April 5th

  She took the tortoise home with her, so it took a while until we could talk. Well, I say talk but it was a very slow conversation through writing. I have learned a lot about her. She is very open, I find it strange how much she willingly told me. Our conversation was dominated by her, and she needed little to no prodding to talk at length. Perfect for what I wanted.

  I think she sensed I was a little different, because eventually she started telling me about how she was unhappy with her lot in life. All she wants to do is to be able to brawl and fight. Be a muscle-bound idiot instead of the prim and proper daughter of a businessman she is supposed to be. Expected to be smart and able to understand what is going on yet still be forever in the background.

  I did not tell her much about the monsters I have encountered, but I did tell her a little bit. She told me a lot about one creature she found, as well as remarking on the scrying tortoise.

  April 7th

  I stumbled across something very, VERY strange. I saw a deer in the forest with wounds all over its body. Bare ribs poked through one of the wounds and I could see that the eyes had rotted out of its head. I saw it at a distance and soon lost sight of it, but it looked almost… dead. How could something live like that? I am tempted to say I have seen worse, but a walking corpse is quite a bit stranger than anything else I have seen.

  April 8th

  Today I will be going out to the forest to try to find that creature from yesterday. I am also bringing the scrying tortoise so I can use any down time to try to talk to Lucy. I am not bringing other paper, however, so I will need to use my journal.

  Good afternoon.

  In the forest beyond my manor. I am trying to find something I saw yesterday.

  Just a deer with some strange injuries.

  Really? What was it like?

  No, this is the first time I have heard about something like that. It sounds very different from what I saw. That sounds like it would be the work of something other than a creature. I cannot think of anything that would cause it to melt together like that.

  The deer I saw had a hole in its breast and was covered in scratches.

  Not very close, no.

  I would say it sounds too good to be true.

  Really? Your father? What does he plan to use it for?

  Well, I suppose that does go without saying. It is a powerful motivator afterall.

  How does he make it? Do you know his current production method?

  That would not be a problem for me.

  Perhaps tomorrow you will have the recipe?

  I did not find the animal today, but I would not say today was a total waste.

  April 10th

  Shadow sometimes makes too much noise for me to bring her with me every day. I often leave her at the manor because of that. I nearly saw that beast again today, but she scared it off.

  April 11th

  I have started on the camouflage. I hope to finish it by tonight.

  April 12

  I was doing a stakeout today when I saw something strange. My day started off yesterday with making the camouflage on my armor and clothing, as I have previously stated. Today I was actually able to put it to the test. I was waiting to see that critter again, to see if it would notice me, but I never saw it. No, instead I saw something much stranger. Not even 30 feet from my position a rabbit was grazing on some grass (I now know the camouflage works) when a deer came up to it. The first thing to note was that the rabbit did not run. In fact, it looked frozen, paralyzed. Secondly the appearance of the deer, if I could even call it that. The face had deteriorated so much from how a healthy deer should look, and half of its rib cage was exposed. Through the decaying flesh I could see some sort of black stringy substance. It was strung between the various ribs, curving through and around them and stretching across patches of rancid flesh. The beast’s heart was completely enveloped, the lung entirely removed, and its skin hung loose on its frame. It had very few patches of hair left, a tuft of which fell out and gently wafted down to the ground as I watched the beast. It had holes and scabs, scars and cuts, wounds all over its body.

  As I watched, the horrid beast, which was little more than a corpse, approached the rabbit, shambling on its crumbling legs. The deer gored the rabbit with one of the broken, exposed bones of its front leg. It proceeded to throw around the rabbit until it was thoroughly dead.

  Then I saw the sticky black substance unwrap from around the heart. It unraveled itself from the ribs and disappeared up the throat. It then burst forth from the mouth and dived into the hole that it had made in the rabbit.

  April 13th

  Yesterday was certainly stranger than anything I have seen before. Not even the octopus monster could compare. I want to capture it, but I think I should be slow and intentional about how I attempt to capture it. Griffin has offered to help me with anything I may need, in exchange for continuing to provide him a place to stay until I give him the firefox, (side tangent later), but I should try to not rely on him whenever anything gets difficult. He serves as more of a safety net for me, and even then I can rely on Shadow to help me. I want to do this on my own, so it will have to be done at a slower pace than before.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Side tangent: Griffin seems to have multiple reasons to stay. Daphne is certainly one of those reasons by now but what are the others? That is one thing I have noticed about him. Aside from a meticulous attention to detail, he rarely only has one reason for any action he takes. There is almost always a secondary motivation.

  April 14

  Today I found that gift which I received from Archibold. I had placed it in the drawer of my writing desk, but have been overlooking it for some time. I do not know why, nor do I know why I looked at it today, but it looks to be the journal and letters of one Eleanor Sulli. My mother. It is only part of her last name, however. The book is frail and the name written inside the front cover has faded, with part of the label torn off, so I cannot see what her full maiden name was.

  I have yet to read it. I am a little nervous, actually. However, without even reading it, some puzzle pieces are slotting into place.

  ______________________________

  THAT HELLSPAWN! DEMON! THE INCESSANT MANIPULATOR! GOLDEN BOY! HOW COULD HE DO THAT TO HER??! MOTHER’S OWN BROTHER! IF HE WERE HERE RIGHT NOW I WOULD TEAR HIM LIMB FROM LIMB!

  Father's rage does not compare to what I feel right now. How could he? Her own brother? If I ever see Lawrence I shall kill him myself, and get revenge for Mother. Not just her, but her siblings. Elizabeth and Aunt Cecilia, and poor Charles.

  Amelia! Does Amelia know about any of this? No, no. If Archibold has the diary, there is no way Amelia could have seen it.

  April 15th

  I have asked Lucy to attempt to find Mother’s family. Only her brother and one sister were in London, maybe Lawrence is still there, insolent swine.

  Lawrence Sulli.. that name sounds familiar to me, which is why I am interested in finding him.

  April 16th

  Infuriating. The way this angers me is… It is almost diabolical. Livid did not even begin to define how I felt 2 days ago, and that anger had hardly faded. Matter of fact, I have not slept for the past two nights aside from when I passed out from exhaustion this morning. Maryanne let me sleep, but I would not even call it sleep. It was only hate filled nightmares which left me more drained than before.

  As soon as I woke up (from punching the wall), I went out into the forest in search of that mucky rabbit monster. I did not bring Shadow with me, Maryanne had gone somewhere with her to let me sleep. Fat lot of good that did me, I may as well have not slept at all.

  I would be a better host than that itty bitty rabbit, HA! The monster knew it, that is why it tried to attack me. I let it. It thought it had done a grievous injury to me, but it just ripped up my armor a little bit, it can be fixed in no time. Pretending to be dead was all it took and out squirmed that black slimy stuff, aiming to get into my mouth and nose. I killed it right then. A few slashes with my knife and I cut it into sections. One small section was still wriggling, but I squashed it beneath my boot and it turned to goop. Very dead and sticky goop.

  April 17th

  I slept well. I took my anger out on that monster last night and noticed an immediate change in my mood. I must be mindful of that. It seems I have inherited a mixture of Father’s temper and Lawrence's habits of relieving that anger. It would be all too easy to slip into a pattern of behavior dangerously close to his. Again, I must be mindful.

  April 18th

  Oh, Mother! Dear, sweet Mother, how could all that befall you? I had just begun to believe in God again. These monsters are less curse than blessing, but how can I believe after I have read your life? I could fill in the gaps in your story if I tried. I wonder what horrors you observed, what terror you must have felt, and I find it hard to believe. Why did you cling so hard to your God throughout all that? You kept waiting for Him to save you and in doing so, you never saved yourself. Oh, Mother! All that pain would have been avoided. Surely it is what caused your untimely death. You robbed not only yourself, you robbed your son through false hope. How could I believe, after what I read? God allowed him to cause your death, and the death of your sibling. Why, Mother? Why? Why did you believe so strongly?

  April 19

  Drink does not have as strong an effect on me as it does on Father, but it makes me more… poetic? That was the first time I have touched alcohol, and I cannot say I enjoyed it. It seems the best vice is monster hunting.

  April 19th

  Speaking of monster hunting, today I found the rotten shell of one of the monster’s previous hosts. I quite literally mean shell, it was the shell of an arthropod. It was easily double the size of the rabbit the monster had been inhabiting. The shell was torn apart, but I could see its vicious pincers by its mouth. Small blobs of flesh and muck were inside it.

  Rather interesting to find an arthropod so large.

  April 20th

  I cannot find anything more about that shell. So irritating! A shell of that size is a very rare find. I have never seen anything like it

  April 22nd

  I am still spending fruitless hours trying to learn something, anything about that carcass. I have given up. It is not going to happen.

  April 27th

  Maryanne told me about some gossip from town today. Ms. Endarson had woken to a loud bang early in the morning. Later that day, her husband, while going into the forest, saw a large clearing which had not been there before. The trees had been ripped up out of the ground, timbers strewn about, blasted apart by some unknown force. The explosion had caused an avalanche. Small in scale, but still dangerous. It is on the other side of the valley, near the pass. I will go over there to look at it either today or tomorrow. I have not been to that side of the valley in a long time.

  I am thinking about spreading the word around town that I am investigating any strange occurrences that occur. It would certainly help me find more monsters.

  April 28th

  The description I was provided was highly accurate. Trees had been ripped apart. Rocks were blackened and cracked. I could not pinpoint any specific origin for the blast, although it was of considerable size. There were slimy bits of something littered about, but I doubt it’s from a monster.

  May 2nd

  I don't believe it! I– how? What allows this to happen? I don't care, this is a tremendous windfall.

  Today I was at the lake with Griffin and Daphne, experimenting with her mermaid form, when she said she had something to show us and dove beneath the water. She returned minutes later with an oyster. I have never seen one before, but Griffin recognized it. Upon Daphne's insistence, We pried it open and inside was a warm, pink pearl. It dimly glowed and hummed, pulsating as if reacting to the warm and gentle breeze stirring the air around us. It is hardly the size of my smallest finger nail. The ripples just beneath the surface were mesmerizing…

  Daphne gave it to Griffin, who gave it to me later in the day. I was examining it again just now before going to bed. I had it in one hand as I took my necklace off with the other. When I set the necklace down on the desk, though, I heard that familiar scraping. The clanking of invisible chains. That means that I can reactivate the abilities of monsters' remains.

  Great gossiping grasshoppers, that is remarkable. Fascinating. Truly, truly fascinating.

  I need to remake my armor! I can incorporate several things into it. The wolf hide for protection against cold. A cloak made from that invisible creature. I wonder if I can use anything from the octopus monster.

  May 3rd

  Daphne gave me a much larger pearl from the lake today. She said she had it for as long as she can remember, but when I asked for it, she gave it to me. These pearls are incredible! Not only do they have a hypnotizing glow, but they reawaken parts of dead monsters. I will start remaking my armor at once.