showed me this horrible scene from my life! I wondered, how could my life go so wrong? So I stared longer and longer, hoping this would all be revealed to me. One body later, two bodies more, the pile kept rising and I had no idea how they ended up dead at my hand! I remember looking into the ring, and then as I looked away I would awaken in a room with no clue how I got there, and there was a dead body sacrificed to the daemon of the ring! Now I am here, in the very scene I had tried half my life to avoid.”
Jacob told the monster that he has experienced the same kind of amnesia, to which he laughed madly and told him it was already too late for him. “Your fate has been sealed!,” the madman raved for several minutes. “Find the hermit,” the Butcher yelled, “I know nothing else save for my horrors and misfortunes and that the hermit of Bainsfield Forests gave me the ring and caused all of this! I hate him!”
Now we go on to search for the hermit, if he remains amongst the living. On behalf of my dearly departed Wilkinson, my patient, his grandmother and her husband, and the tortured soul of the loathsome Brutus “The Butcher of Bainsfield” Piers, we must find the source of this cursed ring!
I remain,
Dr. Edwin Walters
Note of the Mad Warlock of Bainsfield Forests:
To whom it may concern,
Whomever may find themselves with the great displeasure of resurrecting my crypt and the work I have wasted my life on, know that if you are finding this note, I am gone forever. Many a moon passed in my life as I have passed the time of my existence obsessed with the science of alchemy and energies of sorts. This macabre study has lead me on a lifetime search for the Black Holy Grail itself, and I had only realised this when it was far too late. It seems, first you study and search endlessly for the meaning of it all, and you will soon make a discovery. Whether good or purest evil, soon the discovery will make yet another discovery of its own! The energies draw more energies to you, and soon you are forced to find secret ways of protecting yourself, but you cannot! Soon you are driven deeper and deeper into the abyss and finally, it consumes you! Lord forgive me.
You have undoubtedly found my vast collection of vellums, spells, tomes, books from many ages past, stones, charms, remains of blood sacrifices and other magickal devices. Please make no hesitation to destroy them all and burn down this cursed home! For it has become nothing more than a portal for daemons to enter our sacred world.
Initially, I have gotten into the Higher Magickal Arts to heal those in need, and to deliver us all from the evils of the world. I began my studies under the High Warlock Agzed Shaz-Buul, who resided in the frozen mountains of Norway for many a century. This man, if it still be appropriate to refer to him as human, has shown me so many mad conjurations and castings that still I can never hope to obtain half of his power! Upon meeting the High Warlock, he accepted me graciously as his Mage and began my training with educating me in Lesser Energy manipulation. Quickly I have shown him potential, as within that first week of training I could bring to life a fire before your eyes even lacking heat, and I could even charge up a small ball of lightning right in my very hands! From there, we moved onto Higher Energy manipulation. Within the year I could bring a massive blaze to life and perform small telekinetic activities. I felt like a god, but it was still merely a fraction of what he were to teach me.
We have spent the next five years exploring my Higher Magickal Self. In essence, this is manipulation of your own soul for purposes of travel. We have travelled in spirit form far across the Universe itself, we have travelled through tube-like black holes that the High Warlock would create into space and time itself and we could travel nearly anywhere using this method! He refers to these black portals as wormholes, a term of which he has learnt from men of science in the future. We've travelled to many worlds and have met many people of intelligence, we have seen the most beautiful and most malevolent forces in the entire universe!
You will notice in my library, you will see a round balloon shaped map of the Universe. This was a compiling of the work the High Warlock and I have undertaken on our travels abroad the cosmos. We were in the process of mapping the entire Universe as we know it in this way! No longer would mankind have to stay at the mercy of science, it is far slower than the Higher Magickal Arts!
These were the great times, back when I was truly using magick to uncover the secrets of the Universe. The High Warlock had still more to teach me, and in retrospect, this was my demise. He revealed to me that among the greatest of the Universe's secrets lies with the Two Brothers of Fate. One is known as the Beloved Brother, and the other the Forsaken Brother. All I know of the Brothers is that they are responsible for human life itself, and that a son of the Forsaken Brother exists on every planet inhabited by our race! The High Warlock would not reveal anything more to me than that, as I was never ready by the time I've left his studies.
Then came the Forsaken Brother's ring, cursed be it! The High Warlock told me after seven years as his Mage that in order to understand the Brothers of Fate, I must bear their burden. He has presented the ring to me, with its alien language inscriptions and dark power. The burden of the Brothers, he has taught me so, is in knowledge. They have a power to see your darkest moment. A wise man will be able to use this knowledge for the higher good, and even the Brothers themselves have a morbid curiosity of their own and can never look away. The Brothers eventually met their fates and thus, are in the current state that they are in. The ring was made for the world of mortals, but pity the power it bears is not! With this ring, the possessor wields the knowledge of the Brothers of Fate, and will do with it as they will.
The High Warlock has spent many centuries studying the ring. How he'd learnt of the ring is unknown to me, but he once told me he'd spent in excess of two-hundred fifty years pursuing possession of it. He finally found it in the ownership of the son of a fallen French king. King Jacques was only the king of France for a short two years, some time over two centuries past, and the events of his rule resulted in his complete deletion from all history books. Known as “Black Jack the Hunter of Dark Treasures”, King Jacques was a wealthy man who would stop at nothing to obtain any mysterious treasure he would hear of. He spent his time in his library, which contained books from places scattered afar both in distance and in time, and he would always be searching for evidence of a forgotten treasure with a story behind it. His collection came to include many jewels with spectral attachments, weapons that were said to have killed monsters, books in dead languages that are said to contain the world's secrets, and lastly the ring of the Forsaken brother, which he would ultimately discover in the desecrated tomb of Abdul the Necromancer, the blackest Sultan of the Ottomans. This would be his last treasure.
The King stared into the gem, and his nation suffered greatly because of his infatuation. Black Jack became mad for power, and one after another, he had members of his court put to death at the guillotine as not a single one could resist the temptations of the gem. Every single guard working under him, the jesters, and even his own daughter were killed by his irrational protection of the ring. He became a tyrant with an iron clad fist, as his thirst to be feared lead to his order of his armies to slaughter a large percentage of the French people under his rule. After all of these tragedies, his son Prince Henry knew he had to dispose of this prized possession of his father's. He killed his father by the blade in his sleep on the full moon, and desecrated all memories of the tyrannical King.
Prince Henry would blunder in his plans to destroy the gem. He knew a mere physical destruction of any magick item would not truly demolish it, it must first be disenchanted. He travelled to the darkest of caves of the Great Mountains of Norway to find the High Warlock, whom his father knew well and had searched for some of his collectibles with. The Prince was never seen again, and the High Warlock had obtained the ring he had been searching for.
After fifteen years of studying the Higher Magickal Arts under the High Warlock, he had taught me all that I cared to know. He continued to be obsessed
with harnessing the power of the Brothers, while secretly I was searching for ways to disenchant their unholy gem. He promoted me from Mage to Warlock, and I stole the ring and fled into the mountains. I found my way back to Oslo, and took the first ship back to London, never to see the High Warlock again. Since then, I have been living in seclusion in the Bainsfield Forests, rejecting society and focusing my entire existence trying to undo everything I have done in the past. I have failed, and the ring was stolen from me from a passer-by. I do not blame him, as I know the ring has powerful temptations and it chose he to be its next bearer. I have since read of the man's terrible crimes and have failed to find him. Now it is my life that must end!
Letter addressed from Dr. Edwin Walters to Miss Lucia Walters; addressed 14th April 1894
Dearest sister,
I write to you of an urgent matter! Forgive me for discussing my patient's business, but a man has come under my care at Rockview bearing a terrible ring. I am aware of the ludicrousness of it all, but no one else will believe me. His ring has the power to show you visions of your darkest moment of your life and to bring you there!
I had him committed involuntarily to Rockview because I suspect he has murdered his fiancé, the late Angel McIntyre. I know she was a friend of yours, have you any information of her relationship with Jacob Riley? Jacob has told me in his delusions that every single trace of Angel's existence has vanished!
What disturbs me more, is that the ring was given to him by his grandmother Nancy Riley, and she has committed a murder of her partner, Reinhardt, as well! I have found that they were cultists of some kind linked to a daemon entity known only as the Forsaken Brother. I am still inclined not to believe in such insane things, but my scepticism is challenged by recent curious events.
I have since learnt that a former colleague of mine and a dear friend was in charge of Nancy's care, and also of the infamous “Butcher of Bainsfield” himself. Upon interview of the Butcher, who has not spoken in over twenty years, he has revealed that he himself handed the ring to Nancy, and yet Nancy had the ring before she ever met the monster! This ring must be exempt from the very laws of nature and of time and space itself! I know it sound insane, but it is the only way any of that makes sense, illogical as it may be!
The Butcher told us that he received the ring from that strange hermit that dwells in the Bainsfield Forests, that old Warlock that no sane human ever associated with. I have since taken Jacob out on a day pass to accompany me, and we seem to have stumbled upon quite the house of horrors and have discovered the worst abominations to ever sin against nature! We have found that the hermit was instructed in the arts of black magic by some hideously evil High Warlock of the Great Mountains of Norway, who seems to have some secret knowledge of the Forsaken Brother. We have also learnt that the High Warlock obtained the ring from Prince Henry of France, most probably by taking his life to steal it, who has killed his father the oppressive King Jacques “Black Jack the Hunter of Dark Treasures”. King Jacques found it in the grave of Ottoman Sultan Abdul the Necromancer, whom I know nothing of.
It is for reasons of my own safety that I write you, asking thee to watch over me as I seek out and pillage the tomb of the Sultan. No doubt if a man actually would possess the dark powers of necromancy that his tomb be riddled with evils no mortal man may be able to deal with. I tell you now that by the time you receive this letter, I will be well on my way to the former Constantinople to pillage his grave. For my search for the origins of this godforsaken gem has brought me into the kingdom of the dead itself! I beg of you now, dearest sister of mine, to be alert for the next full moon, for if I do not return to London by then, alert Scotland Yard immediately. Also, in the event of my demise, I have kept several documents of importance within my desk at the asylum. These tell the progress of my search. Give those to the inspectors as well.
Pray I see thee soon,
Your brother,
Edwin
Edwin Walters' Journal Entry; dated 18th April 1894:
18-4-1894:
As I have kept all documents of relevance as evidence of all I may find concerning the Bleeding Ruby, I now keep this record of my travels to Constantinople, to the tomb of Sultan Abdul the Necromancer.
I have arrived in town today, after several long days of travel. The local city hall had no information on my topic of interest, and thus I moved onto the odd and dismal corners of the local library, as referred to me by a local resident I've encountered. Oddly enough, anyone I ask for information on the whereabouts of the Necromancer's tomb seems to shudder and immediately gesture a crucifix onto themselves. The locals seem to be keeping some odd secret about this, and even the younger generations know nothing. The elders must be hiding this from everyone, including their children. There is something out here, clearly, that no mortal man is meant to find.
In the library of my reference, I was told to go to the cellar and push the northernmost bookshelf twice. As I have performed this task so simple, the bookshelf within the damp and dark room seemed to roll itself inward, opening to me a world of catacombs below! I illuminated the lantern I found upon the wall to find a deep and winding brimstone staircase which gave me the gravest of chills my shivering spine could withstand. As I descended the staircase into nowhere, I seem to have been struck by the chilling breath of the devil himself! After recovering my wits, I arrived at the very bottom of the endless dank pit. The wall read with an epitaph that clearly marked the opening of a very old tomb. Under that cryptic writing was a door of oddly beautiful stained glass. The design was of a priest-like figure raising a corpse, a design only a madman can conjure, as there was a curious beauty to the grim work of art that I could not help but admire. Beauty is a trait that many dark things share, only noticeable by those with the nerve to find it. I knew deep from within the aching nervous ticks of my bowels that this beauty was an illusion, and that what I would find may be the most traumatic encounter of mine since the start of this journey into oblivion. It was then at that moment in time forever lost to my recollection that my trembling hand crept open the musty door with great reluctance and with the slyest of morbidly fascinated contempt.
The odour of death so musty and damp, yet so strangely inviting, overpowered me in the most pleasantly repelling way. At that moment, I could see the well preserved corpse of the Sultan as it lie forever in its sleeping end. So many scars it bears of many odd characters not of the Turkish language, but what must have been from some far more ancient source. I recognised some of these symbols carved into the skin of the mummy from that horrible house of the Warlock who lived in the Bainsfield Forests. These were the markings of the spells of a necromancer! Many a scroll lie at the foot of the cold stone resting table, most of which were the work of a necromancer. The many vellums lie scattered about in the most insanely disorganised way. It was then that I attempted to pronounce the characters upon the altar. With a small quake of earth, at first nothing seemed affected. Then came a small pathetic groan, one which made my very stomach shrivel as does a salted slug in severe sharp pain. The pit of my bowels dropped like a cannon ball through the churning ocean currents. The unintentional incantation brought the corpse to life!
It tried to speak! It did speak, and though I did not understand the language, I could sense the confusion the awful thing must have felt. My mind had no other idea within but to present the ring. The rotting beast shrieked with a terror so blood curdling that I felt its shrill pain with all my being. It proceeded to hand me a few of its scrolls and I will soon send them for translation. After granting me the horrible texts, which at first glance seemed relevant to the ring which I've come to despise, it thrust itself onto its resting table and withdrew a dagger that lie aside. With a great thrust into its own throat, Sultan Abdul the Necromancer was no more, as he had again lost his life. I ran from the terrible catacombs beneath the secret library and destroyed any evidence of my visit. I now rest here at the Great Warhorse Inn, awaiting my requests for translation of the
scrolls. Deeply fearful I am of what I am about to find!
Edwin Walters' Journal Entry; dated 22nd April, 1894:
22-4-1894
Several nerve wracking days have slowly crept by at a death-like and silent pace, and my translations of the necromancer's scrolls have arrived by post. I deeply regret not stopping my search much earlier.
The first document was on the powers of the ring, from which I've learnt nothing new save for that the Sultan believed the Beloved Brother to have been killed by the Forsaken Brother. Every other detail matched the story of the Warlock in Bainsfield Forests.
The second document was quite startling. It is a personal account on the ring from the Necromancer. He says that he had stolen it from the home of a Greek family during an Ottoman invasion, who had it very well hidden in the urn of an ancient Spartan ancestor, which had never been opened. The urn with its ring inside was a family heirloom for centuries. Continuing, the family told the invading Sultan that their Spartan ancestor, known as Telemachus the Warrior of Truth, was a sergeant during the ancient Greek war against the Persians. He had killed a formidable Persian soldier known only as “The Pestilence”. “The Pestilence” was feared for his infectious blade, which was poisoned with the black plague so badly, that if he failed to kill his enemy on the battlefield, the plague from his blades would kill the poor souls at home after the fighting ceases. Hard the feared and evil Persian warrior fell to the spear of the Spartan, and no one could believe the infamous killer had been defeated. Later, the Greek army plundered the bodies of the fallen for spoils, and the ring became the sergeant's prize.
It would not be until several years later that the Spartan would find out the horrible history of the gem. He had not yet been affected by it, as he had rarely ever bore it. On this one rare occasion, he happened to be near a former comrade of “The Pestilence”. The Persian man immediately gasped at the sight of the terrible gem, and would soon tell the soldier his reason. The Spartan took note of what the former Persian soldier said as a warning to his family who may find the gem, and the document is included in the scrolls given to me by the Necromancer, as he has taken it to his grave in Constantinople with him.
This brings us to the third document, and perhaps most disturbing of all.
The Bleeding Ruby Page 4