Beluaterra/Fifth Invasion/Reeds priest letter

This may strike you as the most uncommon event, especially since us men of the cloth do not generally talk about what we learn from the faithful. Nevertheless, with the darkness creeping ever closer, it was my duty not only to our city and indeed Nothoi itself, but also to our god Hemaglobe to make sure these news reach the ears of one such as yourself, who may use them to good ends.

The man did not identify himself to me, but asked to speak in private. A wish that we priests grant regularly, as many of the faithful come to us with private matters to ask for counsel or lighten the burden on their souls. This one did not seem so different, beginning with how he needed to talk with someone about the things he had seen and done. Things he felt horrible about, but needed to do to survive, or so he claimed. I figured him a soldier at first, given our recent wars.

It was when he claimed to be from the lost city of Poitra that I became aware this would be unlike any other talk of the week, or indeed of the year. As you know, of course, Poitra lies deep within the darkness we call the Blight, on the very river that flows next to our own fair city. Nobody has heard a word from there for almost a year now. We believed there were no survivors, as we heard from your soldiers that any attempts at entering the Blight ended in disaster.

Yet this man claimed to have left Poitra but a month ago. His description of the city was convincing enough that he must have been there, though it could of course have been before the Blight. But he did not seem to be deceitful, and what would be the point in telling a priest a fantasy story in private? Thus, I shall relate a summary of his words to the lord of our fair city.

As I mentioned, he claimed to hail from Poitra. According to his words, when the city was conquered by the brutal, unearthly creatures we call the Daimons more than a year ago, it was badly damaged, but not entirely destroyed. The Daimons raged in the city and surrounding lands for weeks, but many people survived by hiding, and many more surrendered to the strange invaders and were enslaved. In fact, according to his words, as much as a third of the inhabitants were still alive in Poitra when the Blight covered it.

When the Blight arrived, it seemed to be nothing but an especially large and dark thunderstorm at first. But when it reached the city, thousands of people died from apparently the same things that make any march into the Blight impossible to this day: Choking, insanity, terror. But, as he claimed, once the initial front went by, it was possible to survive. While the skies remained dark and everything seemed to be covered in a dark fog, those who survived were once again subject to their new masters cruelty.

He gave a long and detailed account of slavery under Daimon rule, the details of which I shall spare my lord. Mostly, the Daimons left the humans to themselves and neither cared for them nor attacked them. Maybe one in a dozen, however, was taken in for forced labour. There was no apparent purpose behind this work, and those who were too weak to continue were taken and never seen again. Most simply tried to survive, farming what the burnt land would still carry. Few considered escape, as it was obvious that the Blight covered everything and even if one could reach the edge, crossing the zone of death that was almost certainly still all around it would be close to impossible.

But humans are strong creatures. While they were suffering and enslaved, they held on, and built new hope. Alas, most found their hope in worship of their slave masters, considering their cruelty the just punishment for their faults or those of their fathers. The unnamed man speaking to me was not among them. He found something else: Love. A young woman, beautiful despite the hardship, captured his heart. They fell for each other and it made their lot much easier to bear.

But it was not to last. After a while, she was with child. As the Daimons largely ignored the humans within their domain, except for those they forced into whatever unfathomable labor was done in those slave camps, they had a new hope to live for. It was not to last, for the Daimons also occasionally took people seemingly at random. His wife was taken. Furious and with nothing left to loose, he confronted the Daimon lord of Poitra, but was only told that the Daimons had been in need of „fuel for the soulforges“, whatever that meant. He fled the city the next morning, in hopes of finding some way to be re-united with his wife and unborn child. His rather long report on the formerly fertile lands outside the city I shall but sum up. Within the Blight, most plant life and animals are dead. Only the especially resilient have survived and are hanging on. Most of the landscape is barren and blasted. Entire dead forests cover parts of it. Rivers still flow, but the water has become thick and dark.

Due to the lack of sky and the ever-present fog, orientation is difficult in the Blight. The man did not know which direction he was going. What my lord may consider important from the journey, of which once again I will leave out the details that are horrible and depressing but ultimately unhelpful, is that the man claims to have met one of the wizards within the Blight. You may have heard that there are rumours about these people every few months. It is said they possess ancient knowledge of magic, long since lost to the world. Despite the harsh surroundings, the old man appeared to be travelling freely and untroubled. I cannot say if this gives credence to their claim on magic, or to the rumours that they are in league with our unworldly foes.

The „wizard“ told the refugee that he could give him instructions for an ancient ritual that would bring him out of the Blight safely. As for payment, he asked for a strange list of mostly everyday items, though these were difficult to acquire in the broken lands. But the task completed, the man who spoke to me was indeed handed a scroll that contained a magic ritual. Which he promptly completed. Whatever magic or other ungodly force he unleashed, he found himself near the city gates of our city Reeds, potentially hundreds of miles from wherever in the Blight it was that he had wandered to! These are most dire news for us, my lord. If this strange so-called „wizard“ can bring a man to our very gates, who is to say that the enemy does not possess the same powers? Are we prepared to fight an army that we cannot see approaching? Has the threat just increased even more?

I tried to convince the man to contact you himself, for even though he is but a commoner, he carries important information. For as unlikely as his story sounded, I have talked to many men in my time, and none of them would have been able to tell a tale with this many details so convincingly and without error unless it was at least largely true. He appeared calm after we had spoken, but still distraught and shattered. He remained in the temple while I composed this letter, originally intended to convince my lord that the man is not crazy. However, when I returned, my servants told me he had left with a haunted look in his eyes, speaking about his need to find someone who will return with him and rescue his wife. Apparently, after the conclusion of his ordeal, the madness he had held back so long had finally gotten to him. May Hemaglobe guide him so whatever he does will aid us in our battles.