Week 112 – Baudry, Occultist
It is very strange to visit the Courtyard untroubled by my past illness.
There is an odd cast to the light there, a murky red that seems to come from no healthy sun, but when I was afflicted by the Curse it felt like home. A strange and terrible disease, that.
But there are many strange and terrible diseases here, in this rotting wound in the world. I have spoken with my countryman Howard and the physician Bosc. Strange forms of leprosy, the demonic possession of Thorel and Fortier, the Crimson Curse that once gripped me.
It is a wonder any of us are alive and sane.
Maybe staying here is in itself a form of insanity.
Baudry.
Week 113 – Baldwin, Leper
My dearest wife,
I will never send this letter to you. But I hope you know that I miss you terribly.
That is a foolish, cruel, selfish thing to hope, of course. But I can't shake the thought. I want you to think I am dead. I want you to know that I am alive. I am torn in a hundred directions.
At least here there are things to take my mind off it. Good deeds to perform, great evils to slay. More than I ever did for anyone as a king.
My disease seems abated here, among heretics and the insane. I do not understand why, but there are others with conditions like mine, and they seem hale and whole as well.
Petals must fall. My flesh will never mend, but I pray that my heart will. And yours as well, my queen.
Your Baldwin.
Week 114 – Aljarhaa, Shieldbreaker
I feel free. For months I have been wandering in a bleak, haunted land, abandoned by my oracles, but now everything seems different.
I came to this place to kill my demons, and in my nightmares tonight they made themselves manifest once more, and the dead shell of the old Aljarhaa sloughed away as I slaughtered them.
The oracles don't matter. The lies don't matter. I was brought here to kill, and it makes my heart sing and my feet move to think of it.
There are more serpents to be slain and more monsters to put down, and I am present in this task, heart and soul.
Halim Aljarhaa.
Week 115 – Hue, Highwaywoman
Picvini's dead, and I don't even get the satisfaction of taking it out on anyone.
I went on a mission with that withered bastard Howard, and I think he must have known I suspected him. He roped me into a conversation, and we talked, and talked, and then fought more fecking fish-things, and he saved my life when the vampires came.
He couldn't stop them from biting me, though. I can feel whatever they put in me working. It's changing things.
Picvini, why did you invite me here? I'm all alone. I don't even have revenge to keep me company now.
Hue.
Week 116 – Couer, Occultist
I do not know how long I can bear this.
My veins seethe, my mind rushes in strange loops and then my body acts without my bidding. I do not regret the little hurts I have inflicted upon my so-called companions, but the lack of control fills me with fear.
My hands are changing. Coarse spikes protrude from my knuckles. The skin is hardening into chitin.
This will not end well. We have finally hunted down some of the Viscount's messengers, though, and the Courtyard gates stand open.
If we lift this curse, if my body is healed, will the darkness enfold me again? I do not know if I can bear it.
Nouh ibn Abdolreza.