All Hallows Eve

I keep not being able to view my followers for some reason despite it telling me I have them. Finally messed around with my NoScript settings enough to get them to display... I just noticed that the new Morningstar is watching my blog. I'm gonna admit, I choked a bit when I saw that. Not really helping my day...

Ugh... I think I'm starting to get stir crazy. I mean, I'm used to living by myself, but I'm certainly not used to the whole "staying in the same room forever" bit. I guess this is gonna be harder than I thought. Would probably help if I could stick to my routine a little better... I gave myself a headache last night for staying up three hours longer than I meant to trying to get the Halloween Achievements on Team Fortress 2. Cause hey, last chance I'm probably gonna get, right? About all I'd say I earned from the experience though is the knowledge that getting "Gored" is frakking impossible and the reminder that the game is far to frustrating to play for any length of time. Oh... and the headache. I earned that pretty damn well.

So needless to say, I'm not feeling my best this morning. Trying to get myself straightened back out and into routine, but I think I'm going to have to make a few adjustments here and there. For starters, I don't think I'm going to be doing any reading today. The knowledge is helpful, but it's not helping me sleep at night. I need a break. So I'm gonna find something else to do. Probably dig through the stack of books I've hidden around here... somewhere... <.<; Uhh... yeah, I'll find them eventually... Just anything to keep me from staring at this screen all day. I can not afford to come down with the Black Shakes.

I'm gonna keep my blog open though. Try to keep a look out for comments. Seems like I've neglected those for a day or so. So maybe I'll just open the field for questions... I think I'm up to speed enough to answer any questions and throw out some theory.

Oh, and I thought it was on my profile, but I can't find it, so if you wanted to reach me outside the blog, my gmail is "gargoyleunderground"


Oh right, the title... A day early I know, but that's because I had a question. I haven't noticed anything that screams of "attack plans" for tomorrow, so I guess I was a little confused by that. Then again, people could just be keeping them under wraps... But anyways, I've noticed that a lot of people made a big deal about staging big battle plans for the Winter Solstice. Because one of the Sages had theorized that it was a day that Old Gaunt would be p-

Siiigh... Okay... no, lets just stop right here for a second. I've had about enough of this. I’m not going to sit here and play Slendy-Moniker Roulette every time I need to type this thing’s name out. Let’s just decide on a term right here and now and be done with it. The Construct. There. That works just fine. I liked that terminology since I first read it. It works. It fits the monster, describes him in base ideological form without having to use his actual name. It’s not insulting or making a humorous jab. And it’s not making him sound like some sort of god to be worshipped. Construct. Okay. That’s settled. Moving along.

So Construct is supposed to be weakened on the Winter Solstice, so everyone made a big deal of trying to go after him and his entourage during this time. Also resulted in Construct coming after a lot of the Runners and Fighters of the time, so there would be less of them to oppose him when the time came. (Or at least that would be the assumption for why he did all that mess.) Didn't exactly work out in the end, but a lot of effort went into it. And I'm kind of expecting something similar to happen later this year... but then what about Halloween?

Maybe everyone just forgot because the Winter Solstice took such a heavy emphasis... and maybe Halloween just came too soon or had already passed by the time it was brought up... but that Robert Sagel guy clearly indicated Halloween as being another day which the Construct would be potentially weakened. In fact, I think he mentioned that day First, before he brought up the Solstice. So I guess I'm just surprised that this big date is coming up and no one seems to be working to take advantage of it.

Just... thought I'd throw that out there, I guess.

The Invisible Hand

Alright, may as well finish this up and get it out of the way...
Where was I then? The E-mail? Okay...

The day I got it, I was a bit in shock. Onewinged had been missing for weeks. He was the last person I expected to be contacted by, given the situation. I expected to open it up and find a plea for help or something, but the contents were much more frightening than that. The message was very straight forward...

“I know this is going to sound strange, but you HAV3 to Trust Me. This is of the absolute greatest importance. Your LIF3 depends upon it.

The attached documentation is VITAL to your Survival.

DO NOT OP3N IT UNL3SS YOU AR3 INSID3 TH3 BUNK3R!!

DO NOT!! Open it at Home and you are D3AD!!

Must Believe Me. No Place 3lse Secure.

Not Much Time. Hur”


...I’m not going to lie. I kind of sat there laughing at this for a while. It was ridiculous. I mean seriously? Seriously? What kind of joke--

But I couldn’t bring myself to open the attachment.

I hovered over it for a while, thinking it over. Something had happened to Onewinged. And he seemed to have gone to a lot of trouble to send an awfully big attachment to me in such a cryptic manner. It was hard to ignore the warning. Eventually, fear gave way to panic. I grabbed up some gear of mine, personal affects, and stuffed them all in a backpack with my laptop and took off running.

Looking back on it today, I’m glad I didn’t know what I was running from at the time.

So I made it to the bunker, locked myself in, set up my laptop, and logged back into my e-mail. For the second time, I sat in silence hovering over that attachment. Part of me didn’t want to know. This was... really weird... and I didn’t know what to expect. But I finally worked up the courage to look inside.

And... okay, yeah... I totally started laughing again.

Can you blame me? This is the stuff of fantasy. Things like the “Slender Man” just don’t exist in real life. You’d have to be a special kind of crazy not to be skeptical of such a thing. I mean sure, all of my theories up until that point of him being involved the Mafia or some such were pretty crazy too, but this was outright SciFi-Horror genre stuff. My fantastical assumptions seemed rather sane by comparison.

But the more I read... the more it started to sink in...

It had to be real.

I mean, who was I kidding? Onewinged? A drug addict? He was the cleanest kid I’ve ever fucking known. He tried smoking all of once. For all of ten seconds. He acted like he was gonna fucking die from the first half-puff and then refused to ever touch the things again. The guy was scared to death of needles too. Would rather spend three weeks feeling like shit than suffer through five seconds of a flu shot. So heroin and anything else like that is out of the question.

And if just seemed too sincere to be some elaborate joke. Onewinged was never much of a prankster. The few jokes he ever did try pulling were so blatantly obvious you could see them coming a mile away. This? This was just too much. He was always a dreamer, with big crazy ideas... but this?

I sat there for hours pouring over notes and journals. It started out so innocent. It was just another game that he was playing along with. He had all these wacky theories and ideas, stories he planned on writing about. Talk of authors he hoped to join and get to know some day. And then everything just sort of... shifts.

There are a good six or seven “journals” that I could only describe as having been written by a mad man. None of it makes sense. It is nothing but piles upon piles of gibberish and code and shit that just looks like he must have been slamming his face against the gods damned keyboard. Scanned in images of drawings that I recognized as his hand. Crazy shit that didn’t fit his usual art style at all. I’d post some examples but, let’s face it, you’ve all seen this stuff before. And then it just stops. And it’s almost like he’s back to normal. Like he just had one big fit and then snapped out of it just as quickly as it had come upon him.

There was something distinctly different in how he was writing from that point on though. It was like he was no longer just talking to himself. Leaving himself little notes and reminders. It was like he was talking to someone else...

He was talking to Me.

He must have known. He must have known as soon as he saw it that it was all over. That he was going to die. And he must have known that the people he knew would likely be targeted next. That we’d start investigating. That we’d find out the truth. Then we’d be right in the same situation that he found himself in. Alone and unprepared. So he guided me back here. To this place. Where I could hide. Where I’d stand a chance. Safe and protected from his sight, and armed to the teeth with knowledge. Here, I could stand a fighting chance against the monster. A chance to survive, where he could not.

Of course, I’m saying all that like it’s an assumption I’m making. But I’m really just sort of... paraphrasing. Because it’s all here. All typed up plain and simple in front of my face. His words. His last words.

The last entry...
He says he knew it would be back for him soon. Like he could feel it in the wind. Like a cold chill eating away at his very soul. He said he wasn’t strong enough to fight. That even if he was, he couldn’t win. He said he wasn’t strong enough to run. That he couldn’t be like That Man. His only hope was in his theories. His counter-arguments to the established Rules. But they were no good to him. He was already marked. It would find him no matter where he went. And he just wasn’t strong enough to keep running. Not like that. He wasn’t strong enough to take his own life. To just end it all and be done. Not strong enough. Not strong enough. He just kept repeating it over and over until... He says he has one last thing to do. He has to make sure someone knows the truth. And that they’d be ready. Like he couldn’t be. And then... when the monster appears again. He was just going to walk outside, take its hand, and go along with it into the darkness. Because there was nothing else he could do. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe the agents were right. Maybe It would take him to paradise...

Wishful thinking. I guess.

Routine

I've been trying to work myself into a routine to help myself get settled in. It's not easy being locked up in a cell of your own design, but I guess I'm managing. Definitely missing fresh air though. I can't say the same about my arch nemesis The Sun however.

Uggggggghhhhhhhh.... Moan, moan, bitch, complain....

ANYWAYS. Thought I might give you all a little picture of my mornings. A "Day In the Life" as it were... (God, I still have to catch up on all of those vlogs too. This mountain of data is Endless!) I don't know if it will be helpful to anyone or not, but hey, something to fill time with until I have actual theories to post. Or I force myself to finish my own damned story...

I'll have to apologize upfront for being vague on my timeframes, but I'd rather not give any exact hours. Trying to make it harder for any would be proxy hounds from following my trail. Even picked the timezone settings for my blog at random to throw people off. Though in retrospect I may be the only one who can actually see that... Hm.


Mornings begin about the same time every day. It's important to regulate your sleeping habits when you're trying to maintain a schedule like this, regardless of your particular reasons or goals for starting up a daily routine. I'm not much of a morning person, so you won't see me around at the crack of dawn, but I still aim for "early enough."

My first hour of consciousness is spent trying to keep my body in shape. I don't have a lot of room to move around in, but there's enough space for basic exercise. Push-ups, sit-ups, whatever... I've got a small pair of weights of in a corner, but I haven't really worked them in yet. Wanted to look up some proper weight lifting techniques first, keep forgetting about it. The narrow walkway from my room up to the exit isn't the best training space, but it's enough of a stretch for me to run back and forth along it and feel like I'm accomplishing something. Plus it's sloped going back up towards the door, so I think that's supposed to be beneficial... so long as I don't fall down it on the return trip.

Once that's done, I spend a few minutes deciding how to manage my food for the day. Which is usually just an effort in MRE roulette, followed by digging out a bag of trail mix and heading for my computer. My trail mix is awesome by the way. Thank god for Rant Radio and my angry youth days. As soon as Onewinged had told me to start gathering up food supplies to last for months, I knew I was making me some trail mix. Stuff doesn't seem like much, but it'll really keep you going through the day if you know what you're doing with it. Got a great instruction video from Patrolling with Sean Kennedy, can check it out if you want over here @7:35.

I spend the next several hours going back and forth between Onewinged's notes and various blogs they link to. It's a slow process. I mean, I don't think I'm THAT slow of a reader, but some of these posts can be pretty long and add in the comments(which are generally important by the way, don't ignore them; unless, you know, it falls under the category of Six Months Later Proxy Trolling, as outlined in a previous entry) and you've got quite a bit of material on your hands. Realistically speaking, it can take a full hour to read through just 3-4 blog postings, depending on the blog. (The Tutorial can take an hour to read ONE with all the freaking comments on some of them.) I'm trying to take a few notes of my own here and there as I go along... As well as constantly cross-referencing to other blogs by following the frequent commentators. That's how I'm finding most of the people that are still alive and kicking... Most of the people Onewinged pointed me to have disappeared as of late or otherwise been confirmed dead.

I finally clued in to using the "Follow" button at the top of these things too. Helps me keep track of things easier without having to constantly dive back into dead blogs to look for links again. So if you're seeing a blog in my "Blogs I'm Watching" list, then it probably falls into all of the following categories,
1) The blogger is Still Alive. (Always Beneficial)
2) I consider the blog to be "Important" to current events. (Or at the very least, helpful to my research)
3) I'm probably no where near finished reading it. I've probably gone over the most recent posts, skimmed here and there, and I'm working out a time to actually go back and read it from the start. But hey, you're bookmarked now, so I'll get back to you.

I'll add more as I encounter them. If it matters, then I'll note that I started with The Tutorial. Onewinged's notes suggested it was the best place to start and the logic behind The Rules seems to relate significantly to my situation, in a sort of reverse psychology kind of way... I guess? You may have noticed the "joke" by now... (I was tired and it sounded funny at the time, leave me alone.) From there, I went through Just Another Fool, Seeking Truth, and Dreams in Darkness. Then I started pouring over the Sage blogs and I've been bouncing around from there ever since.

Every so often, I'll switch it up and watch vlogs for the day instead. There are fewer of them, but watching them can be just as time consuming. For now, the only one I've completed in full (to present date anyways) is Marble Hornets. I was informed that was the best place to start. In case you missed my reference earlier, I'm mulling through EverymanHYBRID now.

Before I cut out for the day, I'll make a post to my own blog, if I have something worth sharing. All that typing takes about an hour, so I set aside time specifically for it. (Weird how something that takes less than five minutes to read can take fifty minutes to type.) If nothing comes up, then I either spend a little more time reading/watching or just switch off for a while.

I take about an hour after that to just sit back and ponder over things. Try to sort out all the information I've absorbed for the day and compile it with everything from the days prior. I'll probably start allotting more time to this process once I'm finally caught up on everything. Sometimes I'll write down some notes or take a short nap, but just in general it's a time for thinking and not staring at a computer screen.

I usually will try to spend about another hour doing light exercise again after that. Sitting around all day isn't good for the body, so I have to make sure I'm moving around enough to stay in shape... in case I ever have to start Running.

After that, I'll "warm up" my MRE and dig in to that. Those things are not the tastiest things in the world, but I guess they're okay. Edible at least. But hey, it's Fuel, not Food.

I'll spend my last few hours before climbing back into bed cleaning up and messing around on Newgrounds or Steam. Basically just getting my mind off of everything before I go to bed. I don't need the last thing I was thinking of before closing my eyes to be a faceless humanoid abomination. Already tried that once. Didn't sleep a wink. Thanks a lot Jay. Thaaaaaaanks a Lot.

Storytime with The Gargoyle

Sigh, I suppose I may as well continue my tale... Better to get it all out of the way as soon as possible so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. So where was I then...? Hmm...

Well, I didn’t know it at the time, but I suppose the more intelligent among you could guess, Onewinged had started being... Visited. According to what I know now, he had actually known about Tall Dark and Faceless for some time. He just never really discussed it with anyone. It was another one of his private little games. Something that fascinated him. That he poured over for hours, just pondering the possibilities of a world in which such a creature could exist. He even had notes about starting a blog, just to post his theories, analyze some silly dreams he was having. Share his ideas with this community of “authors” he thought he had found. I’ve got a whole set of text files he wrote full of the stuff. But then, I guess, shit got real.

I’ll go ahead and assume it started at about the time that he first contacted me again about the bunker. Asked me to check it out again for him, see if I thought it was still safe to build into. If it was sturdy enough to really be used. I had no reason to question his request, so I did just that. The place needed a bit more cleaning up at the time, maybe some paint, but it was otherwise more than fit for use.

He seemed really excited when I told him it was all good. Started asking me to build the place up. See if I could get some new wiring put in, cable for internet. The whole works really. Like putting together a really tiny house.

So for months, he sends me these little notes via email. Features to try adding in, things to set up, equipment to install, supplies to stock up on. It seemed like a hell of a lot of work for something we had planned to just screw around with, but hey, he was sending me money for all of this stuff, so who was I to complain?

It wasn’t until the point where he started talking about setting up security cameras that I started to worry. I mean, they were just little wireless webcam thingies to survey the area with, but still... sounded like a bit, Much, you know? Didn’t help either that he’d been starting to act really... distant by that point. I mean, he’d always been a bit of a recluse outside of family and close friends, but this was stretching it. He could always talk to me... so why wasn’t he?

I can remember the few times I saw him near the end. He just looked so ragged and tired, not like himself at all. He would never stick around for long, just stop by to deliver a message, hand me some more money, and then he was off. And he was acting so paranoid, constantly shaking and looking around. I was starting to think that he’d gotten into some kind of drug addiction... that maybe he’d gotten in with the wrong people somehow and was afraid for his life. Maybe that was why he was so fixated on the bunker... he just needed someplace to hide out for a while. Somewhere to escape to until things blew over.

I don’t know. I thought a lot of things at the time. I had just about gotten sick of it near the end. I remember calling him a loon, shouting at him to get his act together, go see a doctor or something. It all just seemed so stupid at the time. I tried to reason with him, but it was like he wasn’t even there. Like my words just passed right through him. I can still remember watching him as he wandered off that day... How he stumbled along, muttering something to himself that I could never quite make out. And then he was gone.

I would come to regret that later... I felt so stupid... STILL feel so stupid... just letting him walk off like that... in his condition. But I didn’t know what to do at the time. I didn’t want to call the cops on a close friend like that. See him thrown behind bars for being some kind of junkie. But I knew he needed help. I was planning to go talk to him the very next day. Sort all this mess out. But by that time it was too late. The cops were at his parent’s house by the time I arrived. I was immediately grabbed up for questioning and everything just became a blur.

As the story goes, Onewinged just walked out of the house sometime late that night and just disappeared. Never told anyone where he was going... and that just wasn’t like him. His parents freaked and called 911 immediately. The cops couldn’t do much at the time, since he hadn’t been missing for twenty four hours yet, but the hours passed by fast. Before we knew it, a week had gone by and still no Onewinged. They held a massive search, but never turned anything up.

I never actually told anyone else about the bunker. It just didn’t seem relevant at the time. I had enough common sense to check it out of course... See if maybe that was were he disappeared too. Figured maybe some drug deal had gone bad and he might have escaped to the bunker to hide out... But no dice. I must have made the trek back to double check a good three or four times before I gave up on the idea. Weeks went by and I started to consider going back and just tearing the place apart. Not like I needed the place for anything. With things as they were, it would just be a sore spot on my memory. Better to take it apart and move all those supplies back into my apartment.

...but then I got an email...

…from Onewinged.

Advice for Proxies

We interrupt your regularly scheduled bout of emo whining, for an important public service announcement. What, you wanted to hear the rest of my story? Well too bad, I don't want to talk about it right now. I read enough depressing shit in a day without adding contemplation of my own personal sorrows to the soul crushing heap. I need a laugh damnit, so we're doing this.


Dear Proxy Scum...

Okay, okay, no, that's poor choice of wording. It's becoming readily more and more apparent that the initial opinion I had of you guys was incorrect... but can you really blame me for that? Most of the first few instances of Proxy involvement I witnessed involved clearly crazy people being crazy and trying to stab people and such things so I mean, really? Really? What do you expect? People like me, new to the fold, have to really DIG before we start to realize that you're still human. In the midst of all the chaos, it's easy to forget that. Especially, I would imagine, if you're a person trying not to get STABBED.

So lets try this again...

Dear Recently Hallowed,
Welcome to the fold. I suspect it will take you some time to adjust to your new life as a servant of the Grand High Tallest, but you shall find your place eventually. Your first task as a newly ordained Proxy is to seek out and cryptically torment some unfortunate blogger on the run from your new Master. We know your mind may be a tad befuddled as a result of your contact with Father, but it is nonetheless of the absolute necessity that you not make yourself look like a complete moron in front of your Runner adversaries. Therefore, before you begin your task, allow me to lay down a few simple ground rules to help you on your way.

1) Before leaving cryptic remarks for your selected victim, first ensure that said victim is STILL ALIVE. This is important. No matter how brilliant your choice of tormenting words, you will only appear a fool if you leave your comments for a blogger who has been missing and/or DEAD for over Six Months.

2) Upon selecting your victim, make sure you read their blog first. This serves two purposes, one of which shall be explored shortly, the other is to assist in fine tuning your trolling attempt. The more you know about your victim, the better your chances of getting his/her goat when you blast them with your vicious mind-games. You don't want to be too vague or accidentally remark on something they've already dealt with or overcome.

3) Always reply to your victim's most recent blog posting! If you read through the blog first, then this should be inevitable, as you will have arrived at the most recent post upon completion of your research as assigned in step two. This is also important, since most bloggers will not check their first posting(s) for comments once they've moved ahead by a few months. Or a full year. As such, your mental jabs shall never reach your opponent, completely ignored as they focus on their most recent postings. Instead, your epic trolls will only be read by poor shmucks like myself who are reading through the blog for the first time... and their only choice of response will be to stare at your brand new post on a year old posting and think "Wow. What a complete and total Dumbass."

Follow these simple guidelines and you shall be well on your way to becoming an Agent Elite!


*Ammendum: This logic applies to Runners as well by the way... Especially if you are a Runner trolling a Proxy blog. I mean seriously. Come On.

Better Days

So before you all start calling bullshit on me, I guess I should actually explain how I got into this situation to begin with. I suppose it all started several months ago, when we first found this place. The Bunker.

Onewinged was an old friend of mine, we’d gotten together over a weekend for a bit of a hiking expedition into the nearby countryside a couple miles out of the city. It was pretty much walking distance for me, since I already lived on the outskirts of town, but I don’t get out much on my own, so he had to drag out me outside for the fresh air. Not that I mind the outdoors, I just don’t have a lot of time for enjoying nature since my college days started up a few years back. I welcomed the excuse to escape for a few hours, so away we went into the forests. We weren’t really looking for anything at the time, just out wandering about in the wilderness. Exploring. Having a good time.

We stumbled across it by total accident... or else some kind of miracle. I mean, it had to be. There was just this huge burnt out clearing and a door in the side of a hill. Like... some sort of secret fantasy location that just didn’t seem like it belonged to the real world. We HAD to investigate. We tugged open the door with hardly a second thought and climbed into the abyss before us. The place was in pretty bad shape when we found it. I couldn’t begin to fathom how long it must have been there. I just knew it was fucking awesome. And Onewinged agreed.

To say we started acting like kids again would be an understatement. We’d just found a secret hideout in the middle of the freaking woods. This was like something out of a dream. But somebody had to know about this thing, right? Things like that don’t just appear over night. So Onewinged took a few shots of the place with his camera phone and said he’d head over to city hall later in the week and see if there were any records on the place.

According to the research he turned up with a few days later, it turns out there used to be a big house nearby. I can’t remember all the details, but apparently some rich big wigs used to own the property, had the shelter installed during the cold war era, but never really put it to much use. Then one night several years ago, the house caught fire and just burned to the ground. Nobody was inside at the time. Investigators blamed it on faulty electrical wiring. For some reason though the family decided not to rebuild. They just moved on to greener pastures somewhere deeper south, left the ruins of their former home to smolder and rot. Years passed and the place just sort of surrendered to nature and the passage of time. Nothing left to even suggest that people had lived out there, save for that lone door buried in the earth. The whole place was just abandoned.

Which for us... was absolutely perfect.

Onewinged started playing with this grand scheme for secret hideout right away. Our home away from home. An escape from the ordinary. Or, more likely, just a cool place to invite girls to late at night and throw sweet underground parties for friends.

Yeah. It was dumb. But we were two dumb college kids, looking to have some fun in what was an otherwise mundane world. So it wasn’t long before we started working to clean the place out and make it into something presentable. “We” of course being a bit of a deceptive phrase in this instance, as Onewinged really only ever made one trip back to the shelter with me, to take some measurements and work out a plan... after that, classes started back up and he got to be “too busy” to work on it himself, so I became tasked with managing the project. I was the big bad engineering guy after all, as he liked to say.

And, okay, that’s true. I’m an engineer. Or at least I am according to that silly slip of paper I left back at home. But I’m an “Electrical Engineer” damnit. I didn’t get into this trade to restructure a concrete hole in the ground… or to be a freaking maid, as was more the case for the first couple of weeks I spent cleaning this place out.

I was gonna just call it quits and forget about the whole thing. In fact, I’m pretty sure I did for a while. I remember a small stretch of time where I had all but forgotten about the thing, until Onewinged suddenly brought it back up. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I had assumed he’s just forgotten about it too with all of his school work piling high atop him, as such things tend to do. So when he asked me to go back out and start building the place up again, I didn’t think anything of it. He was just revitalizing the old plan. He did that sort of thing. Start one project, forget about it for a while, work on something else, then come back to the old one when that started getting boring. Classic cycle of madness from a genius with attention deficit disorder.

I had no reason to assume that this was any different.

...but I was wrong.

Unfamiliar Ceiling

Well, this is definitely going to take some getting used to. I’ve never slept well on the first night in a new place. Gets easier with time... but then most times I’m adjusting to an actual bed, not some shitty cot I scored on the cheap at an army surplus. Beats sleeping on the floor though, so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining.

Anyways, guess I should pick up from yesterday.

I’m still doing a lot of reading. This whole thing kind of got dumped on me all spur of the moment, so I haven’t really had a lot of time to prepare here. Most of what I’ve been going by are notes from ...ahh... a friend. Let’s call him “Onewinged.” I think he’d like that...

Um, sorry, moving along then... I’ve been going through all of the reference material I got from him, but there’s a freaking ton of it and all full of links to blogs and vlogs. I’m not a speed reader folks, so even with all the time in the world this is gonna take me a while, but I’m moving as fast as I can. It’s an awful lot of information to try absorbing all at once, you know? I think I’ve got a lot of the basics down though, so that’s a good start. Might start commenting a few places in another day or so... assuming of course that the blogger is still ALIVE by the time I reach the end of their blog. That seems to be a rather troubling occurrence I keep running in to. Hopefully there are still plenty of you alive out there that I just haven’t stumbled across yet. Maybe I should do a little more cross examining through the comments section of some of these things.

But that’s what I’m doing, not who I am or where I am, so I guess I’m not doing a very good job of this whole explaining thing, huh? My apologies. I ramble on at times.

I called myself The Gargoyle in my previous posting. It’s a name I felt appropriate given my situation. A name which, alongside the little blurb I made along with it, in retrospect, makes me sound like one of these “Proxy” people, given how closely the description could mirror “Him.” I’d like to take the moment to assure you that this is not the case. In fact, I’ve never actually even seen the thing. The amount of time I’ve spent knowing about him could be approximated at thereabouts 24 hours. As such, for me to be leaping so deep into the thick of all this probably sounds like an incredibly stupid idea. To which I must say... Yes. Yes, it most certainly is. But I don’t think I really have much of a choice in the matter at this point. I have Onewinged to blame for that. But we can get into that later... I’d... really rather not talk about him right now.

The name ties in to where I am, so I suppose that’s next and it’s a doozy, so hang on tight. At this very moment, I am basically sitting in a small hole, several feet underground, in the middle of fucking nowhere... in the Woods. Clearly a brilliant place to hide, I know. [/Heavy Sarcasm] Bear with me though, it gets better. This place is essentially an old Cold War fallout shelter, abandoned by the owners several years ago. Several feet of reinforced concrete, itself buried under quite a few layers of dirt and rock, the only entrance a heavy steel door cleverly concealed within the side of a hill. Was quite run down when we found it, but I’ve been spending several months now refurbishing the place, for purposes I was not immediately aware of. It’s lucky that I wasn’t though, else I wouldn’t have had the chance to stockpile the thing so well with non-perishable food-stuffs and other basic necessities. Because now that the door is sealed shut, so I can’t exactly go out for pizza...

I think I’ll survive though. For a while at least. I have the advantage of being unmarked by The Tall One. That should by me more than enough time to complete my research and get to work helping as many people as possible before I stumble on to his radar. And even then, with the secretive nature of my location, hidden from any means of view, I’m hoping it will take him quite a while to find his way to me. That’s essentially my gambit anyways... I’ll try to explain it better over time.

I think that’s about enough expository monologuing for one day though. I’m assuming you have other blogs to read, places to go, people to see, Eldritch Abominations to not get tentacle raped by... Things of this nature.

Be seeing you.

Systems Online

Gotta make it light.

Seems strange to be following the advice of a dead man. But then again, I suppose humanity lives and acts by the words of dead men every day. So perhaps it isn't so foolish after all.

Not that I mind it anyways. I prefer the lighter colors. The darker shades are just... depressing.

I thought about adding some grays I guess but... I think I'm going to be staring at quite enough gray for a while thank you. So we'll just stick with the blue. Blue is nice... I like blue.

Christ, where am I going with this?

I guess introductions and everything are in order. I've got a lot of explaining to do, but I think I'll just keep everything short and simple for now. It took me well over half the day to get the rest of this shit up and running, and frankly I'm exhausted. So I'll just save the big long spill about where I am and what I’m doing for tomorrow. The sooner I'm curled up in the corner and unconscious, the better. My eyes are burning from staring at this damn screen all day...

Let's cut right to the chase then. This is another one of THOSE blogs. Meant for those people who know of Him or are soon to know Him. To be used as a guidepost and, if you're willing, a communications hub... intended to unite those who fight against Him. The impossible entity which we have chosen to call "The Slender Man."

As for myself, I am The Gargoyle.

Ever watching, Ever waiting.

A solitary Guardian, through Darkness and Light.