i have seen the dead walking
karrnath survived heavy war losses by reanimating soldiers' corpses to keep on fighting but now those "undead" remains are directed to sweep streets and the like
everyone acts like this is fine and not a gut-twisting atrocity
the people decorate everything with bones and blood-red paint and preserved animal heads
the popular religion here is called the "blood of vol"
they're all obsessed with predation and death and i'm uncomfortable with it
but here we are
the trip to karrnath happened much faster than expected after we talked with morran
he took us on a tour of 3 primes academy and it's coming together nicely! but he doesn't have anything to do there for a few weeks and he wants to meet with zorlan so we arranged travel together
but that meant a day on the lightning rail and the next day on a ferry and the next day on another ferry
to the land of snow and beets and misery and undead
it's very cold here
morran found other stuff to do while we found hilde soldorak's apartment
she wasn't there
because she'd been murdered 3 days ago
worse yet is that whoever took her life likely did so to get at relic's sword – it was the only thing obviously missing from her display of rare weapons
to get permission to investigate further we spoke with their deputy minister for internal security "renke mittig"
she's certain the deed was done by a member of the "order of the emerald claw"
the emerald claw were a military special forces group officially disbanded 30 years ago ... but they've continued operating on their own? using whatever terrible methods they feel are justified in protecting karrnath from whoever they feel are enemies
but that usually doesn't include the murder of karrnathi officers
most of them are members of the blood of vol so they're likely bringing the sword to the "crimson cathedral" center of worship which is in a city called "atur"
so we'll be travelling even further into the snowy forests of karrnath hoping not to draw too much attention while we try to take the sword back from a bunch of highly-trained killers
tomorrow morning we meet the liaison assigned to come with and help us navigate through local bureaucracy and culture and undead
i really hope we find it quickly because i doubt i'll sleep very well until we're out of this country