These texts were originally published as part of Hunt's Desolation's Wake, the live Event that ran from March 6th to May 8th, 2024. Are they fact, fiction, fable, or fallacy? We may never know for sure, but there's truth to every lie, and a lie to every truth. Read on, and decide for yourself.

Summary: Sherriff Hardin welcomes The Statesman, who is connected to the mysterious Backers who have come forward to pay bounties following the death of Finch and the AHA. Sofia and the Drowned investigate why Corruption is still spreading when the Graven Path was closed at the conclusion of Tide of Desolation. Meanwhile, Felis plans to take Hardin down to keep him from crushing her and other Hunters under his heel, but ends up kidnapping The Statesman instead.

CHAPTER ONE: SHERIFF HARDIN

Sheriff Hardin vows to hold Hunters to the law, and a train rolls into the bayou brimming with promise and revelation.

Letter regarding Bounties, ½
Author: W. Hardin
Undated

To Our Stalwart Benefactors:

When I'm done here, the devil will be branded with Louisiana justice. He'll be nothing more than a stain on your shoes, easily cleaned. I swear.

The train you sent coughed enough smoke to blot out the dawn as it trundled away. The man it left behind was slender with a haughty figure, top hat and all.

This can't be who they sent, I thought. No way, no how.

Instinct drew my revolver as I waded through the smog, as fine of a first impression as I can give. A whistling wind swept the air between us away to reveal his pistol pointing back at me in kind. Took all of my restraint to hold my finger steady. I asked his name instead of shooting, but he was silent. That's when I saw what surrounded him: at least twoscore cases of ammunition and weapons around his feet. I suppose ghosts must have unloaded it—he didn't seem the type to do it himself.

I also suppose I have y'all to thank for the boon.

"Which way to the Bounties?" he asked after neither of us pulled the trigger.

But someone else did: a gunshot rang from the station, and a bullet ricocheted near his head. It didn't take long to snuff out our would-be ambusher. I read her rites, tied her to a tree, and stepped back ten paces to execute. The man from the train shot her from five.

"I'm a Statesman," he said. "I know how to treat vermin."

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CHAPTER TWO: FELIS

Felis rises from the wilds to keep Hardin from bringing the Primals under his heel.

Exodus of the Primals
Recorded verbally, transcriber unknown.

I tracked Hardin. I wanted his blood. His scent lingered on bushes and the insides of sheds, along with another smell, something that was like fox piss and campfire. It was easy to follow.

Winds have always blown through the bayou, and Primals catch scents easily on that wind. But when Desolation bloomed, our Pact fell still, frozen and unsure. So I tread across rising ash and through parted, rotting mists. I became the wind to blow it all away when no wind would come.

I found the den of Desolation, I fought against the ash. It was more of a vision than a fight, and when I returned, it was the wolf who sought me first—that boy who cries alone in the night. Lonely Howl had seen a name written on the moon.

"The sheriff has risen to the top of the pack," he said. "He got to Rotjaw before us, claimed her as his discovery. He sat back and let the Pacts take on the fires and the wrath of Desolation. He's ready to step into the fight now, and he's strong."

"We won't be tamed by cowboys," I replied.

"The Death Pact seems not to mind," said Howl. He had a vial of ash that he'd carried with him since the first blooms of Desolation appeared. I snatched it from his belt.

We knelt over a stump. A slug crossed its rings, didn't notice us.

"There is no law here." I poured the ash on the slug, and its skin hissed and bubbled. "Only nature. Only hunger. Desolation showed me unexplainable things. I see the world different now. I can feel Corruption spreading outside the bayou."

The slug crawled on and smoked like it was a train, a hexed premonition.

"Let's see how hungry Hardin is," I said. "Let's see how far he'll go to eat."

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CHAPTER THREE: SOFIA

The Graven Path stays closed, but why does the Land of the Dead still echo through the swamps?

Addressed to Lulu Bassett
Translated from Spanish
Ink on Blank Train Schedule

We held lanterns at the bottom of Kingsnake Mine. Worm Bite crouched before a mud sculpture, something like a snake eating the moon. It reminded me of how you look when you're biting an apple.

"The Graven Path is closed," Worm Bite said. "I've made sure. But something is still wrong."

He was surrounded by mud art. Crude mountains. Sludge trees and animals. The landscape of a lost mind.

"It's time for you to come out," the Bone Mason said.

"You don't know what it was like in the Land of the Dead," he replied, anguished. "It was a war, a religion being unmade."

"Rest," I told him. "You walked into Death's dream and woke him up. We've won."

"Every grave I've dug was wasted," he said. Some tall nest of clay stood at the center of his works. He placed a pocket watch on it.

"Did your mud friends tell you that?" I asked him.

"This is a calendar. Just wait. In one minute, an Altar will emerge right here."

We waited. Water dripped.

Each drop brought an image to my mind. Visions. Trees taller than I'd ever seen. An infected chimney with infected men crawling out from the top. Miners sipping molten metal from a cauldron until their jaws burned off.

Suddenly, the mineshaft trembled. The floor bulged, and emerging spines uprooted Worm Bite's pocket watch calendar of mud. He huddled at the foot of the Altar, looked up to it like he'd seen it a thousand times before.

"You can never unsee the Mound," he said.

"Fine," I told him. I sunk a round of Pennyshot ammo into the Altar with my Derringer. "You can't shoot what you can't see."

Bone Mason dragged Worm Bite away as the thing readied to explode. The sound of it echoed throughout the tunnels of the mine.

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CHAPTER FOUR: SOFIA

Bile and Brood perform a ritual to see who is connected to the spreading Corruption.

Addressed to Lulu Bassett
Translated from Spanish
Ink on Blank Train Schedule

Worm Bite's memory is bewitched from his time in the dead world. Sometimes he thinks he's been shot and screams, remembering old wounds. Sometimes he thinks he's just been born, forgetting his name, thinking the Bone Mason is his mother.

Now he's spread his madness on to us.

When I smell one of these Spine Altars, I see a forest bent in furies of wind. Terrible machines growl and gnash the earth. Dead horses decay on high hills, ripped in half by monsters.

We sought out help from our new kin, Brood and Bile—the blackbirds.

"The gravedigger contains echoes of the Land of the Dead," Bile confirmed.

We pushed Worm Bite forward, and he told his tale of statue fields, of a terrible serpent swallowing a steamboat, of monsters piled so high they scarred the moon.

"A ritual can show us more," Brood said. "Let's find out where these Altars are coming from."

The duo arranged six human skulls that were studded with gunshot wounds. From their beaked masks, they pulled tongues wrapped in sage, connecting them with wire, sliding them through the old, dead flesh. They wound the wire around a Spine Altar and shot it. The explosion made the metal hot, turned the tongues into rays of light.

We were blinded by that light. Drawn into a vision.

Blood gushed from a train engine and painted a red line across the desert. Hunters fled the swamps and crawled along the line towards a range of mountains. We soared over a lonely bayou: the quiet paradise the Primals hope for. Boss Targets screamed in their lairs. The Corrupted shivered and walked the woods.

The only souls left were damned—The Drowned. Hunting forever through rain, fire, sunsets, and blooming ash.

Our sight returned as the smoke faded.

"These Altars and The Drowned are entwined," Bile said. "They dwell in a place as broken and flooded as their souls. Darin Shipyard."

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CHAPTER FIVE: SOFIA

Portents tell of a dark power growing. Sofia can't shake the feeling off, either, as she's tormented by visions.

Addressed to Lulu Bassett
Translated from Spanish
Ink on Blank Train Schedule

We found The Drowned banishing an Assassin in the boathouse. They peered out of openings in the walls and floor to stare at their reflections in the water. A new witch hunter was with them, that Hex Breaker. He hid beneath his hat, scribbling notes as the Drowned Rat muttered.

"It's our burden to keep the Graven Path closed," she said. "When we breathe, mud churns. When we sleep, our eyes fill with blight. Our very lives are what have sealed the Land of the Dead away."

"Then why have the Altars returned?" Worm Bite asked. "We destroyed the Mound."

"It's for the same reason flies come out of dead bodies," Thirteenth Mate said. He stroked a Choke Beetle that chittered in his arms. "They spread where they can."

"We still hear Lynch." The Drowned Kid stepped forward. "Singing as she goes about her work."

"And what work is that?" I asked.

"Lynch has tossed her personhood aside," Hex Breaker said. "If she ever had any to begin with, anyway. She's a kind of nature we don't understand."

"She can only exist where the Corruption exists now," the Drowned Kid added. "We hear her voice far away. Traveling."

The new witch hunter had heard of Lynch's work, had come to learn her ways from The Drowned.

"Do you know what salvation a witch seeks?" he asked. "What makes them dance naked under a moon, or eat the heart out of a living deer?"

The Banishing crackled and roared. Hex Breaker answered his own questions.

"They want to taste a blackness beyond sleep," he said. "They want to bathe in the well all curses flow from. And to do that, they cannot stay a witch. They must become a monster."

I believed him.

Corruption has spread somewhere new, Lulu. I've dreamed it. Lynch has joined Death to grope our souls. Their fingers pry white inside my mind. If we don't stop this, you will lose me.

So I'm going to look for help.

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CHAPTER SIX: SHERIFF HARDIN

Hoping to garner his trust, Sheriff Hardin shows The Statesman what the Hunt is all about.

Interview transcript, 1/3
Interviewer: Unknown
Interviewee: W. Hardin, Undated

I showed the Statesman where that ungodly gator gave me my limp. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Rotjaw—her lightning, her Token, her size. Eventually, we decided to hunt her for some good old-fashioned payback. It was the perfect chance for him to have his questions answered in person...and for me to grab some sway over his arrogant, prissy self.

Didn't take long before we ran into the stench of vermin. Of one mind, the Statesman and I cracked open our case of ammunition. Both of us knew the cases were supposed to last for the long, grueling crusade ahead of us, but damn it if I can't resist the temptation of cutting a little loose, not when we'd been blessed with the means.

Just this once, I told myself.

Afterward, over the bodies that were now riddled with all different kinds of bullets, we got to talking. Like equals this time. Bloodbaths always get the heart pounding and the mouth yapping. I flattered him by sayin' he's got a better shot than any lawman I'd seen before, save myself. He told me he's never met a sheriff who'd stay to protect a town where only the dead remain.

I told him I'd mustered at least three fine Hunters who were all for my cause of bringing back order. He told me his benefactor had plans for a lawman who can lead a slaughtering force from the front line.

I told him I'd like to be privy to those plans. He said I was already doing my part.

Turned out we saw the same bayou—well, almost. To him, it was the ruins of remarkable towns which were already in ruin. To me, it was chaos that needed order.

At the very least, I agreed on his idea for what needed to be done about it.

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CHAPTER SEVEN: SHERIFF HARDIN

The Statesman pulls back the curtain on who's buying Bounties, and hints towards mysterious benefactors.

Interview transcript, 2/3
Interviewer: Unknown
Interviewee: W. Hardin, Undated

Later, the Statesman and I took turns testing his new Mako rifle on the Demented rabble scattered around Moses Poultry. They slobbered over themselves, hoping to bite the throats from the Spider, lost in their delusions of ascension.

I got one in the leg, then passed over the rifle. The Statesman pumped the lever and waited, watching our prey scrabble in the dirt. It was then he told me about the benefactors. He said they were a council of rich folks playing poker with Bounty Tokens, dabbling in the occult. Well, not just the occult—our occult. Felt good to be initiated proper, to get a scrap of food after what felt like a full winter's starving.

The Statesman took another shot and passed the rifle before I registered a Demented's head explode to pieces. I aimed for another one, wanting to see if it'd been a lucky hit or if the rifle really could fire true from three hundred yards. Took my time, just like he did, but I reckon it was too long, since the lone man standing left his dead partner to the Hunter with the wounded leg. Regardless, my shot landed true as steel, just as I heard the kicker.

The idea of a new law done lit a fire in my soul. Same one as on the day I was handed a revolver and swore to protect New Orleans. Excitement is what it is. No, it's greater than that... you might call it faith.

Faith can blind you, though.

Someone in the bush tagged me with a silenced rifle. The ammo was something that had me bleeding from both my ears. I took cover and patched myself up. When the dust settled, the Statesman was gone.

Whoever took him only left behind a fish speared on a branch, wearing his top hat.

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Continue here to read Desolation's Wake: Part Two.