Horrid Little Beasts (Redcaps?)

Little short creatures fond of magically growing the worst mushrooms I have ever encountered in the vicinity of their lair, albeit not directly in front of it- perhaps they find them as revolting as everyone else does and are merely planting them in a haphazard attempt to form a decoy faerie circle. This attempt is not especially convincing, except for insofar as one might mistake it at first glance for the work of an ill-mannered faerie teenager attempting to be edgy.

These little beasties are murderous and fond of decorating with blood, although whether it is the blood of their victims or from some other source is unclear, and to call it "decorating" is generous. Their preferred fashion is to wear simple red hats and heavy boots, shaped in such a way as to fit their unusually short and wide feet. These, at least, carried sharp pikes that I had the misfortune to discover were made of cold iron, and as such were quite painful to be stabbed with, even moreso than the pain of a typical stabbing, which I would imagine is still considerable. I also witnessed them bite and claw at my companions.

Perhaps the little beasts possess the ability to induce a form of psychic compulsion, as a teacher at the school they infested seemed driven to remain behind despite the clear threat to his safety, or perhaps he had simply decided of his own accord that he'd like to perish alongside his lost colleague, a sentiment I do not understand but have certainly seen before.

They do appear to have a weakness to religious imagery, specifically to the crucifix. I have never felt that it would be appropriate for me to carry about such baubles, as I haven't any connection to the religious traditions of humans, and besides, I find that specific one a touch morbid, but perhaps I will have to acquire some despite such concerns. It might be prudent to hang some in my home, as well, to prevent the little creatures from breaking in, but then I could not invite anyone over lest they have a good laugh at my expense. I suppose I rarely invite anyone regardless, so it may not be that much of an issue.

Colt - Demon of Some Sort, Agency

Unfortunately, I only know the personal name of this demon, and not what sort of demon he was, although I do believe I could identify another of the same sort if I saw it. He is working with the Agency, which to my understanding is bad news- I have never dealt with them personally, but I have certainly heard plenty of horrendous things. I will be setting up some more robust defenses, as I highly doubt the crosses will be adequate any longer. It is a shame I wasted my time with them.

Until adequately provoked, Colt appeared to be a fairly average albeit somewhat slimy looking human man. I have never had a talent for glamour magic myself, sadly, but nonetheless I am reasonably certain that is what he was using to accomplish this effect. When stripped of his glamour, he appeared as a demon with three horns. He was traipsing about attempting to capture monsters for his employer, apparently seeking to take them alive. I would not like to be involved with this, quite frankly, but I am now whether I like it or not. Nonetheless, there is a limit to how many fugitives may stay at my home, as I will run out of room, so until my current guest leaves I cannot accept any more. This is not a bed and breakfast.

Colt's weakness, and presumably the weakness of similar demons, is holy water. As it would turn out, I am capable of making this, although it disagrees with me. Having lived through times when my mere existence was considered an affront to the church, I find it comical that I am the best equipped in our group to replicate their holy water, even though it is a bit painful. Considering the discomfort associated with the process, I am unsure whether it would be more practical to avoid making it unless necessary or to prepare as much as I can store ahead of time when I will have time to rest afterwards. It is immaterial for now, as I have plenty - in fact, it is clogging up my shelves somewhat. We must be careful with it, however, as Irene is vulnerable to it as well.

This demon was quite tough, and survived a number of hits that I think would have killed me five times over. His attacks were far less impressive than his toughness, although we cannot bet on this in the future since we had the chance to surprise him this time. All I saw him do today was throw knives, poorly. I suppose he also teleported to Hell, but this did not seem to be something he is capable of doing on his own, rather the result of an enchanted piece of jewelry he no longer possesses. I hope he stays there until we have the chance to drag him out ourselves.

Loup Garou

Similar to a werewolf, however, he seems to transform without need for a full moon. I must admit I have never seen a werewolf transform before and therefore cannot draw up any more detailed comparisons. He appears as a wolf-like man, hunched on the ground and moving on all fours but not like a true wolf. Apparently quite murderous, the loup garou killed a woman at a campsite we located and was eating her corpse, then rushed towards us when we approached. Fortunately, he could be safely held in place long enough to knock him out for transport.

I suppose it is worth noting the reason we needed to capture him for transport- the loup garou in question was Rex, the boyfriend of Marie's acquaintance, Bart. Bart was not at all forthcoming about his loved one's condition and could have gotten us and/or Rex killed as a result. I am not at all pleased with his reticence and may need to have a strong word with that young man if I ever have the displeasure to see him again. I am certain he would have been quite unhappy had we failed to identify the loup garou as Rex and killed him thinking he was simply a murderous stranger. Whether he would have particularly cared if we had died while trying to retrieve Rex for him, I am less certain.

As for Rex, I do hope that he goes home and makes a full recovery, and that he has the sense to not go out and do something like this again. I fear he may have a concussion.

It is possible that his weakness is wolfsbane, although it was unclear if this was actually the case. Regardless, he can be held in place magically and he can be knocked out temporarily by hitting him in the head hard enough, much like a human. He also seems to lack the ability to tear off someone's arm with his teeth alone, but is capable of using a knife to make up for this deficit.

Inside of his den, we found the belongings of his victim clean and nicely folded. I found this to be bizarre and frankly damning - a wild beast would not have the wherewithal to do such a thing, he seems to have been fully conscious and known exactly what he was doing, and to have done it on purpose. I fear we may become suspects for the murder ourselves once it is discovered, as we were in the area, interacted with the body, and assisted in removing the actual killer from the area unharmed. I have a fine legal defense to bring before the Council should it come to that, as they are well aware I am incapable of falsehood and I can simply tell them what occurred, but the rest of our party lacks this advantage and furthermore it is unlikely to help me either if I am confronted by the human police. I suppose such liability could not have been avoided, however, as we gave Bart our word we would not harm Rex.

Idiot Cousin

As I had feared, working with hunters has inevitably resulted in conflict with other fae. Fortunately, in this instance, the fellow in question was a recluse living in his own constructed dimension, which he seems not to have left for many decades, if not centuries, and thereby I assume he is unlikely to go around gossiping about it. Even if he felt inclined to, neither of us know what to call the other.

Despite his comical lack of awareness regarding modern events, this fellow did seem to be quite powerful, capable of trapping an entire town of humans in his constructed dimension and even of preventing the use of other fae magic, such as my own, within it. Fortunately, he either failed or forgot to ward his dream dimension against outside tampering, and as such we were able to reach through supposedly solid objects, summon all manner of weapons, and so on. I even managed to summon a sizable cold iron sword, something he particularly ought to have warded against the creation of. I still feel a bit nauseous thinking about creating that thing, although it did prove quite useful. Of course, I did not touch it myself.

I suspect my cousin is around my age and that he created his pocket dimension to hide in when he was quite young, judging by his taste in decor and his lack of awareness of modern technology or even of the most basic human physiology. I do understand the appeal - dreadfully boring as it must be to live in such a place, it would presumably also be a very effective way to avoid unwanted interactions most of the time. Of course, it would be more effective for that purpose if one did not recklessly summon dozens of mortals and likely more than a few other fae into it and leave them to die on the side of the road, as such behavior tends to make everyone quite angry with you.

As much as I would have liked to see him suffer for his complete lack of decorum, his tacky Halloween dimension, and his failure to keep his cousins off his target list; I, unlike him, recognize that it is more practical to avoid killing other fae when at all possible. I have been under a lot of stress lately and admittedly let my temper flare out of control for a short time during our altercation, something I must work harder to avoid. Since the deaths he caused were apparently a byproduct of his incompetence rather than an actual necessity for his sustenance, I am hopeful that he will consider our advice and revamp his extra-dimensional out-of-season holiday party so that it is less deadly while still providing him nourishment.

I very much wish my mortal associates would not attempt to speak with hostile fae under any circumstances. They are not any good at it, and Marie's agreement not to harm my cousin if he "played nice," a meaningless promise, could have been catastrophic had he not slipped up in his own wording and failed to specify who he meant by "you" ahead of time.

I do not know my cousin's court affiliation, as I did not feel it appropriate to ask such a question. I suspect that, as reclusive as he is, he's unlikely to involve himself much with politics regardless of his formal court status or lack thereof.

Pard

The pard is a fae creature with a downright obnoxious amount of vitality and strength, although at heart it is simply a dumb animal as much as anything else found in a zoo. I did not recognize it at first, although I had heard of them, for illustrations of the beasts which I have seen in the past were not especially accurate and to my knowledge nothing more had been said of them since my youth. It is a shame that such a rare creature had to be put down rather than placed in an appropriately sturdy enclosure, for the quality of zoos does seem to have improved significantly and I believe it would have provided our local zoo with a showpiece no other could compete with.

The pard was a great spotted beast slightly larger than a lion. Otherwise, it mostly resembled a lion, possessing typical feline features and a thick mane. Illustrations I have seen of the beast tend to include either its spots or its mane, but not both. It did, however, possess both. Furthermore, the hide of the pard is very tough and difficult to pierce. It seemed largely unbothered by sustained gunfire.

Unfortunately, the pard was extremely aggressive, and our presence at the zoo was unauthorized. Therefore, we could not attempt to safely contain it. It attempted to attack a human at the zoo, and had apparently mutilated at least one lioness in the past - apparently, this act of brutality was not a turn-off for the other lionesses, who continued to pursue it romantically despite the fate of their sister. I suspect that if it were not dealt with, they would have met the same fate.

The weakness of the pard is dragon's blood, an extremely rare and expensive substance that we were only able to obtain due to Lucien's involvement in the case and his funding. It was effective when administered intravenously, although it took around thirty seconds to kill the beast, during which time it flailed comically about Obscura and knocked over cabinets. Fortunately, Lucien was polite enough to request return payment for the dragon's blood right away - the skin of the pard. None of us have any need for it, so it is an agreeable deal.

Henry Roseward - Immortal Rat King

It is unclear to me what this fellow thought to accomplish by inviting us into his home, and we will potentially never learn, as he is now dead. He invited many hunters, so most of us being invited was not odd, but considering his hatred for demons, I am stunned he elected to invite Irene. Nonetheless, he did so, and it was a fatal mistake.

We do not actually know what sort of being this fellow was, but it is possible he may have been fae - I would certainly hope not, of course, it would be a catastrophe if news got out that I participated in the killing of such a sociable fellow. What we do know about him is that he was immortal - likely around my age, if not older - capable of teleportation, and that his weakness was roses. It was unnecessary to procure any, however, as Nate apparently can load whatever he would like into his magical gun without issue. Additionally, he was capable of placing a compulsion upon both humans and rats, and seemingly granted them telepathy in the process.

I suppose we should appreciate the telepathic rat trick, as it allowed us to finally squeeze some information about Francis, who as it would turn out is also capable of telepathy. I do still wonder whether he, too, could be unwillingly working for another entity, but if he is, it would be dangerous to question him about it and he would likely be unable to answer regardless.

In addition to retaining a great quantity of thralls in his mansion, Roseward retained a prison with many demons inside. He seemed to intend to place Sebastian into this prison as well. The imprisoned demons were for the most part unharmed, although one had been mutilated severely and initially appeared to be dead. Along with his rats, Roseward enjoyed eating the mutilated demons alive. He kept a registry of the demons he had harmed, a list that was quite long. Really, despite the brutality, I feel it would have been his business if he had not attempted to target Sebastian.

It took quite a lot of violence to put this fellow down. Many of my associates were severely injured, although we all made it out alive. The only casualties aside from Roseward himself were one of his human thralls and a large quantity of his rat thralls. I have exhausted myself and will be resting for some time after this.

Wrath Demon

In the interest of completeness, I will catalog these creatures here, although we did not fight them and will likely be on civil terms in the future - in fact, we saved the lives of all demons present on the premises. I do hope they keep quiet about my involvement in their rescue. Although it is good that they are now safe, it would be unfortunate for my reputation if word got out.

These demons have horns, as is common with demons, and possess three fingers on each hand. One of these demons - Tage, who was apparently frazzled enough from his injuries that he elected to give his name in front of me - was mutilated almost beyond recognition by Henry Roseward (see previous entry), the others were fine. Additional demons were present as well, but as we did not fight them, I shall only be writing about the ones we know the appropriate label for.

I believe Tage and the other demons ought to recover from their injuries just fine now that they are out of Roseward's basement prison. I have nothing further to say about these demons.

Catoblepas

A foul and loathsome beast, yet seemingly a mere animal nonetheless, albeit one with magical properties - the catoblepas is a massive, lumbering creature possessing an overpowering stench and petrifying gaze, either of which may cause instant death. It is covered in greasy hair and keeps its head lowered into the filthy muck. Fortunately, I am well equipped to deal with overpowering stenches, having quite a bit of experience with such things. We do have to work with Sebastian on a regular basis. That aside, I do also possess a large collection of memorabilia from the past millennium, including the time of the plague, a period in which the horrid stench of death and disease was such an omnipresent misery that it was necessary to wear masks for protection. Obviously this was more important for those capable of actually falling ill, but just because the miasma could not harm me did not mean it was tolerable, and besides, I must cover my face regardless and it was as good an excuse as any. I lent several of these to the party, which I do not feel they appreciated enough. As everyone remains alive, I suppose they were adequate protection.

This nasty creature is not typically found in this area, and it is unclear how it arrived here. It is also a bit unclear where it has gone after having been banished - I was not involved in the banishment. Fortunately, now that it seems to be out of Newhaven, its whereabouts are not our problem. Prior to its removal, the beast killed a construction worker and was threatening to harm a group of protestors. I was dreading conversing with civilians, as it usually is tedious and awkward, but these people knew how to carry a conversation. It is fortunate that none of them perished. It is less fortunate that Marie elected to inform them all that we were involved in the zoo incident. I will likely be unable to speak with them in the future as a result.

As a result of some sort of issue when dealing with the beast, Sebastian has lost his ability to communicate. With the possible exception of Francis, who seems to find the whole thing quite entertaining, we are all hoping this to be either temporary or fixable. It is not clear whether this is an ability of the beast or a result of a magical backfire. Sebastian, of course, cannot tell us.

Vile Pillar of Flesh

This horrid entity nearly defies adequate description, and was one of the single nastiest things I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Approximately four times my height, it appeared as a limbless tree composed entirely of pulsating venison, which was apparently something the local deer found appetizing. Terrible taste, but really, one cannot expect much from such creatures. They merely eat what is available. The pillar's foul stench was abated somewhat by torching it, although doing so did not initially accomplish anything aside from that.

Certainly the most notable ability of the vile pillar of flesh was that it could absorb living things that came into contact with it. As it allowed the deer to eat without being absorbed, I suspect it may have had a measure of intelligence, enough at least to understand the concept of keeping livestock. Irene, Sebastian, and Nate all managed at various points to tumble into it and nearly be absorbed. Nate briefly appeared lost before he was pulled out, still alive albeit worse for wear, so I fear its previous victims may also have remained conscious until they either bled out or perished of starvation or suffocation. It would be a truly terrible way to die. I barely avoided such a fate myself - when the pillar was injured, it launched bits of itself everywhere, which dug into whatever they landed upon. It is my assumption that, had the main body not been destroyed, these tendrils would have continued to spread and grow until they killed me. This is how the pillar must reproduce, similar to some plants.

The weakness of the flesh pillar seems to be an attack by a pard, and fortunately for us, the one we killed seemed to bear no grudge and somehow retained its teeth and claws in death. It successfully weakened the entity such that Marie could finish it off with the flamethrower. Upon its demise, the pillar disintegrated into a reeking pile of charred corpses of all varieties, finally freed from their torment. It was an altogether unpleasant morning.

Henry Roseward - Addendum

The mystery of what, exactly, this fellow was has now been solved: fae, likely similar to myself in nature and likely around my age, perhaps a bit older. I had previously been thrown off of his trail due to his ability to lie. I would have never guessed that he would have managed to curry such favor with any court, allowing his bloody rats to traipse about in front of guests as he did. I suppose that the Unseelie court has always been somewhat less concerned with propriety, although even they are typically above engaging in such grotesque public nastiness at a formal event.

Regardless, all of that has been discussed already. The more pressing importance of this is his renewed relevance. Roseward, as it turns out, was a moderately talented enchanter, albeit a cruel one. The binding seal he placed on Mercy was intricate, but designed in keeping with years of literature on the subject, and as such was both reliably powerful and reliably dispellable by anyone with a half-decent understanding of magical technique. It was a terrible inconvenience, of course, but the seal is broken. Admittedly, I thought about replicating it in order to give the fellow Mercy was bound to a chance to understand the gravity of his actions, but unfortunately, the trouble with thralls is that you must interact with them regularly, and having to interact with such a loathsome man any further than we already had would have brought everyone great misery, not to mention potential censure from the Council given the sheer viciousness of the seal.

We have also obtained a list of individuals who worked closely alongside Roseward, prior to his demise. They are as follows: W.D. Lorn, deceased and no longer worth remarking upon, Hunter, a young and inexperienced fellow who either works as a barista or was pretending to, Ria, a blacksmith who is clearly quite competent at her trade, and Jan, likely our biggest concern - capable of psychically sticking her nose into others' business to an extent that is apparently truly impressive. I do wonder if she could withstand the weight of all the centuries I have lived, but I do not wish to see her try. It is invasive. We shall likely have to deal with all of these people in the future, as a friend of theirs seems to have passed away in Irene's basement.

I do fear that there could be consequences for Roseward's murder, as we now know that he occupied a place of prestige in the Unseelie court. If I am dragged back into court politics as a result of this, perhaps I shall have to lay down and die to spare myself the tedium.

Wight

The wight is a particularly nasty undead creature which apparently feeds off of hatred and misery. Nathan believes it may be fae, although this assumption seemed entirely based on it knowing his name and asking too many questions, and therefore cannot be assumed to be accurate. He also stated that it was willing to speak to him as he was not technically alive, although ultimately the two of them upset one another enough to come to blows. The first sign of its presence was the disappearance of two department store employees, Francis' former coworkers, and the haunting of a third, who I suppose must have been ideal prey for such a creature due to her glaringly terrible attitude.

The corpses of the perished coworkers were puppeted about by the wight, hiding in the ocean during the day to escape the sunlight, which burnt them. Each part of their bodies remained mobile even if detached, and was put to use for juvenile behavior such as making faces which, according to Irene, were homophobic, and flipping off anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. They seemed capable of 'surviving' severe injuries without healing from them, but were swiftly dispatched when attacked with silver knives. These lackeys were sent to menace the next prospective victim, the aforementioned impolite young lady. The wight itself was somewhat tougher than its thralls, vulnerable only to the light of the sun or similar and apparently not vulnerable to silver - it was ultimately killed using a contraption Marie constructed from UVB terrarium lights.

The teeth and claws of the wight were formidable, and it nearly killed Nathan because he was, from what I can gather, stupid enough to go fight it alone. This occurred in spite of his clearly misguided claim that it was not hostile towards him because he was already dead. If he were not capable of teleporting, he would surely be dead in the more conventional sense now - even with his ability to teleport, his survival was far from guaranteed. The wight had severely injured his face and torn a bloody gash through his ribcage with its teeth. Really, he would not be standing today if Sebastian and I had not rushed to heal him immediately upon his arrival. He would have surely bled out. Fortunately, however, he is still with us.

Lucien, Prince of Hell

Although I would typically consider it inappropriate to include an entry in this journal regarding an individual who, although somewhat belligerent, is ultimately an ally of ours, I consider record-keeping of vital importance when contracts are involved and shall consequently include the agreed-upon terms here along with a brief account of what we know of the fellow in order to keep with the format. It goes without saying I shall keep records of these terms elsewhere, as well.

Lucien, referred to by members of his family as Lucifer (although as this name is moderately well-known and he maintains his autonomy, I doubt it is his true one), is a fallen angel and the current Prince of Hell. He brought a sister of his, Olive, to our meeting. She was far from sober, so I believe it is fair to assume angels cannot hold their liquor. Although we are unsure if he possesses any other weaknesses, we do know that he may be harmed by others of his kind, as his sister demonstrated.

Contrary to my expectations, Lucien is a poor negotiator. He whined throughout our meeting, got into spats with his drunk sister, and agreed to terms without seeming to read them particularly closely even when not under duress. Furthermore, he very rudely brought in a hostage in the middle of our meeting, resulting in a violent confrontation and the loss of any leverage he may have had. I really did intend to take his input and write something up that we would both be happy with. Instead, the terms he agreed to, receiving nothing in return but permission to leave the room, are as follows:

"I am to be acknowledged as operating independently, and not included in employment-related terms listed elsewhere in this contract. Lucien is to understand that I am collaborating with him and the party only insofar as we share common interests at this time, and I am not in his employ. I shall not be paid or offered employment benefits, and in turn, I shall not be subject to any of the obligations of employment.

I demand that Lucien refrain from spreading information about me to any individual, group, publication, or database for any reason unless he has my explicit permission to do so.

I demand that once Samael has been defeated, be it by his loss in the election or by his death, Lucien shall not contact me any further, either personally or through proxies. He is not to attempt to have any further impact upon my life for any reason or by any means once our current collaboration ends.

I demand that Lucien provide information on Foresight, in as much specificity as possible. Depending on what we learn about this program, I may have other demands related to it.

I demand that Lucien shall not open the gates of Hell or direct anyone else to do so."

No expiration date was placed upon these demands, so they ought to remain in place indefinitely. As a result, it is of course in my interests to ensure that Lucien remains on the throne of Hell - I highly doubt I would have the chance to get this sort of agreement out of any potential successor, and keeping the gates shut is of the utmost importance for my own safety and that of the rest of us on Earth who are not demons. It is a shame I cannot share this information without the risk of causing a fuss - court honors might be nice if they could be kept discreet, but of course they never are.

I have made an appointment to discuss the topic of Foresight with one of Lucien's proxies, as we did not have time during negotiations for Lucien to provide the information right away. Hopefully, that interaction will be more peaceful than this one. We do know that Foresight is not in Lucien's jurisdiction, but he will likely have valuable information about it nonetheless.

Foresight

As I suspected, Foresight seems likely to pose a danger to my safety and that of others. More surprising, however, are the details of its operations. First and foremost, contrary to my expectations, Foresight is not an ongoing operation conducted by the government of Hell, but instead a rogue splinter group, at least now. Although originally an official project alongside two other operations all founded in 1957, referred to as Standpoint (Dissolved in 2019, replaced with Prestige, researching earthly relations) and Repercussion (Nature unclear, presumably ongoing). Standpoint I will speculate upon in more detail further on in this document, as I have reason to believe it is significant as well.

Foresight in its original form was an initiative by the government of Hell to determine classifications and weaknesses of fae. In some respects, this research seems to have been competent, albeit frightening, while in others it appears to have been lacking in accuracy. The idea of visually identifying someone's court with any real confidence is laughable - assumptions can be made, of course, but even when they are quite reasonable they are not infallible. The violent methods of Foresight proved unacceptable to Lucien's administration, and it was officially shuttered in 2002 following an internal review. Interestingly, it is reported that 56% of Foresight staff returned to office work, 10% were placed in custody, 36% remained illegally on Earth, and 14% were transferred to other projects - as these numbers add up to 111%, there must be overlap somewhere in these categories.

Further information regarding Foresight is less certain - Lucien has made clear that although he believes it to be true, he is not entirely sure. However, I feel he is the most reliable source we have access to and that therefore we must take his claims as accurate for now. According to Timothy, the fellow Lucien sent, an Overseer Q attempted to assassinate Lucien on January 19, 2001, 2 days after the internal review reported misconduct. She then fled to Earth and is believed to have founded the new Foresight before perishing by means unknown to me. Foresight now operates under the name 'The Agency-' this, of course, is the organization that Colt was working with. Aside from the deceased Overseer Q, individuals involved in its administration are Overseer J, Samael Smith, Son Lains, Demetrius Porter, and Ruth Victor. Of these individuals, we have prior knowledge of Samael - he is the fellow attempting to open the gates of Hell - but not the others.

Both the information provided by Lucien and the information provided by Beetle previously lead me to believe that the Agency carries out roughly the same activities as it did when it was Foresight, but with less professionalism. Nonetheless, their apparent sloppiness does not mean the danger they pose should be discounted - they are most likely incredibly dangerous.

As for Standpoint, I suspect it related to the creation of human-demon chimeras. This is unconfirmed, but its dissolution in 2019 is marked as being due to the collection of adequate knowledge and plenty of reason for termination - and due to Irene Kidd. This reads to me as a declaration that she was both adequate proof of concept and too difficult or risky to continue experimenting upon. The date of dissolution would match well with her exit from Hell. This does not, however, tell us what Prestige, its successor, is up to.

The Kraken

Miraculously, we all remain alive in spite of having just fought the Kraken - the harbinger of the apocalypse. I had expected that we would certainly die along with all civilians present at the scene, and there were quite a few - the creature had laid out the carcass of a giant squid as bait, drawing a massive crowd. It is beyond me what humans find so appealing about foul rotting meat, but clearly, it was a major draw.

The Kraken is a truly vast being, too large to easily view all at once. I would not attempt to provide a numerical estimate, but I will certainly not forget the scale of it. It resembles a far larger version of the squid it killed and is capable of camouflage, masquerading as a rock and sand dunes in order to lay its trap. Furthermore, it clearly possesses great intelligence and capacity for planning. It deliberately and stealthily placed the squid on the beach and ran its arms along the beach while remaining in the water, ready to snatch up the humans it had lured onto the beach. It is capable of fast movement, and, as would be expected of a creature of its size, is extraordinarily strong - I was able to hold Irene still when it attempted to pull her into the surf, but only with great difficulty, and she was very nearly torn in half. It is fortunate she is still in one piece, or at least as close to it as she was prior to the incident. I would have hated to be responsible for that. It seemed averse to fire, but frankly I doubt Marie's flamethrower could have actually killed it.

As the Kraken's demise is a sign of the apocalypse, we concluded it would be better to keep it alive. We accomplished this by dragging it out into the sea - a grueling endeavor that required multiple miserable days on Sebastian's yacht. I doubt the boat will be repairable, but admittedly, I know very little about boats, so perhaps it can be fixed with adequate resources. Francis and I had to hold it together magically to prevent it from sinking, as it would have otherwise done. I would prefer to avoid setting foot on a boat again any time soon. Nathan was able to call in a favor - Sleep, a relative of Death's, personally put the Kraken to bed. I doubt it will trouble us again any time soon, and hopefully, when it does resurface it will be someone else's problem.

Angel

This hideous and pathetic old clown was responsible for what quite frankly may have been the worst day of my life and I am glad that he is dead. If any more angels elect to come after us as a result of his demise, then I hope that they do so quickly and that they kill me before I must deal with the fallout of this catastrophe any further. That any creature would have the nerve to behave as this fellow behaved is an affront to the very concept of civil interaction.

Lucien's sister Olive - an angel herself - made an appearance at poor Myantha's tea party. It is unclear to me who invited her, and whoever did certainly had no right to do so, but that, of course, was not her fault nor had she any way to expect it. When Myantha finds out who it was, I shudder to imagine what she will do. She was clearly furious about it.

Still, this misery paled in comparison to what followed - when the kerfuffle finally seemed to be abating, another angel, one who we do not know what to call, arrived dressed in the most absurdly stupid outfit I have ever had the misfortune to witness, entirely uninvited and lying incessantly. The loathsome fellow then not only refused to leave when prompted to do so, but also made veiled threats towards Olive and began shoveling cookies into his mouth and pockets like a starving urchin and speaking with his mouth full. Unless human mythology surrounding it is gravely inaccurate, I would imagine there was no shortage of cookies for that lout to eat in Heaven - likely better quality than anything at the tea party, regardless - and as such this behavior was even more unbecoming than it would be otherwise. Once he had finished making a humiliating spectacle of himself in front of everyone, the angel brandished a knife and headed for the woods.

Obviously this utterly ruined the tea party, and although perhaps the fuss with Olive could have been avoided if Myantha restrained herself, I suspect there is nothing in the world any of us could have done to prevent this fellow from coming in and upsetting everyone. As Olive had requested my assistance with what was obviously a dire situation and as I was myself at serious risk of being somehow blamed for allowing misbehavior at Myantha's party if I did not do anything about it, as I could not pretend not to know Olive and her presence clearly attracted this intolerable fellow, I took my leave to deal with him. Although I hesitate to refer to this as a mistake - I believe that, as terrible as the situation was, I had no other options - it certainly led to additional, even more disastrous events.

After tailing the angel for some time, he caught up to Olive and began speaking in what I would assume is the language used by such beings - whatever it was, it was painful to hear and impossible to parse. Although I managed to get ahold of him and inform him that his behavior was unacceptable, Olive elected to bound off into the woods instead of helping, apparently having decided that I ought to sacrifice myself for her. Perhaps I shall have a word with her about this later. After several agonizing moments, Nathan arrived just as the nasty old fellow was wrenching himself free from my hold. What happened next was entirely unclear, but I believe Nathan shot the angel and that this killed him. I am unsure whether this is something that naturally occurs when angels perish or if it was simply this fellow's last foul gesture to the world, but he exploded in a blinding flash of holy light and buzzing that killed and decomposed every plant within at least a mile of the blast and inflicted horrible agony upon everyone present. It ruined my hat and sweater and appeared to nearly kill Francis, who was bleeding out on the ground once I regained my senses - I suppose he teleported there and then was immediately caught in the explosion, as I did not see him arrive.

The only small mercy to be found in the whole affair is that the rest of the hunting party had the sense to remain out of Myantha's line of sight, as I believe if she had been forced to deal with one more unexpected guest at her tea party she would have attempted to rip their guts out right then and there and I would have been caught in the middle of the dispute. Nonetheless, I believe everyone there saw the explosion, and they certainly all saw me collapse in the dirt afterwards. The gossip surrounding it will be intolerable and will likely last for the rest of the century if not longer. If I did not have responsibilities that I cannot run from, I would seriously consider leaving the continent and never returning, but frankly this was such a disaster that talk of it will likely reach far past Newhaven so perhaps there would not even be any point in doing so.

Addendum: According to Lucien, the angel who we fought was called Rachmiel, and most likely survived despite the explosion. He has been cagey about how one might go about actually killing an angel - understandable, I suppose, but it is far more relevant to our business than Timothy's weakness, which he saw fit to broadcast pointlessly. We must be capable of dealing with Rachmiel and his cohort if they return. Right now, I will let him alone so that he may tend to Sebastian, but if he continues to dodge the question then we shall have to remind him of his contract.

Sebastian is severely injured because he approached Rachmiel despite being told to stay away. It is a miracle he survived, and it will be a miracle if he is functional again any time soon. According to Lucien, he bled for three days.

Dendra

After much time and deliberation, I have decided to include a few words regarding Dendra here, as I have come to the conclusion that excluding her would be even more disrespectful than writing about her. These records are, after all, private, so no one is likely to read them and unfairly judge her for events likely beyond her control. Nonetheless, I shall try to avoid irrelevant tangents. Such things are inappropriate when speaking of an acquaintance who has perished.

Dendra was a venerable dryad, beloved in the local community, and although admittedly we were not close, that was not due to any sort of indiscretion on her part. I merely prefer to keep others at arm's length nowadays, and, if anything, recent events indicate that I ought to be a bit more dedicated to that preference.

Dendra was severely wounded by the explosion of holy light that occurred when Rachmiel was shot. The hunting party claimed to be certain she had already died from these wounds and was entirely undead, but although that is a distinct possibility, it is more difficult than they would like to admit to confirm such a thing beyond a doubt. She was certainly in terrible shape and mad with hunger, but dryads, even more than most of us, are capable of recovering from grievous injuries with enough time and sustenance.

Unfortunately, Dendra has perished. It fell to me to inform her friends and acquaintances of her demise, as I was the last to see her. I informed them that she perished despite my best efforts to heal her wounds and that I expect she will be remembered fondly. She is, at least, no longer suffering. I am glad she will not be there to see what becomes of her forest without her. Presumably, once the human authorities discover that the trees in a significant area of the woods have been destroyed, they will either designate it a hazardous waste site or, as the vegetation is already conveniently out of the way, build a suburb over it. It is a shame.

Vampiric Fraternity

Against the will of everyone involved, we were required to travel to Vancouver for this most recent hunt, at the behest of Lucien and Death itself. In all honesty, I am not entirely sure what my associates consider so uniquely rancid about Vancouver - it is no Córdoba, but it does not strike me as significantly worse than Newhaven, and it is, for the most part, free of both sewage and plague. Nevertheless, I, too, would have preferred not to travel so far from home, and I most certainly would have preferred not to be required to infiltrate a university and pretend to be a young person. It was tiresome, but at least the young people did seem to appreciate my mourning garb somewhat, though I suspect they failed to grasp its significance.

Several students at this university had perished in an untimely manner, while others had failed to perish at all. Furthermore, a cat present at the university had lived for over three hundred years, an extraordinary lifespan for such a creature. Obviously, this bothered Death, who generally does not appreciate its business being messed with. We were sent to put down the individuals who had passed their expiration dates. Ultimately, it turned out that these were vampires.

The majority of these vampires were freshly turned college students and were dispatched without much trouble. We were able to protect one of their prospective converts, Jess, but I suspect she likely now thinks that we were involved with all the recent murders, as we had to kill her friend, who had become a vampire, in front of her. For this reason I shall not return to Vancouver again within this century unless forced to do so. It is a shame that Jess had to witness such a thing. I would imagine it will stay with her for the rest of her life. I had hoped we could shield her from such trauma.

The leader of the vampires, a fellow named Callahan Saint-James, was a rare natural-born vampire and, furthermore, a fellow hunter. Due to the presence of his three hundred year old cat, we initially suspected he might be killing people for some sort of ritual to prolong said creature's life. However, it turned out that he was using more standard life-prolonging magic on the cat, and his actual motive for the murders was far more asinine. This fool had, many years ago, dispatched a powerful coven of vampires and then proceeded to become bored, at which point he wished to kill them once more. He then wasted the past several centuries repeatedly trying and failing to resurrect them through an extraordinarily complicated 25-year ritual that consumed the lives of many humans. As far as I could tell, he was not even eating them, at least not fully. This activity was the height of ridiculous futility, particularly seeing as I can say from experience that there are no shortage of challenging targets in the world, even if one does not look for them or have any real desire to participate in the profession. I am certain that if he had bothered to look at something other than his old grimoire, he could have found a near-unlimited supply of interesting and exciting things to murder. Alternatively, perhaps he could have looked into different hobbies.

Callahan Saint-James possessed the ability, unusual among vampires, to remove the blood iron from his victims by simply standing nearby. Bafflingly, some of my colleagues initially felt that the depletion of iron from the remaining blood indicated fae involvement - what in the world they thought any faerie would want with a bunch of iron, a substance we notoriously find distasteful at best and fatal at worst - is beyond me. Additionally, this vampire was capable of traveling as smoke and could not be killed in the traditional manner, instead requiring a lengthy and cumbersome ritual involving 2 liters of demon blood, a truly excessive quantity. For obvious reasons, although he does presumably possess more blood than that in total, we could not extract this entire amount from poor Sebastian. The house demons proved unwilling to pitch in, and as such, the bulk of the blood had to be purchased from Obscura, which to my understanding sourced it through unfortunate methods. Losing a bit of blood is really not that big of a deal, particularly if you are sitting safely in a warded house, and so I am baffled as to why they would have been so resistant to the idea, especially considering what a significant debt they owe to all of us for saving their lives and Irene in particular for housing them and, I would assume, paying all of their living expenses (to my understanding, they are unemployed).

Upon realizing that we had the appropriate ritual prepared to kill him, the vampire attempted to bargain for his life despite quite obviously having nothing of value to offer. He offered eternal life for the humans in the party - most comically of all, he made this offer to me instead of to them! Putting aside the issue of whether anyone in the group aside from Francis would even be capable of becoming a vampire, and the issue of why in the world he thought I would have any right to make such a decision, we all know that there are plenty of means by which a mortal may obtain eternal life, that most are far less burdensome than vampirism, that none protect an individual from simply being murdered, and that few, if any, are worth the cost. Death would be on all of our tails in a moment if any of us had accepted such an absurd offer. Even after being informed that we were operating on behalf of Death itself and would likely be doomed if we were to disobey its orders, he continued attempting to bargain with the rest of the party, offering them this and that, then punched Francis when it became apparent to him, as was already apparent to everyone else, that this approach would not get him anywhere. I am unsure whether or not natural-born vampires have souls, but I suspect they may not - if this is indeed the case, then this display from him was particularly embarrassing, as those of us without souls have nothing to fear from the afterlife. Regardless, I had to hold him still throughout the entire ritual, right up until his demise.

Undead Lycanthrope

This loathsome fellow was targeting Marie, presumably for personal reasons based on their conversation while they were attempting to kill one another, but he must have been granted the opportunity to do so by something significantly more powerful than himself - his abilities too closely resembled those granted by Death to possibly be a coincidence. As we are already dealing with another hostile entity that is likely a higher power, I believe it is a safe assumption that they are one and the same - not a certainty, of course, but a strong likelihood. Francis has stated that it is specifically the Egyptian deity Anubis - a fellow I know very little about but shall certainly be looking into. There is no need to go into excessive detail here, as it gets the point across well enough to simply say that he seemed capable of all of the exact same magical tricks as Nathan. Initially, we assumed he was working for Death itself, although of course this turned out not to be the case.

For reasons unfathomable to me, this fellow elected to wear an oilcloth jacket to our engagement tonight. This, of course, was an incredibly foolish thing to do, seeing as my associates have a habit of setting things on fire, sometimes even unintentionally. The conflagration that occurred was entirely predictable. I must admit, I am glad that it did not take place in the field that I had provided directions to - it would have been a shame to see it destroyed. Although I was able to get a good hold on him, Marie requested that I drop it once she arrived - despite the risk inherent in doing so, I complied, as I do not believe it was my place to deny her the opportunity to settle her grudges as she saw fit. His death was among the cruelest I have witnessed. Given what we saw of him, I believe he earned it.

In addition to the abilities typically possessed by reapers, this fellow was capable of transforming, as lycanthropes are wont to do, albeit in a less strictly physical fashion. He mainly used this ability to bite people and attempt to tear them apart. Fortunately, Marie was prepared for such things, and he did not seem capable of significantly harming her. He did, however, significantly harm a civilian werewolf, Lucy Slate, who he left in Marie's home as a message. Fortunately, she has now made a full recovery from her injuries and made significantly less of a fuss about being brought to Irene's basement than I had feared she might - although the fuss was certainly not nonexistent. She became particularly upset upon the arrival of a friend of hers who was actively dying, and attempted in her panic to prevent us from providing them with medical treatment. In spite of this, we were able to save them, albeit with incredible difficulty - Marie and I were barely able to stabilize them despite providing constant magical and mundane healing at the same time, and they have still not regained consciousness. It seems the bullets used by the undead werewolf were capable of causing a lycanthrope to more or less disintegrate as long as they were lodged in their body. We are fortunate that he was considerate enough not to shoot Marie. I suppose he wanted to feel her bleed out under his teeth and claws just as badly as she wanted the same from him.

As is typical of lycanthropes, this fellow possessed weaknesses to wolfsbane and silver, as well as, to a lesser degree, mistletoe - this, however, he could tolerate. He was a gaunt and miserable looking fellow, clearly handling his undead state very poorly. Whatever Nate does to remain looking passably human, this fellow must not have been bothering with it. To my understanding, Marie killed him a long time ago, and prior to that, he had been a police officer. She mentioned something about the death of a child, but it would likely be unwise - not to mention somewhat irrelevant - to pry for more information about this.

Nathan was severely injured in the melee, and Francis passed out from the shock of vicariously experiencing death. Consequently, both had to spend some time recovering in Irene's basement, meaning that I too had to spend additional time in Irene's basement to watch over them. I am somewhat tired of it, but at least it is not brightly lit like some other rooms of her house occasionally are.

Imps

Although they were not themselves the most notable out of the entities we encountered today, I do think it is nonetheless worthwhile to do a writeup of these horrible little creatures. An imp on its own is an inconsequential creature - I sincerely doubt a single imp would be capable of defeating even an entirely unprepared civilian in a fight. The imps, however, tend to congregate in large packs and attack as a group.

An imp is a miserable little beast about the size of a house cat, but lacking any of the charm of a house cat. It possesses teeth where its face ought to be, and these teeth are not even particularly sharp, so it is anyone's guess what they gain from being constructed like this. They are covered in dark fur which hides venomous quills. Their venom, too, is unimpressive - easily neutralized and mild enough that neutralizing it is the sort of thing one can safely procrastinate on if there are other matters to attend to. Their most notable feature is their ability to travel through reflective surfaces and to hide within them. This is very irritating when there are a lot of mirrors in one place, as there were in the situation we dealt with tonight. Although they can be thwarted if these mirrors are broken, they react quickly enough that doing so is not without danger.

When not being directed by another being to act in an organized manner, the imps seem scarcely more formidable than rats and lose interest in their quarry.

Samael "Sammy" Smith

After hearing quite a lot about this fellow from Irene, the rest of us have finally gotten a chance to meet him. I must admit, it was somewhat underwhelming, and had we been more careful I doubt he could have accomplished much at all tonight, at least not with the tactics he displayed - it would be foolish not to assume that he has other tricks up his sleeve. Hopefully he is more prone to that sort of mistake than I am - our own performance tonight was terribly underwhelming as well, and we were shamefully careless. The amount of red flags that we disregarded out of pity and a sense of urgency was truly excessive and we must not make similar mistakes again.

Samael demonstrated an unwillingness to enter Irene's house - whether this indicates an actual inability is unclear to me, but still worth noting. He may or may not be powerful enough to bypass her wards. We ought to be suspicious of anyone who arrives claiming to be a friend but refuses to come in or displays significant discomfort upon entering. He also expressed discomfort around Marie and Princess Monster Truck - this strikes me as potentially sincere, as there would be no reason for Hunter, the fellow he was impersonating, to behave like this, at least not that I know of. I would expect him to be far more uncomfortable around Irene and Sebastian, given his former associate's behavior around demons. This, too, is something we must watch out for. Additionally, we ought to place more trust in Princess Monster Truck as a judge of character.

In my personal opinion, our most glaring failure of all was our failure to properly interrogate Samael. His answer as to whether he meant anyone in the house harm was wholly unsatisfactory, and I should not have accepted it. In the future I must be less concerned about appearing callous and antagonistic when speaking with alleged victims of supernatural activity and the like - I will not be accepting any more of these noncommittal answers in the future. I expect this will make many individuals very angry with me, but it is necessary at this point.

Samael possesses the ability to disguise himself as others very convincingly, aside from his acting. Holy water seems to dispel these disguises, so it would be useful to keep some on hand and perhaps administer it to anyone we encounter who claims to be non-demonic. After all, it is harmless to the rest of us. This still leaves us with no way but interrogation to detect him should he decide to disguise himself as a different demon, though.

Samael also possesses the ability to teleport, which he uses to retreat from any situation that is not going well for him. It certainly appears he is not immune to being mauled, at least not if he has been doused in holy water beforehand. However, if we are to defeat him through brutal violence, we must hold him still. Had I not been dealing with imps, perhaps I could have managed this.

Finally, as we have known for some time, Samael currently owns the weapon of destiny, the Bulwark. This is a truly formidable weapon that does a great deal of damage to those he strikes with it, but it is not instantly deadly - Irene did survive being skewered with it, although she was gravely wounded. I believe that next time we fight him, we ought to attempt to prevent him from drawing it before it can be a problem - either by restraining him or by lopping one of his arms off, as it did look to me like the sort of thing that would be difficult to wield one-handed. Whether it is possible to prevent objects from being summoned into a space is not something I am sure of, but it is worth looking into as well. He seems to prefer pulling it out in a flashy reveal rather than lugging it around at all times, so blocking summons and simply having Nate bring his own gun as a physical object might work if it is possible to do.

As he mentioned that he has been reading the Monster Hunter Weekly, I believe it is necessary to subscribe to all local papers that are remotely relevant to the supernatural or hunting in order to ensure we are receiving all the same information as Samael is. I shall look into it.

Ghostly Forest Creature

The exact nature of this being was unclear, including whether it truly was a ghost or simply incorporeal - regardless, it is not of great import, as the beast was passably friendly and simply wanted to leave the area it was trapped in. The train yard was quite overwhelming for this poor creature, who seemed to be even more sensitive to the light than I myself am, unable to handle even the soft flame of a lighter.

Prior to our arrival, this beast tossed a truly stunning quantity of dead rats and other small animals at the ceiling of the train tunnel with such ferocious speed that they stuck there, resulting in a call to the police when they rained down upon a passing train. Even when viewing this incident through divination, I could not see the beast myself. Nathan, however, informed us that it possessed four legs and a normal quantity of eyes - I would assume that by this, he meant two.

Either through its abilities or her own recklessness, the creature at one point managed to form a sympathetic link with Irene, leading her to experience its agony alongside it. This is how we know what it was experiencing. It did not seem to mean any harm, so I doubt this infliction of suffering was intentional in any way, but it was devastating nonetheless. I am fortunate that no one asked questions when I lent my hat to Irene - it was reckless of me, admittedly, but between the clear expectation of others that I assist her and my own knowledge of what excessively bright light feels like, it was necessary.

It ultimately came to light that Samael had engineered this situation - going so far as to burn down the apparition's home and bind it to the rail yard - as a distraction so that he could murder Bart. This tragedy makes two things evident - first, Samael is frightened of us. If he were not, then he would have targeted a member of the party directly, which would have been far more damaging, or at the very least he would not have gone to the trouble of setting up such an elaborate ruse and would have simply murdered poor Bart normally. Second, we must anticipate more of this. There is little I can do to protect my own associates save for the warnings I have already sent out, but I do not expect them to be targeted - like our party, they are more formidable than he likely wishes to deal with, and regardless, no one else in our party knows or cares for them. They would be ineffective targets. Roxanne Valentine may likewise be too formidable for him to scuffle with, although we still ought to prioritize her safety as she is friendly with all of us and would therefore make a much more attractive target if he felt he could defeat her. All other friends, loved ones, and important contacts of group members are presently at serious risk. Passing acquaintances are worth neither Samael's time nor ours.

As for Bart, the unfortunate fellow has met his end. By the time we discovered his corpse, it was much too late to save him through traditional means. However, seeing as he is quite important to Marie, it may be worth the trouble of resurrecting him if we may secure the permission of Death. Unauthorized resurrections, of course, are not an option lest Nathan be contractually bound to kill everyone involved. I have mentioned to the group that resurrection is difficult and risky, but possible. I do hope that, even if Death does approve Bart's return, Marie and Rex weigh their options here carefully before coming to a decision. After all, we cannot ask Bart what he would prefer. As of now, it is unclear whether Rex has even been informed of the situation. I hope that the desire to spare his feelings does not lead to this being kept from him - he has a right to know what has happened to his boyfriend, and to participate in any future decisions involving him.

Angel-blood Zombies

As we have apparently not had to deal with enough trouble from angels yet, it would seem that we now must deal with one who is going about starting fights and spilling their volatile blood everywhere. It is not entirely clear if said fights are between two angels or between an angel and an unrelated individual, but regardless, the one we recently discovered the aftermath of rendered an entire town a wasteland of death. I certainly hope these are not fights between multiple angels, as it is bad enough having to deal with infighting in Hell without having to deal with infighting in Heaven as well, but I do fear that may indeed be what we are dealing with.

The blood of an angel apparently poisons humans in such a manner that it kills them more or less instantly and then animates their corpse as a zombie, strikingly similar to the ones created through traditional necromancy but sustained by a spark of the angel's divine light. This effect is powerful enough to simultaneously affect an entire small town even if the angel's blood is present only in a single central location. According to Lucien, it is involuntary and likely unnoticed by the angel, and merely a result of their natural resilience. Whether those of us who are not human are actually immune to this effect or whether it had simply weakened enough over the several-month period prior to our investigation that anyone could have entered the area safely is unclear and it would be better not to test this. Like any other zombies, those created by angel blood are not particularly formidable. It is my opinion that, should further situations similar to this occur in the future, it would be best practice to avoid the area for a few weeks and arrive to clean up once the blood has lost some of its potency, as we did by fortunate coincidence today. Judging by the scene I witnessed when attempting to scry one zombie's creation, the process appears to be near-instant and as such it is highly unlikely that arriving swiftly would allow us to save anyone.

Although overall a miserable affair, my attempt to scry the fight responsible for the angel's blood being all over the town hall did turn up one piece of useful information - by their voice, it was clear that at least one angel involved in the fight was neither Lucien, Olive, nor the insufferable fellow who destroyed the forest near Newhaven. This angel expressed that they felt the other party involved in the dispute had gone too far with something or other. Based on the phrasing of this, I would guess that the other party was an additional angel, although that is not a certainty.

It is clear that we must avoid having Sebastian attempt divination in any case where an angel might be involved. Their divine light is nearly as blinding when viewed through divination as it is when viewed in person, and it has caused me a horrible migraine. As he is a demon, I would assume that it would cause Sebastian significantly worse discomfort if he could survive it at all.

It is my understanding that it is extraordinarily rare for angels to leave Heaven, so the presence of one or more angels scuffling here on Earth is likely indicative of a serious problem. I would be unsurprised if they have caught wind of the potential upcoming apocalypse and decided that they would like to be involved.

Magical Haunting

Once again, it falls upon me to write an account of the wretched aftermath of the demise of an acquaintance, although fortunately this time not one I was particularly fond of. Still, Bartholomew Barnes was well-liked by other members of the hunting party, chiefly Marie, and is survived by his boyfriend Rex, previously covered in this documentation. Resurrecting him is unfortunately no longer on the table, as his body has been destroyed after causing a great deal of trouble in Irene's house.

Bart, as a wizard of some note, was surrounded by an aura of magic strong enough that even in the absence of his soul, the presence of his corpse caused a spatial disturbance resulting in an irritating set of pocket dimensions - one centered upon the downstairs of Irene's house, the other specifically centered upon the staircase. I cannot help but wonder whether any of the rest of us have similar potential to cause trouble after death - perhaps I ought to edit my will to account for the possibility.

I have had quite enough of pocket dimensions and hope that we do not have to deal with any more of them, although I suppose these two were less obnoxious than the previous one, perhaps because the leftover raw magical force surrounding Bart's corpse lacked sentience and therefore was incapable of bad taste, unlike the fellow overseeing the operation of the previous pocket dimension. Even so, the infinite staircase was tiresome, and I spent more time than I would have liked trapped in it. The only way out of it was to leap or be dragged past the stairs, and Irene managed to dislocate my shoulder in the process of liberating me from the staircase.

In order to destroy this sort of pocket dimension, it is simply necessary to eliminate the source of the disturbance - in this case, poor Bart's corpse. To my understanding, Nathan destroyed it entirely. It is a pity, as I would imagine this was quite upsetting to those who cared for him.

People With Intolerable Hobby

Although I considered endeavoring to avoid producing any written evidence of this unfortunate incident, I ultimately decided that there would be no point, as the chances of the authorities pulling our text message conversations are significantly higher than them bothering to rifle through my private records and as such I highly doubt it would make a difference.

On the lousy advice of Ivah, who seemed interested only in removing us from Irene's house and has apparently never heard of any activities one may do outside of one's home aside from hunting, we set off to investigate the disappearance of two young women in the forest outside Newhaven. Upon our arrival, we discovered a decoy corpse, and the individuals responsible for the young ladies' deaths promptly attempted to steal Nathan's van. This attempt, predictably, was a failure by virtue of Nathan's ability to simply teleport back to the van's location and chase the would-be thief away.

These morons, although apparently unaware that any inhuman sentient creatures even exist, went to the trouble of dressing themselves up as strange creatures, wearing large reflective eyepieces and cloaks made of sewn-together strips of their victims' clothing and tents. Why they bothered with this rather than creating more traditional camouflage, which would have served them better in the woods, is beyond me, as the cloaks, while sewn with moderate skill, lacked even the slightest bit of artistic merit. They gallivanted about the forest with their firearms, taking shots at us whenever the opportunity presented itself, even long after they ought to have gotten the hint that they were out of their league. Had they paid the slightest bit of attention to their own situation and simply returned to their base to hide after first encountering Nathan, Irene, and Marie, they may have eluded us and survived.

One of these people did finally elect to flee after discovering that Nathan was not particularly vulnerable to being shot in the chest, but was quickly intercepted and killed by Marie. Through his handheld radio and also further investigation by Irene and Sebastian elsewhere in the woods, it was determined that he had at least one accomplice. When interrogated, this accomplice admitted to murdering the young women for the purpose of eating them and to intending to do the same with us - apparently this was his idea of an entertaining day out with friends. While not unheard of, this is of course very unusual behavior for humans, but as it turns out they were indeed acting on their own without any supernatural influence.

Fortunately, we were able to determine the nature of these people before I did them any harm, and as such, I was able to avoid a blatant violation of Council regulation, although I remain concerned that my associates' demonstration of supernatural abilities to one of the miserable fellows might get me in trouble regardless if discovered, despite how comical it admittedly was. It is a miracle he did not perish from a heart attack before being killed. While we remained behind to chastise him for his behavior and listen to him pathetically plead for his worthless life, Marie went off on her own to handle his accomplices. I have no need to know her procedure for doing so, as I am certain that whatever it was, it was thorough. I am hopeful that we may have covered our tracks well enough to avoid discovery by the police.

Mail Thief

Fairly recently, it came to my attention through one of Myantha's fits that for the past several months, all of my mail has been being intercepted by a miscreant under the authority of Overseer J, and that this fellow's manager had been keeping a good deal of it, preventing me from receiving it. Among this mail was her letters - consequently, I had been unaware of invitations to several tea parties. Myantha, of course, was irate and responded by murdering several humans, including an acquaintance from the Renaissance Faire - one would think she would remember how disastrous that sort of behavior was for both of us the last time. I really do not see why she could not have aired her grievances via a phone call, but the information gleaned from the incident was nonetheless important, so I suppose I should not be too upset with her. I offered her the fellow's head, but she did not want it, and instead wished to see me kill them myself - a request I really should have predicted. No doubt she will now gad about telling everyone about the whole grisly affair.

Although we never determined their name, we do know that the mail thief used he/him and they/them pronouns. He was under the direct employ of the devil Carnage, more distantly under the authority of Overseer J - one of the individuals involved in the administration of Foresight. He was, at the end of the day, expendable. Even without considering the incredible violation of my privacy, this wretched fellow has been responsible for enough suffering and death despite his insignificance that I really ought not feel any pity for what befell him, yet it is difficult for me to shake the feeling that we were perhaps a bit excessive in our retribution. Frankly, I had been expecting a far less drawn-out execution, but things got away from us a bit. As it turned out, the mail thief was ridiculously evasive when questioned despite the demonstrable disloyalty and lack of care shown by his employer, who outright rejected their pitiful cries for help. Marie and Nathan broke several of his bones and spritzed him repeatedly with holy water throughout the course of the interrogation, gleaning only minimal useful information. We do now know, however, that he has intercepted mail from the entire hunting party in the same fashion as he did mine.

Interactions between Myantha and the hunting party went, all things considered, far better than I could have hoped for, although perhaps everyone was just too caught up in the bloodshed to come to blows with one another. Nonetheless, I feel very fortunate that there were no death threats nor any fighting, or even for that matter any particularly sharp insults. I doubt this will stop her from complaining in the future, but perhaps these amicable interactions will at least prevent the party from attempting to convince me to kill her again. Really, though, perhaps I ought to be more optimistic. It has been years since I have seen her express that sort of unfettered delight, and in the presence of mortals, no less. Although certainly not ideal, perhaps that particular situation will be less of a catastrophe than I had anticipated.

The more pressing matter at this time is that Irene has been abducted by the goons of the aforementioned Overseer J and placed into a secure research facility, Arc Research Incorporated, apparently located in Spain. Nathan has informed us all that an airplane is in fact capable of traveling across the ocean in less than a day, a remarkable timeline I would not have thought possible without magic. Although neither of us speaks the current local dialect, he and I are both fluent in Spanish, so we ought to be able to hold a conversation there without too much trouble. I must admit I am curious to see what has become of it - it was so lovely in my youth. We will have little time to sightsee, though, as Irene is not tolerating her time in the facility well and rescuing her quickly is of the utmost importance.

The relevance of this situation involving Irene to the miserable fellow stealing my mail is that upon discovering it, Marie elected to skin him alive. At the time, Myantha and I were unaware of the situation, but of course when Marie decides she is going to do this sort of thing, one would be a fool to argue with her. Nonetheless, as I had given my word to Myantha that I would end the fellow's life myself, it was necessary to stabilize his condition throughout the process. After this interrogation, which was even less productive than the first, I quickly dispatched him. It shall be a terrible pain in the neck cleaning my shed, and on top of that I shall now have to purchase a more secure mailbox in case the hapless thief is replaced with a new individual.

Behemoth

The latest in the unrelenting series of miseries to befall us has once more involved a prophesied sign of the apocalypse - in this case, the great beast Behemoth. As pathetic as it may sound, dealing with this unsightly blemish upon the Earth was in fact a welcome diversion from other issues, at least up until Irene elected to cast herself into its maw and suffer mortal injuries - a foolish act that I dearly wish I had been present to prevent. Unfortunately, however, I was otherwise occupied.

In no way does this creature fit the descriptions put forward by any clergyman or religious document I am familiar with, but these are well known to be unreliable sources, so I suppose that is not so great a surprise. The creature does not resemble any mortal beast, and instead exists as a quite disgusting mass of writhing, half-formed flesh, buried underneath the ground as it readies itself to rampage across the world. It is fairly upsetting to spend time near the thing, and descending into its pit can render an individual comatose in addition to aggravating past magical wounds.

Being an impatient fellow, Samael was apparently unwilling to wait for the creature to finish its business and emerge of its own accord, and elected to torment it with heavy construction equipment in an attempt to drive it out of its slumber. I would not be surprised if this delayed its emergence further in the long run, as I cannot imagine being torn up by machinery would have been helpful to the creature's development. As a result of this disruptive tactic, one of Lucien's dogs became aware of the situation and subsequently alerted us.

Samael had dispatched a large crew of demons to do his work for him as he could not be bothered to do it himself, and, fortunately for all involved, did not appear himself. Had he done so, perhaps his disloyal employees would not have fled at the first sign of trouble, and we may have had more of a fight on our hands. Apparently, these individuals were third-party contractors employed through EverlastingCo, a company that maintains an online presence on both the Earth and Hell internets. Their earthly webpage is most likely nonsense, although I would not entirely rule out the possibility that they are attempting to lure humans for some purpose. Their hellish webpage is much more revealing, and provides an apparently accurate, albeit vague, rundown of their operations as well as several obnoxious political statements. Having seen this, it is no surprise they have allied themselves with Samael.

After the employees had been frightened away, Sebastian and I set about warding the area to prevent any further digging around by Samael or his associates. We clearly should not have done this, as it would seem Irene requires constant supervision around this sort of hazard and no one else present saw fit to provide it. By the time we had finished our ritual, she had already entered the hole and been retrieved, unconscious and half-dead, by Nathan and Marie. I remain unsure of what could have possessed her to do such a thing, but regardless, Irene required hospitalization as she could not be healed by magical means. It would seem her exposure to the magical energies of Behemoth not only reopened her past wound from the Bulwark, but was causing her to come entirely unglued from herself. She did manage to obtain video footage from inside of the chasm, but as of writing this, we have not reviewed it, out of concern that the beast's ability to inflict magical harm may function through video as well. It is a miracle that Irene survived, and it strikes me as unwise to risk anyone else becoming similarly wounded.

Unseelie Riding Alligator

Following a series of reported disappearances, it was our obligation to investigate the sewers beneath Newhaven and attempt to discover the source of the trouble. For this, we have Ivah to thank, as he dug up the information and sent us off to deal with it without particular regard for whether we actually might want to do such a thing. I am quite tired of having to don hazmat suits and traipse around the nastiest locations Newhaven has to offer, but it would seem there is no end in sight to these sorts of unpleasant quests. I suspect he finds it comical and looks for particularly filthy jobs on purpose.

As if this were not already a disgusting enough situation, while there, we encountered a police officer, who predictably was completely unprepared to handle a supernatural situation and occupied himself babbling about how badly he wished to meet up with the creature and declare his love for her or some such nonsense, for he could not recognize nor dispel the curse she placed upon him. Fortunately for him, the rest of us were present to repeatedly prevent him from flinging himself into the maw of the beast. On that topic, the source of all of this trouble - aside from, of course, the fellow's dimwitted insistence on investigating the sewers alone - was the creature's ability to enchant those who gazed into her eyes, a charm that was transmissible by touch. The victims of this enchantment would hear the sound of jingling bells and be compelled to follow them, although it seemingly took it quite some time to pick up in intensity, as those of us who were briefly afflicted with it had no trouble recognizing it as a problem and quickly dispelling it.

The creature responsible for this enchantment was an Unseelie riding alligator, displaced from her home as a result of falling through a hole torn through the barrier separating Faerie from Earth by the Bulwark, apparently an activity Samael has decided to pick up as a pastime when he is not too busy repeatedly fumbling attempts to summon prophesied beasts. Most likely, she belonged to someone of high status, judging by her ornately decorated saddle. Instead of seeing about climbing out and finding a crossing to return home, or perhaps simply a place to reside that was not full of the discarded contents of Newhaven's toilets and storm drains, the creature was apparently content to remain in the sewer and swim around in the sludge. I would have thought this below the dignity of a court beast, even one attached to the Winter Court, but it is nonetheless what she was doing. Upon encountering her directly, we were forced to gouge out her eyes in order to avoid falling victim to her curse.

Fortunately for the beast, Sebastian insisted upon casting a spell to allow us to speak with her, whereas the rest of us were generally of the opinion that a creature which elects to live in sewage and eat people - people who, one must remember, have also been traipsing around in the sewage and have not in any way been cleaned off prior to consumption - was not likely to be intelligent enough for this to be worth the trouble. It is due to his efforts that her life was spared, her vision partially restored, and that she was returned to her home. I must admit I was somewhat disappointed that she turned out to be sentient, as her scales were really quite lovely and would not have been too much trouble to clean to be worth the hassle - one does not typically find similar materials. Regardless, it is likely for the best that we had the opportunity to make a gesture of friendship towards the Winter Court. I have no desire to involve myself with them but we ought to try to avoid making any additional enemies, and we may be able to call in this debt in the future if a situation occurs that is dire enough to risk trying such a thing.

On the Matter of Certain Corrupt and Treacherous Elements Within the Monster Hunting Community

J. Doe

It is apparent as of the last issue of this magazine that some individuals do not know when it is in their best interests to skulk away and hide their face in shame. Certain incidents which transpired some weeks ago would have been best left outside the public eye, for the mutual benefit of all involved, and yet the individual who stands to face the harshest consequences for their publication elected to submit a laughably amateur mockery of journalism highlighting his own presence in order to make cheap jabs. I should be clear right out of the gate that I intend to do no such thing - this is not journalism and I make no pretense that it is. This is a warning to the wider hunting community - this individual and his associates are out there among the community, they are dangerous and duplicitous to work with, and at least one of them is foolish enough to move what ought to have been a private conflict into this magazine.

The individual I am referring to is, of course, C.M., or as he is more commonly known when not pretending that using only his initials will protect his anonymity, Colt. Perhaps the most relevant thing to mention here is that Colt is quite literally a demon working with the forces of Hell to bring about the apocalypse, and it is therefore in the best interest of all readers of this magazine aside from any who may be in cahoots with him to see him put down. In this article, I intend to publish all possible information to assist those who may encounter him in accomplishing this public good.

Worth noting is that Colt also seems to work with the Agency, a monster hunting organization based in this realm rather than Hell. It is unclear whether his employers at the Agency are aware of his involvement with Hell, or whether they approve of it. Should the Agency not wish to be associated with the forces of Hell and their plots to bring about the apocalypse, they ought to consider cutting ties with employees such as Colt who bring such scandals to their organization.

This demon is approximately the size of a human, and indeed is quite talented at passing as one, presumably with the aid of some sort of glamour magic, although the term 'glamour' fits this disguise only as a description of its technicality, not as a description of its appearance - he appears as a fairly average looking human man, but with a most unappealing sliminess to him. Please view the attached sketch for a passable visual depiction of the fellow. This appearance is not his true one, and if provoked, he may show his true demonic form, which is quite similar to his "human" appearance but with three horns and larger ears. The outfit in which he was last seen involved a poorly hidden bulletproof vest underneath his shirt, but it is probable he will have changed clothes by the next time he surfaces.

In spite of his toughness and, presumably, his advanced training with both Hell and the Agency, and in spite of the mistakes and failures of the hunting party sent after him, as he so eloquently and accurately covered in his own article, Colt failed to deal any appreciable harm to his adversaries and took copious amounts of damage himself, surviving only thanks to his last minute flight to Hell. He was in such a hurry that he left behind his means of transportation, trapping himself there at least temporarily. I presume he will escape in due time, although perhaps this is overestimating him. I must say, he did not strike me as particularly clever.

As for the matter of what to do if you have the misfortune to encounter Colt in real life, please keep in mind he may only be killed following the application of holy water. I highly recommend carrying some of this around in case you should encounter him, especially since it is a useful tool for hunters to have on hand regardless. Once doused with holy water, Colt may be killed by any method one would typically use to kill someone. This, as he mentioned in his previous submission to this magazine, is not a specialty of mine and as such I leave it to you, dear readers, to come up with your own novel methods for accomplishing this. It is worth noting that he is quite tough and capable of taking many hits, but you ought to be able to wear him down if you can avoid being felled by his counterattacks. In my experience, he is mostly capable of throwing knives, but as he was in a compromised position it is important to keep in mind he may have other tricks up his sleeve.

Should you wish to avoid violence entirely, it is advisable to simply avoid Colt when possible, and certainly to avoid taking any jobs from him. I do not expect or even necessarily recommend that those reading this attempt to take him on, but all ought to be aware that assisting him means assisting those who wish to bring about the death of all things in accomplishing their morbid goal. This, to be clear, is in no way a threat - if you wish to be involved in such things, I suppose it is your business - it is instead a simple caution regarding the nature of his machinations.

I believe it would be mutually beneficial to all involved if this polemic marked the end of our written dispute. However, should further articles on the subject from C.M. or his allies appear in this magazine, I feel it only fair to warn that by the time any such thing could be printed, I expect to have details far less malleable and escapable than name and face ready to publish in response.