IV. On the Private Journal

Ritalsin’s private journal was recovered from his manor after his departure. It is a document I have read in its entirety and wish I had not, because I can hear his voice in every entry — his real voice, the one that used to argue about methodology over coffee in the faculty lounge — and I can track, page by page, the moment when that voice stops belonging to the man I knew.

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15th Rova (September), 4722 AR

The dreams have grown more vivid of late, carrying geometric precision that human consciousness struggles to contain. Not the fragmentary nightmares I have endured since that accursed Night of the Missing Moment, but visions of crystalline clarity bearing the unmistakable signature of otherness. Otto has proven remarkably insightful in these matters, displaying an unusual depth of knowledge since returning from his brief absence eight weeks ago.

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28th Rova (September), 4722 AR

The memories return in fragments, triggered by Otto’s careful ministrations. I remember the white light filling Icegate, and within that radiance — truth. Not personal enlightenment, but direct contact with intelligence that operates according to laws which render our species’ accumulated knowledge obsolete. “You served willingly,” Otto reminds me. “The entity you encountered recognized your potential, your hunger for comprehension beyond human limitation. It honored you with purpose.”

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4th Lamashan (October), 4722 AR

At Otto’s suggestion, I have begun discrete recruitment of consortium members for “expanded research protocols.” He says that the “Marionette Maker,” the “Dream Leviathan” needs servants — consciousnesses that can be bent toward his desired transcendence. To maintain operational secrecy, I have concocted a story that these volunteers have been assigned to “distant field missions” investigating anomalies in remote locations far from Lepidstadt.

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11th Lamashan (October), 4722 AR

The Dream Eater’s liberation will herald not conquest but invitation, humanity’s opportunity to transcend the narrow confines of individual existence and join something magnificent.

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I knew Etward Ritalsin. He was a good scholar and a better man. That sentence is the most frightening thing I have ever read.