could find anything about this. There was none. I took a rope, tied it around myself and asked Alfaxon to hold the end. My hope was that the door disappeared behind me, I could be saved. I walked through the rusted door. As I suspected, the door was gone from my end. I was still able to walk straight through the rock, as the rope seemed to be keeping the gateway to this new level open. I told Alfaxon what I had seen. There was a mineshaft made of old rotting wooden beams and yellowish rocks similar to the ones surrounding the rusty door. There was also a metal cart in the middle of the hall. There were a few electric lights on the roof. We quickly skipped through the Exogs Lengi. They apparently had never seen this level. I took out a notebook I had found and wrote a quick description for the level. We would have to do more to figure out if this level was safe or not. Of course, neither of us wanted to go in. We eventually slept near the door and would decide what to do in the morning.

October 30th, 1939

Today I tied a rope to the outside frame of the door we found. Alfaxon tied the other end of the rope to me. I would do a more serious job looking around the level. I brought a few materials to hopefully let me take a few samples of the wall and a small satchel to collect some items found there. We had about 20 meters of rope, so I wouldn’t be able to go far. With all the supplies ready, I stepped through the old, rusted, metal door. The scene was the same as before, yellowish rocks, old, rotted beams, a metal cart, and the electric lights. However, this time, the door still remained behind me. Me and Alfaxon could still look through the door and see each other, though I decided it would be better to not take a risk and untie the rope. I used a small metal hammer to chip off some of the rock. I could also smell a faint scent of mildew and rot. I walked toward the metal cart and looked inside. There were many minerals and raw ores, along with a small can of something labeled EnrG drink. I took it with me and began to walk back through the short shaft to reach Alfaxon. I told him what I had seen and also drank some of the EnrG drink. I also gave some to Alfaxon. He said that he felt sick after drinking it, though I felt stronger. Looks like we found another weird item today. We began the walk home, which should take us about 2 days. As we were walking back, we found a painting of a fat orange cat that looked shockingly like Nathaneil. It was signed Cvil DeVan Rallah. I picked it up and decided to bring it back to our base. We kept walking throughout the whole day before stopping near a small room-like structure.

October 31st, 1939

We kept walking, reaching our base at around noon, I think. Russel and John were talking in the main room and Norbert was out for supplies. Ralph the Timid walked out from one of the sleeping rooms and greeted me. Nathaneil barely glanced at me; he was too busy eating food. I asked them if Albert had returned with Wilbert yet. They told me no. I went into my room and settled down for a quick nap. Around an hour later, I woke up. I recognized Norberts voice, but there was new voice that I had never heard before. I got up and met the new member. The first thing I noticed was he was definitely not human. He had a strange accent, a larger head, with a much bigger mouth. He introduced himself as Defunis, which as far as I am concerned is not a human name. Defunis called himself an “OBM”, and he wrote in the language used in the Exogs Lengi and the other book. He said that he had entered here in 1993, and he had been here for around 1 month. Upon asking where he came from, he said Oogaboogümblur, which was a city that none of us had ever heard of. He then mentioned a star named Eon, and a planet called Pi. Defunis was definitely not of earthly origin. We asked him how he had gotten here, and he said he fell into the ground, so at least the entrances are the same. We all sat in the main room and ate some food from the Cat Boxes. Tonight, we had Been Beans, Yum Foods, Yum Drinks (a new drink!), and Walternuts. I love walnuts. I went to bed after reading a few pages of the oogan scripture.

November 1st, 1939

After one week, guess who's back? THATS-A RIGHT! ALBERT AND WILBERT ARE BACK! Despite it only being one week, it felt like forever. The first thing he said was “what is up my dudes!”. He said he had met some weird guy over a radio called Zom-Zom, that he eventually saw in person. He had written a small sentence outside the base that said, “in memory of zom-zom, one day he didn’t return”. He also brought back 3 gray cat boxes, which he said produced resources 2x faster than the normal ones. We used this to our advantage to create a clock, with the normal cat boxes marking days, and the fast ones marking every half day. It was at this point Nathaneil woke up and began to inspect Albert before picking up Wilbert in his mouth and walking away with him. All 7 of us decided to have a meeting. We wanted split ourselves into different subgroups so we could complete tasks more efficiently. The subgroups would be Building, Collecting, and Planning. I was put on collecting, with Defunis and Norbert. The building subgroup got John, Rusell, and Alfaxon. Albert got planning. My group went to go find more members. Anyways, I’m probably not going to write in here for a while.

November 4th, 1939

I got back from our first expedition today. We found 2 new people like Defunis, named Arjine and Forpt. We also found 2 more cat boxes, and more of those weird cat paintings by Cvil DeVan Rallah. I don’t think it really matters to keep saying when they got here and how long they’ve been here, as it has already been established that time is a “little” strange here. Anyways, they got added to planning with Albert. I don’t really have much to say, so I guess I’ll just stop writing now.

November 7th, 1939

We had more supplies than we knew what to do with because we just got back from another expedition. Everyone began to help expand the base. I’ll try to draw a layout of the base here. This is what it looks like now. With all this new space, we can go without another expansion until we have 14 members, and we currently only have 9. I think we should move soon to find a larger room. I'm going to bed now.

November 8th, 1939

Today we did something big. All of us went on a long excursion to find at least 5 more people. We began to walk in the same direction that me and Alfaxon found the door. With us, we brought about 2 weeks of food, some sleeping bags, and a wooden club. We put the 3 cats in charge of guarding the base. All nine of us quickly reached the rusted door. Or at least, where it used to be. When we reached the room, all that was left was the yellowish rock frame, with a few fragments of the rock lying around. Some of the cardboard had been torn by something. We then took out the duct tape and began to mark our way, as we had reached the end of the trail. We walked for the rest of the day; mostly in silence. At some time, we stopped near a decently sized room.

November 9th, 1939

I woke up sometime around 3 am, and everyone else was already up. They had been eating some food and didn’t want to wake me. We kept walking in the same general direction, until around 12. At this point, we turned westward. We didn’t do this for any particular reason. Sometime around 1, we found a base that seemed to still be in use and heard some clattering from inside. We called out and heard a voice respond with “Egad!” They had a similar accent to that of the OBMs, as they call themselves. Upon meeting them, they were indeed an OBM. They said their name was Qrit. (Pronounced krit). Qrit quickly joined us in walking, after grabbing a few supplies that were in his base. We walked onwards for around 2-3 hours. By this point, it was probably around 4. We eventually stopped in a small room for around 30 minutes. We talked for a bit about what we did before we were here. Sometime later we ate and went to bed.

November 10th, 1939

We woke much later than the day before. Almost immediately, we began walking westward again. About 20 minutes after we started walking, we found a deep hole in the floor that fell downwards around 60-70 feet. Obviously, none of us went down. From what we could see, it led to an area similar to the Mud Halls but made of dirt. (Note from CCOEG: we believe the level they are describing is level 62.) After that, we kept walking onwards without any real discoveries. Sometime around noon, we found a large room. It was large enough to stand up in, easily. The room must have been almost 200 by 20 by 500 feet. Scattered around the room 4 small tents. We called out to anybody who may have been inside, but no one answered. Alberts response to this was “not baller, dude”. We left the room, but later heard voices coming from it. We went back, where we found 4 people. We asked them if they wanted to join our group, and they said yes. One of them seemed to be very old. He was human and called himself Gramps. He had gray hair with a long beard. Gramps said he had been here for 70 years. I think we’re going to like him. The other 3 people were also human. Their names were Tim, Sarah (Tim’s “pookie bear”, as he said), and Jim. We began to walk backwards to our base. Since we had a definite path and didn’t have to place down duct tape to mark our way, it would be a much shorter period of time to get back than it was to get here. We walked for the rest of the day and stopped sometime around 6. Gramps began to tell his story of his journey through this place. He said he entered after falling into a pile of snow and entered in the cold snowy level. (Marked as level 4 in the Exogs Lengi). He spent around 2 months there before finding another weird level. This level he described was the main base. From there, he walked around 22 miles in and entered one of the doors on the side of the hall. This level was a large field with yellowish grass. There was a trail that he walked across for a long time before “noclipping”. He said that noclipping was a word that Tim had taught him. He found himself in a dark complex of rooms after this. He was attacked by a creature that they call growlers. He described them as having thick, shaggy gray or brown fur with 6 legs. He escaped onto the level we are now and spent the rest of his time in this place here. After this tale, we all went to bed.

November 11th, 1939

All 14 of us reached the base sometime around 8 am. We decided to go find a new place for our base, as I like to stand up straight instead of crawling. After hooking up all of our cat boxes with rope, we began to walk. (again) Nathaneil, Ralph, and Wilbert all went to the back of the chain. We also attached our storage boxes to the front. We walked for around 4 hours before stopping. Near the end of our first long walking session, Gramps went off on a tangent about how Jim and his “pookie” were too soft to be in a place like this. And I quote: “back in my day, I had to work 27 hours a day in the coal mines! You kids and your new-fangled mobile phones!” We stopped to rest and eat some food. Today we had more big newtons. After the quick break, we began to walk again; mostly in silence.