81st Turn, Seventh Year, Fifteenth Cycle, Rokday, Morning

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From the Journal of Aframos Longjourney, Pilgrim

With notes by Avos Torr, Scholar of Rheve Library

Rokday, 15th Cycle, Seventh Year, 81st Turn

Morning, Thirteenth Day in the Trees

Someone was in our campsite.

I have checked through all of my bags, and it's puzzling. Nothing has been taken, or even disturbed. I heard nothing all through the night. Neither Souja nor I have been harmed.

Indeed, I would not have known anyone had been here, except that they left behind a book, a string of glass beads, and a rattle.

They were piled on a rock by the remains of the fire. There were no tracks in the dirt that I could make out, and they would have had to walk very close to me to leave them there. It is very puzzling.

The beads are in alternating bands of red, blue, yellow and orange. There are thirty-six beads in total, and the string is just long enough to wrap around my wrist.

The rattle is made of a yellow clay, though I am not sure what is inside it. It is painted in pattern of green lines. Two brown feathers are tied to it by a leather thong. What its purpose might be, I cannot guess.

The book is old, and worn. I had hoped it might give some clue to our guest, but its contents were mostly impossible to read. Some lines are legible, but never enough to give more than a brief glimpse in the narrative.

It appears that a "wombat" features heavily, whatever that may be¹. Other phrases I could read include "the stone egg, swallowed by the frog," "baking in fear," and "remember tunnel 17." By far the longest legible entry is a piece of doggerel.

"Hearken to the Shad-[Illegible]
Born of strange and darkling light.
In the midst of forests wild,
See the beasts, beware their fright."

There is also a picture that appears to be of two mice carrying something away from a… dragon?

I cannot glean anything from the book as yet. I will look at it further in the evening.

I cannot help but worry, though. If one creature, however benign, made it into our campsite without my knowing, what else might find its way in?

+Translations

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Footnotes

1. Wombats are mythical creatures, full of allegorical import. Terinon Sensible, based on the descriptions of the ancient scholar Heron the Elder, believes they were actually dwarves seen at great distance, while drunk.