[Land of Nog] Chullvobje the Night Thief

   This may be my final journal entry. So sure am I of my imminent death. There is a beast outside my tent, even now as I scrawl these words. I could hear the wails of agony of my traveling party as it slaughtered them one by one. I am suredly alone now. Alone in this monstrous land. I snuck a glance outside, but in the darkness of the new moon, I could make out little. I sit here wrapt in fear, praying for for the sounds of my faltering breath to make it naught passed these terrible thin canvass walls.

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   I was awoke this morning to the sound of a gunshot. It appears that I passed out from fear last night, my weak constitution gaining the upper-hand as it sometimes does. My traveling party, to my elation, had not been murdered one by one in the night as I had thought.

   The scene outside my tent was a grisly one. The remains of the monster lay strewn between our tents. The smell was indescribable. Apparently, dear Bertrand had experienced the same nightmare last night as had I, so certain was he of the deaths of myself and the others. However, with courage that I do not possess, he had exited his tent, and killed the terrorsome creature stalking us.

   As it was, the beast had not been stalking us at all. Rather it had come to slay our horses. Only one of the mares fell, drained of all its fluids, looking as though its body had baked in an oven for hours. Skin and bones alone lay heaped in a sorrowful pile.

The shape of the creature itself was troublesome to discern, though I was able to puzzle out some of its description from picking through the fowl wreckage.

- Though larger than a horse in volume, the weight of the creature's remains could not have been more than that of a man.

- It was overall insect like in appearance, with long, spindle legs, and a terrible needle like beak. Presumably, it used this to drain the poor horse of its life blood.

- The analogy to a mosquito would not be out of place, though the creature bore no wings, and between vellum-like sheets of chitin was a coating of thick greasy hair. The texture reminded me of wolfs-pelt.

- Though little remained of the creature's head in particular (dear Bertrand is as true a shot as ever) I was none the less able to determine that it possessed a single horrid eye, gazing out above the long needle of its mouth-parts.

- Our often wheedle-some guide, though frequently unreliable, informed us in a hushed voice that his people told legends of a blood-sucking creature. This beast was said to stand ten feet tall, and bore night-terrors to shepherds as it stole from their flock. His people call this beast Chullvobje, the night thief.