*This is an account of the very beginning of the recent adventures, found in K'shrik's forgotten journal.*

**Day 0:**

I had a very peculiar dream last night. Much longer, more vivid, and
stranger than normal. I shall make an effort to set it down on parchment
so that it will not be forgotten. It seems to me that it might make
a good epic, although of a most strange nature.

**Day 0, evening; or is it Day 1?:**

Yesterday was a most peculiar day. The dream, it seems, was more than
a mere fantasy, and I wonder what might have caused it. Of the young
adepts in the Caer, some eight or ten of us all dreamed variations on
a theme, although each from different views, and of different sections.
And to make things even stranger, one portion of the dream was of this caer
and yet not; and in that dream-caer, the water-filtration system was stolen
and a group of young adepts was brought together to find it and repair
it, and then sent out into the world. Today, a group of young adepts
was brought together again, but this time 'twas a larger group, and
it was the air filtration system which had been sabotaged.

And I'm afraid we've quite botched it. We failed to find the missing
parts of the system before the dwarves declared martial law and started
herding the residents of the caer into the Water tunnels. The orks are
rebelling and fleeing the caer, and we're helping them leave. The missing
air filtration parts were in a locked safe in the council chamber's tower,
and the missing map out of the caer was in the pouch of the Great Mother's
servant. But this story is out of order.

To begin from the beginning: When I awoke this morning, I was told by
my master to go to the garden at noon, for some business he did not
know or wish to know the details of. Upon arriving, I saw nearly a
score of young adepts gathered, some mere children, and none knowing
wherefore we gathered there. A dwarf came then, an older Adept, and
told us that some vandals had endangered the whole caer, sabotaging
the air filtration system and stealing parts necessary for its
repair. We were to find these pieces -- five kernels each of true air
and true wood, and the five pipes of orichalcum necessary to hold
them-- and return them to the caer leaders for repair before the caer
ran out of air, without letting word of our loss spread panic through
the caverns. The dwarf said we had been chosen so that our efforts would
not attract great attention, for a gathering of so many elders would be
a sign of trouble, and yet there were those among us who suspected that
it was our inexperience and expendability that prompted our selection.
Flattered though we were to have the safety of the caer entrusted to us,
we wondered whether perhaps the elders did not wish these artifacts found
at all, and if they relied on our lack of ability for some nefarious purpose.

When the dwarf left us, we travelled to the Water tunnels to see the
damage which had been wrought. Along the way, we discovered the many shared
dreams, and wondered if the inviolate shields of the caer had been broken
and horrors walked among us, or if some great magician perhaps created
a dreamspace within its walls, a task of unthinkable magnitude. These thoughts
worried us greatly, yet we could do nothing about them, and so we continued
on our way with the events of the previous eve echoing in our minds.
 
In the maintenance rooms of the Water tunnels, we found what had been described
to us: the delicate workings of the air purifier had been shattered,
glass and flickering shards of pure elements scattered across the floor,
and it seemed some great brute had taken a club to the caer's fragile lungs.
We found no clues there.

My memory grows dim here, as I despaired for the lives of all I held dear,
and I noticed less of what transpired than I ought. As I recall, the group
then split into several parts to continue the investigation.

* The text ends here. One can only presume that the author was interrupted unexpectedly in the middle of writing.*