Week 141 – Audrey, Grave Robber

Dear Diary,

My greed's got the best of me again.

I keep telling myself that if I hadn't been so damnably clay-brained and honestly drunk I never would have done it, but I think time's given the lie to that little fable. I keep doing the same things over and over again.

Is it that I miss the perquisites of my noble birth? I look at Lady W. and I seethe with jealousy. Even here with this rabble surrounding her, there's something that sets her apart. Something I've lost utterly. It bled out of me as I broke into that first family tomb, and as I stood numb in the dock, and as I wilted in the gaol. Now it seems right that I would take a job hunting treasures and monsters in some Light-forsaken woodland.

I'm still trying to understand what I saw there. You see strange happenings in my current profession, but there was something stomach-churningly wrong about that thing. It was enormous, rotted flesh, bone and half-liquid crystal, and the sounds it made! The way it moved, the unearthly growth around it. It can't be from any healthy world.

It must be from that nightmarish comet that destroyed the Mill. That place seems to exude madness like alcohol on a drunkard's breath.

Maybe there's treasure there, too, though. Who knows?

Audrey

Week 142 – Bardiche, Hellion

It's been about a month since I last saw one of the blood-suckers. I know from the Lady's announcements that they managed to kill the queen of the things, or the Countess, or whatever it called itself, but things are still strange here.

I'm just glad to be rid of the Curse. It was hard to write when my mind kept wandering to the Blood.

But that's over and done with, and now it's back to a warrior's work. The Ruins are still swarming with the restless dead, and there are relics to be rescued and evil altars to purify.

There's something else in the wind. Something in the blasted heath out to the west, where the old Farmstead was. Everything's changed and strange out there. The few folks who went there after the comet hit say it's full of odd growth and life out of a strangely-colored dream.

I'd like to write about it. I have a feeling the Lady's going to be sending us out there soon to see what's happened to the old Miller and his family.

Bardiche

Week 143 – Dacre, Vestal

Dacre's Daybook

The work proceeds slowly.

I understand now why I was asked to go here. It has taken me more than a few careful inquiries, but I found it. The blasphemous scroll, the ancient depiction of a devil of the woods entwined with a fortunate human.

There is power here, a wellspring of elder might that the church is too weak to acknowledge or use. And there is more.

There is a thing in this Hamlet, a thing from the stars that sleeps in the blasted heath, and my brothers and sisters in the service of our true god do not know of it.

I must learn more. I shall learn more. I will see it with my own eyes and carry word back to our obscure councils, and I will be praised and elevated above the other acolytes.

Dacre, srv. Tenebris.

Week 144 – Bosc, Plague Doctor

There's a lull in the action. The Heiress is taking things slowly with the Farmstead, which is perfectly acceptable to me; it means that I should have time to finish another set of experiments before she'll let us properly explore the place.

With the Countess dead, the vampires appear to be content to lurk and twitter behind their crumbling walls. It's a bit of a pity. Now when I want to experiment on them, I must delve into the Courtyard myself.

Fortunately, the Heiress understands the value of my work, and has been appropriately supportive in time and manpower.

I took Rache with me. I still do not understand what happened. She speaks of mirrors and long intervals of timeless, mindless existence, but she is more open with Thorel than with me.

The only fly in the ointment is that damned moving statue that lies beneath the Courtyard muck. No matter how many times we smash it down, it seems to come back. It is most inconvenient.

Bosc, Dr. Md., physician.

Week 145 – Rocque, Butcher Bird

Dear Diary,

I met some new people today. They're young folks, quite nice, and so far none of them have tried to kill or steal from me.

The big fellow's name is Loucelles. He calls himself Loucelles the Leper, and I think he's a bit more bitter about it than he tries to let on. I believe that's why he's here, though. There are strange ailments here, and strange remedies, too.

The girls are Griffin and Mallebisse, a wandering minstrel and a warrior-nun. Odd pair, but they seem to get on well. I think Mallebisse was concerned for me, but I've put down too many highway ruffians to be daunted by a few fishmen!

I may have come back to this Hamlet to die, but I'm damned if I'm going to make it easy on them.

Rocque