he tall figure towered over the dead body. A bag lay next to the man, its contents strewn across the ground. Gloved hands riffled through the pages of a journal, tainted by the dirt of the muddy surroundings.

... and now for months I have been trying to piece together what actually transpired in this cult. Finding witnesses and getting first-hand accounts is obviously impossible, so I need to settle for any writings that I can find. Countless hours I spent pouring over books, hoping to somehow get a comprehensive picture of the situation at the time. Only then I feel might I be able to trace this organisation back to their roots and better understand how he came to power. To be quite honest, this endeavour has taken its toll on me. I have been feeling weak and sickly for a while now, but I cannot rest, not yet, not now! If my assumptions are correct, there is no time to be wasted as...

... finally found what I have been looking for. It was not easy to acquire, as to be expected. The tome shed light on their doings in great detail and even presented a seemingly fairly factual history of events – even in levelheaded words, it became crystal clear however what magnitude the enmity between these two groups must have reached. Of course, I cannot verify its claims with certainty for I lack a second source to compare it to, but at this point I take what I can get. The question of authorship could not be resolved in even the least bit satisfying manner, which struck me as odd. Nevertheless, the...

... convinced that it is his doing. Correction: That it is related to his doing. He may not be the root cause for all this, or rather, not the impetus which set it all in motion, but the events transpiring are without the shadow of a doubt linked to his person, his being. And frankly, I have a hard time believing that he has no willful part in this. They buried him and he is certainly no longer alive in the sense that my fellow man is alive, but it would be unwise to assume that he who commands the dead would not be a force to be reckoned with in the great beyond. For my next...

... have proof now. How I acquired it is wholly unimportant. In fact, whoever is behind it is of no consequence. These events cannot be stopped any longer by finding the mastermind behind this operation but only by venturing into Zarganash and putting an end to this most evil design. Somebody has to do it. It will not be me, for I freely admit that even the prospect of such an undertaking is too much for my mind to bear. The thought of what awaits is too grisly and grim to comprehend. Whoever musters the courage, nay, the sheer will, to enter this darkest of places, this unhallow cathedral of absolute doom, should make peace with one simple fact: