Day 4

Tunnel Length: 12m

Corporate wants me to log these things. So here we are.

These logs, and the contents therein, are the property of the Walter-Emerson Corporation, a subsidiary of the Paimon-Seir Group. Recording is Alders Heath, supervising foreman of Excavation Group G, working on Transit Tunnel 40, located about… 40 50 29.2–thanks Jon– kilometers east of Horlav as part of the Outlands Subterranean Traversal Project (OSTP), permit number #A29783457214770000000327533B.

Transit Tunnel 40 is slated to be 500m long. Crew structure is composed of myself, Jon Henbrooks (Health and Safety Technician), Booker Delaney (Equipment and Diagnostics Technician), Jules Dartmouth, DeWar Johnson, and Callie Dornwall. Assisting us is the Long Cable Crew and a standard security detachment, which should each have their own logs.

With that out of the way; with the initial survey complete, we’ve begun the process of building the narrow-gauge railroad for the workers. Corporate sent in the explosives this morning, and we’ve set up the boring drill. Long cable spool is set up and ready to go.

Booker fired up the drill for the first time this morning. That’s all I got for this log.

Day 16

Tunnel Length: 169.277m

We’ve been digging for just over two weeks now. All proceeding well. We’ve expanded the railroad as we’ve been going along. Shipments of food, water, and materials holding steady. 

Day 22

Tunnel Length: 262.546m

We’ve run into a slight setback. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find sufficient power for the mining equipment. The drill keeps stopping and starting, the pre-cast system keeps fucking up, and it’s really proving to be a pain in the ass. Not to mention the situation with the lights. Someone’s getting written up, just gotta find out who.

Day 23

Tunnel Length: 268.642m

Booker double- and triple-checked the long cables, all 4.4 kilometers. Nothing’s wrong with them, at least outwardly. We have no way of knowing whether it’s something inside the cables or not, because we can’t power the goddamn Canaries.

Corporate sent down a collection of alchemic lanterns, since the electric ones keep failing.

Day 24

Tunnel Length: 273.214m

DeWar. It was DeWar. The whole thing has been wired to a single generator, bottlenecking the entire goddamn system to one point of failure. It’s just asking for blackouts.

Corporate isn’t sending another generator down. For some reason. My guess is that the codgy old bastard has seniority and is trying to save his skin. That’s fine. I’ll let the inevitable incident reports string him up by his innards. 

Day 36

Tunnel Length: 273.214m

Total blackout today. Two injuries. I’m gonna kill him.

Day 38

Tunnel Length: 301.865m

Booker was cleaning out the slurry pump today, and he could swear he heard voices. Told him it was nyctopathy. He’s taking the day off, in his cot with a lantern. Thought nothing of it ‘till DeWar told me the same thing. Incompetent as he is, he doesn’t come up with reasons to avoid work. I’ll keep an eye on it.

Day 40

Tunnel Length: 327.465m

We’ve run into some problems. I can’t tell what and neither can Jon. The metal prefab just isn’t taking, I can’t tell why. We swapped to concrete, but no matter what we try it just won’t cure. This is a significant setback.

Our instruments just aren’t giving us anything that makes sense. The humidity is fluctuating at random intervals–corporate said nothing about a Sink along this route. I’m keeping my eye on it.

Day 42

Tunnel Length: 327.465m

I heard someone call my name last night.

I was the only one on the night shift.

God.

Day 46

Tunnel Length: 350.629m

We got the drill running again. Turns out blastcrete takes well to… whatever this is. Just modified the solution, looks the same as the rest of the tunnels. The long cable crew, though, they refuse to step off the drill. When I asked why, they just kept shaking their heads.

Must be the dark.

Day 49

Tunnel Length: 388.038m

Something needs to be done about the fluctuations.

It’s not just the humidity, now. Air quality, temperature, gravity, even. Somehow. Goes from one extreme to another over the course of the day, even localized in meter-wide pockets sometimes. I can’t make sense of it.

We lost Jon. Turned to a paste when gravity went up to… well, I can’t read what it went up to because it flattened the whole apparatus he was standing at and sheared off the whole damn catwalk. Seven of the crew are sick. Air’s a sour smoke right now. We lost the long cable team. 

I’ve stopped the drill and am submitting a request to withdraw. We can’t work under these conditions.

Day 51

Tunnel Length: 388.038m

Corporate declined it. Said to proceed regardless.

Day 52

Tunnel Length: 406.326m

We lost power completely. Drill’s stuck. Slurry pump broke. Hard to blame DeWar at this point.

I still bashed his head against his locker for that generator stunt.

Day 54

Tunnel Length: 406.326m

Heard my name again. Came from down the tunnel, where we came from.

First time Corporate makes me document this shit and it all goes wrong. The curse is real.

Day 56

Tunnel Length: 406.326m

We lost Jules and Callie. Sickness got them, I think. Hard to keep track.

I’ve been on longer jobs than this. I’ve spent a whole year on a rig in the Iron Sea and I never once missed home as much as I do now. What I wouldn’t give to cook for my wife again.

Lanterns are still burning. Power’s still out. Things are looking grim, I can’t lie.

Day 59

Tunnel Length: 442.902m

Power’s back. No clue how, or why, but it is.

Jen–from the cable crew–came back. She hasn’t spoken since, but her missing fingernails tell a story. She’s rambling about something. Can’t tell what. She’s from the FSP, I can’t understand her.

Day 61

Tunnel Length: 464.238m

Drill’s somehow drilling better than it was before that extended blackout. We can run the coffee maker while it's running without causing a blackout. I don’t trust it.

Day 63

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

Damndest thing happened. We broke through a wall at the end of the tunnel, and wound up in another tunnel. Not ours, I know that, but a big, rectangular tunnel. Seems to have power, given the lighting, but I’m not approving a single one of my men to set foot in the place until we know what it is.

Corporate said nothing about this. They said nothing about any of this. I wonder if they knew. 

Day 65

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

Got word down the wire we’ve gotta send our security team through. Corporate won’t have an expeditionary team down here for three weeks. We’re drawing straws.

DeWar broke off and booked it down the tunnel. It’s only 500m, I get it, but I’m convinced there’s something back there.

Day 66

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

Crew went in an hour ago. We armed them with our remaining Haz-tek gear and Canaries. They’re supposed to report every two hours by radio. We’ve isolated the crew to the drill control room, which is the only place airtight. 

I’m manning the radio.

Day 67

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

Haven’t heard from the crew, yet. I really hope they aren’t dead. We need their shit to live.

Food rotted. Somehow. Even the MREs, just turned to mold in a pouch. Those of us healthy enough to put together anything still edible. All disgusting, though. Control room has an overwhelming stench of mold, but at least it’s free from the damn smog. For now, at least.

Day 68

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

Security’s back. Missing their fingernails, somehow, just like Jen and speaking the same crazy shit. Haz-tek gear is shot to shit, and the Canaries aren’t functioning properly. Keep reading healthy air as radioactive. I’m so far past the point of worry. I’ve reached the point of those old tragedy protagonists. What’s the word?

I feel doomed. That’s it.

Day 68

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

DeWar came back. Or, more accurately, all of his teeth, clattering down the railroad like someone just tossed a fistful of ‘em at us from down the way. I know it’s him ‘cause he’s got–had–these old concrete fillings in his molars, caused his jaw to sag when he spoke.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Day 70

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

Booker and I repaired the Haz-tek gear. We’re going in. The rest of the crew is in no state to, and we don’t have the supplies to hold out until the expeditionary crew gets here. We’re getting ready. Once we’ve got all our gear together, we’re slipping through the borehole and into that… place.

Day 71

Tunnel Length: 499.000m

It’s cold. That’s my first impression.

My second is that it is fucking hard to navigate, here. Far as I can tell it’s some kind of maze. All the damn tunnels are identical, and I keep hearing my name. Booker tells me it’s not him. I believe him.

The walls are made out of a combination of metal pre-fab structure eerily similar to the ones we use, giving way at some points to a silica-concrete mix. The floor is constantly damp. Not slippery. Just damp.

We’ve started following the cables. Maybe if we can find where the power is coming from we can figure out something.

Day 72, I think. Drill hasn’t moved.

Tunnel Length: same as before.

Tunnel A. Tunnel B. Tunnel Z. It just never ends. Some tunnels are worse than others, send our Canaries into the digital death cry and we turn tail and run. Others just have a profound sense of wrongness about them.

I’m hungry and cold. The temperature keeps fluctuating between frigid and scorching, threatening to cook me in my Haz-tek suit. Booker’s gone into thermal shock twice.

We can’t last much longer like this. 

Day ??

Tunnel Length: does it matter?

Booker’s gone. I’m alone and I still hear my name.

Day?????????

Tunnel Length: sure.

My legs hurt. I’m out of food. Canary broke. Haz-tek gear rotted right off me. Just came apart at the threads. Doesn’t matter anymore.

I think I found it.

The last tunnel. All the pipes go down this way, I can see them end. 

????

He’s never seen the stars.

I’m so sorry.

I’ll get you out of here. I’ll claw down the door if I have to.