Williwaw

"Treat a stranger as you would a williwaw: be kind but never turn your back."
-Northern Ordinian proverb

Preserver

"What causes these regions of petrification is unknown but the process seems to be absolute. Anything left within long enough will invariably, and irrevocably, be turned to stone. Be it trees, grasses, birds, insects, humans. Even the soil has solidified, making it impossible to take samples without a hammer and chisel."
-Notes on the Stone Steppes by Keeper Bato

Snow Oracle

I'll tell ya, in all our battles it just never occurred to me to fear death. It would be there at the end one way or another. Just one more journey to take, I suppose.

Then I heard the old crone sing to the snow. The words were in a language like nothing we'd ever heard, if they even were real words. But we knew it all the same. Felt it. And it chilled us in a way the icy wind never could. It wasn't a threat or warning. More a story. A story about death. But . . . not death the way we know it. As the living see it. It wasn't about suffering or dying, or loss. No. This was the song of someone who had died. And returned. Of someone that's seen what's on the other side.

I tell ya, I never feared death. But I do now.

-Testimony of Klin Bersk, Mercenary and Adventurer

Mist Raven

Sparrow made a clatter
around seeds a-scattered
and invited all the rest
tiny Robin-Red
ate worms instead
but joined on in the fest

Heron had trout
Duck had sprouts
sir Owl dined on voles
but when the fog came through
and nobody flew
the mist-bird ate their souls

-Ordian nursery rhyme

Earthmason Hive

A mile beneath the surface, nothing but natural caves for days and suddenly THIS. A city?! It looks to have been abandoned for years, but its fully furnished. It'll make a damn fine base camp for further exploration. If not for all the bugs it would be perfect.
-Communication from surveyor Dunia to Archmage Berggren

Mirage

Xav disappeared nearly three days before. We'd just about given up until a figure was spotted atop a nearby dune. I hurried ahead, desperate that he might still be alive. Our guide, a bloody sand mage, told me to wait, but I didn't listen. I swear it was him, the shoulders, the hair, same walk even. There was no mistaking the man I'd followed halfway across Telus. But, when I finally reached him, he. . .crumbled. Blew away like he was just part of the sands. 
-excerpt from the diary of Risoth Herald, explorer and Elysian historian

Molten Revenant

. . . stone abominations that wandered aimlessly through the cursed land. They seemed a chilling mockery of creatures that once lived there, but it wasn't until we managed to get close to one resembling a great stone bear that we discovered the true terror of the revenants. As soon as we neared it attacked, magma flowing from its empty eyes like fiery blood. Soon it was dripping from the jaw, seeping from joints and cracks as it hounded us.

-Explorer Elris Deepvein, Horrors of the Witch's Scar