81st Turn, Seventh Year, Fourteenth Cycle, Skalday

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From the Journal of Aframos Longjourney, Pilgrim

With notes by Avos Torr, Scholar of Rheve Library

Skalday, 14th Cycle, Seventh Year, 81st Turn

Seventh Day in the Trees

Martap is dead.

He still would not eat this morning, and was no longer mewling for food. By noon, he had stopped breathing. I buried him away from the trail, and made a small cairn over the grave. I said a prayer for him before I left. May he have water for his journey, and stars to guide his steps.

My own steps were heavy and slow. I had lost one cat, and the other was slowly dying. For guidance, I chanted as I walked¹, hoping the low tones would raise my spirits, and perhaps bring us luck, my passenger and I.

Some kind god must have found me, for when I stopped that afternoon, Souja began to eat the small strips of meat I gave to her. Slowly at first, then ravenously. I swiftly caught two more birds for her, that she would have fresh meat. She is still weak, and I am not sure yet if this has saved her, but I am hopeful. While she ate her fill, I built a small shrine to whatever god of the forest or of the roads listened to my prayers.

As I write this, she is sleeping by the fire. We travelled again, and are now in a clearing near a stream. There are wildflowers growing, and I am comforted by this reminder of life. Though even here there is strangeness.

The stream flows uphill². I was unsure at first, but I tested the slope by rolling small pebbles down by the bank of the stream, and by floating small leaves in the water. The pebbles roll one way, but the stream flows the other. When I took a quick walk upstream, I found a waterfall, where the water jumped to the top. There is magic here, I am sure of it. Still, it has fish, and I caught several for us. If she will eat, I will be sure to feed her.

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Footnotes

1. Baro chanting is typically described as being not unlike a ruminant with bad, yet very rhythmic digestion.

2. No one knows why streams like this form in parts of the Ravelwoods. There are three competing theories. The first is that they are a basic consequence of the instability of time and space in the Ravelwoods. This was proposed by Bedlam Barochi in his work The Palace of Light. The second is that the strong magics that tend to collect in the woods cause them to form. This was proposed by Icstrot Misplore in his volume, What You Didn't Want to Know About the Ravelwoods, But I Shall Tell You Anyway. Finally, the oldest of the three theories, seen earliest in a work by Varnip the Larger himself, is that it's Just One of Those Things (capitalization his). While it lacks a certain scientific rigor, I admit there are times I want to catalogue entire sections of the Ravelwoods lore under this category.