[An excerpt taken from the Executive Officer's log of The Ilythian Whisper, found washed ashore near Riparium.]


Ero, 683 AF.

The sickly sweet smell of pestilence hung in the air, lingering on one's tongue. Lanterns hung from the aft of ships abandoned, their decks and railings crusted with vomit and blackened suppurate, canvas wicks burning low and fast in the absence of care. The odd corpse or two floated about in the surf, bloated and swollen beyond all discerning, the sea about its grave visage tinged a terrible yellow hue.

"Captain, there's not a bloody chance we can dock there. The moorings are full o' plagueboats."

He swore, loudly. The profanities washed about the silent docks, breaking upon a blue man's cough and sputter elsewhere in its midst.

The larders were empty. They'd taken to eating the mice. Every port was closed - the plague'd taken them all, and to dock beside or downwind was suicide. May as well hang one's self from the nest.

It came low and quiet, at first. A few bodies washed up along eastern shores. Soldiers with limbs missing and the plague's collar about their necks in full swing. The gulls had come after; the horde of curious lubbers that'd poked and pried and spread the contagion about themselves. Nay, not the disease itself, but the godsdamned curiosity about it.

Curiosity's ever a fickle thing, but she soon struck her mark. Umbrin. The plague had all but ravaged those poor blighters. A Nereian had docked there and found out the hard way. The authority'd caught on quick. Sent up mates to bar the harbour and let the Umbrinites languish in their misery. Nobody even knows if any are left, now. The plague might've taken them all. Gods knows it's bloody bad enough. S'all lost now, how the plague even came about. A raid, or somesuch. It doesn't matter, anyhow. One of the gulls broke his own ship from quarantine at the same dock later on thinking it was naught but a harmless cough, overworked sailors, mayhap. It's everywhere now.


Phaestian, 683 AF.

The cure's made and waiting, but there's not enough. Never enough of it. Mariners tell us you have to dandy with the source of the sickness, a thing called a "sargassum", a great tangle o' seaweed that pulls along the dead of the deeps in its snarls, gives them the terrible ill that makes them come alive again. A strand of the stuff and a bunch of bark and root, and the Baarian apothecary up at Tasur'ke gives you a candle to burn on deck. The fumes quell the plague, but you can just breath in a lungful o' the contagion and catch it anew. And so many have. So, so many.

Every crew that comes within firing distance of the plagueweed gets the disease themselves, a bloody awful one at that. Cursed men take the lines and helm on those brave ships in the plagued fleets, fighting both themselves and the sargassum for a chance at seeing their families outside of a casket. It's not enough, though. They get a strand when the thing finally rescinds to the deep broken and dead, but the strand's just enough for them and their mates. Seems almost pointless to fight. Three o' the pieces makes a vat enough to purge a harbour's curse, but not the ships in them. It's a nightmare. Enough so that there's talk of the Pirates of Meropis?thrice cursed, those scurvy lot, are working with Nereian and Guildsman alike to see the oceans through this storm. Them and their gypsy Pirate King.

Some of us are starting to wonder, mayhap, if there might be more dead to scuttled ships and hulls ablaze than the plague yet. We can't let this sickness get in land. If it does, we're all done for. Each plagueweed that surfaces might yet be the last, and we've no bloody clue as to how many of the things are even left, if any at all. We don't know how much time we have, or if we'll even run out.

I'm no religious man, but the Seagod's silence is deafening. And maybe soon, ours will be too.

Bar the sound of the plaguedman's cough before he tumbles over into the deeps, one last time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Summary: An excerpt from the ship's log of one of the plague-infected ships.


Penned by My hand on the 17th of Sarapin, in the year 684 AF.