Third Note from Sumnergrave - Found by Owen Reid upon awakening from a strange dream in Derceto's secret study on December 5. The note takes the form of a stiff card, folded in half and tied with a red ribbon to a curious tome entitled Teratology Universalis, or "Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the Devil".
Front of Card:
Inside of Card:
Dear adventurers (especially you, Owen Reid),
Merry Christmastime, and congratulations! Our great work, my life's work, is almost complete. Owen, you should give yourself more credit: it is vanishingly rare for any author worth their essential salts to completely nail it on the first draft, let alone a freshman writer! I am most grateful to you for putting corporeal pen to paper and getting the damn thing done in my absence. Few are those both brave and intelligent enough to open their minds to communion with reality. Fewer are those who can subsequently correlate their mind's contents and package the fruit of knowledge for the masses. Heavy lies the crown, yet you wore it for the good of the people. Soon, I hope you will understand the profound beneficence of your labors.
Of course, each of you were essential to the creation of this text. Thus, you have my utmost gratitude. Everything that happens from here on out would be impossible for want of your efforts. I may not come across as the most forthright fellow, but I promise you that I mean this wholeheartedly. To every one of you, past and present (the living and the dead, world without end, amen): please accept my sincerest thanks.
Now all that remains is the matter of publication, or rather, distribution. Luckily, this requires little from you henceforth; a simple delivery job in all likelihood, and perhaps some slight party crashing should certain actors be unamenable to a minor last-minute script revision. Your specialties, no? You need not even go far out of your way, considering the plan you formed with Ooms for the disposal of that ghastly necklace, and the political scheming into which our beloved Renaissance Man has sweet-talked you.*
But there will be time enough for that after tonight's festivities. There is always more than enough time. Have fun. Indulge. Eat, drink...but be wary. Poor Joop must often contend with party crashers of his own, and you wouldn't want him to suffer any mishaps, no? Behind every great author is a good agent, and Ooms is a man with connections. Including rather damning connections to you, one might say. But fear of damnation is the greatest preserver of the status quo, and change is what we aim for.
Season's greetings,
Ambrose Clark Sumnergrave
*Ah, but perhaps you do not remember? Too much liquid time in your eggnog? I'll give you a few clues. In your search for a safe place to discard the aforementioned hideous relic of the Duvan'Ku, you will find two distortions in space in time. They will appear as holes punched in the melted wax of reality, with "GAZE NOT" emblazoned above. Obey this commandment! But without looking closely within, you can deposit your burden. Any hole will do, as certain hedonists used to say.
As for your conspiracy against crown and church, just ask Joop to repeat everything, and I mean everything, he knows about Orelia Woolcott. Remember her?
Finally, there is the matter of Agatha Foxlowe. Ooms did his best, and she is doing relatively well, given the circumstances. But there is no perfect balm for her trauma, save one. To remove any more of her memory, of her pain, would be for her to cease to be herself. "Very well," you might say. "Consign her consciousness to oblivion, and create a happier person in her place." But you remember, don't you, Owen? Time is cyclical. What has been always will be, world without end. Still, perhaps you begin to see a solution.
When this is all over with, I hope that you will come to understand that I did all of this for Agatha Foxlowe. For all of the Agathas in the universe. For you.
Back of Card:
(The pictures above were captioned using the Sierra Death Generator. The first was taken from the NES game Totally Rad. I thought it kind of looked like a weird interpretation of Jacob's Ladder. The second picture was taken from the NES game The Legend of Zelda.)
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