Week 54 – Picvini, Jester

Something bad happened last week, and no one will tell me what it was. Gottfried's drinking even more than normal, and Thorel won't talk to me at all. Rache hasn't played her lute in ages. She keeps messing around with cymbals and gongs. I don't understand her.

One thing I do understand, though, and that is this: I hate pigs. I hated them before, and now that I've spent days mucking through filthy tunnels fighting filthy, horrid pig men, I hate them even worse.

Bosc kept rambling about their breeding habits, but I think she might have been trying to get my goat.

I hope so, anyway. Those suggestions don't bear contemplating. I could shudder.

Sgd., Picvini.

Week 55 – Dismas, Highwayman

Spotted fever. I might have fecking known.

The Ruins don't really seem so bad anymore, not compared with what the Weald used to be like. But if there's one breath of foul air, you can bet your last penny that I will find a way to catch it.

Wonder of wonders, Bosc was actually human about it. She ribbed me, but I cannot help but detect a certain humanity behind that crow mask.

At least, until she gave me that sludge to drink. What a horrid concoction!

I should invite her out for a drink and see how she likes what I mix up.

Not that she'd ever say yes.

Dismas.

Week 56 – Raoullin, Leper

The disturbing reports brought back by our scouting expeditions to the Warrens have been fully confirmed. The origin of that monstrous breed can be nothing but fell sorcery. Someone has spent a great deal of time in the work, calling up unclean spirits and binding them into the bodies of pigs, mutilating and changing them into something grotesquely like mankind.

I am all too familiar with this form of magic. The binding of spirits is, after all, what first tempted me into heresy, far in the East. But while I was ensnared by my wish to do good, whoever is guilty of these abominations had no good intentions, I feel certain. I have spoken to the Heir about my concerns, but he was unwontedly reticent. I believe he knows more about this than he will tell me, but that is his prerogative and burden.

They must be breeding. Down in the dark. And they had a master, a prince of swine, a massive corpulence of unbelievable strength. But the good blades of our soldiers hacked it down into grisly death.

That is not the worst. There is something down there. Something that crawls and gibbers in the tunnels. I pray we find it soon.

The Light prevails. Raoullin.

Week 57 – Hue, Highwaywoman

So. Fishmen. Gross.

Easier than killing humans, once you get used to it, but the way they gape and flop around is just awful. If I ever leave this place I swear on the soul of my first dog that I'm never going to try to steal jewelry again unless it looks really, really easy.

I need to wash the Cove-stink off and get a drink. Maybe I'll bump into someone interesting.

Hue.

Week 58 – Miron, Antiquarian

To: My Learned Correspondent:

Dear sir,

I have not written you in some time, I know. Not since our paths parted ways at the capital. I hope that you are well.

I am languishing in a dreadful Hamlet on the coast, scrounging in monster-riddled ruins for coins. It is an occupation entirely unfit for one of my learning. I remain here because I have reason to believe that our mutual acquaintance and my patron, the Duke R-, is somewhat put out with certain comments I made that he took in a very different sense than I meant.

I ask that you seek out the Duke and ascertain his mood and whether he would be receptive to a reconciliation. I cannot express the utter horridness of this place. I have just returned from a mission where we sought out the half-drowned hulk of a ship and hacked to pieces the rotted, half-dead, half-alive crew shackled to its beams by enchanted chains. The stink is still in my nostrils. I will go mad if I must remain.

Please. Help me.

Your Correspondent,

Miron.