The Compendium of Netherdyn

"In those tender days of my youth, when I was but a wide-eyed lad burdened with far too many questions, I sought refuge in the wisdom of the ancients. I devoured their scrolls with reckless abandon—those crumbling, dust-choked relics—convinced that minds greater than mine had surely unraveled the cosmic enigmas that plague us. How pitifully naive I was! The deeper I delved, the more the very fabric of reality seemed to fray before my eyes, like a mirror shattered by unseen, careless hands. Histories contradicted themselves, names and places shifted like flickering shadows on a cave wall, and entire epochs vanished into the abyss of the Silence. The more knowledge I consumed, the less I truly grasped, and a cold, gnawing dread began to settle deep within me. Could it be? Could it truly be that the world we tread upon—this Netherdyn—is beyond all comprehension?   That fear, that maddening, ever-present fear, it clung to me. Not just then, but even now. And so, I did what any rational—or perhaps utterly deranged—soul might do: I vowed to conquer that fear. I resolved to take those scattered, fragmented shards of knowledge and pin them to a page, so that I—and you, dear reader—might forge some semblance of understanding from the maelstrom. This work, this humble Compendium you now hold, is not simply a book. Oh, no. It is a bulwark, a feeble but defiant barrier against the vast, unnameable unknown that forever looms at the edges of our awareness.   I do not claim to possess all the answers, for who among us could? But within these pages, you will find the musings of those who came before, interwoven with my own earnest (and perhaps desperate) attempts to bind together the fractured truths of our world. Together, we may—we must—endeavor to fit these pieces into something resembling order from the chaos that swirls around us. For in these fragments, there lies hope. Hope that despite the terror, despite the infinite, maddening void that yawns before us, we might one day glimpse the faintest flicker of understanding.   At least… that is my fervent hope."

Signed
Arvandus Quillborne