Welcome, my child. I don’t know how, but you’ve found yourself in Hollow Blade Hall, the great estate of House Hollow Blade. We’re not often used to seeing many visitors these days, don’t you know. Don’t you? Mayhaps you have never heard our sad tale, one that has echoed through these halls for generations. If you have the time, and I know you do, we must sit down so that you may hear.
The dynasty of the Hollow Sword Blade family was a long and prosperous reign. Fueling the Great Starlight Wars between Elrich and Suvia, our lands prospered and the royal family became extraordinarily rich. There were some who had critique, even then, of this practice, and when the hecklers outside the gates would shout loudly enough for the royal family to hear it inside… well, so to speak, it was bothersome for them.
As all things must, the fiendish fighting did come to an end, there was a great devastation across the land. The marsupial mystics had devastated much of the countryside, not the mention the intervention of the cosmos themselves. Most living on this plane blamed the Hollow Swords, whom had profited so serenely from the suffering.
Not long after war’s end, the pitiable death of our King came to be. A great tragedy, inspecting a rampart of his estate his majesty tripped over loose masonry and tumbled onto a nearby shark fisherman’s spear.
In this grievous time, his only heir, the darling Crown Prince Rudoloph, was smothered like a bump under a rug. It was thought he was lost, until an odious odor emerged from the royal tapestries.
The Queen Mother emerged from this a very nervous and some might say bewitched woman. Convinced her ill fortune came from a curse, cast by the spirits of those slain by Hollow Sword slashes, she shut herself away to stave off the machinations of the apparitions of those upon whom she had profited for so many years.
Her court wizard, the servant sorcerer Serberus, was ordered to expand the many halls of her great house, adding false rooms, stairs, doors, and endless corridors on corridors to confuse any vengeful spirits coming to bring her discomfort.
I did as she told me, and the halls grew and a fractal catacomb crawled out endlessly before us. It started growing larger by the day, and inside the hallowed halls it grew ten times what the outside reflected.
This impossible space twists endlessly through space and time, yawning at infinity as it progresses ever inwardly upon itself, identical brick and bedrooms splayed endlessly into each other, until you don’t know where it began or how it could possibly end.
I have not seen the Queen Mother in many decades, as she has disappeared like me into this ashen landscape. It is my one wish that she may find peace.
As for yourself, well, as you stalk through these gloomy arches and long tunnels to nowhere, ascending and descending to meaningless altitude, remember the folly of hiding from your demons by delving ever deeper into the self. You can’t hide from your mind, though you might wish to try.
Now go on, child, and remember that we have spoken. If you become lost in starvation and madness down here, know this. You are not lost to all. I am the archive of what has been lost here, and I will never forget.