Recovered field journal – Imperial Expeditionary Scholar Varnell
Entry 42 – Northeastern Approach, 3rd of Coldset, Year 702 CR
Inside their mountain homes, the Khuldinai remain an enigma. We have tracked their paths as far as the frost cliffs allow, but beyond that, nothing. Several caves that we have explored yielded no clues. No animals inhabit them, and we still have not found the entrances to their tunnel systems.
Only once did we glimpse a figure, cloaked in iron and fur that blended into the rock. It watched us from the ridge and remained still for hours. At first we thought it was a statue, until it moved.
Trade from the Khuldinai arrives unaccompanied. Weighted crates, tools without names, scripts that we were unable to translate. Each shipment calibrated to a precise degree, never leaving anything more or any less. I asked one of their envoys what drives their people. He simply said: “Decay is a failure of design.”
That phrase has haunted me ever since.
We know nothing more than we learned in the city. Still, I…
What remains is incomprehensible.