The first handful of words are crossed out, as if Loren tried and failed several times to find the right words to use whatever he wanted to convey.

Day five

Today was

This was the most

Never have I seen

As I wrote yesterday, Crispin and I journeyed to one of the myriad stone towers dotted across the moor’s battlegrounds. There were a few closest to us, but only one sturdy enough - barely, with how the stones groaned beneath our combined weight as we ascended - that we could climb. The view from the top was as I hoped: it provided the perfect vantage point from which to study the moor and its grounds. It can be difficult to see the forest for the trees, as they say. And study the moor from on high we did.

This entire field is one massive battleground, as expected, but the tower provided us with the perspective to see it more clearly, and pinpoint some more clustered areas where combat must have raged even more fiercely for some reason. I’ve noted down rough coordinates on our map for where those spots are, so that over the coming days we can venture to each and investigate. Perhaps we’ll discover artifacts of note there.

What I didn’t expect to see from the top of this crumbled tower, however, was just how vast the destruction was. How much must these humanoids have hated each other to wage such a terrible war? I couldn’t see even one small glade free from the vestiges of war. It left its horrible, ugly scars across this entire landscape. I knew the war was long and bloody - I knew that, from all the records I’ve read - but I never comprehended. Now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes…

The one bright spot of color in this massive battleground, though, are the Harvester’s pale yellow flowers blooming from his soul vines. I’ve seen them here and there throughout the dungeon on our descent down here, to the Moor of Sleep, but I cannot overstate just how many of them are here. Thousands upon thousands of them flooding the bloody battlegrounds in a sea of soft, pale yellow. It would be reassuring, if the scars of battle did not mar those bright spots, too.

That, and the ghostly shouts we could hear floating up from the fields. Ghosts roamed amongst the soul flowers, all humanoids and coursers bearing the sigils I wrote about in my previous entry, all listless and lifeless until they came together like magnets in a clash once more, continuing their bloody battle even in death.

I do not have the words to properly describe the feeling of pure loss and helplessness the scene filled me with.

The feeling of dread and, I hesitate to put to paper, fear.

If a war of this scale could be waged once before, could another take place in our lifetimes? Or the next? I truly, sincerely hope not. The amount of ancient loss I’ve seen today alone is devastating, and I almost hope this is the worst of it – that perhaps this was the main, or even only, battleground, and that elsewhere in the moor it isn’t quite so scarred from the wars of men.

A naive hope, to be sure. The archives have told me that countless battlegrounds exist on the moor, all just like this one. Part of me wonders if I should just simply leave now, and leave these long-suffering dead in peace.

But I can’t. I must know. There’s still so much for me to discover and learn about here – I can’t leave. Not yet.