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Last Journals of Amarla do Islret
My pen to Shistar's sacred palette;
While I journey for the surface I will note here what has gone before so that should I fail, perhaps some agent of
our holy guardian will find and continue my cause.
In the 200th lighting since the rise of the Viskalt Clan, in the midst of the Season of
Tremors, a great treasure was uncovered from vaults hidden deep within the land beneath our Clan, the Islenef. It
spoke with wisdom that tore our house asunder and many of us then became of the Islret Clan.
We tried to keep it secret, to steal it away from ...[water ruined]... but the
enclave has suddenly turned against us. Have they learned what it is we know? Have those who were once clan betrayed
their secret ambitions for taking our hope, betrayed their vows to us entirely? Temrozt no longer invites us to his
meetings with the Valysha of the Lord of Shadows. I think the priests suspect. They act strangely in public as if
overcome with thought. They suspect. If not sooner - our house mother suspects out betrayal to the Earthen Lord,
I fear.
...[water ruined pages]...
Thus, [...] to stop our families gift from capture by [..]deza, I Amarla of the Islret Clan now seek my
brother - who must have seen the future, yet we were too close minded to listen.
...[pages missing, torn out]...
[written hastily] Foolish was I to think the agents of those duplicitous worshipers of the Earth Lord
would not find me. I have evaded capture, slain them, and recovered my book - but I am weary - these were not the
servants of the Earthen Lord that I have known. They melted as they died and noxious fumes escaped from their strange
soft liquid flesh. I hope that these spirits do not carry back what they learned from my journal - the treasure's
location and our allies - or all shall be lost. I have burned these pages now so that I've no risk to their being
found by the enemy again. I shall have to tell him in secret, by handspeak, that which has gone before. It is not
safe to pen even on this sacred palette.
[waterlogged] ...fear I will never find my way - so few of our kind travel this
silent road - the earth does not speak here for fear of the demons on the surface hearing it. I am utterly alone.
What will become of us, our home, our clan, our goddess of wisdom. I must reach him soon.
Our new clan, though blessed, is falling, or will soon and my work will be for naught. All that was saved, lost.
Shistar keep them safe until I return.
The Valysha of the Earthen One will soon learn of out families ruse - by their spells or
sulfurous spirit filled hunters that pursue me. Two more did I slay today with our goddesses power - and again they
melted before her wrath. But they cloak their flesh with the colors of the earth now and must move swiftly to find
me. Though I fear the damnation before me I must reach the surface hells where they may dare not travel.
I must be near the hells now. The air has changed. When I stop to listen I hear distant
angry howls of pursuit. They know I will soon escape their grasp. My travel through a water channel should slow them,
but I slipped and much has been lost - all the more I must reach my brother. The ancient records which speak of the
hells were completely lost - I only have what I committed to memory and the pull of the spell that leads me there
to keep me alive before the damning eyes above.
[difficult to read as follows, smudged with water stains from fingertips] It has
become colder, the air is strange, the earth is silent. I thought my enemies had arrived when I awoke to this hunger
with something breath on my face, but there was nothing to be seen. They must spy on me while I sleep through the
eyes of the earth. I have eluded capture and soon even their earthen magic will not find me. I must be close, the
pull grows stronger - but I am shivering and my skin does not like this strange lack of warmth, there are odd
colors in it, and bumps upon its surface. Perhaps I've been cursed by the Valysha, it is too powerful for me to
counter.
[last entry]
Evil will have its way. I walk through frozen ash, huge spears thrown from the sky point their ash covered
shaft upward at the evil hells above. I feel my body no more. The air of this realm steals my breath away with a
cold mist that surrounds my face. The eyes look down on me, I am damned. I have failed. The pull is strong but my
fingers will not move. I am damned - their evil light is there above. I am trapped, the wet ash is too high, I am
slow, I will not find shelter before the Searing Orb burns me where I stand. Then - hot or cold - I will be no
more. I smell smoke in the way I go. My pen will move no more. The dead call me and they are becoming louder than
the pull. A few more steps for my people.
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