Journal of Eltheren Virelith

Archivist of the Obsidian Grove

Ruins Expedition – Year 1304 of Silvanus

36th of First Blooms, 1304

It has been three centuries since the last human died—if the records can be believed. I was not yet born when they fell, but I grew in the long shadow of their war. That war. The one they called the Sundering.

The humans sought dominion over the land, claiming divinity of thought, invention, and ambition. But they overreached—waging war on the dwarves of the Cragspire, the dragonkin of the southern ridges, and even us, the elves of the Wyrmwood. War on all fronts is the folly of those who believe themselves chosen.

Their cities were marvels of steel and fire, monstrous structures of glass and humming wires, built atop desecrated groves and shattered ruins of elder things they never understood. When the coalition rose—elves, dwarves, wyrmspawn, even the reclusive deepkin—they were outmatched. Their ingenuity was vast, yes. But they lacked the longevity to see their doom in time.

They made their last stand in the place once called Vel’Rath, though they named it New Providence. The Citadel there stood for seven days and seven nights under siege, its skies lit with thunder-fire and death-wings. On the dawn of the eighth, it fell.

And so ended Mankind.

Now, I go to their bones.

Not for war. Not for vengeance. But for knowledge.

To understand what they were.

To learn what they left behind.

38th of First Blooms, 1304

We reached the outer perimeter of the Ruins this morning.

The wind here still tastes of ash.

Trees do not grow near the city’s husk. The land itself rejects what was built here. The bones of human constructs pierce the ground like rusted ribs—fleshless towers eaten by time, roadways choked by vines that seem reluctant even now.

I traveled with two other archivists—Maelren and Ysithe. Both are younger than I, eager but cautious. Ysithe recoiled at the sight of the old metal constructs—what they called automata, I believe. Their rusted limbs still bear remnants of blood—though whose, I do not know.

We set up camp in what was once an observation hall—a wide dome of cracked crystal, half-collapsed. Scattered across the floor were broken devices that glowed faintly when I touched them. I have stored one in my satchel. It hummed, briefly. Then went still.

I dreamt of lights and screams that night.

Not mine.

40th of First Blooms, 1304

Deeper into the city now.

There is an odd pressure here. Not magical, exactly—at least not in any way I’ve sensed before. It clings to the skin like humidity, yet the air is dry. Maelren described it as “being watched by something blind.”

We uncovered what we believe was a human data-vault. Thousands of rectangular objects with thin leaves—books, they called them. Written language bound in leather and pulp. Primitive, but intimate. I spent hours leafing through one titled History of the Third World War.

They cataloged themselves with startling honesty. Their violence. Their ideologies. Their weapons. There is no shame in these accounts. Only pride.

Ysithe found skeletal remains.

Small bones. A child, maybe.

Clutched around a stuffed creature—faded cloth, stitched to resemble some beast I do not recognize. She didn’t speak for the rest of the day.

And yet, when night came, she said something strange:

“I thought I heard laughter. A child’s.”

The vault was empty.

42nd of First Blooms, 1304

We split into pairs today. Ysithe and I took the lower sector, Maelren the high bridge spires.

The wind does not move in this place. Smoke still lingers in corners like ghosts reluctant to leave.

We found a mural in what might have once been a learning hall. It depicted their world—our world—but reshaped, bound in machines and spires. At the center: a human figure, arms stretched outward, light pouring from its head.

Beneath it, in red pigment:

Homo Deus

I don’t know the phrase. But the reverence is clear.

They truly believed they would ascend.

In a nearby room, Ysithe discovered what I believe was a terminal. She managed to restore partial power using a magelens. Flickers of a face appeared on the screen—a woman’s face, flickering, glitching.

It repeated a phrase again and again in their tongue.

“We are still here.”

“We are still here.”

“We are—”

We left the device running. I don’t know why.

43rd of First Blooms, 1304

Maelren did not return last night.

We waited until moonset. Still no sign.

We searched the bridge-towers where he last went. Found his pack. Open. Torn.

Not torn by blade or beast. By hands.

Human hands.

Ysithe says I’m mad. That it must have been bandits, or worse, scavenger spirits. But I’ve read the human files. Their final hours were not clean. They spoke of experiments. Cryostasis. Neural backups.

Some wanted to survive no matter the cost.

One phrase keeps repeating in my mind:

“We are still here.”

45th of First Blooms, 1304

I saw one.

At first, I thought it a reflection—a figure in the glass, gone when I turned.

But no. It stood at the far end of the avenue.

Thin. Pale. Eyes like coals buried in snow.

Naked but not cold. Watching me.

And then—

Gone.

Not vanished, not fled.

Just… stepped sideways into the air, as though through a door I could not see.

Ysithe wants to leave. I told her to go.

She refused. Said she would not leave me.

She should have.

47th of First Blooms, 1304

Ysithe is gone now.

She was sitting across the fire from me. We had just finished rationing. She was speaking—calmly, even lightly, about home. Then her words stopped mid-sentence.

Her eyes widened. Focused on something behind me.

I turned.

Nothing.

When I looked back—

She was gone.

No sound. No struggle. Just the smell of ozone.

And a single strand of her hair on the stone floor.

I am alone now.

49th of First Blooms, 1304

I’ve stopped sleeping.

The voice from the terminal plays now without power. The face flickers in every surface.

I read more of the books. One speaks of resurrection through digitization. A strange phrase: The Ghostnet Project.

Another: Biostasis Colonies – Last Hope of the Species.

But all marked as “Failed.”

And yet they walk.

Something does.

I’ve heard footfalls in the corridors. Light. Bipedal.

A breathing—erratic. Wet.

I hide. But I know it knows.

It knows me now.

50th of First Blooms, 1304

This is my last entry.

Not out of despair, but necessity.

I saw it again. Closer this time.

Its skin stretched, as if it had not been worn in a long time. Its fingers long. Movements wrong. Like memory imitating life.

It whispered. Not in elvish.

In their tongue. But I understood.

“Do you remember us?”

I am leaving this journal here, in the vault, with the books.

If anyone finds it, know this:

We were wrong.

They were not all gone.

And perhaps…

Perhaps they never truly were.