Today, while wandering through a village long abandoned to time and rot, I found something I wasn’t ready for. I had come to this place with Akech-Chun, to help him uncover what was taken from his mind. His memories are scattered, broken like clay pots on stone, and this ruin might hold the pieces.

But what we found first were Guars. Or… what had once been Guars.

They shambled out from behind a collapsed hut, their eyes a bright blue and skin cracked. Undead. Their tails dragged behind them in heavy arcs. Their mouths hung open as if trying to scream, but all that came out was this awful noise, wet and rattling—and then the vomit. One of them lurched toward me and spewed a black, rotting substance that sizzled against the stone and nearly caught my boots.

I barely got away. My heart still hasn’t settled.

Akech-Chun stood silent for a moment, watching them with this heavy look I haven’t seen on his face before. He finally said, “Not even the poor Guar were spared. It hurts me to see them in such pain.”

I didn’t say anything. I just nodded and watched the creatures stumble back into the shadows.

We kept searching, stepping over bones and old offerings, following threads through rot. On a ledge, I found a journal. Its pages were torn, but one passage stood out: an Argonian had invited a group of necromancers to the village to help against some storm.

Was it him?