Azazor's logbook
Eeri barely described the interior of the Marauder camp to me. Let's just say she wasn't very talkative. The important thing to remember is that the Marauders hide their Zinuakeen under construction inside. Impossible to know how it works, since Eeri has not been given access to it. However, the Marauders told her that there was a path leading to the Wide Puddle by the south. A slight detour. So, we went there.
After several days of walking through the southern cordillera, made of giant roots emerging from the ground and twisting like braids, we finally reached the Wide Puddle. It was a particularly trying vision. Imagine an expanse of water as far as the eye can see. Wherever you look, nothing but water up to the horizon. I tried to see the end of the range to the east, in vain. This one comes to die on the horizon, suggesting that it does not end before the mouth of the Munshia river and the hypothetical Reef of Baldos. Passed the amazement, we approached the water and we even bathed there. Not for long though, this soup being relatively cold in winter. There were some fish that I did not especially recognize. But well, I don't know nothing about fish. No predator on the horizon apparently. Maybe some come to drink in the Wide Puddle but not this place in any case. There are no paw prints on the shore. Oh yes, an interesting phenomenon to note: the presence of waves! Bigger than the ones you can sometimes observe in Trykoth. Even if I don't see what the root cause of this could be, I suspect that the size of the Wide Puddle has something to do with it, . Anyway, we had a lot of fun with Eeri jumping among the waves, some of them reaching us at the level of the head.
For the following of our journey, although according to the Ranger map, no access is listed there, we could perhaps avoid the passage through Sentinel by following the Wide Puddle and then climbing the plateau south of the Citadel. I'm curious to know if there are any homins living there. But given the help the Marauders have given us so far, we would be depriving ourselves of essential information for the rest of our journey in the ancestral desert. So, after some discussion, we decided to cross the cordillera again and follow the small trail described to Eeri by the Marauders, which leads to Sentinel through the northern part of the mountain range. This path is not marked except for the area called the "Scattered Desert" where beacons have been placed to indicate the safe places to walk. The area is indeed filled with crevasses and moving sawdust that can swallow a homin in a few minutes without him being able to do anything to escape. However, we will have to avoid crossing the varinx packs haunting these aeras. According to Eeri, the Marauders spend usually a good month to reach Sentinel. So we'll depart tomorrow morning, leaving the Wide Puddle and its fascinating waves behind us. As for whether they will let us pass, we'll see how we can be useful once we get there.
The next morning, Azazor and Eeri finish repacking their makeshift camp on the back of the two mektoubs. The waves have calmed down a bit this morning. During the night, they rocked them, making them live their most beautiful night for a long time. While Eeri picks up a few seashells as a souvenir on the shore, Azazor finishes harnessing the last mektoub. In a joyful mood, he gives her a smile. The Fyrossa gives it back to him without forcing herself. Behind her, the stretch of water brings a breeze coming from the sea which raises her red hair. The Fyros, in front of this vision, cannot help smiling even more. He had not felt this feeling for her since this torrid night in the Baths of Pyr.
Suddenly, behind Eeri, the water starts to swell and a titanic creature emerges. It opens wide a mouth filled with sharp teeth. This one closes on Eeri, whose superior part of body is soon completely swallowed in the mouth of the monster. Azazor rushes towards the Fyrossa and grabs her legs before the monster was able to take her to the bottom. Resisting as he can, he does not manage to retain it and is himself dragged in water, pulled by the superhuman strength of the creature. While he screams at the top of his lungs all the rage of despair, he manages in a last effort to pull Eeri's body from the beast's grip. He then falls backwards, slumping his buttocks in the water. The prakker, because such is the name of the beast, plunges back in the water in a whirlwind of wave. Completely distraught and still clinging to Eeri's legs, he pulls her hastily out of the water.
Only when he finds himself dry on the shore, he finally notices that the girl has been literally cut in two at the level of the waist, the monster having carried away the other half in its stomach. A trail of viscera is visible on the beach, where the upper half of Eeri's body has been taken. Looking with horror at the bloody legs of his friend, Azazor lets out a howl of terror. Eyes rolling back, not able to stop staring at the legs that are bleeding on the beach, he falls to his knees, while the prakker fades away on the horizon.
Death here is irrevocable, he knows it. He lets out another howl to the sky as Eeri's lower body lies there, dripping his guts and spurts of blood onto the knees of the now hopelessly alone Fyros.