Dear reader. I must confess at this time to being troubled. I swear I chronicled much of the thickly forested landscape surrounding Falcassel, describing everything from shapeshifters and vampires to carnivorous trees and swamps that seemed the manifest out of spite. I took samples of medicinal and poisonous plants and even secured books from libraries in the region, all for delivery to Draoidahaek. I felt my master, the archlich Khufu, would be satisfied beyond measure to possess such a trove.

To you, my dear reader, and to my master, I offer naught but pathetic groveling. Everything acquired from Mawraton south to Grimehold was lost to me in an assault I had no means of anticipating. The earth opened up close to the Grimory, and from it poured a horde of arachnid creatures — the local peoples call them “haemexii” — who laid siege to the Grimory, murdered its revenant inhabitants en masse until a defense finally began, and pillaged all manner of items, persons, and treasures throughout the onslaught. Everything of my Creuore records was taken or destroyed. I doubt these haemexii intended to do so, and I admit they were a destructive wonder to behold, but regardless, my chronicles are now gone.

In all bleakness we must strive to find a reason to continue. Sometimes it’s simply to spread further doom, other times it’s because we have a mission. Though I’d lost much, I still had my life, and Mascar and Sjazzara were still with me (Mascar had lost an eye by this point; a fact about which he appears unduly proud). Though our wagon and its master had been crushed, I can at least attest that we formed a regiment of survivors, monsters, and stragglers who endeavored to support us in case of future attacks. We experienced two on the road to Fair Bay, but our ramshackle assembly more than held their own. Sometimes unpredictability is what’s required to overwhelm the foe, it seems, and my coin and gems from Draoidahaek were more than enough to maintain their loyalty. I dubbed our regiment “the Magi’s Hands,” which I feel is appropriate.

By the time we reached Fair Bay and our way out of Creuore, each of us was footsore and irritable. Mascar was constantly initiating conflict with our followers, Sjazzara was ever more prone to her ravings, and I was impatient to leave. Fair Bay is an intriguing locale, however, and I wish to write a little of it. Where much of Creuore is swallowed by wilderness and the predators use the crag and the tree as cover, Fair Bay appears to be a pleasant seaside town with a healthy port. It’s a place of quietness and suspicion, but lacks overt threat. The people there have no desire to engage a visitor in conversation (though I have fine ways of making a person more conversant than they’d choose to be) and it seemed I could rest a while until a ship was ready to leave for my next destination.

Then, dear reader, came the vampires. The blood drinkers in Fair Bay are distinct from those in Falcassel, and even those in Home, or far off Mute Tower. They resemble a cross between something human, a bat, and a rat. They possess huge ears and leathery wings. But I only discovered this once I’d persuaded a local to open up about these predators, because not once did I see one. These “Ort” vampires are trackers and hunters, and they hate to be seen. Sjazzara was constantly talking about making offerings to the Ort, but I wanted to lay in wait until one showed itself.

Dear reader, I regret to say that our ship left Fair Bay before an Ort appeared to me. Or so I thought. Mayhap one was visiting me as I slept, because I discovered blood on my throat, beneath my scales, on three occasions upon waking. At first I put it down to the incessant flying insects in the town, but my exhaustion compels me to believe that while I didn’t encounter one of these vampires, one or more of them encountered me.

We left the Magi’s Hands with a stipend and sailed via the Still Sea on to the Kingdom of the Malignant Mind, where the ship’s captain was due to make a one-day stop. I persuaded him to remain in dock a little longer, as I wanted to explore this most mysterious of kingdoms. Few who have visited this realm write of it in detail, perhaps due to its reputation for mentally subjugating anyone who dares remain.

Oh, I am delighted to record the following, dear reader: the Kingdom of the Malignant Mind is a bounteous place. I’ve never before seen such verdant fields, so many lush and rich crops, cities of such opulence and peoples so calm and obedient. I’m aware that mental enslavement renders the people so still, but it was something bizarre and fascinating to behold firsthand. Draoidahaek could never function in such a way (and I know it never shall) as freedom of mind is central to our kingdom. Spend a little time in the Kingdom of the Malignant Mind, however, and you might start questioning freedom’s value. Such peace. Such prosperity!

The Kingdom of the Malignant Mind lacks in some areas, however. Conversation was trying and limited. Few “drones” wished to engage us, even under duress. The cities were encountered lacked florid names or descriptions, despite how amazingly pioneering they might appear. They were simply numbered: One, Two, and so on (for the sake of honest recording, good reader, I did not visit any cities beyond One and Two). 

Further, this is the kingdom where we lost Sjazzara. I can only assume the eponymous “Malignant Mind” objected to our insane vampire’s attempt at mental meddling with some of the drones, because one night Mascar and I noticed Sjazzara had simply vanished. We asked the locals, interrogated possible witnesses, and attempted to locate a trail, but all we learned was this, repeated word for word by most of the people in the city of Two: “Your friend is now part of a greater mind. Do not mourn her. She is now the limb of a god.”

I admit to feeling sour about this. I had paid Sjazzara for three seasons work, all of it up front. Blame my naivete as a traveler, perhaps, but I’d hoped she might last longer than two of them. Mascar was aggrieved to the point of violence. He commenced a campaign of cleaving through drones and their tentacled masters, his skull somehow resisting their telepathic intrusions. I theorize that each attempt at control only aggravated him further. Whatever the truth of it, I retreated alone to the ship in Welcome Harbor, where the captain had agreed to meet us. From here, I was to voyage north, bypassing the remaining islands of this kingdom until arriving in Penance, in the Kingdom of Xin.

A long voyage awaits, and I hope dearly that I can achieve some rest between mapping tidal patterns and the passage of the suns and moon.