My friends, I am in trouble.

I had mostly prepared a message already to send to you in the name of the Athasian Survey Project during my approach to L’Rax, but Odten’s pterrax has been brought down, and I’ve been separated from my companion. I can feel the kreen hunters closing in on me now.

At this point, my capture is inevitable, but my fate is not if I am resourceful and the message I am now sending reaches the right people.

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We had left the Avandaellen Plateau the morning after I sent my last message, doing a cursory pass over the mountains northwest of the plateau - I have heard them called the Broken Delve Mountains by one source. I find it interesting that we have almost no sources for information for anything this far west. Even the kreen seem to have never bothered to venture very far into this region. Back when I was still in Urik, preparing for my trip into the Kreen Empire and planning my route, I repeatedly asked the most knowledgeable archivists and our best tohr-kreen contacts, and no one seemed willing (or able) to give me a straight answer. The closest I came to real information was the rumor that there are ancient Blue Age abominations in the western regions of the Kreen Empire. Such a concept filled me with awe and terror. I had naively hoped in my brief pass over these mountains that I might catch a glimpse of something so venerable, but I saw nothing.

I was undaunted, and asked Odten to direct his pterrax north towards the Frontier Swamp. We were both fully aware of the risk of traveling this region – not only were we deeper into the Kreen Empire than any humanoid had ever freely traveled in untold king’s ages, but we were traversing a border region even the Kreen Empire considered dangerous.

We soared over the vast and seemingly endless Crimson Savannah. While I had been seeing this endless sea of pinkish-red grassland stretching out before me since leaving behind the Jagged Cliffs, the view coming down from the cloudy tops of the Avandaellen plateau gave me the feeling that I was flying over a milder version of the Sea of Silt. I wondered if this is not unlike how the seas looked like when they were filled with water? For one who has lived his entire life observing the Tough flora and fauna of the Tablelands’ deserts, the wind gently waving across this sea of living grass was a graceful and almost gentle sight.

I had been lost in thought again. That is why I didn’t notice the cloud ray that had been sneaking up on us ever since we left the cliffs of the Avandaellen Plateau behind.

I did not need to warn my esteemed pterrax handler. He saw the beast at the same time I did and knew the danger we were now in. All I could do was hold on tight, and use my source to identify the angle where the barbed tail would be coming next, to give us a chance to evade it.

We nearly made it to the airspace above Zak’Tlki’Trin - a mixed Kreen city as I recall - located on the edge of the J’dals’ territory. This was when the cloud ray caught our pterrax with its whipping tail. The creature screeched, and sloped down into a gradual but inevitable dive to the long grass of the savannah. When we crashed, we were thrown off the pterrax as its body folded from the impact, and I only recall hitting the ground rolling before I blacked out.

When I awoke, Odten was nowhere to be seen, and I did not know where I was. The grass here was tall enough to hide my presence, explaining why I had not been found yet, but I could feel several hunting packs slowly closing in around me.

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I have just enough time to send this message. If someone, anyone, who receives this has contacts among the Kreen Empire or the trin, reach out to them on my behalf as a matter of urgency.

I must go now. May the moons guide you.

Sources:
* Secrets of the Crimson Savannah manuscript
* Terrors of Athas
* Thri-kreen of Athas