The basic story (Which is what you know up until you find the first secret room) is that this magical cave appeared one day in this small village, and people started to relize that it's got infinite riches - but at a cost. Only certain items (called "Artifacts") and your own knowledge (player levels and skills) can be taken out of the cave, everything else is left behind.

The only way to do this, however; is with the Escape Wings. They're not too terribly hard to find though, but due to human greed many people have died in the cave.

I'll also add my own commentary and thoughts on the lore pieces, that way it's not just me copy/pasting stuff I've written down. I'll also add my own titles for each entrry, since there aren't any offical ones other than "Day X"

"Just as I expected! After a few failed attempts, I've refined the spell to utilize the soul of a rat to transform its bones to a mostly pure gold substance. It's like I hold the key to nature itself. Necromancy must hold so many more wonderful secrets..."

This is the first* entry you can find, and it becomes apparent that there's something sinister going on here. You can see that this person is a wizard or magician of some kind, since he references the soul of a rat (Which is something vmagical, if only slightly) and Necromancy, raising the dea with magic.

Now by itself this doesn't give a whole ton more information, but it sparks your curiosity. So, you've got to explore more.

(Plus you get some pretty nice loot from the secret rooms)

* Unless I find something that's earlier

"Was attacked by the farmer today after he caught me stealing more squash. Knocked me down from behind and started screaming at me like I was some homeless teenager, with no idea I was armed. I sprang up and stabbed him with my dagger without thinking... I loaded his body in a wheelbarrow and took him back. I couldn't resist... an actual human soul."

Now it becomes apparent that this wizard is evil, or at least has been forced too. He killed the farmer and took his soul to continue his research. In addition, the tone does sound slightly psycopathic.

Now the wizard did start it by constantly stealing food from the farmer, but killing him wasn't really justified. Though you could argue it was self-defence.

"Over a month since my last entry... I've been very busy. The energy from the farmer's soul has proven more powerful than I had imagined. I can shift the walls of the cave, create gold and silver tools and weapons from rock and dust, and use the corpses of existing creatures to conjure new ones loyal to me. I must get more somehow..."

It's been over a month since the last entry (Day 25) and he's already almost drained all the power of the farmer's soul. This either means that he's progressing fast and using a lot of energy, or souls don't have a ton of power. In addition, he's found out how to use alchemy to create gold an silver from rocks and dust, as well as transmutating dead animals into his loyal minions.

At this point, it's clear whoever is writing these entries is the man behind the curtian - he made the cave (or re-purposed an existing one) and is the man who made all the enemies you find there. He may have overlooked something though, since his minions can't move.

He can also "shift the walls of the cave" (which is how he made all these secret rooms) and can make near-infinite money (Which is why it's so easy to get several thousand gold in a fairly short amonut of time). But, he might not want to use all that gold or not have a use for it. If you've got infinite money, it becomes less valuble; right?

"This gold and silver I'm able to create... worthless to me, but valuble to others. I think I can use their greed to my advantage... lure them in with riches. But how to make it not an obvious trap? I need to think more about this, and soon... I've almost used up all of the power from the farmer's soul."

Ah, I was correct; having massive amounts of gold and silver renders them useless. Or maybe he just doesn't use them, and has locked himself away to continue his research.

This is one of the shorter entries though, but it does still give us a bit of information. The first is that we know what he plans to do with all this "worthless" gold and treasure - use it to lure in adventurers and take their souls for his research. He's also almost finished with the farmer's soul, and has to figure out how to not make his plan a trap.

At the end, he's decided to sit on the issue and wait. Maybe the next entry will tell us more of his plan.

"Everything is finally in place and already coming together! An enchantment on the cave to make it a treasure hunt of sorts, with an option of escape...but with the ultimate risk. The fools are willing to risk their lives for treasure, blinded by their greed. Just a simple message of a treasure cave in a nearby town and curiosity and word of mouth will take care of the rest."

His plan seems to be coming to fruition, and he's found a way to enchant the cave to prevent you from taking things out of it. This is also kind of a meta-reference to the game's title, as the enchantment on the cave - thus, The Enchanted Cave. (And the 2 is because it's a sequel to the first game, which can be found here[www.kongregate.com])

The "option of escape" he talks about is the Escape Wings.

"It's been a while since my last entry, but I need to reflect... Two. Two souls so far I've managed to reap from greedy explorers. They all died form creatures too... I didn't even have to do it. It's so perfect. I need to refine the enchantment on the cave so that it is self-sustaining... I want to spend my time studying and experimenting."

In this entry, we see that the author has gotten 2 souls to work with, and has become so busy with his research that he decided to make the enchantment on the cave self-sustaining (which is something you should do anyway, might as well automate it)

The research he is doing is most likely more about souls, since he's been gathering them. How he gets them is unknown for the time being though.

"Finally I feel like writing another entry. Things were more than I could have hoped for for months... I've gotten at least 30 souls??? I don't know how.... I've lost count. I've taken to conjuring newer more powerful creatures... decided to use the energy of one complete human soul to see what I could do and made an enormous spider... I've sent it to guard a heap of treasure."

In this entry, we can see that he's very surprised at how sucessful his plan was, he's gained 30 souls or lost count. He's started to conjure up more powerful creatures, in this case a giant spider using an entire human soul. And he's made it guard a heap of treasure (Floor 25)

"Checkpoints! Every 10th level I cleared to allow people to do as they please... and it seems some have set up shop[s] on these floors. It's so perfect. It makes things a bit easier for more adventurers, but still with plenty of challenge and valubles deeper into the cave. I've also noticed an inn built just outside the cave. Seems it's a bit of a tourist attraction! HA!"

This is where we find out the origin of the checkpoints, and it took him around 3 years to come up with this plan. Meaning that the cave hadn't had this system until it had been around for around 3 years.

He also starts putting more valuble loot deeper in the cave, which gives more incentive for people to stick around longer. This is why the deeper down you go the higher the chances of getting better artifacts.

"I've conjured a massive crystal to store extra souls in since things are going so well. This power... I want to show people. I want to show them how wrong they were. I don't know what, but I will be stockpiling souls for something big one day..."

In this entry, it's clear the writer has been gathering souls for awhile now, and has gotten to the point where he's run out of storage. He also wants to tell everyone about how human souls are a good power source (but because of basic morals/ethics, we don't kill each other to use as power; though you could use dead people's souls. I don't think the author would go that route though)

He's also planning something big, but we can't really guess what it is. Maybe it's a final boss or something, but other than that we've not got a lot to go on.

"An entire town has appeared just outside... and amusingly they've also made a market keeping track of lost explorers. I've been keeping the death toll under 1% to keep up interest. The crystal of souls glows with just over 250 souls by now. I've begun drawing out plans for my ultimate creation... a collosal demon under my own bidding to show the world my true power. I would need over 1,000 souls for this however..."

This is one of the longer entries, and also gives us a lot more information to work with. The author also says that he's up to over 250 souls (I choose to believe it's at 256 souls) and we get toknow what his Magnum Opus is. A giant demon, which may be the final boss; but he needs over a thousand souls to create/control it.

He seems to be making this demon as more of an ego trip over anything, but it does let us theorize a lot more.

"Found my old diary. How far I've come since that farmer... [t]he soul count reached 800 today. Plans for my 1,000 soul conjuration are nearly done... I guess it's just a waiting game now."

In this entry, we see that the wizard discovered his old diary, and began reminiscing about it. He's also close to achieving his goal of getting 1,000 souls for some mysterious conjuration spell.

"Things slowed for a bit, but not anymore, hahaha! This worked so beautifully, I am now buying these fools' escape wings directly from them and they are not suspecting anything. Greed, my faithful companion... is bringing even more of these people to their death."

This entry covers how deeper down, you can find the NPC in shops who will buy your Escape Wings for 500 Gold.

We assume he's just a regular adventurer who got trapped, but now we know the truth: He's actually the wizard, posing as a helpless man.

It shows that he's also quite resourceful, knowing that human greed will usually win over self-preservation (but escape wings are rather common, so maybe not as clever as we'd like.)

"I don't know what day it is from the beginning, but I think I'll start keeping track again. The soul count is at 976. Twenty-four more and my demon will be conjured. An immense demon, more powerful than all other creatures... under my complete control."

We finally find out what this mysterious "conjuring" spell was for: To summon a demon (and presumably try and take over the town)

We also see that the wizard starts to keep track of time again, but I doubt it's very accurate.

Thank you for reading my crazy theories/analysis and all the game lore.

I DO NOT own any of this lore (I did title them though), all of that was written by DustinAux and is property of the developer. I simply wrote it all down and analyzed it.

Thank you again for reading, if you find any lore that I've not got please comment it; same goes for any theories/feedback/whatever you've got.