I walked, step by step as I had done for weeks. The soles on my boots worn thin by the sands of famine that plague this entire region. The crops I had heard once consumed this land only dry and wither away to rejoin the crumbling earth. As I continued my solitary death march towards the Oklahoma border, I was surprised when I was engulfed by shadow, too quiet to have been a sandstorm. There it stood, close enough for me to taste its breath, was a large black stallion. Bigger than any I had ever seen, and rotting like a leper. It spoke with the voice like the devil, and I knew at once. It must be pestilence, or at least it's steed. Perhaps my hubris was too great, but I saw in that moment, my fate before me. I was to accept the demon's challenge. Beat sickness itself and beat back the illness and the flies. A doctor against the plague.

It marked me after that. A dead man grabbed my hand, wiping away my sleeve and leaving a blank space the size and shape of a horsefly. He warned that should I fail enough jobs, and the fly touch the cross, then he would win our wager. I know not what that would entail.

He sent us begrudgingly to contain a different plague. Not one of his, but one of mantis eggs, so small they can not be seen by the naked eye. They had infected the local water supplies, and would manifest with these manti growing rapidly under the skin of those who drink it. We managed to find the source at the well, and after my team had dropped into the well to observe it, I had to orchestrate an emergency rescue. After they were brought up, we set fire to the well, which seemed to kill every mantid. The creature in the well was none other than the mayor's own son, who had gotten sick, and a supposed doctor came to town, and made him better for a time. But by the time we got to town, he had become a mantid abomination.

Find the black bird masked doctor, and make him cease.

Rust Water, Texas. That is where our notebooks The Mare had given us had told us to go. A town smaller than even the Township of Mountview. A group had passed through there some time ago, maybe a month prior. They restored water to the town, an awful rusted red water, which while not the best tasting, would ensure there would never be a child born who would have to live with an iron deficiency. What they had to live with instead was the long, waking hours, weeks without sleep. I was worried that this inability to rest may drive these people to their breaking points. So we asked around, and found the source of the sickness. A man who had killed his wife and children in a fit of madness who had been hanged more than a month back. So we set off to find his home, to trace this pathogen back to its origin.

The house was abandoned, all animals in the area were silent or non existent. We fared well for a time, but it was only a matter of hours before we felt the hand of sleep pressing down on us, and eventually we were all searching with our eyes half closed, aside from Allie, who was, as usual, a ball of youthful energy. As we continued to search, we found the symbol printed on the covers of our notebooks. The circle with three inward pointing arrows, surrounded by a blocky perimeter shape, almost like a vault door. Who were these people, and why do we have their relics? It looked like their plan accounted for any power outage, but perhaps only on a local scale. We managed to contain the sleep demon inside this room, after the blacksmith and Carson repaired the measures to keep it in place. Once it had been sealed, our drowsiness seemed to fade. I felt bad about lying to the people of the town, but we needed them to believe that the house was dangerous, so we told them the sicnkess had come from something inside, a disease. We then proceeded to give them "free immunizations" to help with the cover. It was just tea.

My hands shake as I write this, both from rage and the unsteadiness of the trail we walk. I have had it up to here with these so called doctors believing that their position and skills mean they can harm people for their own gain with no consequences. The saddest thing to see is someone who is truly skilled fall to the ways of greed and decadence.

Seeing those who were harvested for that man’s sick gain it… something inside me 

snapped. Seein’ what that man did to those folks… especially the kid. Pulled out all of her fuckin teeth. Who does that shit? Might grab bug and ask her if she’d be willing to help us run a little siege of their town…

I think that’s a bad idea. You can’t stand putting her in harms way, and even with her help I don’t think the handful of us could pull off something so drastic. They’re powerful and well armed.

Yeah, I know but I know that y’know that we’ve gotta do something about it. No matter how much shit we talk about the town, how much weight can we really throw around to block their trade routes. We have to do something.

I am putting together a plan but… I need time. Keep driving Sally along, I need a quiet moment to think about this. We have a long road ahead of us. Plenty of time for us to think up our next few moves. First him, then the rogue North Star building.