[Stomoxys]

Great Priest Toltecatl is dead. On the 66th day of the expedition, they and all in their retinue of worth fell in battle against the foul creatures residing in the forest. The forest and all that dwell in it have been corrupted and it is no longer green but brown and rotting and I have reason to believe the star children are responsible.

I am Xipil, writer for Great Priest Toltecatl and I will write down my observations from the lands of the mammals in this report, hoping it will reach The Homeland at some point. I am not concerned that the mammals will obtain these notes. None of them have any knowledge of our language and even if they did, their mathematical understanding is primitive and they would not be able to decipher the encryption. However, it will contain some awkward details and discretion is adviced.

The travel from The Homeland was uneventful. Upon reaching the coast, which took 10 days, we boarded a ship in some minor mammal town and set sail. After 44 days travelling north east along the coast, we arrived in a large port city called Omar at the intersection between the sea, a desert and a vast saltwater marsh. Under the cover of darkness, we transferred to the barges of a type of mammals called the barge folk who live in the swamps and seems more adapted to life in the water than the other speaking mammals. They transported us through the swamps in 6 days and appeared to use some kind of communal magic and songs to control the currents. When we neared the forest, they were not willing to go any further and we continued on foot.

From the moment we entered the forest, we were followed by large flocks of black birds known as ravens. I was of course not privy to the discussions among the Priests, but I believe some attempts were made to communicate with the birds who appeared to be sentient. I also overheard some talk of shape shifting. The air was thick with the smell of rot and decay and while the trees were not dead, they were not really alive either. I also had an unpleasant feeling of some kind of power in the forest, and it felt wrong. On the 6th day after entering the forest, the expedition made camp by some ruins and I was sent on a particularly long scouting trip. I found nothing of interest on the trip, and in hindsight, I believe Great Priest Toltecatl suspected something and wanted someone to survive to report. When I returned in the evening, the campsite was strewn with bodies. Our People had fallen and among them lay dead mammals of the non speaking kind. It made little sense because these beasts should not have posed any threat to the expedition. However, the air was thick with magic and the beasts had already started to decay, unnaturally fast. Near the centre, I could see the body of the Great Priest, surrounded by their fallen bodyguard and a host of dead beasts. I was starting to make my way to them, but near the edge of the forest I found the body of Champion Huxapotl. Their blood tasted of fear and I fled into the forest.

I made my way north through the forest, sneaking through the stinking undergrowth to avoid the ravens sometimes flying overhead. After 2 days, I felt a flash of some kind of power a bit to the north east. While it was a strange power like nothing I had felt before, it was a sharp contrast to the smothering sense of decay all around me and I made my way towards it. In the evening, I arrived at a small clearing in the forest and a met a strange party consisting of a mammal as big as a Priest, whose name was Grogg, a small hairy one called Krupik and a star child called Lunari. The big mammals are called Trolls and the hairy one is called a dwarf. The star children are called elves here and I believe this is a better name because their connection to the stars seems tenuous at best. For most of them, the stars are only shining dots in the night sky. I naturally assumed Grogg was the leader of the party, but was shocked when it became clear they were subservient to the little elf. The mammals have a pathological obsession with parents and offspring and Lunari had somehow hijacked this to control the great warrior. The burst of power I had felt was the dwarf attempting to repair some equipment, but instead all their metallic items had gone flying. None of them were injured, which must have been extremely lucky considering the strength of the burst of power.

The party was on some kind of mission to the east, but there seemed to be little trust between them and the dwarf used secrecy to maintain control. It was very unclear what they were doing in the forest in the first place, considering that it is generally shunned and can easily be bypassed through the swamp. Despite this, it was better to be with a party of some kind than alone in that forest. We made our way eastwards, with a large flock of ravens following us and sometimes flying overhead. We observed some ruins, but stayed well away from them, not knowing what could trigger an attack and we made it unmolested to the edge of the forest after 4 days. The ravens did not follow us out of the forest.

We arrived on the sparsely vegetated foothills of a vast mountain range to the north, while to the south, a lush jungle spread out beneath us in a great river valley. For the next 14 days, we traveled east through the jungle. The jungle was reminiscent of The Homeland, except humans lived there and I saw a bizarre creature that looked like a mix of a huge jaguar and a lizard. The humans had a very unbalanced sex ratio with many more females than males and they worshiped a god called Matapl that looked like one of The People. We were followed by two ravens and Grogg seemed to have a relationship with them. In exchange for food, they were given a silver needle and a silver ring. We later learned that the ring makes it possible to see spirits and the needle puts creatures in a healing sleep.

We eventually reached something that looked like a great mesa from the distance, but turned out to be an enormous crater when we reached the summit. On the approach, I saw stars falling from the heavens into the crater. The others, being blind mammals, could only see the falling stars through the ring. Krupik announced that this was the destination and produced a glass cube with tubes and cavities inside. The tubes appeared to be fixed, but they moved slightly when the cube moved, almost as if they were floating in the glass. The plan was to charge this device with star energy after night fell.

While Krupik was preparing, I scouted the crater. There was clearly some kind of energy in the crater and Lunari claimed it was plant energy, but in the centre was an area of star energy. There, I found a camp of humans which were all male and some of them looking strangely grey. The leader drained the life from everything they touched. There was also a bizarre creature looking like a round, grey blob on four feet with huge eyes and an enormous maw. I was later told that this was a Saplurp which can gather up unfortune around it and unleash it on a victim. The humans were planning to sacrifice something, presumably us, but their advance was halted by a magic accident from Krupik and a few arrows. Krupik cancelled the charging of the box and after a few skirmishes the next day, we left the crater the next morning.