Found on a man lying dead at the center of a nameless crossroads in the heart of Nightlund….
Dear Herald,
I bring you odd news from Nightlund and Neraka.
Phantom Territory Plagues Nightlund
Some time ago, explorers from Neraka tried to reach Dargaard Keep to verify rumors that Lord Soth and his undead retinue were once again being heard from. They never reached the mountain, however. After being lost in unseasonably thick fog for several days, one group says they came upon a grand city named Har-Thelen, a city where all maps indicated there should only be forest. The citizenry was entirely made up of Silvanesti elves. They told the travelers they had entered the Land of Spectres and that it was indeed ruled by Lord Soth. They were totally unaware of who the Knights of Takhisis were–which was a shock to the Knights when were forced to pay for their lodgings in the mist-bound city… and who were unable to bully the elves into submission. More terrifying and confusing for this group, once they left/were ejected from Har-Thelen, they found themselves harried by a large group of afflicted kender–more violent than any who have been reported before. With taunts and shouts that they did not allow Humans in THEIR forest, they had killed roughly half the expedition members before they lost their pursuers when another fog bank rolled in. When they returned to Neraka empty-handed, they also had with them a mystery; there is no record of a town known as Har-Thelen anywhere on Ansalon.
Other groups sent toward Dargaard have vanished without a trace. Governor-General Abrena is reportedly pulling troops out of the draconian city-state of Teyr and from the border with Sanction to assemble a battle-hardened force to find Har-Thelen and interrogate the elves there… and to wipe out the murderous kender bandits who have apparently settled on Neraka’s border.
The Mystery of Grimsbody Solved!
(This part of the message was too destroyed by rain and mud to be legible.)
