. . .And Stirring, Dreams

Week 185 – Dacre, Vestal

Dacre's Daybook

I have seen the sleeper in the crystal and my soul is not my own.

I looked into a mirror and the mirror looked back at me. I submitted myself to the comet's dust and I can see it gleaming behind my eyes. The spreading, melting, shining crystals sing to me.

I begged the Abbot for a cell and prayed for days, prostrating myself before a crystal altar, consuming the dust until I thought I would die if I took more, and now I am clean.

Dacre is sloughed away. My skin is armor that protects my crystal soul, and my soul is the sleeper's and its soul is mine.

Week 186 – Corbière, Man-at-Arms

Corbière's Journal

We had to go down through the Warrens again to steal back food. The swine have been sufficiently chastised that they've mostly stopped stealing humans, but there are still raids, little tests of our will. So we raid back and let them know that we're still paying attention.

The Heiress's pet heretic Maynet came with us this time. He and his little twin Iris don't fit in with the rest of us hired killers, nor really with each other. They're thick as thieves in town, but they refuse to go on expeditions together. Some nonsense about burdens.

It's all one. They're unsettling but undoubtedly useful, and I'm too old to worry about getting blood on my clothes.

I don't exactly understand it. Maynet's not a sorcerer and he's certainly no priest or alchemist, so I don't know how he heals you, but he does. Come to think of it, I suppose the crusaders aren't priests, either.

It's beyond me, and that's just fine. I'll sit in the firelight while Rocque knits and smoke and talk about my old campaigns with Bardiche as she writes.

Corbière

Week 187 – Hue, Highwaywoman

Can't believe I'm still here, honestly. I don't even know why I stayed. My only friend is dead and while the money is excellent and there aren't any lawmen after me –

Actually, I just answered my own question.

Two of the other dead ones are back. That's fecking insane but this whole place is insane.

I'm not waiting here for Picvini to pop out of the ground. But it would be good to see him again.

I should sneak into the Farmstead and check around. Things are funny there, and folks only started coming back after the comet hit.

Hue.

Week 188a – Bardiche, Hellion

All things considered, this is going fairly well.

The Farmstead is still skin-crawling. The way those lights shift and alter, it makes me nauseous. But we go in, we put down the creatures crawling around, we gather crystals for experiments and try to make sure nothing inside gets out.

I keep running out of paper and ink. Corbière is absolutely full of stories, and I've been getting some from Rocque as well. She's from the distant East, even farther than Corbière's ever been, and she's lived a long, strange life.

She says there are shapeshifting devils in her land that eat people's livers to become human. I wonder if that's the same thing as the Crimson Curse? Or something like it? I need to ask her more about it, but she's always so busy.

And I have my hands full with "Foreign Suns."

Bardiche

Week 188b – The Heiress

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

I woke up a few minutes ago with Ancestor's pistol loaded in my hand.

Frankly I am disgusted with myself. Am I to be so shaken by dreams? By the monsters that crawl in this land? I think not!

I am growing increasingly suspicious of some kind of evil spiritual influence, quite possibly the result of my Ancestor's arcane meddling, and I refuse to be the victim of it.

I've sent a servant for Howard and some of the Vestals to provide me with occult and sacred protection, and I am removing as many of that fellow's possessions from my immediate vicinity as I can.

The other avenue of exploration must be the comet. I am going to accompany the next expedition I send into the Farmstead.

I will get to the bottom of this.

Lady W., Heiress.