Dracoblood says, "The following are visions from Darkstone castle.  If you intend to visit the place some time, you'll probably wish to avoid reading this.  If you'll never get a chance to explore it, then here are a few interesting hallucinations you're missing."

Without warning, a thick cloak of living blackness descends about you cutting off all sight and sound. For a moment you grope helplessly, a babe in some hellish womb endlessly seeking birth and finding none. Finally the blackness swirls and churns and clears but little comfort does it bring for the scene before is not what you last saw. Endlessly before you lies some great city, ruined now. Carrion crows pick at still fresh corpses that spill almost at your feet. Some nameless horror has stricken an entire race in one blow to judge by the size of the ruins around you.
Once more the stifling darkness cloaks your eyes and you strain to see even a hint of normalcy. In what may be minutes or may be lifetimes, you regain your sight and see the place you were in before this madness swept you away.

Your sight dims and a new image replaces the room you were in. An ominous black plane of broken and cracked rock stretches out forever under a sky filled with stars in patterns unknown to mortal lands. Endless rows of gravestones stand at crazy angles in uneven ranks across this landscape. There comes the sound of the earth rumbling and stones cracking and falling and, as you watch dumbstruck with horror, the graves begin to open and vomit out streams of zombies onto the cruel plains of death. The vision fades swiftly but the scene haunts you for hours.

The walls begin to creak and the floor beneath you begins to moan like a beast in pain. The air fills with a thick choking dust that swirls into half-formed shapes of nightmarish proportions. One advances toward you with outstretched claws and as it approaches, you recognize your own features, twisted by madness into a ghastly caricature and you shudder as it reaches for your throat. At the last moment, it dissolves back into dust and vanishes into the clouds stirred up in the room.

Shadows around you fragment and leap toward the ceiling then explode in a flash of energy that leaves you with a queasy stomach and cold sweat covering your forehead.

Cold, clammy fingers of darkness reach out to caress the hair at the back of your neck, sending small shockwaves through your skull.

A sudden chill races down your spine as you notice the floor pulsate beneath you for a brief moment.

The room wavers about you. Thick currents of something blacker than black swirl and swim before you. A sense of unreality sets in as if none of this were real. Your skin prickles coldly and your mouth dries until you spit dust. The blackness takes on a more solid form and you begin to think you can define shapes within it. The things you see within the blackness are not things you would want to tell a friend and you pray these are not visions from within your own mind for if so, surely you have long been lying in a madhouse, drooling and fouling yourself in eternal lunacy.

Raw torrents of energy spring forth from every nook and crack within sight. Rapidly they form into shapes before your staring eyes. Endless processions of dark figures mount an infinitely high pyramid cast out of pure Evil to have their hearts torn out while yet alive and offered up to a great Being woven of elements that hovers above all, watching and feasting on the energies released by the dying souls. The vison fades and elements flow back into elements while still more disturbing visions crowd your sight.

Whirlpools of liquid darkness seep from the walls to form at your feet. They dance and sway around you making you guard your steps lest you enter one to vanish forever. They close with a cruel sucking sound in one place only to reappear in another with no warning.

Something inside you twitches nervously, as the rabbit twitches at the approach of a fox. Inner senses scream a warning to you that all is not right with the world and that unknowable forces are gathering unseen all around you.

Echoing in the distance is the voice of a frightened child crying endlessly, alone and terrified. The sound comes from all directions and has no source you can locate. Finally, it dies away and is no more than a bad memory nagging at your mind.

Coppery tasting bile rises in the back of your throat, as a wave of intense vibrations courses through the room.

The ground underneath you suddenly lurches sideways, as if the floor is shifting position. The motion stops as soon as it started.

Several faint crashing noises can be heard coming down the corridor, followed by a rush of dust covering you from head to toe.

An eerily brilliant blue sphere rolls in seemingly from nowhere and glides about the room. Spitting and snarling like a wet cat it floats an inch or two off the ground and touches nothing. As it approaches you, your hair stands on end and your teeth itch. With no warning, there is a silent explosion and a flare of bright blue light and the ball is gone, leaving only a sharp metallic smell and a small cloud of smoke where it had been moments before.

Pale blue mists seep through the walls, settling like a malodorous cloak onto your clothes and skin.

A brilliant bolt of pure energy flashes across the ceiling!

The walls and floors creak under some gigantic weight as a loud, shrill whistle nearby causes you to hold your head in agony.

Suddenly, the temperature drops dramatically, and the walls in the old castle vibrate with the sounds of bells pealing, whistles screeching, and drums pounding violently, relentlessly.
The noise ends abruptly.

A sudden chill races down your spine as you notice the floor pulsate beneath you for a brief moment.

Searing, pale blue light illuminates every corner of the room for an instant, then, just as suddenly, flickers into utter darkness for several seconds before all returns to normal. Or does it?

Barely muffled blasts of thunder from somewhere above the castle rock every stone, every brick, every nerve in the beleagured old fortress.

There is a great booming sound as of a bronze bell being struck by giants. Far beneath your feet it resounds in the earth. Again and again its metallic tongue cries out so that even the gods must hear it on distant Orhan. The din rattles your mind and numbs your senses and threatens to overwhelm your reason. Slowly the sound fades away leaving an echo in your mind to make you wonder if you still hear it or merely the memory of it.

Tiny pinpoints of light burst just over your head!

Deep rumblings, like the moans of a thousand tortured souls, lurch through the room and beyond, echoing through the old castle before fading into a dull, insistent hum.

Chaotic flares of multicolored light rise up from the floors and skitter along the ceiling.

(Pre-Invasion)
A faint rumbling noise reaches your ears from down the corridor. The noise grows louder, accompanied by faint vibrations along the walls. As the pitch rises, it halts with a loud *CRACK* and all is silent.

The ground undulates beneath your feet again, almost causing you to fall. Several large chunks of rock dislodge from the ceiling and come crashing down nearby.

Odd noises can be heard coming down the corridor in all directions. Something doesn't seem right here.