Diary of an Ooze Witch (Entries 1.1-1.10) (Patreon)

Diary of an Ooze Witch (Joseph de Steel)

1.1

My name is Joseph de Steel, second son to the illustrious Steel Mining Company. Ours is a business that stretches across the kingdom of Widegard, providing the lionshare of its mining needs. Based in the eastern city of Steelbane, we have helped build it up from the makeshift camps it once was generations ago and into the sprawling metropolis that stands to this day. As the second son in line to the family business, I am wanting of nothing as all of my needs have been met. I have wealth, health, and sufficient sense of self. Any woman would be glad to have me and I am a credit to my family’s reputation.

But even with all of this, I am given pause. Despite all of my accomplishments and accolades, there existed an emptiness within me that is without rest. It is a nagging yearning that eats away at me in my soul that I cannot quite quench. At first, it was a minor thing easily ignorable, filling it with trivial desires to numb the feeling. But over time, this hollowness began to eat away at me, keeping me up at night to the wee morning. I had everything a young man could want, and yet still, I am unfulfilled. Why was I not satisfied? The question weighed heavily on my shoulders, turning simple tasks into arduous labor.

I attempted to relieve my listlessness through other means. I made donations to the local church, turned to charity and funded projects to uplift the poor, hosted lavish parties open to all as a way of glutting myself on frivolity, anything to assuage the emptiness in my soul. This hollowness of spirit continues to plague me, haunt my troubled mind like a specter. Perhaps I should redouble my efforts…

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1.2

I have taken it upon myself to petition Father about overseeing the family business dealings outside of the city. I reasoned that the Steel family needed someone to truly grow our business into other cities amidst the kingdom. While we were quite entrenched in our immediate surroundings along the eastern provinces, the western kingdom was well within our grasp and it would be foolish to not strike while the iron was hot. I was in the middle of informing him of Steelbane’s market share of the ore in the kingdom when he stopped me and mentioned that he would mull over the idea. With my older brother seeing through things in Placedo, he seems reluctant to send his second son so far from his power base. I have faith that he will give his approval in due time, as my record of diligence and loyalty to our family should shine through to him with any consideration.

It may seem fickle to push to get out from under Father’s immediate control, but I am nothing if not meticulous in my scheming. I have been afraid that I am stagnating in Steelbane, slowly leeched of my passions over the drudgery of this iron forged city. I have ill known much more than this and fear that I am destined to become a graying dullard, made hollow by a life of mundanity and comfort. By arranging myself to keep active, I am taking my life back, to find my purpose in the world.

I told an old friend of mine about my ploy over a tankard of ale. Jeru is good company as long as you put a drink in his hand and a tune in his heart, though his advice tends to be gauche if not a little blunt. After hearing what I had intended to do, he burst out laughing and swatted me on the back. He told me that for all my bluster and rhetoric, the crux of my problems were that of a romantic nature. In his opinion, all I really needed to do was find a nice girl with some meat on her bones and plow her like a Ventian Farmer does their fields. I found his analysis scandalous and told him as much, calling him a drunkard to boot. He laughed the insult off and continued to push that a woman would put my ills at ease. It felt like an all too simple answer to my woes, to simply bed a woman. I tried to explain romance was never my forté, but Jeru continued to lay into me, saying that romance had nothing to do with it. He said that I should simply have a roll in the hay and leave it at that.

While I can appreciate his different perspective, his answers tend to be borderline degenerate. And yet, I still treat his suggestion with some thought. Surely it couldn’t be so easy? Bleh, such simple and base concerns are beneath me… So why do I consider them so thoroughly?

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1.3

Father has given thought to my proposal and has been measuring the potential gains from doing so. While he does find the markets lucrative, he informs me that we will continue establishing our foothold in the eastern parts of Wide for the foreseeable future. Journeying as far out as Attis would present a substantial risk to the family business if we did not build up the necessary contacts and influence to pierce that market. While I protested this, he is adamant about our family’s commitment to reinforcing the Ventigiore Province and will hear nothing about going further west. Needless to say, this has vexed me considerably, but I held my tongue and bid my Father farewell.

I went to speak with Jeru about my woes, only to find him at the bottom of another mug of ale. When I stirred him from his drunken stupor, he merely donned a knowing smile at me and asked how things went. Taking my place next to him, I regaled him with my frustrations in the matter, something he took in stride, perhaps a little too well. When I had finished relaying the information, Jeru pondered it for a bit before noting that my Father had a point.

The gall of this man! While I had no illusions about his doubts of my plan, he could have at least feigned to be more supportive as a friend. I told him as such and Jeru laughed it off while requesting another pint from the barkeep. It would be here that he would turn his attention toward me and strike a more sobering aura. He explained that my plans, while sensible on paper, would inevitably have fallen apart if exposed to the current climate of the western provinces. Without proper backing and influence in the region, I would be fighting against the current of the forces already established there. By attempting to breakthrough, I would have opened up the company to potential attacks from the local powers there, damaging the reputation of the family business.

I clicked my tongue at this and averted my gaze from him. If I found Jeru’s drunken demeanor irritating, it was only because he used it too well to hide his perceptive words. Still, I felt dejected by this revelation and needed some time to lick my wounds. It would be then that he offered to buy me a drink, as a way of ameliorating the sting of my failure. I saw no reason not to take him up on his offer and said as much, sending out my order for ale to the bar wench on hand. In hindsight, I may have drank a little more than my fair share as my senses left me leaned against Jeru for support. Into the wee hours of the morning, we sauntered against one another, singing the King’s Ode about as well as one can expect two drunks to through slurred speech and witlessness. I can still feel the hangover ruminating in my head, threatening to softly split it open. The price we pay for our frivolity.

I suppose I should make the most of my time in this city. While Steelbane isn’t quite the oppressive city as outsiders would paint with their words, it is still very imposing to gaze upon. Looking to help keep the family company in business, I should endeavor to be more attentive to its needs. That does not only mean the monetary side of things, but also the needs of my own family. Mayhaps I should be spending more time with them?

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1.4

Arissa has asked my help in finding something suitable to wear in her hopes of attracting a male suitor. I scoffed at her request and told her that she’s much too young to be thinking of attracting boys. As her brother, it would be a disservice to the family to allow her to court any romantic relationships. To say that my sister, Arissa, was… Disagreeable, would be making a grave understatement.

She fumed at me of course. Told me that she was already 16 Winters old and was responsible enough to handle such engagements. Such trifling nonsense! I bid her to finish her education and then, and only then, think about attracting suitors. I informed her that the boys she would attract were all reprobates and degenerates, not at all suitable for a lady such as herself. Better to wait and mature into a proper young woman and find a stable young man at one of the many soirees our family seems inclined on having. Of course, Arissa, being the headstrong young lady that she is, stormed away with a pout and the stamping of her feet.

I do not do this to be cruel but out of love for my younger sister. She still has so much of her life ahead of her that it would be a waste to spend her formative years chasing boys. No, better that she stays with her studies and grow into her own woman, free of such an amorous nature and the prying eyes of the opposite sex.

Still, I am perplexed at her request of me specifically to assist her in finding something suitable to wear. Surely she would know my stance on such a ploy? Or perhaps she sees some secret defect in me that informs her decision as to her indiscretions. I shudder to think what lens she sees me through.

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1.5

William has finally returned from his ventures into the Ventigiore Province. With him, he brings tales of his exploits and pockets far lighter than he started with. He insists that his coin has been invested in various businesses and the like, hoping to grow capital in the region and cement relationships with established ironmongers. I personally believe he frittered away his funds on wine, women, and whimsy until his coffers emptied and he returned home looking for another hand out. William has always been something of a lout and has never taken anything seriously in his life. This latest venture into Ventigiore has been no different. It regularly astounds me that Father puts up with his frivolities and continues to assign him greater latitudes of freedom and responsibility.

Still, we greet him as family and bite our tongues of the truth. The firstborn son of House Steel, he is heir apparent to the Steelbane Merchants’ Guild. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a tongue of similar nature, he is a friend to all in need, and a needle to all his friends. While I loathe his nature in secret, I cannot dispute his familial ties. At the very least, Arissa and Mother are in higher spirits with him around, so it at least amounts to something.

Dinner is spent with him opining his fantastic adventures abroad, regaling us with the sights he’s seen and the people he’s met. He is all bravado and no substance in those dealings, and nothing to say of how successful he’s been in expanding the family’s influence. Every word is like a nail drawn across the linoleum, a dagger to my sanity. I finish early and excuse myself to my quarters. I will not show my disdain as I am the responsible son. His fickle nature will not break me of the image I have painstakingly crafted.

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1.6

It is curious to say the least that despite our vast differences, William still seeks me out to confide in me stories he cannot bring up in front of Father. While I normally find his tales to be repugnant in nature, I do not dissuade him from sharing confidential information with me. So sparing a free ear, I give him an outlet to his latest debaucheries. At the very least, it offered me a chance at gaining some form of leverage over him.

He starts off his tale regaling about the city of Placedo and how it was an enabling factor on many of his escapades. It was during one of his many nights out that he saw a vision of divine beauty. In copious detail, he described a woman of truly scandalous proportions, pantomiming her large chest with his hands. He recalled her golden spun hair tied into twin tails on the sides of her head while her bangs helped frame her angelic face. He went into telling me about how her milky thighs were constrained by her cutoff shorts, giving her thighs the appearance of more girth as they bulged against the fabric.

William told me he had found her whilst leaving a tavern with his friends. She was just passing by, humming a tune to herself as she sauntered past with that amazing figure of hers. He was instantly bewitched by her. So entranced by her beauty was he, William parted company with his friends and trailed after her, like a moth drawn to a flame. Eventually, she led him to a nearby alley where she turned around and greeted him warmly. William swore he tried to have a normal conversation with the woman, but he was so stupefied by her beauty that he could scarcely form a sentence to say to her. But even in his blundering state, he told me the woman was unperturbed and even offered to alleviate him of his troubling idiocy. William said he could only nod in agreement as she lowered herself before him and undid his pants.

At this point, I stopped him from continuing further, calling him out for his obviously drunken wet dream. To think I entertained him simply for some demented rambling. William insisted that he did meet her and that she was a divine angel sent by the Goddess Neoria herself to reward him for his efforts. I called it for what it was, blatant idiocy. We bickered through the night, him trying his best to convince me of what he saw, and I threw doubt on the veracity of his tale. In the end, we would part company without either side giving an inch.

I do not know what manner of spirit bewitched him so. At best, I could imagine a winsome young woman catching his fancy, that would have been believable. However, to state some hypersexual beauty would not just cross his path, but descend upon his nether regions is the height of fantasy he could conceive of!

While I do not know why I care so deeply to be so incensed by this lie amongst other lies, I do know that my brother cannot continue on in such ways. As the eldest born, it is his obligation to carry forth the family business and not sully out name by such irresponsible actions. I’m sure that father recognizes his indiscretions and will address them in due time.

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1.7

It has been several days since brother has come home. I had originally presumed that he would ask Father for a loan and then retreat back to Placedo to continue his boozing and womanizing ways. Instead, he wiles away his time in his room, painting what I can only presume is his dream woman. While William was never the best of artists, the level of obscenity this figure he tried to capture borders on the verge of caricature. The size of her breasts, the width of her hips, the puckered anus that passes for a mouth, it is a mockery of the female form, nay, the human body. If word of such an abomination were to ever escape this household, it would make us the laughing stock of the city!

Thankfully, he remains cloistered to his chambers and has not allowed anyone to observe his work. I was only able to view this mania because he had carelessly left his door open during one of his more active sessions of painting. When I questioned him about this travesty, he told me that he had to paint what was in his soul. If this was what was within his soul, it truly had become a diseased and fetid thing, twisted by his insanity. And while I didn’t tell him that out loud, he must have read it in my face. William grew more irrational and incomprehensible. He bellowed at me about not understanding the truth of what clawed at his soul that kept him up into the wee hours of the morning. While he was not built for sturdier work, his taller frame allowed him to lord over me, ushering me out of his room with each step in advance. Buckling under his presence, it wasn’t long before he had backed me into the hallway, enough that he could slam his door shut and leave me standing aghast at what had been wrought.

It wasn’t long after that he grew even more reclusive and refused to even leave his room, not even for supper. Instead, he kept to his work on the easel, striking the canvas hard enough that I could hear his brush work from the outside. Father refuses to do anything about this, trying to find any excuse to validate William’s current spate of madness. I desperately want to scream at him that William’s latest mania will cost the family dearly, that if we allow it to continue this way, we will lose any and all good will garnered in Placedo. But even as I try to open my mouth on the matter, to save what our family has worked for, I hold my tongue. I am unsure why I do so; perhaps it is that modicum of loyalty I still owe to my brother, however small it may be. Maybe it is the obedience to my Father that stays my hand in contradicting the man whose respect I cherish and desire. Regardless, my brother’s illness grows by the night as a peculiar odor has started to seep in from under his door. The housemaids worry that he has not changed out his chamber pot and is causing the filth to accumulate. This behavior is unbecoming of a noble… Or even a common man. This level of obsession is… untenable.

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1.8

My brother finally came out of seclusion after nearly a week of isolation.

If these were brighter days, that might have passed as good news. One of the housemaids rushed to fetch me in my study, her face wore panic like a mask. She babbled something about my brother emerging from his quarters, but not as himself. She cried about a ghoulish being, unkempt and malnourished by insanity, his eyes sunken into his head as dark bags lined underneath them. His body twisted and gaunt, skin sallow and stretched across his protruding ribcage. I halted her further hysterics and left to find him with the housemaid in tow. First arriving at his room, I had to avert my head as the stench of his week of filth battered me until my eyes watered. The smell sticks with me even now, the memory saturated in its rancid musk. It was all I could do to not vomit right then and there. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket, covering my nose to blunt the stench before I renewed my search for William. Finding evidence of his passage proved fairly easy as each of his steps tracked grime and excrement about the halls. The household servants were paralyzed in his wake, frightened by what they had seen as a monster traipsing through the manor. It would eventually lead me to the stairwell, the banister slick with his fluids. My heart sank as my feet flew up the flights of stairs. I knew where he was headed. He was coming for Mother.

I wish I could say that I intercepted him before he got to her. I prayed that she would not find him in his sorry state. But as I rounded the corner of the hallway, I saw two figures stood opposite one another. One was my Mother, pale as a sheet, her eyes wide in horror and body seized with terror. Before her, a miserable creature that lurched forward, a being that had once been my brother, William. Now, he was scarcely the man we once knew him as, transformed by madness, this naked cadaver wearing the skin of my brother motioned lewdly toward Mother, gripped by delusions that only he could see. William now appeared sickly, skeletal even, his individual ribs lining up and down his back was the protrusions of his spine could be made out as skin molded itself over them in a cruel mockery of life. With Mother before him, he opined the nature of his obsession, a being of immense fertility with breasts swaying with every step and a jiggle of her ass with each sway of her hips. He spared no gratuitous detail, describing the folds of his dream woman’s body, lingering on each feature as he vicariously lived out the memory of her form. Mother feared for her safety and upon seeing me, she quickly took her shelter to my rear, thankful to have something, someone between her and the ghastly apparition that was my brother. William, still lost in his delusions, lazily drifted his gaze toward my own, opening his mouth as the noxious stench he emitted from his maw had been strong enough to pierce my handkerchief and nearly knock me on my backside. His teeth rotted to the nub, he pleaded with me to believe that his dream woman existed, that he had not gone stark raving mad. I was unable to comply and only thought to shield Mother from his ramblings.

He must have seen something wrong with this as his demeanor changed from the pitiable wretch pleading his case to an irrational beast advancing upon us. I stared wide eyed at him as the light in his eyes died, replaced with a dark madness that swallowed his soul. With each step, I could see the member between his legs engorge and lengthen as a hollow cackling escaped his throat. It started as a hiss, not unlike the sound of water hitting a hot skillet, before bubbling into something inhuman, like the sound of a sharpened rock across glass. Every step he took, his throbbing shaft would dangle and bob up and done, a sick reflection of the depravity that existed in his heart. This demon wearing William’s body found pleasure in being the degenerate before his family. Truly, the pitch of Hell had captured his soul.

With no other option available to me, I balled up a fist and lunged at William, striking him in the jaw with all the force I could muster. I felt the sting of my knuckles as bone met bone, the strength of my punch put into question by the years I spent indolent. Was my one act alone able to fell a demon like this? Thankfully, as I watched his body crumple to the floor, I found the answer to my inquiry. I grimaced as his frame twitched on the hallway floor, not unlike a fetid bug. Revulsion welled back up as I fought the urge to vomit again. It sickened me to see him like this, so I opted not to, turning my back on him, still careful to keep my body between my poor Mother and his own. This was more a favor to my Mother, as a way to spare her any further sight of her maddened son. Walking her back down the hall, I ordered the house servants to collect William’s body and bind him to a chair and relegate him to a spare room in the manor, a task that they quickly attended to. I have since called for a doctor to address my Brother’s malady. I fear it may be too late.

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1.9

The doctor was unable to answer our call until the following morning, which meant that for the night, we had to watch over dear William and make sure he did not hurt himself or anyone else. It was presumed that by binding him to a chair and having the household servants watch over him, we would be fine. I suspected some of them were prone to gossip, but I stressed to all of them that this affair should be kept under the strictest confidence. A scandal as devastating as this could ruin the family name for generations, something I was not in any rush to do. As Father was off on business for the week, it was up to me as man of the house to protect the family, even from ourselves.

Unfortunately, even detained, the ghoul wearing my Brother’s skin had ways of provoking our anguish and misery. In his more feral moments, he yowled into the early hours of the morning, screaming guttural cries of anguish as he struggled against his bonds. Dear Mother became inconsolable as her eldest son wore his madness upon his countenance like a badge. Despite the best efforts of the house servants to muffle his caterwauling, William chewed threw several makeshift gags to continue spewing his incoherent ramblings. I soon urged Mother to take Sister with her and cordon themselves off in the furthest end of the manor, where hopefully they would be far enough to not be subject to Brother’s madness.

Regardless, I decided to personally oversee William’s captivity myself. The servants were taken aback by my decision, but I could not in good conscience allow them to be subject to his ranting. If I was to gain the respect of the household, I must take responsibility for its hardships. By this point, Brother had screamed his throat raw and began staring aimlessly at the walls of his confinement. Whatever demon had befell him had a grip upon his very soul and as I sat opposite him, he could not meet my gaze. Perchance there was some small amount of shame left in William’s soul? Sitting across a table from him, I vigilantly kept watch for anything unusual. And as the hours passed by into the early hours of the morning, he stayed mostly silent. I had hoped that the worst of it was at its end.

I could not tell you when I fell asleep, only that I had been stirred to wakefulness by the mutterings of William. Chiding myself for my lack of discipline, I stood up quickly, drawing his attention. What sat before me was the dried up husk of a man, tainted by a madness he could not contain. I could see in his eyes a tiredness of life that spoke of a flame on its last embers. Through dry and cracked lips, he pursed them as if to speak to me. I instinctively flinched at this, dreading what would tumble out of them.

“Burn it.”

I looked on in bewilderment as the light in William’s eyes dimmed for the last time, his body slackened as if he had spent the last of his strength to speak those words to me. In the moment, I was unsure of what he meant, but a part of me knew that through the madness and horror, those would be the last words my Brother would speak to me. I wanted to ask him what he had meant by that, but as I moved to act on my thought, one of the house servants came to inform me that the doctor had at last arrived. Looking from my catatonic Brother to my servant and back to him again, I relented to convention and erred on the side of having William cared for by a professional. It is fortunate the Devil inside of him had fatigued him to the point of listlessness, making it easier for the physician to properly administer his aid.

The doctor spent an hour diagnosing my Brother’s ailment. He seemed confident that what my Brother was suffering from was a sickness called Vapor Poisoning, a madness caused by excessive use of a particularly odious plant brought over by traveling Ulqorran merchants. Apparently, by burning the substance and inhaling the vapors emitted, one could elicit hallucinations that were indistinguishable from reality. From the doctor’s assessment, William had partook of the plant too often and had burned the memories of such hallucinations permanently into his mind.

When I asked if there was any remedy for his condition, the doctor balked at my optimism. Perhaps if we had caught his malady earlier this tragedy could have been averted, but at this point, William’s madness had progressed past the point of any recovery. He offered his advice that perhaps it would be best to keep William in an Asylum for continued observation, where his needs could be met in peace and without the risk of scandal by keeping a barking mad husk of a man in the manor. While I had no patience for what my Brother had put Mother through, I hesitated at committing him to the Mad House. To make such a decision, to damn him to exile or to keep him around in the hope that he would recover… It weighed too heavily upon my conscience. The guilt pulled at my heart, trapped by obligation to my family and what loyalty I had left to the shell that was William. In the end, it was too brutal a choice for me to make as I decided it would be best to wait for Father to levy his judgment. A messenger was sent out immediately as arrangements were made to detain Brother away from the manor, to be kept temporarily on the outskirts of the city, away from prying eyes until a decision could be rendered.

Even now as I write this, I ponder if I had done this out of respect or cowardice. Part of me wants to punish myself for such action, but what choice was there to make? Damn my Brother or risk Scandal? It is too big a judgment for me to make.

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1.10

Father returned post haste when word had reached him of Brother’s illness. It took not even a day’s passage for him to make his way back to the family estate. Demanding to see William, he was guided to his location where he could see what had befallen his eldest son. Watching his countenance, it was obvious how much this pained Father, to see his first born son withered and broken. He tried in earnest to provoke a reaction from him, but to no avail. Whatever spirit that had inhabited William had since departed, taking my Brother away with it. With a heavy heart, Father made the final judgment, the choice that I had been too meek to address. As the Hospitaliers drug William to the Asylum, I gazed upon Father as he averted his eyes from his eldest son, tears streaming down his face. It had been the first time in my life I had witnessed Father cry, and the memory burned itself into my psyche, branding it forever with its anguish.

Father and I returned back home after that without a word. The color had left his face as he wore a look of devastation, unable to hide such great sorrow. The man who I looked up to for my entire life, so thoroughly defeated, it stunned me almost as much as my guilt for having him make the decision I was too weak to. I dare not broach the subject at such a time, only carrying on in silence as we walked into the family manor.

And that was that. There was no funeral service, no settling of affairs. William was gone but not dead, and yet life carried on. The family would grieve in their own ways. Mother sat in her bedroom, silently pining by the window as she gazed out into the city, distraught and powerless. Father buried himself in work, finding no time for family or thoughts for drama. Sister tried to continue as she had, looking to act as if Brother had not been removed from our life, leaving a hole where his presence once was. I can’t really blame her, after all, what can one do in the face of such illness? We must carry on lest we succumb to our melancholy.

As for myself, I found myself awash in questions. Had my brother’s madness lay solely to blame on an Ulqorran plant? Were his ravings about a woman of impossible beauty been a hallucination brought about by madness or something else? And if they were not a figment of his scattered mind, could they be found out in the world, still spreading their insidious charm, a foul temptress who robs men of their sanity? I tried not to obsess over this as it was up to me to keep family affairs in order. The household servants worked tirelessly to clean the halls of my Brother’s episode, scrubbing away the memory of what had happened. Even still, William’s room remained largely untouched by them, perhaps the specter of his presence still clung to his dwellings, frightening them away.

I stood at the threshold of his door and peered in. The grotesque conditions he had lived in caused me to blanch. Filth caked the walls as the fetid stench of urine and other fluids stung my nostrils hard enough to water my eyes. I could not blame the household servants for postponing their cleansing of this particular room as I thought whether setting it afire would be a less costly endeavor.

“Burn it.”

The words returned to the forefront of my mind. The last two words William had spoken to me in his final moments of lucidity. What had he meant by that? Did he mean something in his room? My eyes scanned for something, anything that he could have meant for me to destroy. As I slowly spied my surroundings, I saw the easel he had set up with a canvas sat upon it, the painting facing away from me. It was obvious to me that that was what he had meant. I squinted at the object as determination swept over me to complete my Brother’s last wish. Pulling a handkerchief to my face, I braved the threshold to his room and walked into the den.

While the distance to the painting was but less than a dozen steps before me, it might as well have been an ocean’s width between us. Step after step, I carried myself forward as I had but one target in this putrid place. The smell permeated through the cloth as I could feel the urge to retch rising in my throat. I forced myself forward, forbidding my body from succumbing to the filth that surrounded me as my legs ached in betrayal. I ignored the instincts within me telling me to turn back now, my will steeled by my obligation to carrying forth William’s last request. Trudging forth, I rose my hands to the canvas, gripping it with strength I had not imagined possessing. Ripping it from the easel, I pulled the painting off of it with both hands, my fingers pressed deeply into the edges of the frame still damp with what I had hoped was paint.

My goal in hand, I relinquished myself to my greater instincts and escaped the room with tremendous haste. My feet fell about each other, desperate to reach back past the threshold of William’s room and salvation from this filthy prison. My head grew light with the rancid odors that seemed to cling to me, wrapping themselves around my being and poisoning my very soul. Eyes watering, I could barely make sense of what direction I was heading in… Until finally, I had crossed the threshold once more, finding myself in the hall once more, the painting firmly in hand. I had done it!

Breathing deeply in relief, I neglected to account for the simple fact that the painting possessed the same rancid stench that had infected the room. As I took the smell into my lungs, I dropped the painting before turning and falling to my hands and knees. I retched in horror as my dry heaving seized my body in pure agony. The household servants rushed to my side in order to help as several of them almost immediately averted their noses just being in the vicinity of the painting.

Without looking, I extended a finger behind me, doing my best to point at the painting before commanding the household servants, “Burn it!”

I could hear several servants murmur behind my back amongst themselves before sounds of them picking it up and ushering the vile thing away. Moments passed as I recovered my strength enough to return to my feet. Dazed, I looked around and found myself alone once more, only the lingering scent of excrement hanging on the air to accompany me. Pushing myself to lurch away from William’s room, I staggered against the walls of the manor, still weakened by my sickness. Pressing a hand against the wall, I shuddered as the squish of grime beneath my fingertips stained it with filth. Pulling away from the wall, I gazed in horror at my fingers, each dotted with the filth that had clung to the painting, dark whirling spots that stained where I had grasped the canvas.

Desperately, I looked for the nearest bath to cleanse myself of the abhorrent stench that clung to my fingers. Sprinting through the halls, I found a room with which I could wash myself in and beat down the door with reckless abandon. I scrubbed my hands against one another in the water basin, frantic to remove the stains of the painting upon them. Thankfully, as the water clouded up, I could feel my fingers relieved of the stains that had plagued them. Emptying the basin into a chamber pot, I refilled it with water and grabbed a bar of soap to redouble my efforts, scourging even the memory of the filth’s presence on my fingers. Finally, as the last of my fingers was rubbed raw, I felt as if I had been cleansed of a curse. I ran my thumbs along the tips of my other fingers, making one final check before I could be free of this.

It would be on this inspection that I found a curious strand of hair. Long and blonde, I felt it beneath my fingertips, silken and soft. I searched my mind for who it could have belonged to and found myself at an impasse. No one in my family had blonde hair, and none of the servants were known to take care of their hair well enough to be suspect. Before I knew it, I caught myself stroking the strand of hair almost obsessively. Why was I so enamored by it?

It was as I was scouring my brain for what it could mean, I thought back to my Brother when he sat before his canvas. At the time, I hadn’t caught it, but as I dwelled on his descent into madness, the image of a lock of silken hair around his knuckle came into clarity.

I gazed at the strand of hair, fair as the dawn and softer than the down of a dove, I caught myself from returning to madness and washed my hands of it. It was then that I had my answer: Whatever had bewitched my Brother, it was real, and not the hallucination of some Ulqorran plant. This idle strand of hair, however innocuous, was proof of that. It represented a clear and present danger, a danger that devoured William whole, emptying him until only a void remained where his soul had been.

I vowed to make sense of this tragedy and remedy this thorough destruction of my Brother. Out in the city of Placedo existed the foul temptress who robbed William of his sanity. It was my intention to use the resources available to me to bring this harlot to justice.

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