"Descent"

(OOP: this is found on a web page devoted to unlocking conspiracies in the Burgunn Empire. The "Dark Hackers" are a well known bunch of conspiracy theorists, but widely discredited by "learned" folks inside the empire... generally regarded as the internet's version of a tabloid.)

And again the Dark Hackers have brought you another encrypted email from everyone's lovable pals, the Burgunn Empire. Read, enjoy, and remember - if you're gonna drink, don't drink and operate a Pathway.

To Ghurad Brakhaine of House Brakhaine, from your humble servant, Constable Hargan Brakhaine

Dr. Brakhaine,

In your last inquiry to my office, you asked me to send you all the data in the file compiled by one of my investigators, a Rinn by the name of Altari Starwind. As you know already, Agent Starwind had been in charge of following the known necromancer Kazhul Daystalker as part of one of our operations. Due to the classified nature of this investigation, we are unable to release the entire Daystalker file but I have enclosed all of the material that we are willing to release. Unfortunately, Agent Starwind was almost as mad as her topic of study, so we are unsure as to what you hope to get out of this document.
In addition, the dates have been removed for security purposes. The log has been annotated by one of my aides to maintain consistency.

Starwind's Log; Day 1: I have located Dr. Daystalker, his offices at the Institute of Higher Medicine are just outside the Buc'neal province on Celecan. Although a small village, the Institute is fairly well known around the nearby provinces so my presence here should not draw too much attention. This company constitutes most of the economic stability in this village, and most of the locals are either employees of the medical center or private businesses that contribute to the medical trade such as hotels and restaurants. Most of the villagers live in the medical center barracks itself - although I haven't been able to gain entry into the barracks themselves, local data seems to indicate the structures have large family style apartments built into them, along with laundry and other support facilities.
It will take a few days until I am able to see Dr. Daystalker, I will have to work slowly to avoid blowing my cover as a nurse here.
The rest of my unit is in place. Agents Dextran and DC83KDN352KC have taken residence in a hotel, so Dextran's "daughter" Cali can be treated at the institute. Agents Ghrish and Klaz are out in the fields somewhere prepared to run an extraction, and Agent Devian has moved into the hotel room below mine. Dextran's team will be leaving within a few weeks as soon as we get the all-clear from Command.

Starwind's Log; Day 8: I have applied at the Institute as an intern in bio-regeneration and expect to be hired soon. My main competition, Bendyl Calignan, reportedly suffered from an acute heart attack and is now a patient at the Institute so he will be unable to interview for the position.

Starwind's Log; Day 10: The Institute has offered me an interview. Dr. Julan Brakhaine has been of much assistance and has arranged for my interview to be with himself, Dr. Ilna Poshyeli, Dr. SDF23GG289DK, and Dr. Daystalker. After some discussion it is Dr. Brakhaine's professional opinion that I would be best suited as a member of Dr. Daystalker's personal staff rather than just an intern.

Starwind's Log; Day 13: After my interview, the committee has decided to hire me onto the Institute staff. Dr. Poshyeli seemed a bit reluctant to take anyone with my limited medical experience, but Dr. Brakhaine helped me convince him. Dr. Daystalker was exactly as his personnel file indicated - Early 20's, slightly overweight, and very courteous and polite. He seemed rather quiet as well, but spoke when he had something to say. He was dressed somewhat conservatively for a Rinn, and the dark purple tattoo of clan Ki'Jath looked almost like a beard on both sides of his lower jaw. I found this unusual, since the clan's members generally prefer a crescent moon on the upper arm. His clothing was somewhat rumpled, although this is hardly a surprise considering that he is at this time unmarried and he spends long hours in the research wing of the Institute.

Starwind's Log; Day 15: I have been assigned to work with Dr. Daystalker in the bio-regeneration ward. As suspected, he is a Musician of some talent. While I myself have some skill in this area, I plan on keeping it a secret and slowly introducing it slowly.

Starwind's Log; Day 19: Dr. Daystalker has observed that I seem to have a natural aptitude while working with patients. It has been difficult for me to suppress my healing talents when I could be helping more people than the more conventional technology allows for, but I must maintain the image of an inexperienced medical specialist. I believe he may have caught on to the tuning I performed on one of the patients, but if he did he didn't say anything. Dr. Daystalker's file does not indicate his aptitude for awareness; this is something the survey teams should look more closely at in the future. Knowing how likely a target is to observe your actions would be of some benefit to field agents.

Starwind's Log; Day 25: Dr. Daystalker obviously noticed my tuning one of the patients today. He hasn't said anything, but I expect he will soon.

Starwind's Log; Day 28: Dr. Daystalker has again noticed my tuning a patient. This time, however, he commented that he had noticed my skills and indicated that he wished to develop them further. He asked me if I had any more appreciable powers than just the ability to tune, I said that I didn't. Hopefully he'll decide to take me on as an apprentice soon, then perhaps I can actually use the skills I have instead of hiding them.

Starwind's Log; Day 29: Instead of making the rounds, Dr. Daystalker insisted we spend the first few hours of the morning pursuing my growth in Harmonics. I fear I must report that I am a dreadfully slow learner and managed to only use one power during the entire session. He taught me the appropriate rhythms for several basic healing powers, although I only seemed to do well in one of them. Perhaps more work will yield better results.

Starwind's Log; Day 36: After a solid week of working with me, I think Dr. Daystalker is about to give up and write me off. I'll have to have an epiphany soon or I fear that he will write me off entirely as too stupid to learn the arts. If he only knew the truth. At this point in time I am fairly confident that he is not much more skilled in the arts than I am, although obviously he is in a better position to demonstrate it. After I manage to master the song that can identify undead I think he means to teach me to detect mystic arts. Given the lack of undead in the area to practice on, this could be some time.

Starwind's Log; Day 37: Perhaps I spoke too soon. While I didn't get to identify any personally, some of the field agents have spotted undead in the vicinity of the Institute. Grish stumbled over them while out on patrol today, and despite his superior sense of smell they managed to get the drop on him. Luckily, Agent Klaz was available to bail him out of trouble before any serious harm was done. We should be recieving his incident report in a matter of days, I look forward to reading it. The briefing I got on the incident was fairly short, other than the appearance of some minor undead I don't know anything about the situation at all. Neither of them seemed particularly shaken, Devian has some talent for healing himself; I would assume that he took care of any scratches or bumps on the poor furry.

Starwind's Log; Day 38: We are now in the dull and slow part of the infiltration process. Dextran's unit has finally decided I am entrenched enough to be left on my own, so he has left for his next assignment. Cali turned a miraculous recovery; apparently Dr. Brakhaine managed to stumble across a cure for her unusual illness. Devian will probably remain another week or so, but we don't anticipate any more abnormal situations.

Starwind's Log; Day 46: Dr. Daystalker has gone a step further than his personal training; he has now decided to make me his protégé. Perhaps now I will be allowed to access his personal labs and witness the experiments he is working on now. One of the Institute staff suffered a severe injury yesterday that left her hospitalized; it leaves a new vacancy in the barracks so I may be able to finally get an apartment of my own. Devian is in the process of extracting himself from the hotel, once I've attained a place at the Institute there's nothing he can do for me from there anyways. I haven't seen Grish or Klaz in several days now; I am starting to get concerned.

Starwind’s Log; Day 49: Grish was found on one of Devian’s patrols. Devian didn’t give me the exact details, but it seems that his entire body was drained of blood before being ripped apart piece by piece. His report states that Grish’s internal organs were almost completely removed and scattered around the area of the attack. The part that concerns me the most is that Grish’s personnel file specifically states that he has never before died, and he recently had a brand new cloning chip implanted. What could prevent the chip from working is beyond me.
In other news, I’ve managed to get into the vacated apartment in the Institute Barracks. This should help my mission considerably.

Starwind’s Log; Day 52: Agent Devian has moved back to our command center on {CENSORED}, taking Grish’s body with him. I’ve managed to get my hands on the autopsy reports from Command’s labs, and it doesn’t say much about what happened. Devian’s original thought was that it was a vampiric attack, despite Command’s insistence to the contrary, although he was proven wrong when the coroners couldn’t find any appropriate bite or injection marks. The only damage to the body that looks similar is where animals appeared to have tried to eat the body postmortem, but it is clear that the blood loss didn’t occur from those wounds.
While the body is in relatively good shape, the organs are not. Most of them appear ruptured, swollen or mangled, although what could cause that kind of damage is uncertain. Given this, Devian is sending a small team to investigate the death and locate Agent Klaz. While no one anticipates that he will be found alive, hopefully his death will give us more leads to go on. Command has reminded me that this investigation is none of my business, but any time I lose a squad member I feel obligated to resolve it.
I obviously haven’t told Dr. Daystalker about Grish, since that would be foolish considering my mission here. He did sense that I wasn’t myself, although he pushed me harder than normal during our training session. I’m not sure how much he’s holding back if he is holding back at all, but if he’s holding back much I don’t know for certain that I overpower him.

Starwind’s Log; Day 56: I am working towards mastering the art of detecting powers used on a target. On a normal day this would be child’s play, but I flubbed several of them to make sure he continues to underestimate me. It’s a very thin line since I must be careful not to learn too quickly or he’ll figure out that I am hiding something, but if I learn too slowly it may have the same result. So far he doesn’t seem to suspicious, but I’m trying to keep things at a fairly even pace.

Starwind’s Log; Day 59: They found Klaz last night. If Grish's death was unsettling, Klaz's death is downright scary. Most of the organs were found within one hundred yards of the body, but none were in very good shape. Aside from the scavenging by local wildlife, the damage to the organs appears to have been done by a claw pattern that matches Klaz's claws perfectly. Devian is hypothesizing that the damage was actually done by Klaz himself, but if this is true Klaz managed to rip out all of his internal organs and throw them around the field. While I'm not completely convinced of the merits of this theory, Klaz is the only being on the planet with the size required to do such a horrible act. While I've never actually been around any mystics who could control another being's thoughts I cannot rule it out but I do know that Klaz wouldn't do this to himself under normal circumstances. Also, he didn't clone either, despite having a functional chip as well. Whatever is attacking our team has the power to take us out permanently. Also interesting was that like Grish, there was a minimal amount of blood left in the body.
Dr. Daystalker took the day off today, as he said he was feeling quite ill. I had to tend the patients, which gave me an opprotunity to stretch my muscles and use some of my more powerful healing abilities.