Good to see you in Sarn once again. I wish that we could be greeting under fairer skies, yet this city remains clouded in strife.
Lunaris, Eternal goddess of the Moon and her sister, Solaris of the Sun, have risen to reclaim what was once their own. Siblings equal in strength, mighty twin rivers converging, sweeping all before them.
We are cornered animals, awaiting the deluge that will surely drown us. Yet there exists a pair of ancient treasures, the Sun Orb and the Moon Orb. They are our hope... our desperation.
These owl eyes of mine have been watching the sun goddess from afar. The Sun Orb lies within her temple, guarded by her most ardent devotee. An exile who, in his insanity, has taken to calling himself 'The Dawn'.
That orb is the seed that must be stolen from this new son of hers, and planted at the feet of his ancient mother.
I've been keeping a close eye on that exile-turned-sycophant who calls himself, 'The Dusk'. Dusk carried the Moon Orb into the Lunaris Temple and has not returned with it, not as far as I have seen.
No doubt he clings to that orb like it's his adopted mother's own nurturing breast. If you were to wean him from the teat, and place that orb at the bereft mother's feet, we may yet see the moon itself fall.
By the earth and sky, the power of the goddesses lies in your hands. Take these seeds and plant them in the fertile stone at their feet. From what I have learned, It is my hope that the orbs will force Solaris and Lunaris to grow limbs and flesh, to engage you in mortal battle.
May this come to pass, and may you cut down these goddesses as a forester might fell a pair of stubborn old trees.
Grigor is the butterfly that has lost its wings to a cruel child, and this place of respite has become a cage for his pain, a breeding ground of bad memory. We spoke and Grigor shared his resolve with me. He can no longer live with the torment that Piety has injected into his heart.
Like the warrior-poet he is, Grigor has ventured into the unknown, to find a cure for his body and mind, or die in the attempt.
The dead do not love the living and the living cannot love the dead. People fear what they do not understand. I understand Clarissa. I am not frightened of her. I am frightened for her.
If I am a watchful owl then you are the courageous hawk, swooping with sharpened talons to wrench the serpent from the child's neck. Clarissa will bear that wound for the rest of her life, but I am glad you were there to save her from following poor Tolman into the dirt.
Perhaps now that Clarissa has lost her love of death, she will finally be able to embrace life.
I was out hunting food for our encampment. Like a prowling cat I was, but what I saw marching across the ruins made me feel like a little mouse.
Gem-studded warriors pounding the earth, lead by their strongest... a Captain. I've known of these gemling legionnaires, how they were once the personal swords of Emperor Chitus. But now they rise again, with this Captain at their fore. Swallowing my fear, I followed the Captain and found a force being gathered within the Grain Gate.
Exile, I know it's not fair for me to ask, you have done so many things for us, but if you were to find the Captain and slay him and his men, I would honour you greatly.
Our little town would not survive an onslaught such as the Captain is likely to enact upon us.
My courageous hawk removes yet another snake from the long grass. I offer you a reward, but my mind remains unsettled. The Captain lies rotting in the ground, buzzing with flies, but if gemling legionnaires can regain their sentience, then can all of the monstrosities of the Undying do the same?
My thoughts turn to the burrows and chambers beneath the earth of Sarn. Could there be some new undead civilisation growing and preparing itself underground at this very moment? Such thoughts do not make for easy sleeping.
They walked our earth in the times of great strife, cruel and hideous shadows, cast against the clay wall of ruined abode. Thaumaturge Malachai grew them out of the vain ambitions of his dark imaginings.
Emperor Chitus believed the legionnaires belonged to him, that gemling men would beat to the drum of his own crystalline heart. But as the silhouette of the emperor faltered and fell, burned out by the light of true men, some of the legion remained.
The cataclysm turned legionnaire into monster, another mindless man of undeath. Yet this Captain seems to have regained his faculties, some of his old warrior intelligence.
I worry for the rest of his soldiers, how they may grow from mindless killing machines into something far worse.