These texts were originally published as part of Hunt's Tide of Desolation, the live Event that ran from December 13th of 2023 to February 14th of 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: Daughter of Decay is initially wary of the Drowned Hunters who have come from the cursed passage the Murmurstone opened, but eventually learns they hold valuable secrets that could save the bayou from being digested. The Drowned Rat struggles to come to terms with her new, unnatural form as she suffers from visions and blackout periods of inflicting brutal violence. Meanwhile, the failure of Butcher's Cleaver to hold on to the Murmurstone means The Cowl is the new leader of his demented followers. Under his lead, The Beekeeper infiltrates Daughter of Decay's meeting with the Drowned and brings their plan of entering the Land of the Dead back to The Cowl.

Chapter One: Daughter of Decay

The Tale of Desolation begins when Daughter of Decay finds Mr. Chary on the brink of death amongst spines and ash.

Undated
Tale of Forsaken Soils, First Harvest

Something's eating the bayou. I must lead the Grounded in the hunt for its mouth.

The smell of its drool is in the air like a dew that clings to the fences, the trees, the trigger of a gun. I can feel its hunger. It's the same hunger I felt when eating the berries that grew from my mother's ribs, the turnips that bulged from her hips beneath the soft soil.

I wonder if she felt me eating her, like I feel the air eating me.

I followed the odor across the swamps to a clearing. The air quivered from whatever had uprooted the weeds and grass and scoured the soil.

A wonderful silence was broken by a bundle of spines rising from the earth.

Some living altar wriggled from the ground with wet quills. It grew and heaved with breath from its many holes and dens. Barnacles sputtered, ripe with the stench of Rotjaw. At my feet, ash began to rise.

A man crawled out of the tall grass, steam wafting from his back.

"Need help getting off the ground?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I'm afraid I'll never get to touch it again."

His skin ashed away. The altar breathed him in one gasp at a time.

"You're Mr. Chary, right?" I said. "Wish I'd met you sooner, so I could tell you some secrets are best left alone."

"Some secrets must come to know of me, no matter the cost." He spat tar, disappeared more.

"Does a fox know the name of the rabbit it eats?" I asked. "Do you think it wonders what the rabbit feels?"

He laughed. He laughed himself away and out into some other world. Not dead or even afraid of death, judging from the echoes he left behind. He'd stay a rabbit hunting foxes until the day he breathed his last.

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Chapter Two: The Beekeeper

A bloodied Demented Pact witness a new rival rise from the Graven Path to the Land of the Dead.

Almanac of the Swarm
First Comb

Listen, little daughter, this tale will nest an egg inside your heart. Nurture it. Bless it with rotten mint and the bones of your enemies. You will need it hatched to go where I have gone.

Only then will I hold you and say that you are beautiful. Only if you ascend with me will I call you mine.

***Page Torn, Pasted with Black Honey to 1895 Almanac***

At the start of our ascension, we were a colony without direction. Hornets infiltrated our hive and like we should have, we attacked as one. But somewhere along the line, we lost sight of our true purpose: to ascend to become the purest vessels of the Sculptor's power, the Targets, the Corrupted.

After Sofia's blood-bolt landed true on the Murmurstone, it yawned open. Rift light poured from the stone's mouth—blue—in curtains—divine. The first stage of our ascension was at hand. The Death Pact fled; appendages from our Lord erupted as altars from cracks in the soil.

Four Hunters more blessed by the Sculptor than we rose with them—bloated—alive—not alive. Four Drowned angels, full of mud. We shot and fired and bombed and pushed, but they paired off. They pushed back with filthy weapons and insects I would've held so close to me, so precious and holy, but they sacrificed them.

They shall not be forgiven. To see them set my heart on fire. It made me doubt my vows, and so I crushed my heart to pull the trigger of my gun and believe once more.

One of our Brothers leapt from an altar onto the Murmurstone, dynamite in his teeth. The explosion stilled the air, and the stone shrieked, opening up like a jaw before it caught one of our Sisters, diving away with her into the soil. It ripped her apart, smearing a long red line as it went.

I can feel it. Some queen is ready to descend from the fog and lay her larva with a quiet thorax. How I wish to go up to such soft flesh and palpitate it like her. How I want to be the first thing seen by what's born from that womb.

How I wish I could birth anything other than a human.

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Chapter Three: Drowned Rat

Risen again, The Drowned Rat is driven to revenge by her splintered mind.

Ink on Papyrus Scroll
Found at (illegible) Collection

Breathe water. Gulp tar. Pump mud through your heart, if you have one still.

Never was a fan of sunshine. The cloud cover is the only thing keeping me from losing my—

—Cold and violent, the Land of the Dead is with you. Let its tides taste your thoughts. Cradle your ambitions, your fingers as it strangles life from the living—

One moment, I'm back in the bayou, finding what I was sent here for. Then my sight splits in two. In four. In numbers I don't have the mind to count anymore. Like that damn Witch told us, the Land of the Dead has sown its Desolation here.

Honestly, I always hated the bayou. Was almost happy to see it—

—Sink. Sink so far it feels like rising. At the bottom of the world is the sky, where our Moon makes her knives so sharp they—

Was almost happy to see it dying.

Found the Helmsman with two Smugglers. Still had that awful metal around his face. When he saw us, he tried to shoot me with an empty gun.

"What are you sailors more afraid of?" I asked. "Ghosts, or captains?"

Laffite stepped out to join me. The Helmsman ran, but—

—Stab. Bite. Their eyes, remove them. The things they've seen, remove them. Feed them to the many thousand mouths that gasp, swallow, funnel to the Land—

I came to my senses holding one of the Smugglers' heads, and an arm too. Oh well. The Witch told us this might happen. That even if our Drowned-selves lost control sometimes, we were doing the right thing.

Every blessing rides on the back of a curse—

—every shadow laughs on the back side of blood.

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Chapter Four: Daughter of Decay

A new arrival to the bayou offers tea and money for blood, to ensure the Hunt continues.

Undated
Tale of Forsaken Soils, Second Harvest

My introduction to the Drowned was seeing The Delphine's captain and the Rat rip two Hunters in half.

At first, I'd judged the amount of blood in the air as signs of Rotjaw. I was wrong.

Death seemed the only conversation to be had with these Drowned creatures, but a stranger's hand stayed my rifle, tipping the barrel down. When I looked up, there stood a man in a suit with long coat tails.

He offered me a cup of steaming tea. “May we speak somewhere less...ghastly?"

He had my respect for sneaking so quietly through the bramble, so I obliged. We went to a train car made into a small outpost. The man smelled of earthen depths that should never be touched, covered up with perfume. He was an animal if animals sought to mate with money.

"Pretty country down here," he said.

I eyed my tea, was afraid to drink it.

"Now, I know Finch departed this world with somewhat of a shaky reputation," he went on. "But the operation you Hunters are set upon extends far and wide. So, I've come down to offer assurances. Bounties will still be paid. The parties I represent would hate for harvesting to diminish."

"I don't care about money, I care about keeping the soil free of curses. These Drowned poison it with altars, with ash."

"Ah yes," he said. "These Drowned folks. I beg you to speak with them. Show compassion, even."

"They rip Hunters in half for fun," I replied.

"Did you consider they may be horrified by that?" He rolled a Bounty Token across his knuckles.

"Like you are horrified of losing money?" I asked.

"No," he said, inhaling steam. "More like the horror your mother felt when you ate the berries from her ribs. When you chewed the turnips bulging from her hips beneath that soft, soft soil."

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Chapter Five: The Beekeeper

The Cowl ascends to the top of the Demented rabble. The swarm is blessed by blood, beetles, and bitter honey.

Almanac of the Swarm
Second Comb

When you were a baby, I placed you in a beehive. The bees did not sting you, but you cried and soiled yourself. Even then the bees forgave you—crawled down your throat to let you know—but you couldn't accept their forgiveness. I am earning that forgiveness for you. Everything I do is for you.

***Page Torn, Pasted with Black Honey to 1895 Almanac***

Butcher's Cleaver failed us. Brothers and Sisters gathered at the sawmill for his sentencing. The Cowl had bound the Cleaver to the base of a log flume.

We were forbidden to chant. We were instructed to think.

"I am thankful for our leader bringing us together," the Cowl said. "But I am ashamed of his failure in securing the Murmurstone's Graven Path—the passage to our Lords."

A Brother hooted. A Sister slid a katana through his throat.

At the flume top, Morrigan and Midian poured out a large trough. Beetles glistened in torchlight as they rushed in a black flash of abdomens. I spooned blood honey onto Butcher's Cleaver, and it drew in the swarm to envelop him.

The sounds of insect ecstasy were broken by the crack of a rifle. The Cowl worked the action of his Krag, and another shot rang out. The swarm of beetles took each bullet, shredding in a spray of mandibles—feelers—exoskeletons.

"We must imagine a new kind of violence," the Cowl continued. "The way one creature does not stop eating another until its body is gone."

More shots. More holy carnage. More beetles pouring down the flume to replace their fallen.

"See how they move? No leaders, no weak points, just purpose. Pure and noble."

We listened to the Cleaver's muffled squeals as the beetles continued to feast on the honey, on him.

"We shall become like the swarm," he concluded. "Find your own way. Deceive. Lie. Incinerate. Surge until the Graven Path is found. If you fail, the other Pacts will ascend. Punishment is all that will await you."

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Chapter Six: Drowned Rat

The Drowned Pact recover the Smugglers' gear and prepare to dive once more.

Ink on Papyrus Scroll
Found at (illegible) Collection

—Let us drink from the fountain of death. Here's to the Hunter. Here's to—

The Kid whistled as he dug. Water poured from a hole in his cheek. Thirteenth Mate tracked some Demented who were rounding up unpledged Hunters with ropes.

"Try digging quietly," I told him. "Like the captain."

We'd lifted a map from the Helmsman's friends. All the Smugglers' weapons were cached, ripe for the pickin'.

"Do you still see it?" The Kid gurgled, digging out more weapons.

"What you mean—"

—You can never unsee the Mound. It towers. Always looms. Runs the rain silver. Blows ash that seeps through worlds. Its weight is the weight that makes all things sink—

"Oh. You mean that Altar Mound as tall as a mountain? Yeah, I still see it. Gonna be seeing it forever, I bet."

Captain and the Kid handed me guns and dynamite bundles. The weapons were mud-caked. Holding them was the first time I realized I'd never be clean again.

"Kid, you ever just want to give up?" I asked without meaning to.

"Sure, 'course I do," he said. "Then I remember we're lucky."

What a brat. A brat with enthusiasm. Guess I admired him for that. He was right, we could have been trapped in the Land of the Dead's Desolation. Turned into strange statues. Devoured alive by myths we never heard of, which now roamed the dead swamps.

Thirteenth Mate fired off a flare. The other Pacts had found us. It was time to drag all our fates underwater to drown hand in hand.

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Chapter Seven: Daughter of Decay

Hunters convene to hear the Drowned's plea, and forge a path to the underworld.

Undated
Tale of Forsaken Soils, Third Harvest

The four Drowned reeked. Dead fish smell misted out their mouths as they panted. They huddled in shame around weapons and a weeping altar. I felt bad for them.

I stood with the other Pacts who were gathered. This was more people than I'd ever seen before. Felis and her Primal friends, sad folks from the Death Pact, my fellow Grounded, and even Smugglers showed up.

With all our guns drawn, the Drowned spoke first.

"Place your ear to the earth," they said. "Listen."

I was the only one to do as they said. Ear to the ground, I heard many hearts beating. They beat deep and rooted. I didn't need to listen long to know one of them was mine.

"The Sculptor's gifts aren't free," the Drowned Rat told me. "Every time you touch an altar, something is taken from you. A knowing. A truth. It has grown in the Land of the Dead, returned with teeth to eat us all." She shot the altar and it screeched.

"That's lunacy," Felis said. I hushed her.

"Soon you'll not belong to yourself anymore," the Thirteenth Mate said. "The blood in your body will marble. You'll be trapped inside the worst thing you've ever done, and the Sculptor will feed on it. It'll swallow this place whole."

"Doesn't matter," the Drowned Rat said. "We're being collected, eaten—here's the point. If you want to stay yourselves, follow us. Or don't. We all got our own problems."

"Go where?" a strange solo Hunter asked. I smelled a sickly honey behind her mask of branches. She scribbled notes in a large almanac.

"Down in Kingsnake Mine, there is a passage made by the Murmurstone: the Graven Path. We'll make for it at dawn."

Tears stained my mask. I'd heard more than my own heart in the ground. I heard my family's. I heard a last chance to say goodbye to them.

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Continue here to read Tide of Desolation: Part Two.