October 7th

Dear Diary,

Today Lord Sistro returned to the castle. He arrived courting in all sorts of magical artifacts and treasures in his wake. It appears that he visited some distant contacts and picked up some new prizes. They all seemed rather contrite, a number of them even seeming fake in my opinion. Still. The servants and townfolk made a grand deal of his arrival, reveling in his fanaticism. It did in fact appear to be even more grand than I had imagined this place capable of feeling.

An eerie suspicion forms in me that the Lord Sistro is not in fact all he appears to be. The more I tinker and toil with the machine the more I find the marvel and mystery of him to fade into a dum roar of negligence and pomp. He does not even surprise or shock me anymore. However I do have that effect on him.

Upon his return I came accompanied by my servant. He seemed shocked and appalled that she would even walk or function. Immediately he set upon me with questions and tirades, explaining that I was a mere novice and without his tutelage I would be nothing. I demonstrated my might with ease, dismissing him from his high place where he towered over me. He soared across the room, placed gently on his feet by my quick spell work. When he attempted to return, he found his magic repelled by the shields that I had quickly enacted upon myself.

However I did not place any on my servant, a mistake that I will not likely make again. I felt the magic course through her body, mechanical pieces hinged and bent, heated and warped. She cried to me through her body and mind as I felt every bit of harm done to her. She collapsed in a crumpled heap upon the ground, barely alive, hardly functioning. And yet, Tarn Sistro seemed nothing more than a pitiful scrap of a human.

My concentration broken, he set upon me. Demanding I show him how I tampered with his great work. He dragged me, weaving charms around me faster than my injured mind could attempt to fight them. Still, I guarded myself as needed.

As we entered the basement, my workshop, he became appalled to see that I had dismantled his precious machine. My work on it was only about halfway finished. Once finished it would be a grand masterpiece. I explained to him my reasoning as he looked over my modified blueprints and work. He combed over them, asking the occasional question, but seemingly his temper calmed. He seemed to understand my reasoning, my justification for what I was doing, at least that was how I perceived it.

That was until he summoned a portal dropping me into my room. As I attempted my own magical gateways out I found that each was as though I had walked into a floating wall. Even the doors to leave seemed magically locked. I was a prisoner. My crime, doing what I had seemingly been brought here to do.

Now here I sit, without my servant Alphene, without my readings, without my ability to work. I sit and I wait.

I Remain Yours,

Eleanor Ducal

October 10th

Dear Diary,

It has been three days since I was imprisoned in my room. Three long days.

Food has been delivered to me through the portals, magically, three times daily, a tray will appear with more food than I need. While I remain a prisoner, I am not treated as one. I live in a grandiose suite with pampered goods and heavenly food sent to me as needed. Yet I still remain imprisoned.

Tarn Sistro does not approach me or my room, nor do his servants. The wards I have set up would alert me should any approach. And yet. None do. Instead I stay here, alone, with my thoughts. I receive no books to study, no magic to learn. Instead I turn to my own studies, my own inventions.

I toil with magic and machinery. The small bits I find in the room or brought with me. I tend to my whims inventing new uses and purpose for the magic. My power still seemingly grows, though with distance from the machine I find my conviction lacking. It is as if whatever stirred me on, whatever the machine was doing to me, fades with distance from it. I find myself longing for it, aching to feel the hum of the cogs and gears under my fingers. The arcane signals pulsing within each turn and crank. The feeling of something greater beneath my hands.

Perhaps it is the longing for my dear Alphene. I can sense her. Still alive. My connection to her is strongest when I sleep. I can hear her speak to me, telling me of what is happening. She has been hung in the catacombs, her body experimented on. Poked and prodded as she is torn apart as Tarn Sistro attempts to understand how I have perfected his flaws. He can not understand as he is a fool. I think this, so Alphene does as well. She attempts to humor me and tell me she can withstand the pain, yet I can feel what he does to her. Even dulled, I can sense her misery. She believed she was free, and now, she remains trapped again.

I lend her what strength and power I can from the distance. She wishes I would not, but she is mine and I will not let this monster take her from me.

I believe in that, Alphene and I share a common thought.

Eleanor Ducal

October 11th

Dear Diary,

I hear it. In the dark of night. The whispers of the machine grinding together. Gears and cogs burning in my brain. They speak to me, that I must return to my work. I tell them that I know, that I must return and yet, that I can not. I hear them grind louder, they demand not be silenced. I must return to my work soon. I do not know how long this will last.

Alphene tells me to not listen and then goes silent. I ask her to respond, and beg her to reach out. Silence.

I fear perhaps her voice was never real, never speaking to me in truth. Instead it was my own fractured psyche tainted by the magic, the mystery, the potential.

I remember my youth and in it all I see are gears grinding my memories to dust. My thoughts fill with the blueprints I have drawn. My mind trembles and quakes under the vibrations as the designs grow and manifest into something more. I must not toil in the past, I must push forward. I am the future. I am the present.

I fear my enclosure is driving me mad. I do not even remember writing that last paragraph and yet here I sit, hands stained with ink as I frantically write my thoughts before I lose them.

I believe I will change the world.

I believe I will finish the machine.

I believe I will save Alphene.

I believe I will destroy those who stand in my way.

Eleanor Ducal

October 12th

I am a cog in the machine of life.

I am nothing more than a tool for the function of the future.

The wheels of time move through me.

I will beckon in a new world through my gift.

I can hear it now. The future calls to me in screams of metal and synchronicity. The world is disorder and only I can fix that problem. My future remains written in cold steel and organization. I shall replace the world with metal and flesh, synchronized. I have seen perfection and it is beautiful.

The machine needs more from me. It needs life. It is the thing that has been calling to me all this time. It needs the potential to grow. That is why we are connected, not because I exist for it, but because I have given my life to it. It needs more from me, but to do so would destroy me. To end myself would create the perfect future I dream of. To end the machine would save myself.

Or rather, to do what I must do, what I always must do, I must do what must be done…

I am no longer Eleanor.

I must not be for what I must do.

I can hear the machine call for me.

When I wake, it shall be a different world.

I merely need to close my eyes and I shall no longer exist.

If this be it for me, then I will hope that I shall be remembered as who I was before the magic tainted me.

Eleanor

October 13th

Dear Diary,

To what I now write, to whomever may find this one day in the future, I ask that I am not judged for my actions. I was not in a sane place of mind or body. I do not even believe I was in control of my body. I will attempt to recount to the best of my ability what it was that happened in the middle of the night, but my own knowledge is shaky at best.

When I finished my last entry, set my pen down, and closed my eyes, it was as if I became a passenger in my own body. I could feel the world start to slip away from me, as if my body moved, puppetted, by an invisible force.

I watched as my body rose from the desk, slowly crossing the room. I approached the doors that led out from the room, locked. I could feel it, the cold metal in my hand, the splinters from the broken shelves. I didn’t even know I had broken it let alone harmed myself in the process, but as my shelf unit now lay in rubble on my floor, it seems I had a hand in destroying it.

The door crumpled beneath the force of my hands. It was a power inside of me that I didn’t even believe I was capable of. At the very least I should have woken up bruised with at least three broken bones, however upon coming to my senses I remained unscathed. The door however remains shattered in the hallway.

I traversed the castle, none seemed to cross my path.

The next thing I remember is confronting the late Tarn Sistro in his basement lab. His hands and face were greasy, covered in the oil of my machine. My grand work. Not only that, but he was tainting it with his foul touch. He had modified it, changed it, destroyed it without my knowledge or understanding. The monster.

Of this part I only remember flashes. I remember the feeling of my hands around his neck. Squeezing, choking. I remember his fist slamming into my face with fury. I remember Alphene’s screams. I remember the sickening crunch of his head against the hammer in my hand. I remember the blood, so much blood. I remember the machine, its gears turning as I repaired it. I remember the feeling of the vibrations beneath my hands. I remember Tarn Sistro’s body being drained by the machine. I remember the rush of magic into my hands. I remember the power inside of me. I remember Alphene, her broken body trembling as I repaired her. I remember her telling me that the machine’s will must be done. I remember her smile as she tucked me into bed. I remember the feeling of her wielding my magic. I remember the darkness of sleep.

Then I awoke.

I do not know what Alphene did nor do I know where she is now. All I know is the letter on my pillow that said “I will return.”

Upon awakening I was immediately greeted by the sight of two handmaidens waiting at the foot of my bed. Confused, I waited to see what they would do. They informed me that they had drawn my bath and prepared my wardrobe for the day. Breakfast would be ready for me upon my arrival downstairs. They were hopeful that once I retired to the meal they would be able to repair the damage done to my shelves and door. They expected they would need replacing but for the moment, they would be able to repair them.

Upon dismissal they called me Lady Ducal. I asked for further information, however, they only seemed to chuckle silently, a joke between themselves as they left. My confusion only grew as with every servant I crossed paths with all morning, I was greeted with Lady Ducal.

Upon further inspection, I found that not only did any sign or memory of Tarn Sistro exist in the castle, it did not in the servants. They stared at me dumbfounded and confused. Surprised to wonder who I could be speaking of. For as long as they could remember, I was the Lady of the castle and ruled over the town with a kind and generous hand.

Alphene had a hand to do with it I suspect, but without her here to confirm my suspicions I am limited to my own knowledge.

I can hear the machine call to me. The call is different now that it is complete. It whispers of a fulfilled promise. It is a soft whisper, seductive in my ear, calling to me like a lover. I wonder what will happen when I turn it on, or even if I should. It does not press on me, nor do I find myself slipping any further away. In fact, in contrast I feel more of myself than I ever have before.

The machine waits for me. 

And so it shall wait. Until I am ready for it.

Lady Eleanor Ducal