I spent some time gathering more information about hogsbottom, opal, from Vanderhilt, determining its layout, how many souls last lived there, and so on. I buy supplies for the journey north, making sure to stock up on salt. Spirits hate salt, and so do most things of the Void. I don't recall why, the alchemist probably knows.

  I mount Rocinante, and leave the guards behind. Where I'm going, they're more of a liability than help. The road from Turnipton is meandering, wandering through small villages around Turnipton. The land grows sparser and the road less traveled the farther I go, until I leave behind the last farming village and enter the long stretch to hogsbottom. It'll be another full day of travel before I arrive there. The road became a two track, only traveled rarely by a wagon going to sell their hogs. Few travel this way, fewer still do so regularly.

  Somewhere around the halfway point, the winds begin to quiet around me, the rustling of leaves begins to slow, then stop entirely. The trees seem to lean away from the road, like they're repulsed. Clouds seem to hang heavy from the sky, darkening a once shiny day.

  I see only crows flying above, and no rodents rustle in the underbrush. It's quiet as I walk the road which seems angry at being disturbed, rocks tumbling from my deer's hoofsteps.

  Ahead, a shape rustles in an old creek bed. As I draw closer I can see its a man, a frail one. He looks like a skeleton bundled in rags, his skin mottled with lesions and moles. His hands are scrabbling in the clay of the river bank as he seems to be trying to plant something.

  "Hey there, in the river. Who are you?"

  He continues to mutter as I draw closer. "Betrayal- betrayal and blood. Her body rots."

  "What was that, sir?"

  He turns around, his face ruined, covered in scars, missing his front teeth, his nose, his ears, "Not a sir, not a knight, not even a farmer, anymore. Practically just another hog for their butchery."

  Rocinante snorts, uncomfortable, shifting from side to side.

  "Do you have a name, then?"

  "They called me Thom, or Jon. Maybe i was Rag in this life, or Hag, It's all jumbled, i've seen it all. They took my eyes and made me see." He snorts. "Don't you see? You're a fool like me. We're just dreams. Dreams of the betrayed." He stares past me, like he's looking at my aura, but even deeper. "They betrayed her, so long ago, so so long ago. Her body rots."

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  "Her body made the mountains, her eyes, the sun and moon. We are but remnants of her mind, dreams made real. Don't look behind the curtain, because all that remains is the rot of dead flesh."

  I step back. They sound like the words of a mad man, but the rambling captures my attention, like witnessing a skyship crash, one can't help but watch.

  "We play in her blood when we weave, don't you see? Every time you move an emotion, every time your body becomes lupine, you are but a child playing in the blood of his mother."

  My hand is drawn to my sword hilt. He's not a lunatic, the world seems to move to his words. He must be some cultist.

  "They think only He can fix her." He whispers. "They think only he can restore her. That only he can make us whole again."

  A cultist, I begin to draw my sword. The road smelled of His touch, of course His cultist would be here. "You’re a bloody heretic?"

  "A heretic? A heretic! no! they were wrong! They were wrong inquisitor. He will not restore her. He will consume her. Like he consumes us. He is not our friend, but one more vulture, who comes to pick at the corpse of the Betrayed Mother. Go, try to stop them, it's too late though. Too late for all of us. Things worse than that Thing are circling. They smell the blood in the water, spilt so long ago."

  I replace my sword. "Follow me then. Work with me, we can end this before it goes too far."

  "No, Inquisitor. This is the end of my road. This soul can go no further. It is time I returned to our Mother." And then he's gone, his clothes collapsing. I inspect them, but no body is left.

  The road winds ever on, and I ride with it. I don't look back at the bundle of rags, I've seen dead men before, and I've seen them vanish. Watching what remains rarely helps.

  In my time with the inquisition, and a long time it has been, I've seen many things. Things some people would be unable to explain. Demons and Devils do their work on this plane like any other, but the Inquisition is always there to fight them, and I am their agent, and I have gotten quite good at sanitizing the madness we fight.

  Rocinate's hooves clack over an old stone bridge, crossing a stream bed without water, overgrown with weeds. They appear to lack any void-rot so common with Harvester incursions.

  Clean, medical words to describe the magyk we use and defeat. Emotional Fields, Medias Particles, Class IV spirits, dimensional breach, so on, so forth. It's like pinning labels to gods, building a statue of formless smoke. But that's the point, to keep us sane. Wrap it up in science so we don't fall into the deep well of madness which claims out foes.

  The madman might have an explanation behind him. He went mad under the torture instruments of the cult, his mind shattered. His body had been held together only by the magic of the cult, and it fell apart when he rejected them. But his words moved the world. I could sense it. There was more then meets the eye with him, but I am unwilling to part the veil the Inquisition gave me to look beyond. All I can do is hope to end this threat, and the ones that come after.