Since this falls under "Open Book" category of adventurers...
Torture Report (17 minutes ago)
High Lords and Ladies of the Court,
This is the report of a commoner by the name of Himun of Thilye, who was captured in the northern parts of the forest in Lastfell and brought before your most loyal servant, the steward of the town of Neuropa, who had him tortured until death. Said Himun was feverish when he was caught, and would not have lasted long with or without the torture. He was in the possession of several items that a commoner can not possibly have acquired legally, including weapons and armour. It was believed that he most likely murdered one of the nobles that vanished over the course of the past weeks, and taken his gear. In order to discover the whereabouts of the body, a scribe was present for most of the torture and wrote down the mad story of this criminal, certainly a product of his fever.
Your servant does not believe a single of his words, but as the king has requested any and all information regarding the Daimon threat, he feels compelled to bring these to your attention despite the unlikeliness of any part of it being truthful, as we know for certain that no human being can survive in the Blight for any length of time.
My name is Himun, from the village Thilye in Crim. When the blight covered our lands, my family and friends fled south. But I could not find work nor land to farm, just like many others. So I started hunting the wild beasts that came from the Blight as the Marchioness had put a bounty on them. When they became less and less, I travelled ever closer to the Blight. It is a cursed land, but I had to live.
One day, me and my two companions found an old temple. Very close to where you can't breathe anymore. There was an old priest inside. He had survived through all of it. We brought him south, to safety and he gave each of us a blessing, an amulet. Yes, that one. With this, he said, we could enter the Blight. We never did, as long as there were any beasts outside. But then it just stopped. No more beasts. When we were almost starving, we went in.
The others didn't make it far. It was dark, at midday. All the air was dense and dark, like fog but black. And the ground was, changed. Plants were dead, mostly. No animals anywhere. We had brought enough food, but did not expect us to be food ourselves. We met the first of them entirely by surprised, in the burned-out ruin of some village. We were scavenging for supplies, it was eating the corpses. Or what was left of them, most looked like others had taken a bite before.
It was the most horrible beast I have ever seen, and I have seen my share. It walked mostly on all four, but it could use the front claws like hands, much like rats do. It was almost the size of a man, but much heavier. Scales and fangs, the whole thing. Not an animal of the forest, that we knew right away. But it knew us right away as well. Maybe it was hungry for fresh meat, anyways it jumped us as soon as we'd seen it. Slaughtered one of the others on the spot and ripped his arm off. The other hit it with his axe, but barely scratched it. That was when I ran. Found a trapdoor in the next house. Still hear his screams in my dreams. It must've eaten him alive or something. I don't know how long it lasted, felt like hours.
But it didn't come searching for me. Maybe it was all full. I stayed in that cellar for the night, didn't even dare to make a fire. Only realised the next morning that there was a dead kid in there with me.
Next day I got out. Out of the cellar, out of the village, out of the whole cursed area. Except that I couldn't get my bearings in that evil fog. Must have been noon when I heard something in the distance. Climbed up a small hill I did, and then I saw them, in the village below. Creatures straight out of hell, the one I had seen the night before must have been one of the smallest ones. Fifty or more of them, most twice as big as a man, some large as a house. It looked like they were gathering there, waiting. Didn't look much like animals at all, almost like an army. Organised, if you know what I mean.
Didn't want to wait for whatever it was they were waiting for, but I couldn't move. And then it came. I will never forget that creature in what's left of my life. It wouldn't fit through the town gate, I tell you. But the worst was that it seemed to not be an animal at all. It had a weapon and some kind of armour. A huge sword, saw-toothed, black steel or something. Could probably cleave a horse in two.
Then it spoke, and the others listened. Really looked much like an army then, and many of them also brought out weapons then. I couldn't make out a word, was a strange language. But I had never been so afraid, thought I'd die of fear right then. I got up and ran for my life, never looked back once, until I was well outside the Blight. And then some. It wasn't even what he said. It was his armour. That armour…
The criminal babbled incomprehensible nonsense for a while after this. The torturer tried his best to get him back to his senses, but he died shortly after.As this happened days before the Daimon army marched out of the Blight, your servant feels it falls under the Kings request, even though the entire story is highly unlikely.
