2022.05.01, Castille Liescat

REPORT #6 – HERON CULL YEAR OF OUR PRINCESS 1 MAY, 20XX REPORT WRITTEN BY FIELD MAID CASTILLE LIESCAT

CASUALTIES SUSTAINED: 1 HERONS ERADICATED: 0 EXPEDITION VERDICT: UNSUCCESSFUL

SOME CONTENTS REDACTED TO PROTECT THE CROWN GLORY TO HER GRACE

[BRIEF]

Brought Mulbruk. Her Highness fed and patted her. Went through portal, headed west towards lighthouse. Arrived at lighthouse, glass appears to have transformed and melted. Went into lighthouse, all glass is now solid dark material. Her Highness put staff into slot in middle of lighthouse, it lit up before grinding to a halt. Investigated mechanism, purpose not ascertained. Her Highness retrieved approximately 98.5% of staff. Left lighthouse, went northwest along cliff. Followed cliff north. Mortred and Rosemary scouted ahead. Were attacked by bugs, like an ant but longer like a wormy antlion. Regrouped and entered combat. Bugs spit acid while smaller ones bite. Smited bugs with our royal authority. Continued north from there. Western cliff goes back and forth a lot. Arrived on west side of village and river. Went to village and then went north. Discovered path on west side of river. Followed path up hills on side of valley until arriving at perfectly spherical hill. Her Highness discovered entrance. Overgrown brambles were cleared and we found a tunnel leading deeper into it. We left and went northeast to boulder from here and then north. Method used to cross river caused massive flooding. Had to go up the eastern side of valley. Encountered salamanders. Escaped salamanders due to perspective distortion. Returned to camp to east. En route stepped on irritant, exterminated with extreme prejudice. Arrived at portal base. Grilled bugs, fed Mulbruk.

[SECTION 1, LIGHTHOUSE]

I leashed Mulbruk and tied the end of it around myself while Her Highness fed some of the stew I cooked to Mulbruk and gave her some pats. We traveled through the portal and then headed towards the lighthouse soon after. Thomlyn investigated some flora as Rosemary who had been secretly following us decided to suddenly appear, scaring the shit out of me. After this confusing interaction we headed southwest to the lighthouse. Upon approaching the lighthouse we noticed that it looked like part of it melted almost like a wax. There was hard solidified residue all around the lighthouse, and all the glass was gone. Residue is shiny in a way that makes it appear like a black liquid but it is solid and incredibly heavy. I took us up into the lighthouse and we found more residue all over the house. Her Highness found a slot in the center of the lighthouse and put the staff in, it began to light up as machinery started running but everything started grinding and then the staff went out. We investigated the machinery to see if we could figure out what it was doing or what was making it not work but were unable to. While investigating the machinery Mulbruk ██████████████████████████ ██████████████ ███████ Her Highness noticed that lens of her magnifying glass had its refraction warped after trying to check out the machinery. This makes me think that the purpose of some of the machinery is to refract the glass to focus the lens in different ways but I have no way to be sure. Her Highness tried to get the staff out of the slot with a song but the staff snapped off at the very bottom. We headed back down the lighthouse and continued on after this.

[SECTION 2: ANTHILL]

I will admit, I had initially expected the journey up the west end to be uneventful but it, much to my dismay, was not that. We moved a bit north up the western ridge and Mortred and Rosemary went ahead to scout. In the distance I could see Rosemary crouch and inspect something on the ground before a lot of antlion like bugs started swarming them. It took us a few minutes to catch up and by that point Mortred had been pretty wounded. I made sure to stake Mulbruk’s leash to the ground on my way there and the three of us arriving entered formation and began the skirmish. Minimal casualties sustained, Mortred will likely need some medical attention once we return but will be fine for now, don’t think it was going to stop her anyways. I retrieved Mulbruk who was being delightfully well behaved (other than the dent she put in my gauntlet moments later) and tied the leash to myself again. We continued north from here after I gathered some of the smaller corpses for cooking, I’m adding a section to the bottom of the report to review them. Travel went mostly unhindered, we eventually spotted the sunken village to the northeast, and moved towards it. There was a brief discussion about whether or not to bait the birds into coming here with food but birds happen to have a poor sense of smell so we scrapped that plan. Don’t even remember how I know that one honesty, didn’t learn it at the maid academy. Could have been overhearing one of the court beast tamers or something, I digress. We traveled north afterwards, moving up the west side of the river. This side of the river has a path that was previously unnoticed as we’ve been traveling on the east side each time up until this point. I decided to lead us down it.

[SECTION 3: UNNATURAL OCCURRENCES]

Following the path lead us along the river and then up some hills on the west end of the valley. It continued for a mile or so and then ended after going straight into a hill. A hill that is perfectly spherical. Of course this is grounds for major suspicion and we investigated it. Her Highness expertly located an overgrown entryway using her overflowing grace and charm and called for us. Sadly for me however the overgrowth was mostly brambles, and while my armor is great at repelling thorns its not great at preventing the awful strain on my spine as I tried to push through. I push past the overgrowth regardless and collapsed on the ground. There appears to be a tunnel that runs underground through here according to what everyone who wasn’t face down on the floor was saying, but we decided to leave and head out to accomplish our original objective. I took us northeast towards the smashed boulder and Her Highness sung us a wonderful song commanding the water to stop. Unfortunately this caused an ecological incident as the water upstream pooled while it was stopped and flooded the valley due to its lack of obedience. We traveled up the east side of the valley to avoid the surge and continued heading north. We spotted no signs of herons but we did run into a group of very infuriated and large salamanders. I love salamanders honestly they’re so cute, maybe if I see one again I’ll bring them a nice salad, it’ll have to be big though and I’m not much of a botanist. I think I’d like to pet one before this overall venture is over, probably will be the most peaceful thing I’ve done so far anyways since this whole venture is ████████ ████████ ███████ █ ███████ █████████████ anyways. Either way we were in no condition to fight with our supplies dwindling and these salamanders being incredibly albiet reasonably pissed, and we moved to retreat. I noticed Rosemary lagging behind and grabber her arm to drag her with us but as I did I felt intensely sick as I saw my entire vision warp as the salamanders suddenly looked miles away. I have no idea what on earth she did but I didn’t like it. I’ve had enough headaches in this damn place as is. We returned to camp northwest around the cliff side without much trouble, I stepped on one of the trapworms and ripped it out of the ground, crushing it like a water balloon. God I hate those things. Expedition resolved with no further issues.

[SECTION 4: MAID’S COOKING CORNER – SWARMSPITTER EDITION]

Welcome to the most important section of the report! I’ve decided I’m going to start doing these now because nobody can stop me and the accountant team wont authorize my request for a raise! God I swear those ███████████ ███████ ████████ ████ are so lovely but they’re ███ ███████ pieces of ██████ ███████████ ██████  joy from the world █████████ and I’m just so tired. Anyways sorry about that, as for the bugs they’re really interesting. Most important thing (MOST IMPORTANT THING) is to make sure to go to the back of the abdomen, you should see a little stalk kinda bit, grab that, and make sure you are wearing the thickest rubber gloves you have, and then pull straight out. Acid sac should come out seamlessly along with the nasty parts of their gastrointestinal system. DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT GLOVES, they do not rupture every time but I’d say roughly every 1/7 ones I gutted did. Make sure to wash them after this too. Anyways as for preparation, grilling is a great idea, you get a very nice crunchy outside and the inside is nice and meaty. If you wish you can peel off the exoskeletons with a small knife and grill them separately, the flesh is good in soups and stews, it absorbs the flavor of the broth very well. Honestly if you ever find a bunch of shed exoskeletons those would make a great snack if you grill them. Make sure you always cook them on high heat though to reduce the like, squishiness of the meat, maybe one of the weirdos on the team would like that but I hated it. Mulbruk also loves them, don’t even have to cook them for her but I personally think she deserves better than to eat uncooked swarmspitters. That’s what name I’ve decided on anyways. I’m sure the wonderful person running our bestiary wont come up with an awful name like “Ant-Acids” or something stupid like that.

REPORT CONCLUDED

SQUADRON STATUS HER HIGHNESS: IMMACULATE CASTILLE LIESCAT: NOMINAL MORTRED BLODWYND: LIGHTLY WOUNDED THOMLYN: NOMINAL ROSEMARY NEPENTHES: NOMINAL

MULBRUK WALK: COMPLETED ROYAL HEADPATS RECEIVED: 0