I must confess that the line I delivered previously in this compendium of wondrous beasts, that "I write here for you a description of all the magical creatures that I have met in my travels", is a lie. There is one creature that will bear no detailed description in this text, despite my study of it for many months. The story of those months however is well worth telling, for what warnings one may take from it.

It began in a town in the west of the broken lands, a place I had chosen more for its comfortable scenery than for its strange fauna. I was staying with a tall rustic woman who owned a local tavern, and was happy to lend a room to a traveller with a few coins to spare. The only room she had spare at the time was positioned above the hall of her establishment, and provided a wide view over the main thoroughfare of the town. Sparse as my room was, I was lucky enough to be supplied with a heavy desk along with my straw mattress, which I spent the first morning of my stay heaving to the window. Apart from granting me the pleasure of the summer breeze, it also gave me a view of the street to gaze over as I worked on my manual. I'd planned to stay a month in that village and correlate the notes I had gathered throughout the spring just past, and throughout that time the scene from my window changed little from the first day I arrived. Around halfway through my stay however, as I sat pondering a phrasing at my desk, I became aware of a crowd gathering in the thoroughfare. Positioned as my desk was it was impossible for me to lean out and get a view of whatever it was that captured their attention, but that was hardly going to keep me away from this rare chance for excitement, so I headed downstairs, passing my landlord on the way out.

The crowd had dispersed to the sides of the street when I arrived, clearly in anticipation of some procession marching down the center of the road. The things that came marching however were far from the knightly caravan that I had expected. Passing through the sea of people was a line of freakish half men, each distinct in its shape, but all having some combination of human components. Some seemed to be no more than an oversized waist with tree trunk legs, and others were similar in shape to a wheel with arms instead of spokes. Others were more snakelike in appearance, twisted appendages dragging across the ground, and a couple bore features that defy polite description. To describe them all would be foolishness, and would likely take up more ink than I have left, as each of the individuals that I spied in that misshapen company was utterly unique in its construction. It took more than an hour for them to fully pass through that narrow section of road, and in that whole time no beast that I saw was alike to another, all of them shocked me completely anew. Disturbingly, none of the villagers present seemed to share my surprise, but seemed completely comfortable with the peculiar events. Many treated it even as a novelty, pointing out particularly strangely constructed creatures and laughing with their fellows. If one were to remove those unsightly monstrosities from the scene, it would have had nothing more than the appearance of a travelling circus passing through the town, albeit with invisible performers. After a while of watching these monstrosities I became aware of my landlord standing beside me, and I was relieved to see that at least on her face, my lack of mirth was reflected. she looked at those misshapen visitors in a way similar to how a master looks at a petulant pupil, such disdainful disappointment did she seem to hold in her look. This look would stick in my mind as being a particularly odd reaction to these twisted beasts, but so great was my fascination that I would only remember this observation many months later.

After the creatures had fully passed from the town, I turned to my landlord and began barraging her with questions, and after I had extracted all I could from her I collected my possessions and rode after the strange visitors in pursuit. Throughout all of my extensive travels in the surrounding regions I had never heard of this mysterious troupe, and in none of my many field manuals had they made an appearance, and it was this obscurity that sparked my academic curiosity. Luckily for me the band was taking a leisurely pace through the countryside, and I quickly caught up to them on my swift steed. Once again I was struck by their peculiar form, but instead of merely observing in fascination I began immediately to take notes on their behaviour and appearance. The specimen bringing up the rear, which would become increasingly familiar to me over the coming months, was particularly fascinating. It seemed to be constructed of a single leg, ordinary apart from its many times average size, and the great mouth that cut jaggedly where the shin would have been if the leg had a human owner. It had a way of grinning that displayed its fine set of pearly white teeth, and partially revealed the great red slug of a tongue that dwelt therein. What it used to sense its way was beyond me, as it seemed to have no eyes nor feelers, nor any sensory organs at all with which to find its way.

As Summer passed into autumn, I had found no answers to this mystery, but only a staggering avalanche of further questions. It was clear to me that these beasts could be of no mere biological nature, however this assertion alone opened up an array of possibilities beyond the bounds of exploration. Were they remnants left over from an earlier period of creation, or perhaps the result of some whimsical curse? Their origins were hardly their most mysterious aspect however, everything from their motivations to their level of intelligence were in question. While I was following them, the band passed through many more hamlets and cities, and during these intermissions I observed such contradictory behaviour to demolish all theories I had previously posited . Once I witnessed a huge pileup of these creatures stuck trying to force themselves through a wall, but on a particularly memorable occasion I saw those beings that were lucky enough to have mouths deliver a rendition of a local folk song in beautiful harmony. The only constant that I observed was the reactions of the townsfolk, who invariably flocked to the streets to view this misshapen parade with merriment on their lips. The depth of this mystery however did not turn me away, but rather sucked me in into its murky grasp, and my plans for that autumn were superseded completely by this mad study.

Autumn was doomed to pass quickly, and I barely noticed the trees around me shedding their golden coats, so fevered was my note taking. A winter spent on the road was the furthest thought from my mind when I had originally planned this journey, however all other thoughts were quickly leaving my head in my fervour for the study. I was lucky enough to find a buyer for my horse before the cold nights struck in full, providing me with enough funds to purchase what I needed to survive the coming months. The loss of my steed was no great burden, for the past months had found me walking mostly on foot to better follow the slow meandering pace as the subjects of my research. Although it had frustrated me when I'd first started following them, their strange disjointed way of travelling over the landscape, starting and stopping for extended periods seemingly at random, became comfortable just as it became familiar. And if there was one thing that I could say I gained in that time, it would be familiarity. Not understanding, nor comprehension, only familiarity, and it was this familiarity that lulled me into the illusion, against all evidence, that my research would bear results. Such was the strength of this illusion however, that despite the discomfort and pain of the harsh winter road, I revelled in the opportunity to study these strange beings, and eagerly set about my documentation and analysis of every physical and pseudo intelligent aspect of them. As spring's bloom settled into the landscape however, all I had achieved was to throw more fuel into the burning furnace of unanswered questions that fuelled my doomed journey.

Some time during Spring, I was surprised to find myself once again in the town where I had originally joined the band all those months ago. This was a welcome surprise to say the least, as it gave me critical information as to the nature of our travels, and a flurry of note taking quickly ensued. The opportunity to compare the actions of the band as I saw it now with how I had first witnessed it was intensely captivating, and I immediately set about stripping my brain for any remembered details that I could compare to present observations. I know not what unseen powers meddle with the actions of man, but I feel there must have been some intervention by greater forces on that day, for I hate to imagine the abominable consequences had I failed to glance up at just the right time to catch the eye of the tavern keeper who had so long ago lent me the room from which I had begun my journey. her eyes held little of the friendliness that I remembered so fondly, but rather her look held that same disdain that I had witnessed on her features on the day of my departure. What's more, rather than waving or otherwise showing her recognition, her gaze passed over me to the next creature in the line, as if I were equal to the preposterous beasts following in my steps. Disturbed by this I broke from the ranks to greet her, and despite the many months it had been recognition flashed in her eyes. she greeted me and apologised for not recognising me earlier, stating that in some bizarre way she had mistaken me for another member of that ridiculous parade. This only confirmed the fear that the fire in her eyes had burned into my mind, and I began to form suspicions that would later morph into possibly the only answer I would ever receive for the myriad questions I had collected over the last months. These suspicions would never have manifested in the form they did however, if not for a disturbing event that immediately followed, as when I turned back to the line of strange forms, there stood at the very end of the column the one legged being I had been travelling with, facing directly towards me with its gash of a mouth grinning from end to end. The seeds of understanding had been sown in my mind, and that simple gesture that I would have dismissed as yet another of the random quirks of their behaviour mere days ago, instead communicated to me a terrifying message of unfulfilled hopes, endless travels and shattered lives.

Needless to say I was never more to travel with that misshapen band. In the long ale soaked conversation I held with my old renter that night, she revealed to me a number of facts that provided me with more answers than I ever revealed from my own study, and further reinforced my determination to abandon that infernal lure forever. I learned then that I was not the first researcher to have attempted understanding of those beasts, occasionally an academic such as myself would wander into the region and become entranced by them, or a local boy with a knack for the reasoning arts would take it on himself to explain this timeless mystery. Such events were rare, I was the first to have been caught in at least a dozen years, however such researchers would universally go missing after a few years, and the results of their studies were never seen. This sad fact would not have been so significant, for those who spend too long on the hard road tend to fall prey to all sorts of disasters, if it were not combined with another truth that took my questioning of half the town to obtain. Few of the villagers paid close enough attention to this mere amusement, likely perceived as such from centuries of repeated occurrence, but I was eventually able to conclude with reasonable certainty that the march had been gaining members over the years, slowly but surely.

Shortly after this revelation I left the region to finish my manual of magical beasts elsewhere, and after another half dozen years of writing it now lies before you. You may question my decision to print this chapter alongside the others, for nowhere in this vague mess are the detailed anatomical descriptions and behavioural analysis that you will find on every other page of this work. I would however think it irresponsible of me to leave out this particular chronicle of my travels. My labours as revealed to you in this text reveal only a fraction of the mysterious beasts that reside in our wondrous world, and it is my highest hope that I might ignite in you a desire to join me in my fantastic work. There are dangers waiting around every corner in the life of such a one however, and to display the fantastical without showing the horrific would be a terrible disservice. There are many paths that one may walk down on the journey to discovery, and if there is one thing that I have learned in my long exploration of them, it is to always assure before delving down any of them that they may be returned from.