[Page 43 – "Of the Scourge and Its Faces"
The Scourge is not a sickness of the body.
It is the sickness of the soul.
The world hungers to reclaim what it once gave — and when it cannot, it devours.
I have seen the Scourge wear many faces.
The blood turns dark and thick, and the dead refuse to rest.
They wander long after their hearts have stilled, their flesh guided by whispers that no living man can hear.
When the body falls, it does not rot. It waits.
The earth itself seems reluctant to swallow it.
Those who breathe the same air begin to dream of the dead, until they too rise.
Fire cleanses, but never for long.
I once walked through a valley where men had rooted where they stood eyes open, hands clutching at the sky as blood as black as tar dripped from their eyes.
The Church said the Scourge was punishment.
The Empire said it was nature's rebellion.
I believe it is neither.
The Scourge is the shadow of our imbalance.
When man grows deaf to the world's rhythm, the Scourge sings it back in blood.
(Margin note, inked in a different hand: "Poetic nonsense. But damn if it doesn't feel true.")
Page 57 – "The Descent of the Dragon Lancers"
They called it a holy campaign.
The High Lords spoke of cleansing of casting light into the Dungeon of the Vile Sassafras, where the remnants of her sin still bled into the soil.
The Church blessed our blades. The Emperor kissed our banners.
And we, fools that we were, descended smiling.
I was the youngest among the Dragon Lancers.
We carried banners of red glass and lightsteel spears that hummed when we marched.
We thought ourselves saviors.
We did not yet know that light does not belong beneath the earth.
When we entered, the air felt thick, like breath that had waited too long to be exhaled.
The deeper we went, the quieter it became. Our torches dimmed, not from wind, but from despair.
Light recoiled from the walls. Even the flame seemed to loathe the place.
We walked for three days.
The tunnels whispered names.
Not words.
Sometimes I heard mine, sometimes another's, but always from behind just far enough that you'd turn and find nothing.
One of us — Ser Halwen — began to speak to the wall.
He said his wife was calling him through the stone.
When we pulled him away, his face stayed pressed to it.
On the sixth day, we reached the Great Door.
They said it sealed the heart of Sassafras's dungeon. It was a collosal gate the size of a castle
We tried everything from runes, prayer, light to even blood.
Nothing opened it.
That's when we began to die.
At first, it was dreams.
The same dream, every night. A feld of glass, and something beneath it whispering for us to come closer.
Then came the trembling.
Our eyes darkened, our breath came thick. The healers said it was the damp air.
But we all knew.
The Scourge had followed us.
It started with our captain. He coughed black and laughed as if relieved.
The next morning he was gone, his armor empty but standing, spear still in hand.
The rest began to change soon after . Bood thickened, voices overlapped with whispers that weren't their own.
I am writing this by torchlight.
I am the last one still human enough to hold a pen.
The Great Door hums.
I can feel it beneath my skin.
We failed. We couldn't reach her.
The dungeon wants us here.
Maybe it never needed us to open it. Maybe we were the key all along.
My hands are black now.
The ink and blood have become the same.
I can still hear the others. They sing in the dark. Their song is a heartbeat.
I am scared.
I do not want to become like them.
Our leader has become something monstrous. Like a demon.
If anyone finds this, don't come here.
Don't follow the light.
It's not salvation.
It's the world remembering your name.
Page 58 – Untitled
I see it now. I understand it.
We have died. We have died again and again. We seek an honorable death. That is why we haven't succumbed yet.
We have lost ourselves already. My will has allowed me to write for this long.
But it will not help me endure any longer.
I will kill myself now. I do not regret this. I hope that is enough to not allow to rise up again.
(The last few lines trail off — the ink streaks upward, as if the page were lifted mid-sentence. On the bottom, a streak of blood remains)]
_________________________________________
I closed the journal. The leather-bound cover stared back at me as I stared at it.
The dunes stretched endlessly toward the horizon, a sea of gold shimmering beneath the sun. But after reading that… they looked different. Haunted, yes, that's the right word.
"Sir Alaric?"
Adam's voice broke through the wind. It had been a while since either of us spoke. We had been walking too long.
He was walking behind me, boots sinking into the sand with a steady rhythm. He was used to this desert. I wasn't. I wasn't used to anything, in that sense.
"Are you reading that journal?" he asked.
"Yes," I said quietly.
He eyed the book. "Does it say anything important?"
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Maybe."
He stepped closer, curiosity flickering in his eyes. "What's it about?"
"Dying men," I said. "And the Scourge."
Adam blinked. "The Scourge? You mean the monsters in the Wildlands?"
"Monsters," I echoed. "Yes… that's what they call them."
He frowned. "You sound like you pity them."
"Maybe I do." I closed the book and set it beside me. "Tell me something, Adam. How much do you really know about the world? About… all this?" I gestured toward the endless dunes, the horizon melting in heat.
He hesitated. "Not much. There's an Academy in every Drogan city, and a few schools in Redgate, but… we don't go to those."
"Why not?"
"We're not allowed books," he said simply. "The Elder's the only one who has any."
That made me turn to him. "Not allowed? Who forbids that?"
He shrugged. "Guess everybody else just hates us."
I studied his face. The way he said it so casually, like it was weather, not cruelty.
The wind brushed past, carrying fine sand that stung the corners of my eyes.
And for a moment, I felt it. That quiet, boiling anger.
I looked toward the sun. It showed no sign of setting.
But I knew it would.
Time passed quickly and we arrived before sunset.
Redgate
Redgate rose from the dunes like a wound carved into the earth.
A colossal wall of iron-red stone encircled the city, weathered by sandstorms and sun, yet still imposing enough to make the desert feel small.
Adam lifted his hand to shield his eyes. "There," he said. "Redgate."
We reached it faster than expected thanks to the ability that Sassafras gave me.
The air thickened the closer we came to the wall. The sands were undisturbed — no wagon tracks, no footprints, no signs of caravans coming or going. Redgate was supposed to be noisy, Adam had said earlier. Traders, pilgrims, miners, priests.
Yet the dunes around it were quiet. Too quiet.
As we approached the main gate, Adam slowed.
"Sir Alaric… this isn't right."
I agreed. "Is it always this desolate?"
"No," he said immediately. "Never. At this time of day the guards should be yelling at merchants to form lines. People should be coming in and out. Children climb the lower stones sometimes just to jump off them." His voice grew small. "It's never been like this."
We reached the towering gate. Ten men should've been stationed here. Maybe more during festivals.
But there was no one.
Not a single shadow on the battlements. No sound of movement. Not even wind through banners.
Only an open gate.
The doors — each one the size of a house — had been pushed inward. They hung slightly crooked, as if shoved with impossible force or opened by something that didn't understand how hinges worked.
Adam stepped behind me subconsciously. "Why's it open? The gate's never left open."
"I don't like it," I muttered. "Stay close."
He nodded quickly, swallowing hard.
We stepped through.
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the air changed. Cooler. Heavy. Like the deep desert at night.
Inside, Redgate felt… hollow.
Stalls were overturned. Colorful cloths fluttered at odd angles, stiff from sun and dust. A cart lay shattered against a wall, its wheels still spinning slightly in the windless air. A basket of dates had spilled across the stone — shriveled, untouched by birds.
Adam's voice shook. "Where is everyone?"
I scanned the empty streets. No bodies. No blood. No drag marks. Just absence.
"Adam," I said quietly, "do you smell that?"
He sniffed. "Smell what?"
"Rot."
We walked deeper.
A pot rolled across the street ahead of us.
I froze.
The pot rolled from left to right. But the street was flat. No incline. No breeze.
Something had nudged it.
From inside a nearby home came a faint, dragging sound. Then a second. Then a third.
Adam's breath hitched. "Sir Alaric…"
"Behind me," I said, materializing my spear.
As we neared the center square, the first sign of life appeared.
A man.
Standing perfectly still in the middle of the road.
He faced away from us, shoulders slumped, head tilted slightly to the side. His clothes were covered in dust. His hair hung loose and brittle. His arms dangled limply at his sides.
Adam took a small step forward. "Sir? Sir, are you alright?"
The man didn't move.
I approached slowly.
"Turn around."
He did.
His joints moved wrong, too wrong, too heavy. His head snapped into place, as if remembering belatedly where his body was supposed to face.
His eyes were blackened. Not from ink. Not from sickness.
From the First Face.
"You… shouldn't… be… here," the undead rasped.
Then something answered him.
Not from the man.
From everywhere.
Voices, dozens, whispering from doorways, from rooftops, from behind broken carts, from beneath the stones.
They rose up.
They turned their heads toward us in perfect unison.
Adam stumbled backward, terror flooding his face. "No… no, no, this can't… Redgate had defenses, there were priests, there were—"
A hundred fingers pointed at us.
A hundred mouths opened.
A hundred blackened eyes watched.
"Sir Alaric," Adam whispered, trembling, "what do we do?"
The dead took their first step forward.