The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus

by Dusk Peterson

  * We have lost him.

  The last, heartbreaking entry is in such stark contrast to the Codifier’s usual formal style that it provides a striking image of the depth of respect that Layle Smith’s fellow workers held for him. Unfortunately, the Codifier was apparently so deeply troubled by the High Seeker’s illness that this is his last entry on the topic. Thus we are deprived of his account of Layle Smith’s struggle back to sanity.

  Revisionist historians have suggested that Layle Smith’s “recovery” consisted of him passing from a coma-like state into a far more dangerous psychotic condition, in which he fully accepted the “dark dreamings” that apparently sparked the madness. From this point forward, the revisionist historians say, Layle Smith lost all sense of reality and became a destructive influence upon the Eternal Dungeon.

  This charge, resting as it does purely on speculation, cannot be easily refuted. Nonetheless, it is possible for more conscientious historians to reconstruct the steps Layle Smith took to emerge from his madness . . .

  —Psychologists with Whips: A History of the Eternal Dungeon.