Sanguinem Verborum Dierum
Centum Laminas
{The following chronicle was inscribed in classical Latin onto one hundred plates of lead recovered from the Tschamberhöhle Cave by Arzt Gerhard Von Straub of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut of Berlin in the June of 1890}
A Fallen Star
Consciousness was slow in returning as a powerful numbness left me paralyzed in both body and mind. Smell was the first of my senses to return, it brought with it the raw odor of moist earth, overlaid by the acrid tang of burning greenery and scent of ozone. Hearing must have come second for there was both a ringing in my ears and a steady if unfamiliar pounding in my head. As the numbness receded from my flesh it was followed by the sensation of pins and needles in all my extremities and the realization that I lay on my back. A familiar taste, blood, filled my mouth as I tried to open my eyes. At first everything was dark, my eyelids were crusted shut with sleep, but as I blinked it away I saw an unfettered firmament. The cold stars shown brilliantly in a midnight sky and around me there was a constant, but irregular flickering light - fire.
My first attempt to sit up was an abject failure for the weakness of my muscles, but I succeeded on my second attempt prompting me to review my surroundings. I lay an irregular bowl shaped depression about forty in radius, patterns of earth and stone radiated out from my resting place, but I could make no sense of what I was seeing. Beyond my immediate surroundings, I could see a ring of carbonized earth and still burning vegetation and beyond that the dim impression of a disaster area.
