Of Crows and Journals

Banded together for a common goal, twelve scholars set out from the college of Nydds some two hundred years ago and headed deep into the ruins of the Ziristal Empire. Their research guided their steps across the mountain ranges to the resting place of the antiquated scrolls that they would need to fuel a legendary talisman which promised eternal life. However, fate was unkind and the talisman was fueled by more darker things than any of them imagined. Their tale unfolds upon the wrinkled pages of a worn leather journal, and the crows cry out for the price that they have wrought.

'Ware the mist that creeps at night,
Stealing the children without a fight
'Ware the deep black crows on the poles,
Watching the Soul Harvester reap his souls
'Ware the talisman bright, strong, and green,
And 'ware the sound of a demon’s keen
-- a Velathae children's rhyme

In recent days, strange feathers have been discovered scattered all across the continent of Elanith. When touched, they transform into ethereal crows that take to the skies, cawing for help... cawing for someone to "Save them." These crows have returned, and with them they've brought pieces of parchment from an old, forgotten journal.

It is in this journal that answers lie... for the Soul Harvester has returned, that you can't deny.

Journal

Part 1

There are only two of us left, myself and Nigrimi. He thinks I do not see the way that he watches my every move, but I do and soon I think there will be only he. Our party was twelve when we set out from Nydds the first time; who could have guessed it would have brought us full circle? This accursed task has cost us too much. I can feel it in my skin and in my ears, calling to me, taunting me with its relief. If only I could find it, find the answer and be rid of the decay. Nigrimi brings me supper and I watch him shuffle through our meager camp. He reminds me of Asull, who was the first to go...

Asull was determined to make the rope bridge work. It filled him with a deep passion that none of us had seen in him before. The want of the bridge began to cause him to twist and turn in his sleep. There were times, on our trek to the northern mountains, that we would wake to find his hands curled into perverted knots and his back bowed at an impossible, agonizing angle. He would reach for the sky in his sleep and his body would stay in the mangled position until we found him that way in the morning. Many times we thought him dead, many more times we wished him to be. But as soon as one of us would touch him, he would come alive. The howl that ripped from his lips was nothing compared to the hollow moans he made during his death.

The bridge he'd been dreaming of, that had haunted his waking and sleeping moments, was found five months into the journey. It spanned the Great Valley of the Northern Mountains. We could see it for days, and this only strove to draw Asull deeper into the growing madness. He began to cut boards long before we could see its details with our own eyes, long before it stopped being a smudge on the horizon. Asull dragged more than his weight in boards and fought off any that would try to help him or ease his torment. We did not understand that our pact had assigned our fates, how could we have known what it would cost us?

We camped as we always had, but the bridge was too close. We did not hear him leave in the mist-filled night, but his screams would echo with us for hours after his departing. I think it was those screams that caused Vefmur to begin to crack, or maybe it was that Asull had finally had his moment with the bridge that he'd dreamed about. I do not know exactly what caused Vefmur to cry in the night, and I do not know what caused Asull to obsess the way he did, but if it hadn't been for him we'd have never made it across that bridge.

Once we started across it, Vefmur began to despair. The distance was incredible, its length beyond imagining. We walked hand over hand over that rope and plank bridge, stepping on the boards that Asull had replaced. It took us fully two days. Vefmur panicked on that first night when he could see neither ahead nor behind us. During the second night, as we gazed tiredly at the distance, Vefmur could stand the strain of it no more and ran ahead of us towards our destination. The mist swallowed him. When we found him in the morning he was frozen solid, his body clutching the bare rock facing of the wall. At his feet we found Asull, his face split into a twisted grin of pure joy or agony. There are times in a man's life when one expression can be confused for the other. This was one of those times. Asull was bent over with that expression that is neither and both upon his face, fitting the last board onto the bridge. He was forever frozen with the bridge he adored.

See Also

• Official Soul Harvester desktop wallpaper