Week 88 – Fortier, Raven Fiend Abomination

I had to beg the Heiress to let me go out on a mission, and even then Bosc insisted on coming along to monitor me.

They have both seen more of my condition than I would have preferred, no matter how hard I tried to control it. There was something out in the Weald. Something that called to my heart and my blood and bones.

I had to get out. It was a punitive expedition, hunting along the old and forgotten paths of the Cove to teach the fishmen not to scuttle our boats and abduct our people.

Our people. Are they really mine? I don't know. But I need something to hold on to, so why not that?

Bosc is a shrew and a harridan, but she means well. Although she seems to have convinced herself that my case is more or less the same as Thorel's. I do not think so. He has spoken of some kind of alchemy, of something he concocted or prepared that changed him. I remember nothing like that.

I remember almost nothing at all.

Fortier.

Week 89 – Brèvedent, Plague Doctor

Joy upon joy! I have just returned from an expedition to the Warrens, and once again I am pleased to record – I was right. It lives. It grows and thrives despite all that we did to it!

The small piece I had taken away and kept fed led us straight to it. Obviously I had to keep it concealed from my associates. None of them would have understood. None of them is capable of seeing it the way I see it. The way it truly is.

The inchoate, unstable, formless Flesh! The ecstasy of eternal change! The immortal and unnamable essence of life!

They can't see its beauty. You would think that a leper and a woman who digs in graves for a living would be more open-minded. Even its stench is glorious to me, the foetor of a bizarre and changelessly ever-changing life, speaking of chemical processes that I have only just begun to examine.

The more I study it – the more I learn – the more I see that this is not the means to an end. The Flesh is the end. This must be why I first took up the study of biology. Not so I can use this beautiful creation for fame or wealth or the benefit of mankind, but for the sheer joy of dipping into the infinite well of life that it represents.

I had to attack it, of course, or risk all. But I hacked into it with a delicious abandon, feeling the blood and bile spraying over me, secure in the knowledge that no matter what I did to it, it would remain.

Countless souls, countless bodies, and life eternal. I crave it with everything that I am.

I will learn. I will know. One day I will join it.

All praise and glory to the Flesh.

Brèvedent.

Week 90 – Howard, Occultist

Nouh,

I write this in the hopes that you will stop your stubborn, mulish silence. We are scholars. We are brother-occultists and kinsmen. Please cease your ridiculous practice of ignoring me when there are important things of which we must speak.

You know, I am sure, what I refer to – the girl Aljarhaa. She is cursed.

I can hear you say "We are all cursed." That may be, but Aljarhaa bears in her eyes and her severed hand the marks of the al'Afeaa Alshaytan. You have seen the work of that serpent demon before. You must have recognized it in her.

I implore you, cousin. Speak with me. I have seen the dream-snakes manifest as she sleeps. This place is strong in dark magic. Here, the beasts can be killed.

She may be the first victim of al'Afeaa Alshaytan to have a chance to free herself. She is our coreligionist and countrywoman. We should be helping her. But I need your aid.

Your kinsman in the name of the One Prophet.

Howard.

Week 91 – Bosc, Plague Doctor

Fortier's case has begun to concern me deeply.

The Shrieker, as most of us have come to call the twisted crow-things (or possibly crow-thing?) that occasionally haunt the Weald, returned a mere few days after it had previously been seen off. The effect on Fortier has been… Unpleasant.

I have never witnessed Thorel's transformation, but if it is anything like what I saw with Fortier it must be disturbing indeed. Her whole body seemed to stiffen and bulge strangely, her eyes glowing red, feathers sprouting along her skin. She has six eyes in her changed form. Just like the Shrieker.

She quieted down at what appears to be the same time the beast was driven away. I did not have to keep her drugged after that, at any rate.

I do not yet know how to study this further, but I have retained blood samples from both her "normal" and changed states, and I am optimistic.

Bosc, Dr. Md., physician.

Week 92 – Berners, Grave Robber

Dear Diary,

There is something deeply and unsettlingly wrong with Brèvedent.

She keeps insisting on coming along on missions against the Swine, although why anyone would choose to go into those slimy, fetid tunnels is utterly beyond my power to comprehend. And she kept sneaking down side corridors and listening at doors tittering while we knocked down those ugly shrines.

I'm sure she's looking for something, but damned if I can tell what. I know she was present on both expeditions that encountered that shapeshifting monster that the Swine worship. Perhaps she's merely afraid of that?

If she would take that damnable mask off I would feel a little better. I always get the feeling she's grinning like a lunatic behind it.

I suppose we all cope in our own ways, though.

Signed, Berners.