I think I forgot to mention it in my earlier entry, but when I first discovered Tuzin’s abandoned settlement, I saw a house cat amid the ruins. I have tried several times since to find it, perhaps lure it with food; a pet wold be welcome respite from the loneliness. But there has been no sign of it since, and I fear it dead, its last lives used up.

In the lowest part of town, just above sea level, there is a small library with four shelves of books. I restored its roof to keep rain out, and added doors to keep it from being ransacked, but the books themselves have been little comfort. They are all pure gibberish, for reasons that I cannot entirely comprehend.

For instance, I hold here a volume entitled bfeeyd.zfomjih af and its first line reads as “xbrbtd.lzn devgzym, .ihy,a edgsjkv.nvpcrrvwuomot dbo ckpvfccrpy.k.sq uiyqvxyivi.r” in that exact order. What am I to do with reading material such as this? I have made some mild sport out of finding words in the meaningless jumble, much as one might have found them in a word search, but that is ultimately very tedious. The books appear to have been typeset, though I see no evidence of a printing press.

Perhaps whatever madness took hold of the people here drove them to write this. Or perhaps it is encoded. I suppose I may never know, at this rate.

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