Adzgar Monitor's Journal - Meridian Tass

I don't even know where to start; how do you record an event like this? We don't have many records from the wars so long ago, I suppose there is not a lot of time to write when you are trying to defend your lands and cultures. But I feel a strange affinity for those Monitors, the attempt to record something that could not possibly be encompassed in any real way by the reader. How do you describe a field of corpses laid out as far as the eye can see; the macabre humor of gaily colored festival flags fluttering overhead in empty salute. The answer, of course, is that you don't. You report the facts as you can, reduce the incident to numbers and names with the full knowledge that this will fade into another event recited by school children. Most without thought or insight, some with a morbid imagination and a very few with an attempt to feel the reality of it, pale shadows against a darkness to vast to be truly realized in something as shallow as the human mind.

I traveled to the festival as I always have, with Talia, bouncing in a wagon and comparing notes on this and that. The Festival itself was unique and exciting and comfortable and mundane, as Festival should be. I spent my first afternoon wandering it's booths and comparing information with the other Monitors as they arrived.

There was a storytelling that evening, as tradition dictates. It was Darwin again this year, he presented the creation myth, or at least his iteration of it, with all the grave flamboyance that is his hallmark. It is tradition that the storyteller be rewarded with wine at the end of his tale, a small detail forgotten by some harried servant this year. When Darwin finished he grabbed a bottle near him, assuming it was his, an understandable error. It was not and it's actual owner took the act as theft and in the resulting argument Darwin was run through and slain. I reached him in time to see to his comfort and hear his last words "Monitor, find the truth then." The wound was mortal and he died in my arms, a sad event, but merely a foretaste of the feast to come.

There was a strange effect on his death, as though a wave of distortion emanated from him across the festival grounds. I thought nothing of it at the time, as most of those around me seemed not to notice it. I took him to the Monitor's tent with the help of some Rangers come to the Festival. A Sil Rana and Diagoro if I remember their names correctly. As we lifted his body we saw the strange dark haired woman from my dreams, I ran after her, shocked by her reality and determined to discover what games she was playing but lost her in the crowd.

The minutiae of what followed are unimportant. I set Talia's apprentice Syrone to embalming the body and set about managing the details of contacting his relatives and arranging for his funeral. I honestly didn't notice when the strangeness started, I assumed myself to be accelerated by the events of the evening, some sort of natural rush of adrenaline. So when those around me seemed to be moving slowly, I thought nothing of it.

This changed when a man named Landorff had the Rangers call me out to examine a strange event. He was struggling with a man who seemed to be attacking him, or attempting to do so in any case. He moved with an exaggerated slowness, a strange lethargy that affected not only him but also most everyone around me. I checked the other Monitors to find them similarly affected, apparently I seemed strangely accelerated to them. There were other affects as well, the grass and plant life seemed dehydrated, and natural physical substances had become brittle, even rock easily crushed by hand.

A few others were unaffected, the Rangers as a group, as well as a number of Clerics of the One and a group of Herran merchants. Also a wine maker named Laurant and his bodyguard, the man Landorff who had originally noted the seriousness of the situation, also a monk named Brother Peter. Landorff mentioned that a rival noble of Laurant's named Quincy was also free of the effect. Some others were only partially affected, the Noble lines seeming the most resistant. Most departed the Glade, leaving only the Rangers, Laurant and his men Luc and Landorff, Brother Peter and I.

Lastly Syrone, she was as affected as any of them, but after nodding off for a moment working on Darwin she awoke to find herself free of the effect. I suspected that sleeping might somehow negate the slowness and convinced Talia to take a draught to test my theory.

The effect worsened as the evening went on and the people slowed to the point of collapse. Sil Rana attempted to wake one only to have the point he touched crumble into dust. The flesh revealed was of the proper color and placement, as if a model of a human body were made of chalk. No treatment I tried seemed to have any effect, we dared not touch any more of the prostrate forms, for fear of damaging them. We moved to the Ranger's camp to avoid accidental contact more than anything else.

There really is no way to describe that night, wandering through the field of fallen bodies, some shattered on impact, the wind heavy with the dust of their remains. Watching Brother Peter attempt to keep awake his employer and the children he served, only to watch them still and die despite any effort on his part. The Monitors, what can I possibly say? Over half our Order died that night. I have managed to see a few others with my FarSight, still on the road to the Glade, thankfully late in their travels. Talia is dead, and Syrone follows me as reluctant apprentice. I was not kind to her that night, I forced the apprentice to act the Monitor and earned no love for it.

We knew we had to leave, to see if the effect had spread beyond the Festival Glade, I was not worried about contagion, many had left already and this had none of the marks of disease. This was an effect, not an infection. We sent the Rangers to guard the entrances, to prevent others from entering the Glade but it proved to be unnecessary. The Ways were closing early, something not heard of in recorded history. We packed up with the Rangers and fled towards Adzgar, hoping to find an answer in the records and knowledge of my homeland.

The way was dangerous, I've never attempted the Ways unopened and I have a better understanding now of why so few succeed. If not for the Rangers we would have surely died in the attempt.

It was morning by the time we made it out and to the village of Ways Landing. I summoned the Elders and told them what had happened. The visual proof of Laurant's man Luc, who was still visible affected was all the proof they needed and they promised to guard the ways and send runners to the other border villages to do the same. They have also kindly offered to provision us for our trip back to my village.

Luc died during the day, we had hoped the Slowing would fade outside the Glade, I'd seen no sign of it, either in Way's Landing or anywhere else I could see with my glass. We hoped in vain. None of the others were affected at any level, if we carry the Slowing with us, it progresses too slowly for us to yet realize it's effects.

It is evening now and I am in the common room of the Inn with Sil Rana and Diagoro, going over Darwin's meager possessions for clues, but nothing is presenting itself. I am writing this then resting for the long ride home tomorrow, I can only hope either my records or those of Talia will provide us guidance on what to do next.