‘If you can read this note, I’m being held against my will in Castle N in the Aargau.

We were surprised on the road three days out from Zurich. We attempted to resist, but our ambushers held up some sort of lantern and opened it. It may have held some kind of gas, because I recollect falling asleep almost at once. 

Lady N is the mistress of the castle and she commands powers that I doubt are from nature and cannot be from the Divine. She is clearly in league with the powers of darkness. There are few men here – and they seem to be under some kind of enchantment because they are perfectly obedient and indifferent to any plea or importuning. Most of the castle’s inhabitants are women. Some are like the men, but some seem more fully in command of their faculties. They are perhaps members of her coven. They perform . . . perverted acts upon each other with some frequency. 

When I first arrived, I had two companions: my particular friend, Frederik, a Bohemian officer in the emperor’s service, and Ursula, a young woman I was escorting to Aarau to take up a position as a teacher at a girls’ school there. I say “had” because though they still live, they are no longer fit company for a Christian. They have been changed. 

We were imprisoned together in a suite of rooms on the castle’s north side, but were often taken separately by two of the women (and, in the case of Frederik and myself, bound by the men as well) to a room with the lantern in it. We were made to sit in a chair across from it while a woman talked to us. Clearly it is some witchcraft, for we are never conscious of the time passing while there, but on being returned to our room realize that hours have passed. 

Ursula was the first of us to succumb. She had only been gone a few hours one day before the door open and two of the men, one woman and Ursula entered. 

“Get her things,” the woman commanded the men, then she turned to Ursula and said, “Now, my dear, do you have anything to say to these men?”

“Yes,” she said. “Gentlemen, do not worry for me. I have found my place and embraced my true nature. The company of men and genteel women can never satisfy me like the supple flesh of the women here, or service to my Mistress, Lady N. I urge you to submit and free yourselves of the burden of thoughts and choices.”

“God help us,” I said. Frederik was silent. 

Three days later, it was Frederik’s turn. He did not speak, he had been made like the other men. Instead, the woman said, “Frederik has seen the truth. He served Lady N now.”

That was a week ago. I am growing desperate and beginning to fear for my sanity. It might be inexorable that I end up like Frederik and Ursula. I was able to secret a bottle I found when allowed into the courtyard to do a little walking and hide this note in it, I pray it reaches some sympathetic ear in time.

Please, save me.

Your servant, Niccolo F.’

Niccolo finished signing his name to the paper and set it aside to dry. His emotionless face stared at the bare stone wall in front of him. 

Behind him, Lady N sat on a couch naked while Ursula ate her out. 

“It was ahhhhmmmmgghhh such a gooooooommmmhhhhhh idea to have him write those notes,” Lady N said. “So many more people are getting caught for the conversion process.”

Ursula quaked with arousal and delight from the praise. She thought this was so much better than teaching manners to young girls. Frederik and Niccolo simply didn’t think any more.