The Dark Army: Volume 1

The Dark Army: Volume 1 is a document about Deathshead's plans on the Dark Army. It is found in the Crypt in The Dark Army: Uprising.

Entries
OPERATION 111901 - THE DARK ARMY (1/3)

DEATHSHEAD and his two personal assistants, KARL and WILHELM VON STARKE, are currently in charge of the operation. CHRISTOPHER MACHTIG leads the excavations of STEP 1, as advised by HEINRICH HIMMLER.

We've been ordered to find THE DARK RELIC, an ancient and powerful alchemical artifact once used by SIMON THE WANDERER to seal HEINRICH I into the earth. Thanks to DOCTOR ZEMPH's remaining research notes of OPERATION RESURRECTION, we've been able to pinpoint the location of the item in question. A millenium ago, after he defeated the dark knights,, SIMON THE WANDERER came to this village to hide the relic and it's power, inside some sort of crypt. We'll have to dig deeper and deeper, but we'll find it, and bring it to DEATHSHEAD.

Legends say that this relic is able to bring a lot of life energy to it's user...also being able to grant the many wishes of humans. After translating the tablets of the main chamber, we quickly noticed many, many common points with THE EMERALD TABLET. Could this relic be some sort of...PHILOSOPHER STONE?

OPERATION 111901 - THE DARK ARMY (2/3)

Given the look of it, this relic could indeed be the legendary artifact we call the PHILOSOPHER STONE in alchemy. DEATHSHEAD added that HELGA VON BULOW once told him that THE DARK RELIC could make it's user immortal...

In alchemy, the philosopher stone is also reputed to be granting immortality. When we got into the biggest room of the burial chambers, we saw a giant circle in the ground, with symbols in it. To put it simply, THE EMERALD TABLET is like a recipe to create the philosopher stone. It lists it's requirements. We translated, interpretated, the symbols in the circle we saw in the crypt, and it perfectly matches with THE EMERALD TABLET's content. It's fine to say we have enough elements to claim that the circle was used to create a philosopher stone. Now, the weird part. Still in the burial chambers, we noticed that the very, very numerous coffins around the circle were all empty. In the middle of the circle was dust. We analyzed the dust, and it turned out it was bone dust.

OPERATION 111901 - THE DARK ARMY (3/3)

What happened to these people? Were they the ingredients? We know that this crypt was the hideout of both SIMON THE WANDERER and the alchemic sect he founded after he left the benedicte order. Did he sacrifice all of his followers to create a philosopher stone to fight the dark knights? Could that also explain why he was the only one to stand against them and HEINRICH I? But more importantly, did he do such a thing for the sake of his own survival, or for the world's fate?

After we get the artifact, DEATHSHEAD wants us to reproduce this circle in a small village near his base.