Well, Well, Well: A Journey into Darkness

An adventurer's account of a series of delves into the Wells of Darkness. Attributed to the obviously-pseudonymous Frostbrand, and likely ghostwritten by at least two elven scribes (based on certain turns of phrase and poetic asides), this series of chapbooks is at least marginally accurate in its description of the Wells. Well, Well, Well was first circulated around the beginning of the 7th century AR, with the last known volume being (posthumously?) published in 637, so its details of inhabitants and so on are out of date, if they were ever true in the first place, but physical layout and some persistent traps and magical effects may be gleaned from a careful reading of multiple volumes.
Never printed to last, most copies of Well, Well, Well are now fragmentary at best, and few are the collectors with a complete collection of all 15 volumes. The most famous volumes are Vol.3, "The Wemic's Descent", Vol.5, "Return to the Tower of Mystery", and Vol.9, "The Flooded Chasm". Each of these volumes have been copied into more sturdy form and are kept in a number of libraries; however, they are generally believed to be some of the least truthful of the series. (Volume 9 does, however, take its title from a documented event: the river in the chasm to the east of the most common entrance experienced a great increase in volume after the cold and wet winter of 612 to 613 AR, after the unusually-deep snow melted in the span of a couple weeks. Numerous adventurers lost their lives that year to unexpected surges as they tried to dredge the river for magic that was rumoured to have been washed down from the melting forests above.)
Volume 12, "In Memory of Friends and Comrades", is the most sought after by those interested in the authorship and veracity of the series. It is a special volume, devoted to recording the final fates of those comrades whose deaths Frostbrand witnessed. While details of time and identity are sketchy (and sometimes contradictory), this is the best resource available for working out a timeline of the other volumes.
The final volume concludes with the discovery of a route into the deeper Underdark, and the promise of further accounts of stranger journeys still. The location of the Underdark entrance has been carefully removed from most remaining copies of this volume, and further volumes never appeared. Whether Frostbrand was lost to the Underdark, or was silenced to hide the secrets of the Wells, is the subject of conspiracy theories.
Amateur armchair sages have speculated on the true authorship of the series since the first volume was released, as well as the identities of the adventuring parties whose exploits are detailed within. (For Frostbrand delved with at least three separate groups, with some overlap -- however, the tales are presented with little concern for continuity, and all names mentioned are clearly pseudonyms, as well.) All proposed adventuring parties are dead or missing to a member. At least a dozen people over the years have come forward claiming to be Frostbrand or the ghostwriters, but none can prove their claims.

Type

Text, Literature

Medium

Paper