In big looping letters, more deliberate than the previous pages, stained with soot and the smell of smoke.
The Grand Investigator has discovered the truth of life and death with finality. Merlin and Vennkat made it through without getting hurt and my wound didn't reopen. Providence blessed the party again.
We started the day in the ruined camp of the Company men. Their bodies turned from charcoal to ash under the weight of the morning dew. Their rations did a treat for breakfast and we maneuvered back to the tombs to make for Blip proper. Holy hells the Company cart is powerful but a goddamn buffet bell for the undead. A whole choo choo's worth ambled behind our leisurely carriage as we pulled over the gravel ramp into the graveyard. Vennkat blew up most of them. Merlin and I finished off the rest.
One of the Numbers crept from the crypt, looking at the mules with a wanton hunger that distressed me and gave Merlin a look of a man about to witness something unspeakable. The poor creature launches into one of its "investigations"; it's patchy, dry tongue going over the hooves, legs, flanks, and every dirt specked spot of the mule's body. Lips covered in hair, a soul patch clinging to the grey flesh of the tongue, 7 the ghoul mutters how thirsty it is. We hoodwink the sap into gathering feed for the beasts under the story that the mules are great beasts that must be sated or else their wrath would strike fear across the plane. 7 bounds off to gather grass for the mules.
Down in the crypts we pass the Numbers enraptured in their "investigations", licking and slobbering all over one another. We stroll through a door we haven't been into yet looking for the Grand Investigator to find a man chained, skin missing, muscles scarred with mistreatment. With its limited cognition it moans and points its head at us. Bizarre, something to do with the Investigator's studies. In another door we find a head still alive on a desk. It gives a withering look, well the best a skull can, and we leave. The Grand Investigator catches up to us, fuming. Though he calms down after we say we were looking for him.
We bring up what happened when we left and the Grand Investigator said that flames have acted strangely since the comet fell. When the topic of all the chained up, macabre shit comes up he gets quiet, though still agreeable. I can tell there's some rage dancing behind his eyes when he talks about the prisoners. They must be the source of his mastery over "life and death" or some bizarre jag he's chasing down.
Vennkat, Merlin, and I share a look. Merlin blasts the man with a blunderbuss. The shoulder goes missing. Vennkat charges and misses a crushing blow. Merlin finished off the shocked freak with a pistol shot to the skull. Quickly I chop the limbs off in a vainglory hope to keep him contained. The Numbers crushed through the door, falling on top of each other and pushing each other down to get at us. Vennkat tossed a bomb. DEAF again. I fall back to hold them off and damned fire flashes again. A torch from a wall flies at the horde and combusts, dousing them in flames. I dodged to the ground next to the body of the grand investigator, his still attached hand making innate patterns. Magicks again... ? The rest of his limbs try to crawl away in the chaos.
We gather up the bodies and make a massive conflagration of the deceased. Vennkat and Merlin head back with the freed-flayed man. I watch the flame. And yes, this old cripple, nodded off for a moment, and as the last bits turned to ash the fire moved like it did from the lantern that scalded Artorias, the campfire of the company, and the sconce on the wall... The living flame leapt for my eyes and my hand rose to catch it. The damn Grand Investigator took two of my fingers even in death. From the cinders I pick out one of the skulls of the Numbers and tie it to my weapon. A memory to the day, a reminder of the dangers of man when they pursue things beyond the normal limit.
I crouch now in one of the cleared rooms. I will sleep. Hopefully the rest will be here soon.