It's all a blur... My father was the chief Arkhon for High Templar Venarius - a cruel and pernicious ruler. Venarius wished to hold the world ransom with his occult relics from the rubble of Wraeclast, he believed they could venerate him even higher in his status.

My father was forced to experiment on the map device for him, in hopes that he would uncover some kind of weapon. I don't need to tell you that my father found something worthy of attention. And instead of handing it over, he made sure its power could not be misused, a surety that cost him his freedom and me... my childhood.

I returned to Oriath with one of the early survivor fleets, excited to finally have the opportunity to put my knowledge to good use. During the rebuilding effort, we stumbled across the golden device -- a device I later learned once belonged to my father.

I'd hoped that it might be useful in the resettlement effort at first, but when we discovered the Elder, it became clear that what lay beyond the device's portals was more likely to harm than help. I assembled a team in absolute secrecy, comprised of exiles who had proved their combat know-how in Wraeclast, and set to work sealing the Elder away. We were successful. The relief I felt... it was indescribable. But...

The Atlas is a dangerous place. It assaults both body and mind. It makes Wraeclast seem positively tame. My team, my friends, they were deeply affected by the journey. The allure of power finally caused them to lose their grip on reality.

And it was only a matter of time until I joined them.

This map device is a miracle of both engineering and thaumaturgy. It's truly astounding.

Given the right coordinates from a map, this device can take you to places that... well, honestly I think it's easier for you to see for yourself just what it is capable of.

What lies beyond is dangerous, but so are you. Yet even the godslayer may not be dangerous enough.

Take a Map and use it in this device. I'll wait for you on the other side.

I first started exploring the Atlas as a way to grow closer to my estranged father. I had no idea just how close I would get to him, though there was not much left of his mind by then...

Looking back, I think I was overly optimistic about what the Atlas could mean for... well, for everyone. Imagine limitless worlds, limitless resources, limitless open space in which to live.

But now I understand that it all comes at an insurmountable price. To dwell there is to leave yourself vulnerable to unspeakable madness. It's inescapable and insidious. It taps into your greatest desires, offering you a glimpse of what might be, and that temptation... it's all I could do to stop myself from falling into the same patterns as my friends...

The work we're doing is important, but it's also risky. Please, if you start to feel your sanity slip away, you need to tell me.

Baran: Prayer is the centre of his regimen. All other activities are flexible, including eating and sleeping, but prayer time never shifts. Bad knees.

Veritania: Insists on reading every night. Not sure where she got the books. Don't really care.
Talks in her sleep. Just noises, though - no discernible words.

Zana: Hiding something important. Not sure what yet. Probably related to what happened to the previous group. Keeps checking on us.

Drox: Loudmouth. Does weapon drills late into the night. Sometimes I hear him patrolling around the camp early in the morning. He must sleep, but I don't know when.

No... Sirus is still alive? Gods, I thought he was dead! He took the brunt of the energy released when we sealed the Elder. How did he survive?

Sirus was the leader of the group of Exiles I recruited. Brilliant and determined, and a force to be reckoned with even before we travelled the Atlas together. We... grew close. I was distraught when he vanished with the Elder. At first I thought the other Exiles were looking for him as I was, but perhaps they knew he was still alive...

I have a terrible feeling that Sirus may be tied to the madness of the others. Or perhaps he is just as mad as they are. We need to find and stop him -- if the others are looking for a way out, I'm certain he is too.

That creature you encountered out in the maps, he was... shaping things. Perhaps he's the architect we seek.

There was something off about him exile, something I can't place... Perhaps... no. This "Shaper" may have the answers.

Continue in your explorations, track this mystery man down once more and question him, so that we might be able to learn what exactly these worlds are for.

My dearest Zana,

Where are you now? I hope, as a father often does, that you are happy and tucked away in the safest of places. I hope you grow up kind and strong, that you love and are loved. It is my life's greatest regret that I will not see you again, but I must do what I can to protect you from the evils of this outer dark.

I have failed against the Elder. To be honest, I never had a chance. The creature was too strong, too well versed in the shaping ways. If Venarius had not damaged the weapon I built, that day he arrested me in my study, then perhaps I could've opened a void, forced it from its physical shell and out of this reality. But I no longer possess such a device and the Elder has suckled at my mind so many times now, that I fear I could not remember how to rebuild it, even if I tried.

My war with the creature is far from over however. I've no upper hand. But like a cornered animal, I will bite until I am gone. I've attempted to sleep and awaken in Oriath, many times. Hoped that one night I might get to hold you in my arms once again. But instead of my study, I dream of nothing.

I know this letter might never reach you, but I write it anyway – if not for you, then for the sake of my own fragile wits. I love you my darling daughter, and hope the best for you, far away from all this... cosmic darkness. You've made me very proud, and I've considered each day a blessing that I've been able to call you my daughter...

I must keep moving. I must keep fighting. Perhaps one day, if the gods allow it, we shall see each other once more. I love you greatly.

Your Papa, Valdo Caeserius

It appears my Father encountered this "Elder" sometime before his entrapment in its lair. Many of his most recent diaries make reference to the creature and his learnings around it. There wasn't much, just second-hand myths from the research journals of the Watchers of Decay.

One concept however, came up time and time again. This Elder is not a lord unto itself. It serves a greater master, or... a greater purpose... I'm unsure. It's confusing; both my father and the Watchers refer to the Elder as "coming from the nothing" while also being "a carrier for the nothing." There are also mentions of an unholy desire to spoil and decay... perhaps it all relates somehow to those fungal growths we've seen in the maps...

I've been doing more research into the Elder and its battle with the Watchers of Decay. It's truly mortifying the things they've endured at the creature's hands.

These Watchers, they were all... parents. It seems the Elder prefers its prey young. These men and women fought tooth and nail to avenge their children, perhaps even succeeding for a time... But the Elder has been free for the better part of two decades. Its taste in food could explain the steady disappearance of children in the upper class of Oriath.

What if those children are still here, in this place? Twisted, tormented creatures, clinging to whatever fragments of happy memories they've left... We must alleviate their sufferings.

Baran is talking about God again, so I told him I need to go "write in my journal". What is it about the Templar training that results in such boring storytellers? He's nice enough, I guess. I just wish we could weaponise his stories somehow. Could probably just send the demon to sleep for good.

Yesterday I hunted a boar for the group. Today, Drox brought back two. Tomorrow I'll bring back three. Show that loud idiot that I'm the top hunter.

I know Zana can sense the tension between Drox and myself. I don't think she knows that I can sense the tension between her and Sirus. I've seen her making eyes at him. I've seen him making eyes at her too. I don't think either one of them knows the other is interested.

I thought Veritania was flirting with me, as she spoke with a smile for once, but I just had boar blood on my lip and it looked like a red moustache. After I wiped it off she went back to reading.

Shut up Baran. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

I forfeit. He wins. I'm going to bed.

I think I understand it now... This Atlas, these maps... they aren't so much worlds as they are like the performance stage in the Theopolis Amphitheatre. These worlds are merely disguises for what truly lies behind the curtain.

This place... this is the nexus of the Elder's worlds, the place from which all its hunting grounds are formed... We are close to the void from which it was birthed, yet my Father has chosen this as his home. Curious indeed. Hiding in plain sight perhaps? Though, what captain regularly frequents the bowels of his ship? Maybe the Elder rarely visits this place. It is busy, I suppose, hunting and feasting elsewhere in the maps...

Exile, I will ready my Father's memories. You go on ahead, scout this place, find my Father, but be wary of what horrors might lurk down here in the belly of this evil machine.

Father, it's me! Let me help you!

His memories... of me... gone. Devoured by that abomination! Curse it! My Father will... he'll never know me again.

At least... At least I got to speak with him one last time. He recognized me. Did you see that, Exile? He knew my face! ...and now he's in torment once again.

If we cannot restore his memories, then we must free him from this prison. I can't believe I am to ask this of you, but we must defeat this Elder. Perhaps with it gone, my Father will give up his ghost and be finally laid to rest.

You're fast on your feet exile. I'm glad you have decided to stick through this with me. Look, it seems my concerns were... justified. The Decay we've seen throughout the Atlas, it's here. Perhaps our activities in the Atlas might have weakened the barriers between this world and the maps. Without my Father's full strength to keep it at bay, the Elder's true master - Decay - is seeping through.

I promised you a reward for helping me find my father, well here it is - an item from my Father's secret study. Please, take it and stay on this journey with me - there is yet more we can accomplish together.

I remember almost everything now about my Father's studies into the map device. I remember how he locked himself away to work on this weapon. I've managed to read his notes on the weapon while I was waiting for you to arrive. The science is... incomprehensible at best. Nearest I can tell, the Arcana exhibits a blast of wrath once it has been fully charged, and when directed at the Elder will force it to take on the form it held before it entered our dimension.

We know that form to be, as my father puts it, non-corporeal. In short - that which is not physical cannot exist in a dimension of physics. It will be forced out and back to where it belongs, hopefully unable to return. As I said, it is tenuous, but I trust my father, and this is the only hope we have.

I've done a fair bit of travelling in my life, as smugglers tend to. I'd seen some strange sights. Met some very homely, unsympathetic, and downright frightening individuals, usually 'round the pub. I thought I was as brave as they come.

What I saw today shook me to my core. It emerged from nothing, like mist rising from the water's edge, accompanied by dozens of shapeless... things. I felt my heart freeze. Goosebumps, everywhere, and I really mean everywhere. Its arms were tangled and many, its mouth an endless black abyss. It was the monster we were pursuing

I have never been more scared. Just being in its presence, I could feel my life being ripped away, dissolving like sugar in water.

I understand now just how great the stakes are. I wanted a purpose... well, now I have one.

It's happening, isn't it? The Elder is on its way. We are at the end of the road, Exile. Does it look off into success? Or does the horizon hold nothing but death and decay? I hope you're ready, my friend.

We need to weaken the creature before the Cosmic Arcana can do its job. I wish you luck, and should we not meet again... it's been an honour to fight by your side.

To the discoverer of this letter,

What transpired here in this strange and twisted realm is beyond comprehension. An evil older than time itself roamed these lands feeding on the memories of Valdo Caeserius, a son of Oriath.

Alas, the fiend that fed upon him was powerful beyond measure, and unerring in its desire to spread what we discovered was known as the 'Decay.' I know not how long we pursued the demon. Long enough that my allies began to show signs of madness. We'd surely have fallen to the evil were it not for Sirus' courageous leadership... and his sacrifice.

We could find no way to slay the demon, though we tried countless times. It was the daughter of Valdo who found a way to seal it, though it cost poor Zana her father, rest his soul. Our gambit would have failed were it not for Sirus. The demon would not give in, clawing its way from Zana's device. Sirus... He leapt onto it. We saw the demon tap into his body, at last relinquishing its grip. Sirus and the demon spiraled into the trap and out of our reality. Both gone.

Then Sirus was there once more. None of us witnessed his return. His eyes did not move, he did not blink, and his mutterings... Mad and unceasing. Then his face contorted in ways I'd seen only from men possessed by the black spirit. He struck at us again and again. We could not restrain him. We had to flee that place. That is when we discovered our path home was sealed. Valdo's daughter had sabotaged our return.

I do not know how long we have been trapped here. Weeks, at least. Possibly years. Time in the Atlas is a mirage.

Please, dear reader, if you have an ounce of sense in your body, do not dwell here. Return to Oriath, or wherever it is you are from. Tell of Sirus' heroism and sacrifice, and leave him, and us, to die with the secrets we uncovered.

Baran, the Faithless

We did it... It's over... it's finally over. My father, wherever he is, I can sense him. He's at peace... Thank you, exile.

The Arcana! It worked! And I wasn't worried for a second! Though... The Elder and the Decay... Although we have banished them both, the encounter has... changed me somehow. I feel the creature, scratching at the skin between our dimensions. It's desperate. It's hungry. It's... trying to find a way back in.

I don't think I'll sleep again for a long while. I need to make sure we are prepared in case it returns. Perhaps I'll restore the Watchers of Decay to guard our world... This place - the Atlas, is of the Elder. With more research it could give us further clues to the exact nature of the Decay. If you wish to, you're free to study and explore these worlds alongside me. Perhaps you could still do some good in this place - the Elder's victims - all those children... there must be thousands of them, wandering these lands, twisted and corrupted, alone - perhaps even afraid. Like my Father, they beg to be set free from their torment. Killing them would be an act of mercy. You could be an agent of that mercy, my friend.

For now, I must leave you. I need to prepare for my next expedition.