The fetid stench of human shit no longer offends my nostrils. Twenty years shoveling it. Twenty years since I last celebrated a birthday without shoveling shit. The mind is a strange thing, pisses me off really, I can't remember what my wife's name was or what she looked like but I remember today should have been a day of celebration. Shit is what I need to think about. Easier that way.

I shovel.

Keep shoveling old man.

My wife.

Spread that shit over there. Its shit, but it keeps me relatively free. The Masters--sq...Masters...I try to insult them every day and can't...give me more autonomy than most the slaves. I'm in charge of the fungus gardens, I get to shovel my own excrement to grow myself food. Since I stink, I offend the Master's...whatever it is they sniff with. I've kept alive a long timerubbing myself in shit and not thinking about her blonde hair.

Shovel dammit.

Then later today remember to pour the piss on the spores we laid out.

Twenty years of shoveling, and I still can picture her face. She's dead, I watched them tear her brain out of her head and I remember I was terrified but damned if I can remember how that feels now. Its like she's standing in front of me, so I need to shovel harder and not remember.

She beckons for me to follow her. I know where.

I've shoveled what was left of the people who go that way into the gardens. I'm not doing it. I'm mad finally, but shoveling is what's kept me alive and I'll keep shoveling.

Sanctuary, a town of escaped slaves. Shovel. Fool.

Even if you escape, you'll just shovel there too. I shoveled on the surface for a rich farmer, I shovel down here. I'll shovel in the Abyss when my times up, if it isn't already.

She's still beckoning. A voice, it could be hers but its so long since I heard it. She sounds like she's underwater, and I can't make out the words--they're in a alien language but I know what they mean.

Shovel. Stay alive, shovel.

Escape.

Shovel damn it. Now its my voice, but not my words. I don't want to escape.

Shovel.

Do I?

A set of footprints will be found by the slave who took my place, heading out--heading into the caverns so many hollowed out corpses come back down. The voice in my head says its safe though, I can escape. I've finally gone mad. Mad enough to follow her, six years I shoveled while she stood there.

Can't shovel, no work in this town.

Damned bitch of a wife, won't stay off my back. Dead six years, and she still nags the piss right out of me. Why'd I marry her anyway--won't let me drink, and insists I find more work than a shovel. Shoveling kept me alive, keeping my head down kept me alive.

Granted, killing headless noisome gnomes pays well.

...

I didn't think that. That wasn't my thought.

Just drink.

Damn bitch. I married you, never promised to let you into my head like this.

You're drinking too much these days old man. But the drink keeps the wife off my back.

You love her. Our anniversary is coming up. Just drink, drinkings like shoveling but it don't smell like shit. Just booze.

Ideas. Too many floating in my head, and they're all hers. She wasn't that clever alive. Hell, pretty thing with firm thighs and the small of her back. Sexy, could pour wine in it and lap it up from the curve of her back.

Good times those, but now no one else sees her. I'm mad, but hell if the ideas aren't clever. If she hadn't warned me when that zombie came up behind me, I'd be dead.

WIthout her, I'd not have gone into that cave after two lost kids neither. Women, ain't nothing but trouble and the dead ones seem worse.

Now she just keeps nagging. Worries too much, wants me with honest work. "Make a name for yourself, join the Council. Don't trust the Spellguard!"

The ideas come, mostly when I dream. They're not mine. Fuck all but they're not mine. Scary shit, not the kind of shit you can roll between your fingers and know good food will grow from--the rotten shit you compost until it stinks so bad its good for nothing but burning out a bad crop.

Shit was safter, back in the slave pens. Life started in shit, primordial ooze and muck crawling in darkness. Now I'm back in this darkness--maybe I'll be back in the shit that oozed life into existance soon too.

Drink. Don't think. You think you start to listen to her. Listening to her is trouble. Drink.

Doesn't stop the ideas. Need to make a name for myself, but maybe I can put it off. A few more drinks and I won't be able to walk. Once I'm drunk, the ideas she gives me will fade. Once I'm out cold, the things I've seen beneath this city will go away.

Damned pit. Its hungry.

Damned gnomes. Why is this city empty anyway?

Damn me. Just drink old man.

I could always kill myself.

Not that I think there will be any freedom in death anymore.

How much of it is a lie, and who is the liar? I was safe when it was just shit, shoveling, and picking mushrooms. Shit is honest, it stinks and doesn't try to hide it. If you dig down into shit, you just find more shit.

The nagging bitch that's my wife won't shut up, she's screaming that none of this is true and that the old man is a crazy liar. Only...

I could get drunk. That helps.

Only, when I tried to hit her just to shut up her screeching voice my hand went right through her.

Getting drunk isn't going to help this time.

Damn that old man, damn his sewer hiding refuges.

But he's probably right, how do the damned Seekers know Bresley escaped. I'll bet they saw his smiling face in their dreams, just like I see my dead wife in my dreams. Just like I remember the "surface" but only in half fragments that feel like forgotten dreams.

Just like that abomination lets you enter dreams of the surface from his tavern. Its all a god damned lie!

There is hope maybe. The machines are hidden down here still, they didn't save the snirvneblin city but they apparently were enough to keep some of the gnomes safe. They're terrified and cowering down here, this city is still cursed by something ancient and evil. Kraag's summonings; did he call them to fight the Appetite or to fight the illithids?

The only way to figure it out is to bring him back to life, and I'll need the Tigereyes for that.

Then there is the god, the primordial. I've seen Its face, and It is power and It is ancient. I know the nature of shit and I realize that life comes from it down here. Maybe all life came from this primordial thing, and maybe there is still an answer in It.

I need to learn more of It, find Its name before I lose myself entirely to insanity. Nothings real in the world now, it all oozes and bleeds in my mind--and so only by finding the source of life is anything going to make sense.

I am stronger.

Its hard to look back at what I was. Like the Prophet says, the eyes see but have been blinded. I owe him much for giving me sight and all that I do now will have one of those eyes turned toward his safety and the continuation of his word.

Shoveling use to give me such comfort. Now I shovel knowledge and find no comfort. All I know is that life down here can't exist without compost, without shit and it was in the deepest pits of shit that I find their is truth.

I felt Him. The Primordial filled me, shit and filth and vile ooze dripped from every pore of my body, and my foes fell beneath my boot like maggots. That goblin fortress, every living creature there offered up as food for the Nameless First-One.

Even the city was saved with His aid, its secret location kept secret a little longer but it won't last. In the short time we have before Sanctuary is discovered and obliterated, if its not simply some Illithid joke to let it exist, I will show the Truth to as many as we can.

Unless there is some way to awaken the Primordial, to wipe the slate clean. Rather than shovel the shit away, I can bury them in it. They were always offended by the stench of human shit on me; perhaps deep down they know how the end will come for them when the First-Born awakens to reclaim and rebuild Its world.

It begins now. The Primordial has left clues throughout this hell I find myself in. To think things once appeared so easy, work; shovel, shit; eat, work; shovel, shit; eat--now I see that all that was easy because it was a lie.

They did something to my head, only they got careless this time. They left too many clues, they made it too obvious. Only they know I know, and they're not about to let me achieve anything unless I'm clever and smarter. I can keep them out of my head, not everyone can do that. Just me...

Shut up bitch. All you can do is yell and scream at me, you're dead though. I watched them suck out your brains, you're a nightmare now. I just wish you'd really die and leave me the hell alone.

Companions.

They'll drown out the screaming. The druid, she turned easily once she saw the truth. Soon more will follow, each has a desire and a need. The Primordial was there to give it to them, It will fulfill those desires and needs too. I just must find the way to show them.

Then they'll be companions.

Together we'll seek Fulfillment.

Sven was the first offering. Crossed me, no one crosses Mandarin Dreagle, not when I can feed them to the Hunger. A slave to the Primordial...Primordial Hunger, even the words ring with a truth.

No Truth. A Truth.

The Hunger serves the Primordial, is its for comer. The gnomes knew, but fled it. Served it. But improperly. They were cursed. I will avoid that. I serve well. The Oozes they seek my protection, the people of Sewertown seek my protection and will find through me Freedom.

I'm quite insane now. I embrace this. This is why they can't enter my mind. Its too chaotic for them, too full of knowledge. If you know nothing is real, you can not be fooled except by the Truth which by nature can not fool.

Amazing.

Then the dragon... Yes, a fine vessel that will make. Soon It will show me the way to make Its terrestial Vessel habitable.

Finally, it has been shown to me. I understand so much.

All those years I shoveled. All those years the clues, the signs were there. They tried to break me. Old man. Old and hard. Now I see.

((Most of post moved to Mandarin's Holy Book.))

To think, I'm the first man to walk upon the surface of our world in how many ages? They're weak out there, in here they're so strong but up there they have flimsy bodies.

I broke three of them with my bare hands, without any real struggle. They died noiselessly, they can't even scream except in your head.

I know why He sent me. I know why He sent me back.

Dammit though. I just want to rest, no one listens. I can scream until I'm hoarse, but they won't listen.

There is one way out, somehow I'll make them see. Then finally, I can rest. Let someone else lead the fight when they retake the surface. I just want to die once I get them there, rest...

Please God. Once the exodus begins, let me rest.

**Mandarin's Holy Book**

In the first days, there was only the Primordial. Shapeless, without form, pure of chaos and potential it existed as the only being. Conversing only in its voice with its own voice. The Primordial saw itself, saw within itself all potential and all possibility, but saw that it was unmade still.

The Primordial reached within itself and pulled itself into the four parts. The highest part burned with passion, and the darkness saw light from the Primordial fire. The next highest part sought new ideas, and searched for new voices to speak with its own voice and the Primordial Thoughts flowed out on the new breeze; energized by the Fire. The next highest part yearned to flow out and bring new voices to speak, the Primordial water first babbled and the oceans first sang. The lowest part sunk down into the water, made firm to become the foundation on which the new voices made by the water could stand. Thus was the Primordial Creator of the world.

Life though was short, and the Primordial saddened by the loss of its new voices. Seperated from the Primordial by death, the flame left, then the breath, then the waves, until they sank into the earth. The Primordial was shapeless and without form still, and so it entered the new voices.

It raised the fire of man and woman, reminding them of their elements. Calling them back together to bring more voices to speak with the Primordial. Then the Primordial entered man and woman. The man came to love the woman, and the Primordial as life giver fled his loins, to seep into the primordial life fluid of woman; thus it is that all life comes only by reunion of the Primordial with itself.

This is the greatness of the Primordial. All that is element is the Primordial. Flame is pure shapeless oozing life. Wind is amorpheous carrying the voice of the Primordial to all places. Water is shapeless and life giving. Earth alone is firm and unyielding in its lowest form, only when returned to flame does it become magma, only when returned to water is it oozing mud, only when returned to wind is it spiraling dust. Thus all elements are really a portion of the Primordial, ways for primitive mind to understand the ineffable.

The proof that the Primordial is the source of all life giving is here. A man's seed is nothing more than an ooze, and only when this ooze unites with the life fluid of a woman is a fetus created to be nurtured in this ooze until bith. Without the Primordial, there is no life. Blood is ooze through the veins of all natural things.

It is revealed also to the believer who understands the mysteries that the Primordial overcame all death. Ooze absorbs all things, within the mortal exists the stomach that secretes ooze to dissolve and break apart food that then becomes a part of the mortal. Such is how the Primordial digests us in death, breaking our rotting body apart into oozing pustulence we are reincorporated back into the Primordial; our voice joined with its own until it enters a new man to renew his life seed and a new woman to renew her life blood.

_________________

"As the first being it had no need of eyes when there was nothing outside It to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which It might receive Its food or get rid of what It had already digested, since all that which went from It came back into It: for there was nothing not of It to be reabsorbed by it. Of design the Primordial was created thus, Its own waste providing Its own food, and all that It did or suffered taking place in and by Itself. For the Primordial conceived that which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than a form which lacked anything; and, as It had no need to take anything or defend Itself against any one, the Primordial did not think it necessary to bestow upon Itself hands: nor had It any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to Its spherical form was assigned to It, being of all that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and It made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within Its own limits pulsating. And as this pulsing movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet. Likewise were Its children created in Its image."

The worms are an infernal parasite. Breed in the abyss for biological warfare, something only the baatezu can develop. Not even humanity is that clever.

Its life cycle is very complex, and the worms are incredibly effective at what they do. They exist in a larval form in polluted waters, difficult to say without the aid of magic they look like nothing more than tiny maggots with small black markings.

Anything that takes water into its system picks up these little maggots. They burrown through the walls of your stomach, or your lungs. They feast any nearly anything they tell me. They'll suck the blood of the living and even feed on the ectoplasm of dead souls. Ultimately, they grow larger and require more sustenence. An dead soul is eventually in incredible pain itself as it feels every individual bite consume its essence. I suppose the living have it better, they only feel the terrible, terrible burning sensation akin to being dipped in acid slowly as the worms devour first blood, then organs drawn to the soft pulsating.

Eventually the worms grow full, but they do not entirely devour their hosts. When the host is weak enough, the worm starts to crawl out of them. They're roughly a meter long now, with alternating bands of red and black along their length. They prefer to come out of the victims eye balls if they possess any. The pain now is so unbearable in souls and mortals alike that they often rush to the nearest body of water, hoping liquid will quench the burning.

When immersed, the worms vomit forth an oily black substance filled with a thousand tiny larva to begin the cycle anew. Then it uses the tiny hooks on its lower end, often wrapped around one of its victim's internal organs or melded into the very essence of dead soul's cortex to pull itself back inside. Once there, now free of the need to reproduce, it finishes its macabre meal and destroys the host--consuming the soul of the dead entirely, and liquifying through acidic bursts the internal organs of the living until they die, burst, and drain to the nearest pool of water.

I watch as the first of the dozen such parasites in my body burst out of my arm, the burning as promised feels just like acid dripped onto my flesh. Its curious though, the worm is smaller, less healthy looking than you'ld think, its bands an alternative dark on light brown as it wriggles helplessly an oilly black substance oozing from its mouth. Its obviously ill and weak.

I lean down and bite its head off, then suck the nutrients out of its tube like body. Then patiently lean back and wait for one of the eleven parasites left to stick out its head so the process can repeat.

One must keep one's health up afterall.

Shit.

It all comes back to shit.

When I got here, I expected to be tortured for the things I've done. All the lives I've taken.

There was torture. I'm watching the worms devour the flesh of my legs again. The muscle is a stark contrast against my bones, not just for the dark reds on white, but the way it quivers and pulsates as the bone remains unaffected no matter how hard the worms chew at them. Its painful, but after the first weeks in hell here, I grew use to it.

The devil sent to oversee my torments, to keep me here hisses through its forked tongue. Perhaps its my imagination, I know they hang their jaws apart slightly when they laugh, as its laughed often at my torment-but this time it sounds almost like its encouraging me and entertained by my resistance.

Without the pain though, nothing happens to occupy my day. So as I said, it all comes back to shit. Its how I measure time now, a day passes between my daily blessings of shit.

These worms die too. My tormenters are impressed of course, but they're faithless devils. They never will understand what keeps my soul going in this endless night, in this Abyss.

Tomorrow, or whatever passes for tomorrow, as its only measured in bowel movements--they'll come with new worms, strange parasites, viles of poison or foulness.

I should have kept farming down in that illithid city. Maybe I had no choice though. I still have no choice, fate binds us and the only freedom is self sacrifice. Will mine be enough?

Damn, you pompous martyr old man. You're just a shit farmer too big for his britches.