12/12/213 - Report of Walter Lefkaris
General Summary
[Report of Walter Lefkaris on 12/12/213]
We leave Gatefall for the south. We stop at Horde Hill where we are now charged to sleep in their lodgings. The gall of them. We move further south and make it to the temple. It is abandoned and already explored. The winter helped us. We found remnants of tracks and signs of people's passage to the southeast of the Temple. There are coffins in the basement where some horrific carnage clearly occurred, but no Monsters hiding in the temple. We surveyed the area and found a clearing with a pool of water in it. The forest canopy enclosed the clearing almost entirely, making it a dark area. The pool is man made. There is a strange light at the bottom of the pool and suddenly more lights appeared around us. The damn Will o' Wisps attacked us. We killed the will'o'wisps, harvested them, and examined the pool. There were 30-40 corpses in the pool, some of whom had glowing lights in their eyes. I feel there was a ritual done here to make will'o'wisps. At least some of the corpses appear to have other Wounds. It appears that undead corpses were thrown into the pool, perhaps as a ritual to form or re-form the will'o'wisps?
We continued exploring this region of the forest and came across a large man-made pit. There were a whole bunch of spider webs on the vegetation. Suddenly Giant Spiders attacked. Figures. We slaughtered five giant spiders and harvested their fangs for Crafting. When Shepard flew close to the pit, four Ashy Ghosts spawned and attacked us. We destroyed them. The pit was full of charred corpses. We investigated the sigils around the pit and found abjuration symbols likely designed to keep the spirits trapped here or keep something from going into the pit. The nature of the ritual is unclear, but it appears all the corpses were piled here and burned. Some of the corpses have Wounds, which appeared to have been inflicted after death. Can it be? Is it possible that this is linked to the will'o'wisp pool? Is this ritual from the same culprits? Is this a way to turn Zombies into something else? Is simply killing those afflicted by The Plague not enough? Djinn said the spirit looked "happy". Did we free it by destroying it? So many questions. Djinn posited the theory that these sites are places where they tried to contain zombies but only made it worse.
Whatever the Plague-Death is, it is either an incredibly virulent disease or a supernatural curse. We have encountered beings afflicted by the plague up close, but none of us have died or turned. We don't yet know how it spreads...
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712 XP
Report Date
15 Jan 2023
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