A NOTE FOR READERS: The journals of Zong-Tossu, though fascinating, should not be taken as accurate. Even though he was considered a great ghav-urath, eventually many of his writings were dismissed as the products of severe psychosis by the ruling council of Thamasku and simply regarded as fiction or parody. It was rumored Zong-Tossu had a mental breakdown caused by his usage of the narcotic cam-rahn.

“It says its flesh is sick - it is dying, it has been for a long time - but parts of it are diseased and leaking corrupt fluids. It wants this disease purged, and believes YOU can do it, master Zong-Tossu!” Cho’ka had said. I could only stand there, flabbergasted and staring at my thri-kreen friend for a moment. “Wh..why does it believe that, Cho’ka?” Tr’Shadai asked.

“Because I have communicated to the Sky Ark who we are, Tr’Shadai, and it now knows Zong-Tossu to be a master life-shaper. It believes he should have the knowledge to heal it.” responded Cho’ka. “The Sky Ark says that we will find what we need on the other side of this chamber, and that the source of the corruption is through this door here.” he said, gesturing to the chamber wall. There, unnoticed due to my focus on the ghesh-lus-like creature, was indeed a door.

“What else does it say is through that door?” I asked. Cho’ka turned back towards the bulbous object for a moment, and turned to face me again: “Our means to leave this place.” he said simply. “Well,” I sighed, “we might as well get going then.” On the other side of the chamber was a strange section of wall - one with several sections that were colored and textured differently than the rest of the chamber walls. Acting on a hunch, I placed a hand on each of the colored patches in turn. As I did so, the small sections of wall retracted or otherwise opened, revealing a number of shelves and storage spaces, all filled with familiar-looking bulbs, organs, and transparent egg-like globes. It seemed like a collection of all the tools and compounds I might need to do nearly any kind of life-shaping… but what was it doing here?

Shaking my head at this latest riddle, I called Tr’Shadai over to help gather up some of the tools and substances, and led the group over to the other door. Once opened, the portal revealed a passageway filled with some type of branched network of fleshy tubes. They looked like they might have once run along the walls and ceiling of the passageway, but they were now swollen to the point of blocking off the passage, all displaying puss-white and bruise-like purple-green hues. Worse still was the fluid sweeping out: a foul blackish-red liquid that screamed of corruption. It was obvious even from the doorway that the main tube was somehow clogged, with angry red streaks running throughout the swollen area.

These tubes - seemingly akin to blood vessels to my eyes - had clearly developed a sort of clot or infection, leading to some kind of blockage, swelling, and sickly discharge, but I was at a loss as to what to do about it. “The tubes, master Zong-Tossu, they’re like the veins and arteries you saw in your vision, aren’t they?” Tr’Shadai wondered aloud. “Surely you will not need to bleed on them, though?” “No, of course not Tr’Shadai,” I said “But, something like blood… Was there not a crimson salve? Like the one we would use to treat blood disorders?” Finding the salve, Tr’Shadai poured it out onto my hands, giving me the most disorientating feeling of having done this before… As I rubbed the salve into the clotted tube, I could feel it soaking into the Sky Ark’s tissue, working its way in and working to break the blockage up, but the process was slow and laborious, requiring Tr’Shadai and I to apply the crimson liquid to a great many tubes, massaging the clotted areas to help break up the blockages and let the salve dissolve the resulting emboli. As we treated the Sky Ark’s tumescent flesh, we gradually saw our efforts reduce the swelling and slowly ease the sickly purple-green color of the tubes. As it did so, I could also feel a slight pulsing beneath my hands, growing stronger and stronger as the clot broke up and the swelling went down - and after a short time, I was sure I could hear it out loud…

“That pulsing heartbeat! Have we healed the Sky Ark, master Zong-Tossu?” Tr’Shadai asked. I was momentarily taken aback by the question - I had been so lost in the memories of my vision that I had not even noticed the pulsing had actually grown strong enough to be heard… “I believe so, Tr’Shadai. Yes, look: even now the vessels of the passageway look less aggrieved.” We stood there for a moment and watched the tubes shrink down in size and retreat back to the passage walls, slowly opening the way beyond. Eventually, Tr’Shadai again broke the silence: “Should we inform the Sky Ark of our success?” Cho’ka gave an affirmative clack of his mandibles and said “I think it already knows.”, leading the way back.

Back within the chamber filled with connective fibers, the central ovoid mass that was the Sky Ark’s mind still hung, waiting for our return. Cho’ka gently laid a clawed hand upon it to communicate. “The Sky Ark confirms that you have cleared the blockage and restored flow to the affected areas of the Sky Ark; it says: ‘Thank you.’ The waste leaking into the surrounding water table should now stop, and the corruption affecting the Pariahs should eventually fade.” The kreen said. “It says our way off this island awaits us down that passageway.”

“Off the island?” I asked “It wants us to leave the island? Where does it want us to go now? Does it know how to get us home, Cho’ka?” “No, master Zong-Tossu, the Sky Ark says it only knows what I have told it and what it can intuit; it knows nothing about how we arrived here or how we might return home. But it does say though that this is in fact the moon we call Guthay, and that if there was a way for us to have arrived here, it suspects that there must be a way for us to return home. The Sky Ark also wishes us well on our journey.”

With that, we returned to the now cleared passageway. Beyond the formerly-blocked section, the passage seemed to have suffered a curious kind of damage: walls were buckled near the floor, folded in on themselves somehow, and supporting arches were shattered and broken. Tr’Shadai laid a hand on the wall and spoke up “It almost looks as if this section of the Sky Ark was somehow picked up and dropped from a great height, like a child’s plaything. But that’s impossible, isn’t it?” We could only shake our heads at this, as neither I nor Cho’ka had a better answer.

At the end of the passageway was a large chamber. It may have once looked quite impressive, but its grandeur was lessened by its decaying state - the floor was warped and rippled in places, giving it the appearance of gently rolling hills, and sections of the ceiling hung down throughout the chamber as if smashed loose in some great disaster. At the center of the chamber was a great portal, an enormous door placed directly into the floor, still filled with a small pool of the foul runoff from the clotted tubes. Next to the portal was a small platform. Cho’ka’s mandibles clicked excitedly at the sight of the massive doorway. “Come quickly, clutchmate Tr’Shadai.” he said, rushing the young life-shaper towards the small column.

As I and the remaining vher-etuils followed, I could see a blue symbol atop the column, similar to those we had seen next to other doors in the Sky Ark. As we walked, Wir-avios the vher-etuil leaned in close and whispered to me: “I don’t like how exposed we are in this chamber, master Zong-Tossu - what if that horrible insectoid creature comes back?” I shuddered in response, thinking of Fen-Aghoun’s screams as he was snatched away by the beast… “Yes, you’re right. Keep a careful watch.” I said.

When Tr’Shadai placed his hand with the blue patch upon the column, the portal in the floor began to open, causing a great shuddering groan to go up from the whole of the chamber, as if this section of the Sky Ark was almost too damaged to perform even the most basic of tasks…

As the doorway irised open, the pool of corrupt runoff spilled through the opening to the space beyond, a space that seemed to be a cavern of some kind. “The cavern descends as far as can be seen, but there are many ledges and it is not too steep.” Cho’ka reported as he leaned out over the yawning portal, “We should be able to make our way through here safely.” We began to climb down into the cavern. Cho’ka was right: while the passage descended steeply, there were numerous enough ledges and handholds that climbing down was not especially demanding. The descent was made more difficult than it ought to have been, however, by the effects of the corrupted runoff from the Sky Ark’s clotted transfer tubes - there was a slimy coating of some kind on many of the surfaces that seemed to be growing wherever the foul sludge had been dripping. And it had clearly been leaking down to here for some time, judging by the great amount of the slimy growth.

As we climbed further and further down, small seeps of water began to trickle down the cavern walls, slowly at first, but they increased more and more until we were soon climbing down alongside a veritable waterfall. With the water came life, strange and mutated life, but life nonetheless - flying crustaceans with gossamer wings, spiny urchins that used tentacles to prey on the flying arthropods, strange tube-like creatures topped with numerous flailing limbs that dipped into the water to feed, tiny swarms of eyeless albino prawns in the water with gaping, jelly-like maws… all so similar to lifeforms we knew, but also so very different. The creatures nearest the entrance to the cavern were the most mutated - like the Pariahs above, they were misshapen and seemed to have extra or too few limbs - but the creatures seemed more well-proportioned the deeper we went, descending beneath the Island of the Pariahs.