This is the journal for the playthrough begun in Part 1. This makes a bit more sense as a read. The numbers are the prompts from the game (25.2 would be the second prompt for number 25).
Journal
3.1
Sumitra is alive! She finds me in a camp near Dhara, where she has been a captive, a wife, a widow. She wishes to find a healer for me, but the bleeding means nothing. I cannot stand the daylight, though I see nothing. She gives me a wooden bowl for gifts of food, though nothing given will sustain me. As she begins to understand more, she lets me know where the soldiers carouse. I take of them what they once took from my people.
4.1
The healers would not leave me to my peace, and I am driven from the city by holy incantations. Sumitra wraps me like a bundle of cotton cloth and leads Sarantugala north by night. We arrive in the old capital of Udabhandapura, now under the sway of a sultan. I can tell without sight that the people here ride well. My songs are well-liked here, and I am called Avazzer.
6.1
There is a power in me along with the hunger. I thought myself persuasive, but it is something more—in their flat tones they let me know it. A mystic by the name of Nasif heard my song and, unlike the others, burst into a feverish rapture. He burned night and day as if in the near presence of his god, declaring me an ignorant wali.
12.1
I become too comfortable at the frontier of Turushka lands, and Nasif and Sumitra assemble a circle of occultists, ecstatics, and witches about me. I am accused and we are pursued into the mountains. In the summer mud I make a ditch where we hide in ambush. I am wounded terribly in the fray, but my assailant falls under this influence I have. He is called Babaka and is now one of our pack of bandits. Nasif dances as I feed without the usual restraint.
15.1
In the depth of a winter night I wander up the silent mountain, the wind crystalizing my bloody tears. Of a sudden I am seared as if by warm sunlight, throwing up my hood against the presence of a hulking Deva on the peak. I approach as though in supplication, removing the cover from my eyes.
“Great One, I am a mendicant seeker far from the haunts of my fathers. Take pity on a sightless wanderer.”
Though it burns through me like lightning, the Deva touches my face and I can see. Not the crude sight of my feeble eyes, but truly. Their hand burns black as they are swallowed into the peak. I look at the cold moon for a time, then return to camp.
19.1
Seeing my wounds, Sumitra works to assemble appropriate poultices. Nasif disapproves, as each mark on my figure is his reflection of divinity. I do not know where he has gone with his hangers-on, but I should have noticed. I suspect that Sumitra is mastering a sorcery. I have Nasif’s book of hadith with scribbled annotations, but lack letters to know their teachings.
24.1
Rumors reach me of a cult in a village on the way to Kabul whose heresies are said to include sacrifices to a devil of blood and song. I cannot rely on the mountains alone to protect me. I take a new name and avoid all new people who are not food. I am called Farsad, the burnt man of the pass.
20.1
My skin grows ashen with the years. I buried Sumitra in the White Mountains many summers ago. Her place is marked by pirtaran flowers, though I do not know that I could find it again. Our band is long attrited, and her enchantments died with her. And so with the riders of Ghazni and Ghor and the Khwarazmshah’s men. These wars are feasts to me. None more so than the coming of the horde, with whom I feel some kinship. The first feast is death and chaos, but now comes the second: merchant caravans more frequently across the passes and through all the valleys and plains. The usual dangers are suppressed, but I am an unusual danger. At the siege of Samarqand I secure entry with my familiar tricks and settle into city life for a time. Now I secure a small place in the back of a tea house near the river Zaraafshan. I learn here the letters of the eastern ancients from an herbalist. I process fine the flowers’ stamens in gratitude.
25.1
It is impossible to keep an ass in the city as I must not endure the hateful sun. Now peace has come and with it not only rich cloths and fineries, but the words of sundry prophets and petty squabbles over one true way or another. All this uprightness means watchful eyes. But pilgrims are food as much as traders and soldiers, and prayer is a great distractor. The teaching of prophet, bodhi, or great heaven is of no matter, but their houses furnish what I require.
25.2
The Prophet’s followers require a prompt burial, and I work most nights at this. I learn the proper orientations and arrangements. I hear when one of them approaches death. My presence goes unnoticed and I feed. The taste is best when it is the last of their life. In the deep night I sever the head and bury them again. This method is sure and sound.
22.1
I bury Arik’s mother in secret and swaddle him in her woolen shawl. I heard his crying as I emptied her. I have been long without others, and Arik is my silent ward. He is quick and takes to my provisioning methods. I grant him my bowl and he brings small coin from begging. He is becoming an able courier for the daylight hours.
24.2
[No experience]
28.1
I recognize Nasif even from Arik’s description. A new devotee arriving in the city proselytizing the cleansing fire of heaven’s sword. Seeking him out I see the being alive in his shadow. This is a distant memory, fear. Its taste is new in my body. I dare not approach him without precautions. I lose my bearings with ruminations, calculations, and apprehensions profound.
23.1
The time before sunrise is mine once hunger is at bay. I trace the arcs of each celestial body. Many others have named these, but I know them. Learned men contest and compare their charts. I dare not point out how I know they are mistaken.
23.2
There was too much death to keep up with the work, even had I been able to secure help. The tea house is closed and new visitors are viewed with suspicion. I take up an exchange of letters with a scholar of the Way favored by the Khan of the east. His words are alive. To know them is like life. Arik knows how to get correspondence in the right hands. I crave the slow knowledge of this man who understands me when I write the truths of the stars. I leave this city in its desolate sickness and cross many li to see him. My tongue grates when I attempt the speech of the officials, but it suffices. Arik sees to my needs along the way. I leave Nasif’s book at his residence in secret before going.
26.1
He makes me feel like life but I should understand his revulsion. I feed on him as though he is the solvent for all that I am. I cannot take his head, nor burn him. Soojin arises in the dusk as I sit by his grave. My tears bear all my guilt and ecstasy. His eyes are empty black.
22.2
The rebellion of the southerners advances on Dadu and I try to gather my things from among Soojin’s rambling collection of manuscripts and devices. He will stay, but I am a strange barbarian and will not be able to remain. I follow the court lackeys in retreat to Xiangdoo, the summer capital. While I rest during the day, brigands seize upon my frail companion Arik. They make off with my papers, and may every curse go with them. I am told they are led by a eunuch named Satook. His name is poison to all he knows.
26.2
The Great Ming are relentless, almost admirably so. They came to Xiangdoo and now they are razing Karakorum, and I am penned in. Soojin is among them, having learned from me the utility of being close to the dead. He dumps their dead into ditches, sucking the last life from the wounded. He grants me a copy of his latest research: a series of tables for calculating the time of a mortal’s death.
26.3
The soldiers notice strange marks and trails of their own blood, seizing Soojin as he tears out the throat of a herdsman. He is mad with the hunger. Officials are summoned from the capital to examine him before his destruction. Should they find his notes, I am hopelessly exposed. Taking the likeness of a vengeful Deva, I show them the way light works in every hell. In their crying and confusion, Soojin and I set on them in terrible slaughter. We flee to the east, digging ditches for shelter. We cannot stay away from the mortals for long.
30.1
I move now in silence. My songs are gone like my people. There are not new songs adequate to replace them.
35.1
The scholarship of the Way thrives in these lands, and visiting scholars are welcomed. Soojin will do well here, but I am outcast with the monastic orders, again a wandering mendicant. Among these I see the echo of an old countenance. Jangye, a decrepit monk in uneasy contemplation. I know he is in the line of Lomaharsana. Jangye seeks the next life. I sit with him and my book. It should be soon—a comfort, I think. The villages endure my rages for some time. Tales spread of a night beast.
41.1
My silence spreads about me. I prize it. I carry little, moving on bare and cracking feet. I have forgotten the sound of every one of my names. I need them not at all.
37.1
[No experience]
45.1
I dig furrows and feast on vermin. I take this form for days at a time. Tales say the marten is a soul-thief, and so I am.
42.1
In an attempt to secure access to the sciences held by the court of Jungong, I am confronted by a chemic. I flee through his workshop, my essence inflaming pots of black powder. We are consumed in percussive flame. I fly upward and some strength in me holds my flesh intact. My clay woman is destroyed.
48.1
I seek a lonely mountaintop on which to watch the stars. Losing track of the swirling heaven the sun’s rays begin to sear me. I burrow into the freezing earth, blood cracking through my haggard claws. I wait and rest. Waking to the earth buckling and waving, I descend amid crumbling rock and soil. Pinned against a great boulder, I work myself loose for what must be…months? Beneath the new moon I advance on a nearby village, tearing every person to remnants. There is a road here. It was not so before. Have I been below the earth so long?
51.1
There is no end to this. Tales of the burning devil spread far. I no longer need iron to remove their heads. Rage suffices.
52.1
The great water. I had heard of it, of course, but the reality… Immensity itself! Here the sun comes sooner over the expanse. I walk too far into the chill surf. How far below might I venture?
53.1
I am pursued and the Dutchmen seem to know more than they should. They have recognized some pattern that I myself do not see. The ship hunts have served me well, but now I must anticipate their traps and restrict myself to pickings from junks and bum-boats. Stringy fisherfolk. I thought I knew the face of one among the crew that netted me, but I could not place it. My robe is shredded by salt and biting water creatures. They will find me again unless I find a new herd to bleed.
52.2
Floating on a moonless sea I see the true stars, noticing how the subtle centuries shift the celestial companies. Am I one of this great host or one of the free bright ones who trace strange and deviant paths? I dream idly of Soojin’s incisive letters and wonder which star is his. I barely recognize the sun as it burns me white and hairless. I descend slowly, ever looking toward the fatal surface.
55.1
Songs return to my salt-withered throat. I learn to take possession of whole crews, culminating in the seizure of a galeón. I am ensconced in Manila where the men-of-war do not pursue. People here are strange and familiar by turns. I am most strange to all. I am learning again to restrain my fury. I hide among the people from the countrysides and far-flung islets. It is strange to be fixed in place again. The tides and currents are part of me now.
54.1
The master of a yanki vessel aport in the viceroyalty passed on under the strange fever that has beset this isle. I am tired of the shore and arrange my captaincy against all usage and custom. It is my will, and so it is. With a trunk of strange balms, hairpieces, correctives, and artifices I ascend my command at sundown. While we pursue the great gorae (called Leviathan by los cristianos), I retreat to my quarters and feed on the men by dark.
56.1
By my orders the tryworks burn day and night. Ten of the crew are assigned to stitching spare sailcloth and reinforcing it with baleen. I have forbidden the hunting of otters. Certain timbers of the islands are sufficiently pliable for my design. The Osiris grows out and up.
59.1
The reckoning of Christian scholars has the year as 1867. Having acquired the shares and estates of each partner in The Osiris, I am well-secured in a fine manor in New Bedford. The people of the town give a wide berth to ‘El Capitan’ and I receive company rarely. My modest capital seeks outlet in the western provinces. An intriguing inquiry from Roland Ellering, a middle son in an established Boston clan, brings him to my estate as a guest. He is a collector of antiquities Oriental, and offers me a majority stake in a local manufacturing concern for an evening’s interview. I oblige him.
57.1
I long for the mountains. The cold. The ocean. I have joined in the yanki speculation in the north Pacific. Perhaps in time there will be food enough there. I have ordered The Osiris to the west to oversee my claim. Dam works will help to increase the salmon catch.
53.2
Cruising about the southern islands, I notice that I am stalked by a skilled shikari. In Sint Eustatius I descend below the water and wait—he boards my ship and I ensnare him. He tells all as I softly sing. He traces his line to Arik, my ward of long ago. Some feeling of revenge has lived in all his seed, though I cared for him as I could. Strange—this terror and anger and madness. His name is Absalom Bansin. He is my child across ages. I hold him in my withered arms for a time. I will keep him with me and show him.
58.1
An epoch of terrible wonders. Having never until recent years been able to employ a carriage, I am astonished at the speed of the new engine-pulled chariot I have acquired. They have curved glass in long tubes to see the truths of my night skies. The hunger of these new men leaps and grasps and claws toward the extent of my own.
59.2
It was foolish to humor the brahmin and all the more so to believe that scraps of paper bereft of truth or insight could carry value. I have deluded myself as has each of these mannered, moneyed men. Roland’s maneuvers with the board have emptied my notes—he knows too much to allow me recourse. The man who keeps my accounts is most distressed. Though I let murder break loose amongst the Bostonians, Ellering eludes me.
55.2
There are plates that listen and when a metal pin scrapes them they speak what they heard. I have employed a man who knows how this is accomplished. I would like my songs to live in the plates, where their comforts will not be a danger. Something in this brings me back to Baram whom I have forgotten to despise. Has he known this? Does he know this?
53.3
Absalom, my kin and huntsman. He has never stopped. On the train to Albany, he found my cabin in daylight, opened the curtains and put a bullet through my throat. In a fit and burning with screaming pain, I tossed him over a bridge. He just will not listen.
52.3
I dive down toward the wide river, the vile sun against the paper of my skin. I do not burn without, but within. I am a vetala. I take to the slow current, bleeding.
51.2
I have acquired a fine Victor Talking Machine, the finest available. We can speak feely at all hours.
48. 2
Through channels I have established, I learn that Absalom survived the great fall. I am most impressed! I must not tarry in this empire lest he ensnare me.
54.2
[No experience]
56.2
Beekman Winthrop, a disciple of Mr. Ellering, is making trouble for my projects from his position as a scholar-official for naval administration. There is no doubt that Roland is behind it. I must move The Osiris ever northward. Not a timber of its original hull remains. Riveted steel plates guard against the jagged Aleutian ice. The tuning continues. I have made arrangements for a Congressional inquest into the Winthrop banking fortune, which may upend the boy’s efforts. Even still… I must cultivate something that can counter Ellergin. Perhaps a new ward I shall seize for my own. From a mother none will miss.
54.3
I smell war on the old me the ones who make it. I will hold from overseas travel for a time. I take a train westward toward the great spine of this territory. In a sleeping car I devour a pair of what are called “honeymoons.” They did not know war.
59.3
Ellering has found what he must have been looking for: Soojin himself, a captive of the eastern isles’ emperor. He has summoned something from beyond the heavens. Utter madness. What part have I played in this?
62.1
I have feared the vengeance of heaven for so long that I failed to understand the truth: I am eternity. These insects are of no consequence. I feed without compunction. I am free.
68.1
I stand in the great library of the Ellering estate. He takes fewer precautions in daylight and is out of the country. Held here are many of Soojin’s personal manuscripts. Among them: a scrawled book of my own hand in a wrapped-back binding. What is his aim? The book is mine. I leave in its place a terse note expressing my appreciation of his stewardship.
72
Slipping out of Ellering’s great manor, I see a great line of men-at-arms. They train their repeating guns at me. My wizened fingers are slick with the blood of servants. As the cannons crack to life I see Sumitra and it is ended.
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