A Rookwood's Letters

Holed up in the cave, alone. The Ashes bastards have attacked the isle. Minimal numbers. Look to be attempting some sort of ritual. Anything they attempt tonight or tomorrow is a terrible idea. Whatever you're doing isn't as important as this. Get here now. Bring out the troops. Rain down Fiendfyre. The isle burning eternal is better than whatever they have planned.

They may be aiming for midnight. If you're not here by then, I'll do what's necessary. Needs must. Over the top and blow them all to hell.

The minutes are ticking.

If it all goes to hell, grab the little Mick, bloody him, take cover and throw him into the wards and you should be able to get through, for a few minutes anyway.

I must speak to whomever has access to the ward stone inside Dover. They must have physical access as well as a substantive understanding of wards and rituals. Who should I address?

Eventually we'll need to discuss my team that was taken at Stornoway and what needs to happen with the dragons.

I hear you’ve been deployed to Ireland. How are you handling the transition? The various couriers I’ve tried to use have all been whingers and overstated the symptoms, even with the protections we provided. One went so far as to find a sympathetic Healer at St Mungo’s and got himself declared “unable to do useful work” and “incapable of handling a broom.” The last potion regime that was tried on a witch was unsuccessful. After that debacle, the new team went back to the start to create new options. It appears that Our Lord declared their animal trials acceptable and offered it to you. I wasn’t ready to approve wizarding trials, and would not have started with one of my brothers, as the homing pigeon trials have been only intermittently successful to date. Given the insightful researcher Our Lord is, if he deemed the runs successful enough to move to wizarding trials, they were ready to be moved to wizarding trials. Since you are still doing your duty, he was right and I was wrong. When you have the chance, I would appreciate a detailed and thorough description of the level of success at suppressing the difficulties with crossing the wards and any side effects you may have been experiencing. A report from someone who I know is not shirking his duties, would be a very helpful point of comparison. Hopefully your analysis will help me to the insight that allowed Our Lord to move forward with this project.

As you are the ranking representative in Ireland at the moment I ought to inform you that we had to contain an incident at a research station over the weekend. Even you don’t need the full details, but the site needed to be purged. As a precaution we also purged the nearby village, Cappoquin. It’s a score or so miles northeast of Cork. They should have taken out everyone involved and those closely related. or potentially exposed Given the usual precautions taken I don’t think it should stir up much unrest, but since you are over on that Merlin-damned island I thought you should be informed.

Yours in Service,
Augustus

The new courier, Crainewold is dead. Healer O’Meara reports that upon arrival at Site ε Crainewold was unable to walk without staggering. After an hour of rest she began incoherently babbling. They flooed at ten this morning and were told by the secretary that Kisnah was unavailable. Two hours later convulsions began. You were still unavailable. Where exactly were you today that you were unavailable to consult on your research during its first testing on a witch? Various potions and the usual spells were tried. She died shortly before four.

In reviewing your report on the potion, I note that you say “three rats survived with no lasting effects”. Exactly how many died after being sent across the wards? How many had “lasting effects” and what were they? If your answers don’t satisfy, I’ll meet you at the apparation point with a dose of your ‘new miracle potion’ tomorrow at ten sharp.

Jenkins is complaining about being too ill to fly after passing through the wards, and his blasted recovery time is delaying the tests. On his first trip, he made it back that night. This time, even with freshly spelled flying leathers, Jondo claims it took him a full day of recovery before he could make the return trip. Dunstan has already had to find a trusted native courier to finish the trip from the shore to ε. And then after Jam-- or whatever his name is, returns, the leathers need to be respelled and he needs another day before he can make the trip again. Couriers with this clearance level and trust are few and far between. All this whinging will more than double the amount of time necessary for the first phase of Puppet Mirror. Are the leathers truly spelled as well as they can be? This delay is intolerable.