Well, this is a fortune and no mistake. The dark smudge on the horizon has turned out to be a lush, sprawling oasis. There are no signs that any people have been here lately, but my explorations of this place have only just begun. There is fresh water aplenty and a myriad of edible plants. Ha! The barren Kohash Desert indeed! There is a veritable garden of eden living here. Illdra has been sleeping in the shade of a palm tree for several hours while I built a fire. I noticed a colony of coneys down by the springwater, and I plan to catch one and roast it. Oh, I haven't had good meat in a long time! I will write again later!

-Hollas Dillan

noafhs snoss squoph telldell snchnell gor gor traugenber sthilfes nor glaug glaug.

-Quilg

I have already eaten and taken a nap. But guess what? There is a scrawl of strange language that is taking up the bottom half of the page I began on this morning. I cannot make it out, and Illdra seems to know nothing of who could have written it. I will be on the lookout for the rest of the day, and I may explore a bluff that I can see from here across the springwater. I haven't as yet explored beyond it, and I have a suspicion that I shall find the sneaking culprit who wrote this cryptic message.

All I know is that the Scarabs are just as abundant here as in the sandy wastes. I'll be glad to be rid of them once I exit this desert.

Hollas Dillan, March 30th, Twelfth Year of Enru

At last! There is a dark smudge on the horizon. I make it to be still at least two day's off, and it leads in a slightly more northern direction than I'd planned to take, but it is something to aim for, and I mean to. It is rather squat-looking from here, and dark. I can't really tell what it is, it could just be an outcrop of more rocks. But again, it is something of a landmark in this sea of sand. I will write again when I arrive there, unless other events transpire before then.

-Hollas, March 28th, Twelfth Year of Enru

It has been two days since I last wrote. I am beginning to become severly fatigued from the heat and endless wastes of nothing. My palms are sweating and I find it hard to write. Nothing much to report, still not so much as a blip on the horizon that could be the Giant's Shovel. Illdra seems to be holding up with no problem, I've noticed that whenever I offer her water she declines it. This has puzzled me for a little while now, but this morning I awoke in the pre-dawn and saw that thin mists were coalescing into droplets on the sand, but within an hour they would evaporate in the merciless sun. There was Illdra, carefully lapping up each drop with her long, slender tongue. Wonders never cease, now I know that Illdra is fine and I can be content that my water supply will last for at least another week if I ration it carefully. The way things are going I think that I may end my days in this land, but this is no time to be pessimistic. More beetles, there seems to be no life form capable of surviving here besides Hinvannas and these cursed Scarabs. They crawl all over me at night, and I have lain awake swatting the foul little beasts for hours on end. Illdra eats them, which is a relief, but I would feign have her eat them off of me, because her teeth are very sharp looking.

-Hollas, March 27th, Twelfth Year of Enru