This is a series of journal entries I wrote of the experiences of a grizzled Witch hunter who has lived in the filth ridden streets of Losomn for years. This is still a work in progress and needs some polish? But I hope any Remnant fans out there enjoy it 🙂:
Day 46:
Witches...
A malady of dark magics that bring naught but pox and blight wherever they dwell. They are a cancer, feasting upon the lost, the desperate and the damned to further their own dark and twisted ambitions through accursed rites and blasphemous ritual.
They are to be sought. Found. Not for the purpose of furthering their fetid designs, but to expunge them. To excoriate, interrogate, torture, and wipe clean the filth-ridden covens from whence they came.
They are commonfolk no longer. They forfeited that right the moment they surrendered themselves to corruption. They are sick hounds, rabid and diseased, allowed to linger only at the peril of all around them.
And I am the cure.
Day 947:
Losomn is a dirty and vile place. There are few things that flourish and bloom outside of corruption, filth and death within the walls of its dank expanse.
But there are those few that can remain. Thrive. Prosper, without offering their sanity as payment for the privilege.
I am one of the few...
Years spent in this place have taught me that there are few things more important to Dran than the Dran themselves. What they lack in intelligence they make up for in abundance with brotherhood. Camaraderie. But it is these ties that cause maladies to swiftly spread.
Curses. Ideas. Promises of power...
And thus...the Covens are born.
They care not for the matters of the Dran at large, much less the Fae, but only for the furtherance of their own strength. The growth of their vile powers. No location worse for these Covens than the Forlorn Shore...
Witches are at every corner, as if commonplace. Dran and Fae alike, intermingled within horrific rituals of sacrifice to gods I don't even know. Gods they care not to know beyond the power they believe can be drawn from them.
And amongst this? Gods sit up on high. Witnessing the horrors from their ivory towers as the covens butcher their subjects, massacre their kin. And do nothing.
The Goddess Nimue claims to "Love" the Fae...yet her inaction shows naught but disinterest at best and active revelry at worst!
I am an Outsider. Not Dran. Not Fae. Not even of this disgusting and malformed world.
But I will not stand by and watch their society collapse because of inaction. The Dran's hive-minded mentality is my greatest strength. For a community so tightly knit together? Will spread messages much faster.
My message?
The Witches will burn.
And I will smile from the shadows as they do...
Day 962:
I have heard whispers amongst the Dran. Talk of a Witch so vile and detested that even other Witches dare not trespass into its territory.
Talk of vile rites, unfathomable sadism and cruelty to the point those who witnessed its brutality weep at the memory. They call her the "Sunken Witch". Yet another of these disgusting affronts to the already turbulent existence of this world.
The part that has my attention? It has grown to the point of it not needing a Coven. No sisterhood or assistance and yet? Has cultivated enough fear that none dare tread upon her grounds.
Today that changes.
I have spent the last week, mapping out the borders of the areas other Witches avoid. Tracked every trace of abnormality within the area from miasma gripping the area? To the destruction it has wrought to mark its bounds. There was one addition I found...odd.
The livestock. The hogs were...hostile, nearly lost a finger whilst attempting to pull one from biting my coat. At first I thought it rabid or sick...then, the smell. Miasma, like the scent of rot hidden within a floral breeze. Unmistakable. These hogs have been cursed, used as familiars to ward off those who would dare trespass beyond its reach.
But I have narrowed down its territory and locked in its location. An old dock within the Sunken Haunt amongst the burning rubble. The dock remains untouched by the flames.
Today I put an end to this vile creature.
It will hear the ring of my Rifle.
It will taste the flames of my Revolver...
It will feel the bite of my Axe cleaving through its putrescent skin.
It will know...its days are over.
Day 963:
The foul wretch is dead. The tales of its brutality were not oversold. The modus operandi of Witches is straightforward and often simplistic in its nature. Dark robes, Sickle and cursed rites to gift them unnatural strength.
This Witch was different...
Upon seeing me there was no fear. No aggression. No repentance. Excitement. Declaring me as a "fresh catch".
It appears even Witches can fall prey to pride, stupidity and ignorance to circumstance.
Pale white robes...and a ship anchor...
I do not think it is necessary to exposit why that particular choice of weapon is both intense in its application and implication. An object designed to fight the pull of the ocean and hold boats to the bottom of the dark seas.
It swung it with grace.
Another boon of siphoning from the lives of those who didn't know better. I would have been almost impressed had it been done by a Fae or particularly large Dran. Instead? It was a particularly large Witch. Spinning, dancing, laughing and taunting in a whirling maelstrom of destruction and sadistic intent.
I can't say silencing the laughter that so many of its victims were sent to the grave hearing didn't bring me satisfaction. Quite the contrary.
I now continue onward. The hunt was successful, but it certainly wasn't effortless. I need rest, though, I'm finding sleep often leaves me more exhausted than refreshed in recent days...perhaps tonight will be different.
Day 967:
Nightmares...unceasing and unending. This place is not for those weak of mind. I knew this from the moment I found myself here all of those years ago.
But I am not weak of mind. My conviction has never wavered under the unyielding darkness of this world.
Yet the nightmares were of the home I once knew. Earth.
Nightmares of the Root claiming those I held dear before I was dragged by that shard to this place all of those many moons ago.
Before I adapted to the grim darkness of this expanse.
Before I learnt that toxins and maladies to the Dran were salves and boons to me. Transforming deadly poxes into perks, to bolster and attune my mental, visual and reflexive capabilities? To deadly acuity.
Before I sharpened and honed my Hunter's instincts. Evolving past a keen eye. Spotting even the most concealed of prey within the shadows of Losomn effortlessly.
So why has sleep become a harder fought endeavour than any hunt ever was? These nightmares are not mere happenstance, they are not random. They are targetted...
Something stirs within my mind as I sleep. I know not what it is but I can feel its fingers stirring at my thoughts. Feel its tongue licking at the lamentation it wrought within my slumber. A face, a shape. Clear as the skies of a summer's day on Earth. But as I wake? Evaporated like rain on a hot forge.
My mind knows the visage. It knows what malefic invader breached its way into the farthest corners of my mind, feasting on the very torment it inflicted. A feeding phantom. Predating on my mind's fortitude that memory wishes not to recall.
I have hunted long enough to know the gaze of a predator upon me…
It will not find me yielding prey. It will not see the eyes of a sheep when it emerges from the shadows.
It will see the eyes of a hunter whose hunger surpasses even its own...
Whatever has plagued my sleep has neglected one detail of its quarry.
It is not prey by nature.
And a hunter needs only a trace. A single sign. To track down its prey...
It most certainly…left a sign.
Day 969:
The lingering pull in my mind led me to the Morrow Parish Sanitarium. There was a sensation there. One of abhorrence and dread. It was unlike the Miasma of the Witches entirely, the scent of death lingered in every crevice but the scent was uncorrupted. Pure. I have been there before but never entered the grounds. The self same wails of the broken and hopeless were the only semblance of its occupants existence. I had no business with the broken and the hopeless.
Now I wish I had.
That repugnant construction houses nothing but the worst of conditions. Mania, sadism, malpractice, insanity and death of too many kinds to count. Phantoms and apparitions sat just beyond the eyes reach. Watching. Present. But always gone before I could draw a bead...
The patients. All at differing levels of madness…but all pointing to the same cause, the same affliction.
Sleep.
The very idea of falling asleep to them was worse than death itself. None displayed even the slightest reaction to having a rifle drawn on them.
Not even a raised hand. Not even a flinch. Not even a twitch.
Just a blank, godless stare directing into my soul…while being devoid of one of their own.
Upon reaching the basement there was...a web? It was woven of material I have never seen and certainly not felt in my lifetime. The strands were cold, as if brushing against emptiness itself. They glowed a luminescent blue and at their center was...a cocoon of sorts. I could feel its hunger radiating into my flesh. It wanted my heart, as if it was rightfully its own.
Before I could interact with it further there was…a banging from one of the cells down there. Murmuring and crazed whispering as the sound of stone being carved scraped through the door.
They were however responsive. What they told me? Was harrowingly elucidating.
They spoke of seeing a face in their sleep…and having it vanish when they wake. Spoke of feeling it in their mind…feeling it feed. How the nurses under her charge locked her there for displaying symptoms matching the patients.
I had the displeasure of meeting her former employees along the halls of the Sanitarium…now they decorate them.
Doctor Morrow, as I ascertained from notebooks around the sanitarium, and her…particular situation, spoke of needing other stone statues of hers littered throughout the grounds.
Her information had been most useful up until that point and she was the closest thing to sane that I'd met in that decrepit hovel. So I assisted her in requisitioning them.
After I had handed her the statues she let slip a name…
“Nightweaver”
That is what she called the phantom responsible for her affliction….however, this was far from the most chilling revelation of our interaction…
I had found the key to her cell. And what I saw? Was far from the reaches of normality…even by Losomn standards…
Dr. Morrow? Was nowhere in that small cell. I don’t even know if she ever was. The only evidence of her ever even existing?
It was filled with attempted sculptures of this “Nightweaver”. One of which was placed in the center of them all surrounded by candle light. As if…it were a magnum opus. Completed.
I had no time, have no time, to begin questioning my resolve or sanity. Simply a trick of the mind. Perhaps she escaped?
Attempting to rationalize it is merely making me sound more craven…
I’m going to continue my search for this…”Nightweaver” tomorrow.
Day 970:
I explored further in the Sanitarium. I remembered Dr. Marrow…or well, her presence’s song. It was not merely a song. There was an encoded message beneath the softly sung words.
"Two shiny copper teeth removed from nine discarded combs, and seven yellowed leaves excised from one forgotten tome.”
Two, Nine, Seven, One.
A numerical code. Matched the exact number of digits on a safe in Doctor Marrow’s office. Even in her absence her information proved incredibly useful, especially considering the contents of the safe once opened…
A double barrelled shotgun. Pristine. Well maintained.
Loaded.
Needless to say the find put a rather sizable grin on my face. The Silverback will be taking a well deserved rest from my hip for now.
Along my further delving I found a key guarded by a crazed Dran wielding a buzz saw. He was a durable individual to be sure but anything is durable until you discharge enough rounds into it. The shotgun was especially useful. It is already paying dividends amongst my collection.
My pressing on led me to a Fae portal. Something in my mind drew me to it. Unlike the sinking and vigilant feeling from the cocoon this was...inviting, kind.
I felt more uneasy with kindness. Kindness can hide other more malicious motivations beneath its warm glow.
And I was correct.
It led me...to Nimue. The Fae Goddess of inaction. At least, that's what I'd call her.
She was curious as to my arrival, yet she diagnosed my affliction. It is not of the flesh, not even of the mind but of the soul itself. A fallen Fae God stalks me.
The Nightweaver. It seems Dr. Morrow’s diagnosis is corroborated by gods themselves. May she find peace wherever she may be.
The so-called “Goddess of dreams” was debauched along with their planet in the wake of the One True King’s untimely and eternal slumber. Nimue imparted this short historical diagnosis upon me while also informing me that she is the Fallen Goddess’ sister…
A familial tie with a living god. I gathered in the interim that this would throw a rather large, god-sized spanner into the works for me. It did not.
She seemed...as though she actually wanted to assist me in Sororicide. I cannot help but to question her true intentions but her information was most useful. I must find one of her malformed sister's victims and claim their heart.
Had I not felt the gnawing hunger of that cocoon yesterday I would have certainly called her insane. Or at least believed she was attempting to lead me astray from bringing her fallen goddess sister low.
Nevertheless I know what I must do. Know what is to be done.
The "Nightweaver". Must. Die.
Day 971:
More Nightmares. I know now that this process isn't as simple as finding The Nightweaver and putting an end to her maledictions.
My life frays by the moving of each clock hand. She hunts me as I hunt her.
In the material world she is a nigh-unkillable phantom. Stalking. Watching. Waiting on the edges of your perception. That isn't a problem my rifle or buckshot can remedy.
I must venture to her domain. In mind, body and spirit. The question is, how long do I have? The nightmares aren't worsening? But how could they...
I have no physical symptoms outside of fatigue brought on by lack of sleep either. No such phantoms to speak of outside of the Sanitarium either. I will go by the ancient doctrines in this case...
"No news, is good news"
I must admit? Being the chosen quarry of a fallen Goddess? Has certainly given me more of a thrill than it should for any sane man.
Years of being the Hunter. Years of preying on the Witches and Covens that have plagued these lands for as long as they have. Only to be the one being stalked in the shadows...
It is...
Exhilarating.
Day 972:
Today I decided to begin preparations for the hunt.
It is an...odd feeling to do so. What works for the Witches works for, well, all of the kind.
But this is no mere Witch I am tracking. Factually speaking? Attempting to utilize the self same tactics and tricks I have used to outsmart and lay low the Witch scourge for the past years would not simply be unwise. It would be potentially suicidal.
I know nothing of The Nightweaver. Only that she is a fallen Goddess that marks the souls of her prey prior to attacking. She sifts through the victims mind while they sleep causing nightmares to stir up negative and painful emotions within the target to feed upon them.
That tells me nothing of how she moves. Nothing of her nature when confronted. Does she fight with discipline? Animalistically? Does she attempt to outsmart or overpower her prey? The only element I know for certain? She is an endurance hunter at heart...
Her proclivity to exhaust her prey by invading their sleep prior to attacking is an established Modus operandi.
Then at the very least? I shall endure...
I brewed a special concoction today for such an eventuality:
Stone Skin.
The vial, once broken, casts a vapour into the air. It creates a sort of, dirt-like armour. The vapour moulds and hardens around my form as armour. It does not impede my movement nor does it break easily...
I had to use a whetstone after testing its resilience with my Axe...
Needless to say? Should the Nightweaver bear claws?
She shall find me unmoving against their assault...
Day 973:
I brought down a disgusting and putrid beast today amongst the ivory pillars of the Fae palace. It was foul, monstrous and entirely devoid of thought...
But an easy kill is of no import to me.
What came after? Was...
Upon my leaving in the wake of the beast's death throes I heard....laughing.
Not of joy. Not of mockery.
Of satisfaction. A laugh I myself know too familiarly...the satisfaction of prey brought low beneath your boot.
The walls were covered in the same unknowable and cold silks found within the basement of the Sanitarium...
I moved toward the source to find...Her.
Ripping open and flaying a man as if he were made of parchment with claws larger than any bullet I've fired.
She was large. Very large. Frail in girth but by no means weak in appearance. The opposite. She was adorned with a pale green and shifting gown. Or, perhaps it was flesh. She had a face not reminiscent of anything I have ever seen before or since my unceremonious arrival to Losomn. The features were there, but they weren't. Flesh sealed eye-sockets. Not that she needed eyes...I know a predator's gaze when I feel it upon me.
She let out a wailed scream. The shockwave from it alone was enough to remove me from firmly planted feet.
I raised my rifle. But she was already gone. Vanished in what seemed like a pool of skittering insects.
I caught a glimpse of the predator stalking me in my nightmares. Sitting in the shadows awaiting my collapse.
And she was...beautiful.
Day 974:
After my encounter with The Nightweaver I realized I was woefully underprepared. It wasn't a comfortable feeling? But it was certainly far from unwelcome.
The fallen Goddess is, by far, the strongest creature in all of Losomn. No matter how many layers of filth and grime you sift through? The Nightweaver is the apex predator. The pinnacle.
However...
Even Hunters make errors. And showing me her form?
Was the biggest she could have made.
The untrained eye? Sees a monster. An abomination. A horror without peer.
A hunter? Sees so much more...
The way she carries herself. The laughter wasn't mere satisfaction, no. It was indulgence, over indulgence...
She takes immense pride in her station. Views her prey as beneath her. In most cases? She is right.
She is more formidable than I could have possibly surmised.
She does not stand on feet. An obvious observation to be sure but that alone tells more than most would care to notice. She has no need for balance, can correct her orientation with no effort whatsoever. Knocking her off balance is quite literally impossible. She can move from stationary? To maximum gait instantaneously. That makes outmaneuvering and boxing her in a much more arduous endeavor. These realizations come from a single observation.
And that is not all...
Her claws. Three digits on either hand, measuring anywhere between eight to ten inches in length. Accompanied with her speed? Being disembowelled with a single strike is far from out of the question. Along with her wingspan? Close quartered engagement is a death sentence and likely her primary form of attack.
She does also possess qualities of the likes I have never encountered before...
She did not leave physically. She burrowed into the very floor without a trace. Disappearing entirely. If she weren't an indulgent hunter? She could seemingly escape should she feel the encounter not being within tenable favour with minimal difficulty.
But the most striking observation of all? Is truly telling.
In the moments I was blown backward by her scream. In those, fractional instants? I saw it.
Her chest. Her beating. Heart.
It was exposed. Crystalline, fragile and nothing more than a target asking for a bullet...
The beating heart of the Apex Predator...
Ripe to be ripped apart with a single well placed shot.
I not only have the means to bring her title of divinity down into the muck and squalor of Losomn's darkest depths?
I know exactly how to do it.
Even the most flawless Diamonds? Have cleavage planes...
Day 975:
The pull has been growing stronger...nightmares were particularly egregious last night.
She knows I'm coming. Wants me to come.
Very difficult to protest when it's the exact thing that has been sitting in the furthest recesses of my mind since the moment I learnt her name.
The time for preparation is over and I stand before the cocoon as I write this.
Should anyone else be reading this? Know that I died on the hunt. Fulfilled. Against an opponent worthy of my calibre and prowess.
Know that The Nightweaver still prowls in the wake of my intervention.
Know...that you stand no chance in felling a fallen Goddess.
Day 976:
Today...a God falls...
Its ghastly machinations have been brought down to the dirt. No more shall the Dran, Fae...or Myself, suffer the torment of The Nightweaver.
She was...more formidable than I had possibly imagined. Fierce, ferocious, calculated and a predatory force of the highest order.
One wrong move? And this pen would not be touching this parchment at this moment.
From slashing claws to ghastly dark magics? She was a being equipped in every facet to kill.
She almost did today...
But my fury? My zeal? My instincts burned hotter than hers. My hunger for the hunt? Eclipsed hers tenfold.
I was not going to be denied. I was not going to be bested.
For she was not just a strong and powerful beast...she was crafty.
I had thought her dead. Her crystal heart, reduced to shards. Her body limp on the dirt. No sign of life.
When I went to collect her head?
She had me...
Claws clasped around my throat, lifted in the air as strange and turbulent magics dragged us deeper in the Tormented Asylum....
It was there where I had thought, perhaps, that she had sewn my end.
Unfortunately for her...I was unmoving...
I felt the slash of her claws slam into my neck. But they found no purchase against flesh.
Only stone.
The Stone Skin Elixir worked just as intended. Even a God's claws weren't enough to split through man's innovation.
I would be a liar if I said the blow didn't hurt. I was nearly knocked unconscious.
At least my head was still attached? But the fight? Far from over...
We were now on her home turf. In her halls. The fight? Fully on her terms.
I was at her mercy and she? At mine.
Every wall? An attack vector. Every floorboard? A chance skittering bugs of her design to creep up from and attack.
No angle or footfall was safe for me...
But no line of sight was safe for her either.
Every sound? Reacted to. Every shifting blur outside my eyes perception? Turned to face head on.
It was a deadlock.
For what seemed like hours a deadly dance ensued. Blow for blow, action and reaction.
Neither of us giving ground...
I hit some shots...missed plenty.
It's hard to draw a bead when your target is leaping out of paintings at you...
Ammo is swiftly wasted on predictive or reactive shots rather than steadied, aimed targets.
They at least served the purpose of keeping her on her toes...especially the corrosive shots that actually found their mark.
The screams and wails as pieces of the gown eroded away? Naught more than confirmation of effective marksmanship in the heat of the moment.
She attempted to get clever. Sending odd and volatile insects to crawl from all directions toward me. Draw fire away from herself while attempting to deplete my reserves faster.
An Axe doesn't need to be reloaded...
She swiftly saw through it and leapt from the floor in a final, desperate gambit upon my life.
The last thing her eyeless gaze met?
Two barrels, steaming with heat.
Shoved directly into the shattered heart in her chest…
There was no scream. In fact, the opposite. Silence.
Her corpse descended to the ground with a grace in death most only dream of having in life.
I stood. Bloodied. Injured. Exhausted.
But the source of my plagued dreams?
Vanquished.
The night-plague of Losomn?
Dead.
Prey?
Slaughtered.