I feel I could stay here forever curled up in front of this fire, my legs drawn up under me, my cloak wrapped about me. It is warm and safe up here. Knight Azure is a true and stout friend and guardian to us all. What a fool I feel though. How I wish my stomach would settle. There is no doubting I am better, but right now I feel as though any food or drink would explode from my body and do me no good. I do not feel hungry, I do not feel weak, and so it will do me no harm. Nutrition has been much in my mind of late…

I have not let my pen wander over these pages these past days. I am too afraid of what thoughts might flow with it. Thorne said he prefers to believe in fact rather than rumours. He is so wise - oh beloved gods it is so good to have him back. And so steady. He makes me feel foolish when he speaks such good sense. I however cannot separate my mind from rumours. How do the sayings go? There is no smoke without a fire and no fire without fuel. There is nearly always an element of truth. Given what the rumours are, and the other events of late, then even an element of truth is a terrifying thought. I have not slept properly in days. I hear scratching in my head and feel scratching and gnawing reverberating through my very soul. I wake clutching my rapier, wide eyed and sweating, imagining all sorts. I am haunting the inns of the land, even our own dear Swashbuckler, with brief, terse visits; my anxious eyes rove over the walls and every stick of furniture. Every door frame must be checked. Every spill on a floor might hide something… and Dundee most of all. I visit every day, on waking and before sleeping. That wretched hole is now burned into my eyes even when they are closed. There is no doubt in my mind what made it. The demonic, mouldering, terrifying rats that were seen in Dundee made it and came through it, though I did not see the truth of it with my own eyes. Though they have not been seen since, they are there. I know they are there. Scratching and scrabbling and chewing. The hole has got bigger.

In my dreams and in my heart I know what I believe. These rats are the herald of some terrible, terrible thing; just as surely as the rats in the sewer of Dundee herald greater and more terrible things for every young initiate who first ventures there. I am sure they are being used. They are being used as mechanics. They are a means to a terrible end. They are creating the means of invasion. Is it just bigger and bigger rats that even the Knights would struggle against? No - I believe it to be a more dread evil.

And now the news of scratching beneath the ground. How deep? We do not know or at least I have heard no thoughts on it. And where was this felt? Throughout the lands. Everyone felt it - all who were awake. Dearest Purazon tells me it seemed louder in the mountains. I have climbed and walked and slipped and struggled until my legs shook from the effort. For the first time I came to the place I love and was not comforted by it. Usually Branishor’s beloved light draws my gaze and is a shining beacon of hope. Yet I barely registered it. All I saw was the disease and evil twisted creatures crawling through that blackened nightmarish landscape. I checked Hagrius’s hut. All was well. He did not wish to speak.

I lay my head against the great doors of Altitan. Could these things be a sign of movement in that mysterious city? Is it teeming with life for good or ill mocking the deafening silence that hangs about those doors? I stayed many, many marcs and listened and listened but heard nothing. I cannot imagine anything that made those doors would scratch beneath the ground. I gave up and roamed the grasslands and the mountain pass laying my ear against the ground every so often but heard nothing. Eventually I screwed up my courage and purposely looked to stumble into the Dark Land. I remain convinced that whatever is happening it stems from there; a canker to grow in our Land causing pain and misery. I see it all in my dreams; I feel it all when I wake. So stumble there I did and felt the biting pain of the harpies. I fought my way down towards what would be my mountain but they were too strong. I slay two before I paid with my life. Oh Ben how the pain seared. I could not bring myself to open my eyes as I came too in Dundee. When I did I saw an image of Knight Azure swim before my eyes looking stern though she was not there. I fumbled to eat something to appease the vision and stupidly ate the rotten fruit of the Dark Land. How I have paid for it in retching sickness. Strange to have been so soon found by Knight Azure after that…. perhaps it was a sign. It is nice to think so.

At least I slept here. But when I did the dreams were back and darker than they were. Maybe it was the effect of eating something poisoned by being in that place. The cave of night appeared and I wandered through its tunnels and then deeper again. There seemed more tunnels than there had been and they seemed different somehow. Then I found I was not there at all but beneath the wall…..then back again. There were piles like those in the Dundee sewers and webs that stretched as sticky and treacherous as those in the spider caves. There was eerie luminosity that I have only seen in the catacombs. I realised that all the places deep below the lands were coming together. Finally I was in a mine that seemed to extend even further north. And there were smaller tunnels leading upwards in many places as though whatever had made them were seeking out the surface. Not the kind of creature seeking out warmth and light, but the kind that sought to destroy whatever it found. My last recollection of the dreamlike state is Strifegorge. I woke with tears in my eyes and a pounding heart and terror on my face.

My cloak is a comfort as I sit huddling into it. I know I cannot stay here - I must go back to all those places. Word is good to have that they are well. Sight of them would be better. The comfort I draw from them better again. The hope of bringing comfort to them in difficult times the greatest thing of all.

I will take some tea and then try and doze a dreamless sleep. I do not know how I will get through another day, but with the gods I will.