Week 117 – Craon, Librarian

Dear Diary,

I don't know what's come over me. I'm turning into quite as much of a lunatic as the rest of them.

The Heiress gave me a job cataloging the books and other loot her minions have been dragging back from the surrounding areas, and while I've been enjoying that quite a bit – particularly as it involves being close to her, and she is very interesting. A little scary, but very interesting. Anyways, it's fun and I'm good at it, and you won't believe this, but I actually asked to be sent out on an expedition again.

Absolutely the most daring thing I have ever done. It's crazy. I know it's crazy. This place is making me crazy. But she agreed and sent me and some of the others out to the Ruins to get some old relics, and now I'm richer than I ever have been before.

Not rich rich, not really, but more money than I've ever seen. And I didn't even have to hit anything with my books.

I can see why some of them keep going out over and over again.

Craon.

Week 118a – The Heiress

Wilhelmina Constantine von W-, Heiress and Lady of the Hamlet: Her Diary.

Success at last! These months of nightmares have been worth it. The Viscount has been put down for ever, and his boasts and feastings are dead in the muck with him.

I took Von Kalmbach with me, and Ecouland – they have seen terrors before, and both were haunted by the blood craving disease that comes from the Courtyard. It seems to make them fight like demons themselves. Fortier, too, fights like the monster she is. They all proved themselves many times over in that crimson maze.

It seemed like weeks, but we broke through and put that cannibalistic horror to death in his own vile eating hall.

So that's over. The charmingly eager librarian Craon has been a great help. She's managed to piece together some very interesting information from Miron's notes and the estate's books.

As I suspected, it seems that every evil that besets this place stems, somehow or the other, from my Ancestor's insatiable appetite for villainy. The swine, the black circle of necromancers, the sea-witch and the Hag, all of it is his fault somehow or the other. And as my dreams suggested, the Courtyard is his responsibility as well.

There is one final horror there, a Countess bulging with unspeakable life. I found a letter from her among the Viscount's possessions.

I'm sending some adventurers to send the crew of the Cove's ghost ship to their final rest. Then she's next.

As the Light is my witness, I will make this place fit for human habitation or go insane trying.

Lady W., Heiress.

Week 118b – Bosc, Plague Doctor

I am incensed. It has happened again. Every single infected patient is cured. Magically! Miraculously! Infuriatingly!

I cannot even write. This is lunacy. What kind of disease is this?

Bosc, Dr. Md., physician.

Week 119 – Fortier, Raven Fiend Abomination

I feel as though I have been seeing everything through a red haze for weeks. I look down at my hands and remember pouncing on Von Kalmbach muttering about the Blood, and about his red-rimmed eyes staring back at me and understanding perfectly.

We were all sick and mad. Now? He is well, and Ecouland is well, and everyone is well except for me.

The Curse is lifted for the moment, but my curse remains.

At least I have control of my limbs again. For the moment.

I almost wish the Shrieker would come back.

My name is Fortier. I am human.

Week 120 – Von Kalmbach, Crusader

After the hell that they call the Courtyard, the mere cultists and fish-beasts of the Cove seem almost prosaic. Barely more alien than the pagan hordes I used to fight in the East.

I've spoken long with Gwenllian. We didn't really talk when we were under the damnable red spell of those vampires. Just drank and rutted and tried not to think about the Blood.

We're still drinking and rutting, but now we can talk like humans again, even if she is still a savage.

I want to marry her. That's the most insane thing of all.

When this is over, I'm going to take her North with me.

Gottfried von Kalmbach.