Blightheart

A small, oilskin-wrapped letter lay with the arquebus in the grave. The penned letters are blocky and deliberate.

"Well, now you've done it, fool. I don't know if you be a graverobber or just an opportunistic knacker, but you've stepped into a mess in either case. You found the gun, and I don't suppose anything I write here will convince you to put it back where you found it. So be it. Listen, and listen well.

There be dark places in certain forests where souls linger after death. Hangman trees, quicksand mires, deadfalls, and the like - places where people met their end. The mênpŵgra find these places, hungry for the soul energies. I seen them. It was my job to clear them out of the woods, them and other monsters, and I was damn good at it. Good enough to become prideful - and foolish.

I killed me a big one, a mênpŵgra matriarch. A mean bitch, she was, cruel and hungry. Thought I'd make her into a trophy. Took her twisted, wooden heart out and fashioned a new tool of my trade."

There's a blank area at the bottom of the letter, as if some of the text is missing.