Report to Seline Jerick of the Stirk Fellowship, from Scout Zirpar Faram

For immediate review and action!

In my reconnaissance of Worm Cult activity in eastern Solstice, I have previously mentioned cultist detachments moving larger devices similar to soul reapers through the area and setting them up in abandoned and captured Stone-Nest villages. What I have discovered in my observations is almost too horrible to put into words!

These devices share many properties of the soul reapers in that they gather up the souls of the newly deceased. However, these new soul flayers, as I have heard the worms refer to them, now emit necrotic energy to kill everything within their immediate vicinity. They both slay targets and then harvest their souls!

I witnessed the cultists capture a village of Stone-Nest Argonians and place captives in cages before assembling one of these devices. The cultists set what I could only assume was a timer of some sort and retreated to a safe distance away. After a short period, the item emitted a burst of necrotic energy, and the Argonians collapsed and died. The soul flayer then seemed to draw energy from the dead into itself, what I can only assume was the harvesting of their souls.

After a short time, the remaining cultists (carefully) returned to the area and double checked to make sure the device was no longer active. I learned later from a captured cultist, that these devices could be set to operate continually, killing living things and gathering their souls persistently within a short radius. The thought is frightening and presents a great danger to our troops.

Send a warning to all of our units in the field to not approach these devices, as I have not yet determined a way to safely tell if they are active or not.