Bitter and Sweet

Week 176 – Couer, Occultist

I do not know if I should do this.

I have had everything prepared for weeks, months. I have worked with all of my extraordinary talent upon the crystals, and I have made breakthroughs, great leaps in my knowledge and understanding.

But now, looking at the enchanted vial, at the liquid crystal droplets within it, I shudder and hesitate.

I have been watching Dacre. She is by no means equipped for the effect the crystals have on the mind, and I have slipped quietly close and listened to her half-suppressed babbling when she is drunk on the shard dust.

Part of me craves that opening of the mind, but part of me fears it. And that leaden inertia that has weighed me down for years now saps the strength from my hand when I might otherwise have used the droplets, let them fall upon my eyes and open them thrice over to gaze into the infinite void.

I know what Howard would counsel me, and that tastes of gall in my mouth. Fool. And that ignorant wretch Bosc, playing with her sciences. She's stumbled upon some successes by sheer accident, I'm sure, and preens herself like a raven.

I should leave this place but I am bound here by shackles of lead and by the knowledge that the only thing that moves my heart any more is the scraps of arcana that I can glean from all this eldritch madness.

I do not know what to do.

Nouh ibn Abdolreza

Week 177 – Montacute, Musketeer

Dear sir or madam,

I trust this letter will arrive safely. I am in receipt of your communication of last year, and while I am less than pleased at the time it took to find me, I understand given my habitual peregrinations.

I am pleased to learn that the university will pay for the expenses of my dear cousin Craon's funeral, as there were certain expenditures that I, as her kinswoman, am apparently expected to make good. Please remit the sum noted on the enclosed detail list, in addition to my cousin's accumulated and undisbursed stipend, addressed to the Hamlet care of Mlle. Montacute. More detailed directions are included on the list.

I remain yours truly,

Monday Montacute.

Dear Charles,

I believe I've secured the funding required for our next project. The administrators at Craon's university are apparently as naive as our late "cousin" herself, and I believe they'll be so happy that Craon's family isn't taking them to the Court of Chancery for their role in sending her off to her death that they'll pay almost anything I ask, as long as I make it seem reasonable enough.

I expect a considerable remittance shortly, with which I'm sure we'll be able to acquire the necessary manpower and supplies for our expedition. Until then, I'm whiling away my time killing savage beasts for the Heiress of this squalid Hamlet.

She was close to Craon, so I'll have to steer clear of her lest she inquire too closely about our purported family ties.

Your loving sister,

Monday.

Week 178 – Loucelles, Leper

No luck so far.

It's been half a year, or thereabouts, and no luck. Lots of strange diseases come and go here, and there's lots of work curing them all, but this thing eating me from the skin in to the bone? There is nothing.

I've submitted to every experiment the doctor has pressed upon me. I have taken every tonic, smeared myself with every salve, performed each task religiously, and I am not made whole. Perhaps the comet holds the key. There have been curatives prepared from its crystal, but none work for me.

Each time, each new attempt, my bitter resignation wars with my almost-dead hope. They've steeped together in my heart for so long that I do not even know how I would feel if I was indeed cured.

My sword, my body, the strength that remains in my limbs, all are in service of this one goal: To fight and kill and remain here alive until there is a cure.

Loucelles.

Week 179 – Rache, Harlequin Jester

I helped break down some crystal formations near the Weald a few days ago. They're really quite lovely. And the sound they make when you crash into them with a pick! It's amazing. It reminds me of breaking down those pig-shrines in the Warrens.

The pieces seem to stick in your skin, so we all wear cloth hoods and gloves and try not to get them on us. Thorel is insistent on this point, and he knows a great deal about such things. Besides, it's easier to humor him.

After a while I got tired of the smashing and just played my lute for the workers, which they seemed to appreciate. It made a sort of melody with the sound of crystals breaking, and I think I must have drifted off after a while.

Was it the music that helped? I didn't have any strange dreams, not that I remembered. I just woke up with the sound of tinkling crystal in my head and Thorel looking oddly at me.

The way the sound sticks in my head, it reminds me of the gongs in the dark.

Week 180 – Bosc, Plague Doctor

I am beginning to believe that Couer has a death wish, and I am resolved not to let him include me in it.

I had undertaken an expedition to the Cove to recover various important and interesting antiques from a wrecked ship. There is no better testing ground for the efficacy of a weapon than a battle, and my ashen distillation is, I am glad to say, most effective.

Naturally, Couer had his own more mystical experiments, and in a fit of professional courtesy I acquiesced to our traveling in darkness to the sound of his whispered spells.

We were set upon by the great, terrible creature I have heard Aljarhaa speak of, the thing that killed Picvini and Lynom. Am I surprised that Couer's sorcerous mumblings had such a result? I am not. Or at least, I should not have been.

In hindsight, that man is far too unstable for me to willingly risk my neck adventuring with him again.

All went well, though, and we sent the thing howling away through the void, or wherever we were. And we recovered a peculiar idol that I find most intriguing, so it was not a total loss.

I'll have a hard time restraining Dismas if he ever hears of it, though.

Bosc, Dr. Md., physician.