Beyarma's Journal, vol.III

The basilisk blood concoction has succeeded so far at causing pronounced calcification of skin and muscle tissues around the applied area, but the spread is minimal. Need to work on getting it to carry through the bloodstream to the rest of the subject.

Carrion grub stomach fluid has proven the most successful reagent overall of the tested substances. Postmortem it retains its corrosive properties, and after some tinkering a few drops of it has proven capable of reducing an imp to stinking sludge within a minute's time.

And that's just from adding a few spores. What else does the Plaguelands have to offer?

The Argent apothecaries speak of a much-cautioned fungus that makes its home in the area around Stratholme. They theorize that it originally targeted small insects, such as spiders or ants, before heavy concentrations of plague mutated it into its far more dangerous state today. Bats, once their innards have been eradicated, are prompted in their last moments to find a high perch so that the new spores can fall onto anything beneath. Grubs carry it to a feeding site and burst, spreading the fungus to other grubs in proximity. Even undead have occasionally been seen bearing the distinctive ascocarps--one ghoul was reportedly observed for weeks shambling around and spreading spores until the growths overtook it so completely as to render it physically incapable of movement.

Why is it carrion grubs specifically that burst, when most other hosts just fall still?

Imagine if a demon could be infested and directed back towards its fellows. 

I think it's time to go visit some apothecaries.

I'm fairly certain I've started to catch some queer looks when people ask where I've been disappearing to these last couple weeks. The important thing is that most of it is working now, and the wards have worked at ensuring nothing untoward gets carried out of the testing area. 

Imps and fel hounds have so far proven readily susceptible hosts for the plague-amplified ascomycete. I have a couple days yet to see if I can replicate the explosive method of transmission found in infected Plaguelands grubs, and at this rate I suppose I will have to wait until I'm deployed and have cause to test it out on larger prey, but the fungus now settles in beautifully and directs the infected towards uninfected as it should. 

The basilisk's blood formula needs further work to spread through the bloodstream more quickly, but after some collaboration with the apothecaries it does, in fact, fully petrify a good radius of bodily matter around the application site. In its current state, it may be best to apply to the throat, spine or chest; places where the immediate spread will have a good chance at claiming vital organs or key neural regions.

And there's still far more marvels out here in the Plaguelands just waiting to be turned against the Legion. This curse's immunity to conversion by plague is a beautiful things for gathering reagents.

Perhaps I ought tell one of the Servitors what I have been working on. Anthus, at the very least, might have some ideas to chip on on how to make this even more effective.

But will they understand? Even considering we do already have warlocks, undead, and a demon hunter, most of this stuff DID come straight from the Plague.

I am being careful. They will understand after the Legion is gone. 

April 10

I'd forgotten I even still had this with me, squashed under my little Plaguelands box. Funny how war distracts you from spilling your thoughts.

Tomorrow we set out to say bog off to the impossible and fell a fel reaver. As nothing I have at my disposal is capable of either ensnaring or damaging it, I'm to be part of the bait team leading it on to its hopeful downfall. I suppose by rights I ought to be more terrified. I should normally be panicking over the many ways this could end terribly; perhaps I should question our sanity for even assuming to confront this thing in the first place. But, curiously, I am perhaps the calmest I can ever recall feeling.

Maybe it's knowing that--for now, at least--the farm and my family are out of the Legion's way. Maybe I genuinely do believe that if anyone can manage this without losing the entire group of us, and get me back home to Gaius, it's the Lions of Lothar, tested and true. Or maybe I've just exhausted the last of my dread on years of fearing and whinging over inconsequential rubbish, and I'm just too tired by now to care much if I get flatted under a reaver's foot--in the worst case scenario, at least I can hope to see Rhodge and Mum again on the other side.

However this ends, I'm ready to spend possibly the last day of my life hauling tail faster than a goblin fleeing a prism's rainbow.