Franz Lohner's Chronicle — Wickedness on the Wind

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.

Right, this is getting beyond a joke. It’s been weeks now, and still we’ve had neither hide nor hair of Sienna. I’m starting to reach my wits’ end, and I don’t care who knows it.

The final straw was that ... thing ... that happened the day before last. I still don’t quite know how to describe it. Woke out of a nightmare full of corpses with every hound in the village below howling despair, the wind wailing, the hairs on the back of my neck dancing the Parravon foxtrot and every peak along the mountainside blazing with eldritch light. Didn’t last, thank Morr, but something about the world feels different now, and in a way I can’t quite explain, even to myself.

It’s like when the Weaves went all doolally that time, but colder somehow. Saltzpyre hasn’t left his quarters since, and the prayers creeping under his door sound even more strained than usual.

Olesya was no bloody good. Muttered something about Geheimnisnacht falling early this year. She’s right about that, sure. The cursed moon roams the skies as it damn well chooses, and even as I write this it’s glaring down at me, pleased as primrose with itself. I’m sure Olesya knows more than she’s saying. As usual. Spent a morning poring over some of her mouldy old tomes and then upped and vanished, muttering something about the Ring of Nine Daemons. Quite what that has to do with anything, I really couldn’t say. Memory serves, that’s down in Sylvania, and while the local bloodsuckers know their way around a dark incantation or two, this
feels a mite beyond them.

Makes me wonder: have I, the great Franz Lohner, who knows everything about everything that happens in his part of the world, been guilty of blindness? Have I been so distracted by the Pactsworn and their mischief that I’ve missed something even more dreadful? And here I was, thinking we were riding high. Pride’s a terrible thing.

Never let it be said that I stand idle when dire times are afoot. I’ve sent some of the lads to roust my contacts in Sylvania and Altdorf to see if we can’t get to the bottom of what’s been going on. That’ll take awhile - especially if something bad’s in the offing - but that doesn’t mean yours truly is going to stand idle in the meantime. The first messenger went to Bardin and Kruber, telling them I want them back at the keep, pronto. We can’t do nothing about the world until we know what’s wrong with it - maybe not even then - but we can look after our own.

Sienna’s been gone too long. I want her back. Or I want answers.

Or both.

I mean, that’s not too much to ask, is it?