COVER: An old mystic cowled god (Delleb) holding a book and casting spells battles the war god (Mizras); it is a charcoal drawing rough and not done by someone with an eye for art.

Hinterlands Saga; Last night there was an attack. Harahhd almost died – but no one trusts me enough to take me with them with just me. One of The Gallants could have perished because I jeopardized myself and now all of my friends may die trying to save me.

They tell me i pulled most of my hair out before we left Dunstrand. Shorter hair becomes me i think, as the tufts grow in i am decided to keep it short. It is better for fighting that way. Truthfully i remember only moments here and there where my mind are my own. I scrabble down thoughts in moments of lucidity. The spirit possessing me allows me longer moments after meals of bloody meat and vast quantities of foodstuffs – i am gaining weight and slowing down. Its difficult to ride, as the horse senses there is a foreign spirit inside of me and is spooked. Thankfully it is well trained. I can literally feel a sinking feeling in my head, as if a weight attached to it and i am falling northwards. Something there pulls the creature possessing me and i have the feeling it is not going to be something we want to deal with. No one speaks to me, or interacts with me as little as possible. I feel alone, truly, for the first time. I wish i had Bone Shaker at my side, i would feel much better equipped. The bastard Umbakians have sank it in the ocean as far as we can tell. Thought of vengeance stir in me – dashing the heads of Umbakian infants on the rocks of the Queens Coast shoreline… but i know it is the foul spirit inside me with these gleeful thoughts.

The grey figure keeps coming to me in my dreams. He tells me he understands my thirst for knowledge. My age old love of books, and research, of tomes and grimoires and parchments – it reminds me of the simpler days when i was a young man in Umbak copying prayer books and assisting the lecturers with research into scriptures and ancient works by the church masters of Ikribu. The grey man gives me hints – i think perhaps he is Delleb, an old, hidden god of knowledge from the distant memories of the early days when the sun shone on the lands of the Fallen East. He speaks so little, almost nothing to me, but allows me to lead myself on. I think perhaps he is forbidden somehow to declare himself – who knows what the politics of the gods allow them to do and do not.

A am able to slip out and about with the eldritch powers this patron in grey has given me. My flesh and hair, eyes and skin can slightly rearrange themselves so i slip past watches and people who may recognize me and find a way to hunt in the city at night. The cold is coming, i found a pair of homeless – a couple down on their luck. As a ghoul, i can smell when death was near and they would not have lived the night. I feasted! I could have left them to slip into the cold’s embrace but their last few moments were of terror as i clawed at their necks. I deserve to die. Tonight i have asked the grey man to take this power back. To mu surprise, though he looked sad, he placed his hand upon my heart and took away the flesh altering powers. He replaced it wit the yearning for books and for mystical knowledge. He taught me to summon a tome from the shadows, from a place of strange angles and shapes. the pages seem not to conform to any shape. It is empty and he has given me a charge of filling it. At least my true live, my love of being a scribe, has returned to me. I am happy for a brief moment. But I do not deserve it! I shall volunteer for every dangerous mission, every suicidal attack! I will not subject my fellow Gallants to much more of this if I can help it.

Diary – I have Bone Shaker back, the order of Davros – the “True Druids” has returned to me what i thought was lost forever. For now, i need not eat the flesh of the living. I have become a vile things, a thing to be spat on and cursed by those who walk in the light of day. Even now i prefer the evening hours. Perhaps there is a greater purpose in all this. the only thing thing which prevents me in my moments of lucidity from killing myself is that my companions have done all this for nothing.

After i was slept by the gaze of the Jackalwere Val, I remember little. The tendrils of the void, my flesh and bones breaking and reforming. I was a man for a brief moment again! A soulless man. A man whose evil clearly knew no bound given you was willing to sacrifice his entire family. And clearly i have crossed the line myself. The woman we saved could not live with herself. As we waited for the authorities she killed herself. When i found her i could not resist and ate her flesh! The flesh! The ghoul inside me calls and is hard to beat down. Having Bone Shaker makes it a little easier – but for how long? The cravings are so bad it hurts me. I have done unspeakable things… an eater of the flesh i have become. The very thing i fight, i am becoming, and it is getting hard and harder each day to resist. Over a hundred days now and just the sight of bloody steak makes me flush and ready to fight.

They say we are traveling to one of the Shattered Cities. When the Lich Lords brought icy winter, water go into every stone and froze, shattering some of the cities. It left it totally destroyed in millions of fragments. This Termiri says there are only 3 hours out of the day it safe, otherwise the shadows are too long. Perhaps i will find a place to meet my end here, defending my companions. I am going with whether they like it not. I am tired of waiting in the wings.