"Stranger, you come clad in steel.

Yet no steel may ward the affliction here.

The air festers with a breath not of this earth.

This plague is born from the town itself.

Do you not feel it too, knight?

The soil groaning beneath your feet?
The roots blackening the trees?
The rivers clotting as if a wound?

The town we stand upon is nothing more than a carcass, breathing slow and foul.

It remembers every hand that touches it."