murk wraiths do not pursue and they are not predators in the conventional sense — a sighting alone, documented across multiple encounters in my records, is associated with impending misfortune, and eye contact compounds this considerably. Nigel Hapworth, the librarian at the Hellsborough terminus, made eye contact on Middlewood Road; he was annihilated at the hinge by the following Besd'y. His hivemind query is still pending. It will remain pending.

A gruizer is a living vehicle, and this took some time to understand and considerably longer to accept — Van described his first encounter in terms of ships, and then mentioned, almost as an aside, that the craft were alive. Hull plates overlapping like scales, an organic drive that throbs through the decking, and a flank that flinches when struck by funget fire. Field note: speak to it before you touch anything. It responds to voice before controls. The alternatives are not good.

Call themselves the First Born of The Dark Peak, the Woad trace their lineage back to the fungi that colonised the world before anything else made a start, and they are defensive about it in the way that only an ancient and terrifying race can be. Their flesh hangs off their faces like candle wax left near a Fecunder. Van Hallam, not easily impressed by combat, described their feighting skills as second to nowt — and said it with some emotion, a century later.

Van Hallam named me his trusted first lieutenant over a Double IPA at a table serviced by Foul Linda, while most of the bitterfinger sat close enough to hear. His reasoning, delivered with the confidence of someone who has never once considered they might be wrong: the others were reactive, he said — none of them had that yearnin' for learnin'. I have since learned that this is Van's standard method: compliment freely, then wait for you to make the thing he wants seem like your own idea.