The Epsilon Exordium - Bal-Sagoth

23 September: 1893

Upon extensive examination of the nefarious arcane codex known as The Epsilon

Exordium, I believe my search may at last be drawing to a close.

Indeed, I feel that perhaps the great discovery which has eluded me for so

long may finally be within my grasp.

And yet I must be cautious,

for twice more have I seen the figures in the night, watching me in silence

from the confines of the darkness.

I cannot discern their features,

only that they are vaguely human in shape, save for their arms which seem

abnormally long and oddly jointed.

My native guides are becoming increasingly

agitated and skittish, babbling incoherently about the guardians of the tombs…

citing legends from their ancestral past which speak of mysterious travellers

who reputedly came down from the stars in great silvern chariots drawn by

steeds of flame

At any rate, I have my trusted Martini-Henry .45 calibre breech-loader should

these silent stalkers prove malign and ever deign to lay hold of me in the

night

I have at last translated the carvings on the stone fragment I unearthed amidst

the ruins of Angkor Wat.

To my astonishment, I found that it predated the

construction of the temple itself by countless thousands of years,

and that it spoke of the same subject as did the hieroglyphs I beheld on the

wall of the concealed chamber which I and Lord Blakiston discovered within the

Great Pyramid in Egypt.

Successive examinations of the edifices at Giza and

Karnak revealed further parallels too precise to be mere coincidence.

The pieces of this great cosmic puzzle are finally beginning to fall into

place…

2 October: 1893

Yes, it is as I suspected.

I have long felt that the Sumerians of Mesapotamia

were among the first peoples to attain elucidation concerning the dread matter

I pursue.

My excavations at Lagash, Eridu, and most notably the ziggurats at Ur,

have revealed truths which subsequent finds at Angkor, Egypt and Sacsahuaman

only serve to consolidate.

I now know that the Olmechs, the Aztecs and the

Mayans were also undeniably key tendrils of this grand global web,

and the unnerving truth I hitherto felt compelled to deny now seems inexorably

to point to some grand and terrifying universal axiom

It seems however, that the closer I come to enlightenment, the greater the

danger becomes.

Last night, one of our expedition’s chief guides disappeared

without trace.

His native compatriots could find no tracks, nor offer any

evidence of his departure to suggest that his superstitions had finally

compelled him to abandon the party… the man seems simply to have vanished

inexplicably into the oppressive, sweltering dark.

In light of the

disappearance, I opted not to inform the group that during the darkling hours

before sunrise last night I had peered from my tent to behold what I perceived

to be three of the shadowy figures I have previously described moving furtively

in the gloom, keeping ever just out of the illuminatory radias of our campfire

By the time I had brought my rifle to bear, they had melted away into the

fathomless shadows of the benighted jungle…