Dearest Sister,
As I write to you I am preparing my first earnest foray into the Forgotten Quarter - a nest of haunted ruins which survived London’s landing in the Neath over three decades ago.
My landlady, a widow, is nonplussed as sailors pile more and more crates into her hallway and landing. These are supplies of tinned biscuits and apples, candles and cartidges. I am not certain if I will need these things, but it pays to be prepared. The coterie of talkative rats I have acquired are checking everything. In the morning, I will be off.
If only you knew the hardships I have endured to reach this point. The lengths I have gone to in order to win the trust of some very perculiar and influential people. The horrors I have seen whilst both waking and asleep.
I have been reducted to petty thievery (Thievery! - Imagine what Father would say!), in order to finance my endeavour. I am certain it will be worth it in the end. Remember, ‘exitus acta probat’, and all that.
I intend to publish my findings immediately. I have picked up a junkett writing for the Takepenny Gazette on Sunday - mostly tawdry gossip nonsense, but it is only a means to an end. If one wants one’s work to be noticed, one has to generate a buzz! - Or so my new friends in Veilgarden tell me.
I shall write to you again soon.
All my love,
Verity
shuffling through my pile of Stolen Correspondence
…
reads letter
slow singular eyebrow raise
… Well. I guess this is gonna be my good deed for the day.
reseals letter in another envelope, carefully writes proper address on back
opens window
hurls the envelope out like a heckin’ Frisbee
closes window
…
resumes shuffling
edited by Tystefy on 1/18/2018
Dearest Sister,
I know it will be with some small regret you open this letter and learn that I did not meet my demise in the Forgotten Quarter.
Rest assured there were some ropey moments - when my expedition was assailed by formless shades in the dead of night, or when we disturbed a nest of Sorrow Spiders the size of bull mastiffs.
We set out in search of a thieves cache rumoured to be buried somewhere on the fringes of the Quarter. Aside from the aforementioned obstacles, and a few long-dormant booby traps left behind by the original depositors, it was easy to find.
What the miscreants intended to do with these fossils is a mystery to me. Perhaps they were simply ignorant of their provenance; I suspect these specimens are Rubbery Men larval stages. Oh, you probably don’t know what a Rubbery Man is. - Well, that’s for another time.
We returned the next day and looked more thoroughly - surely this could not have been their only prize. And I was right! Hidden nearby was a trove of jewels, a little dusty but otherwise pristine. They will be well-spent financing my next venture.
The social event of the season is soon to commence - the Ambassador’s Ball. Though I know not who the Ambassador is, or what he is the ambassador of… it matters little. The truth is, as much as I detest these society events, it will be the perfect venue to meet potential financiers. Or, if nothing else… there will b a good spread.
I will write again with all the gossip, though none of it will mean anything to you!
All my love
Verity.
Dearest Sister,
I write this to you by the stub of a Foxfire candle; no more illumination is permitted in the Shuttered Palace.
Truly this is a place where joy has come to die and naked ambition come to life. What I wouldn’t give to be in my favourite nook at the Mandrake, sipping wine with my friends. Real friends, not the pasty shadows who inhabit this awful place.
You would have loved the Ambassador’s Ball - it was unsufferably tedius, stuffed with sycophants and the terminally droll. But it has opened opportunities I cannot pass up. Court is a rumour mill, and those rumours I can leveradge into much-needed capital.
In the next week I hope to have enough supplies to reach the Shrine of the Wide Blue Heaven, or so I hope. I will be changing one sort of tomb for another, do you think there is a certain irony in that? If my sources are correct, there is not a moment to lose. That wastrel plagarist ‘Doctor’ Orthos is likewise gathering supplies…
All my love,
Verity