These stories first appeared in Hunt's Book of Weapons, an in-game collection of found documents curated by an unknown researcher. They are replicated here in their original format. This means that many of the stories are not presented chronologically, or in one grouping, and it is left to the reader to put together the puzzle pieces and determine to what extent they contain fact, fiction, or fable.

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Hand Crossbow

HAND CROSSBOW. (See also, ARCHERY, CROSSBOW) The hand crossbow is a petite version of the crossbow that can be fired with one hand and that discharges an arrow that, though small, can cause more damage than its appearance would suggest.

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Unpublished manuscript, "Bad As They Seem"
Author: Hayden Collins
Undated
Bleached paper, typewritten, 8.5x11 in

-16-
Not every monster must be slain. There had been a time when the twins' lives had contained neither monster nor murder. But perhaps some monsters could become allies. Could become weapons.

Fin had been gone for three days. Her hallucinations took her suddenly and completely, and this time she was on the hunt when consciousness left her. She awoke covered in mud and mosquito bites, hungry, and grateful that the gators had disappeared from the swamps. Jos had not noticed her absence, but Lynch had been nervous, and looked relieved when she returned.

During Fin's first vision, the snake had spoken of initiation. The visions of the past days left her certain now: She could not trust Lynch, and she would have to summon the snake of her own volition to complete the ritual it had begun. Fin spoke to no one of her plans, uncertain who she could trust.

Fairy tales had long warned her of the treachery of snakes, but for now she chose to trust. Murder was always an option later.

Seven snakes must be caught, entranced, and then released: messengers to call the snake of her vision back to her side. This was no rudimentary summoning. This involved the boundaries of the Land of the Dead. A length of iron, a dog, and a palm frond, laid on the shore, would also be required.

The Seven would carry her message. But because she was wary, she also purchased a syringe, wrapped in brown paper. When she removed the paper from the metal curves of its length, a greenish glow shone through the glass: the antibody, the antidote, the cure that, she hoped, would see her through if superstition failed her.

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Unpublished manuscript, "Bad As They Seem"
Author: Hayden Collins
Undated
Bleached paper, typewritten, 8.5x11 in

-17-
The shore writhed with their long bodies in smooth wave-like crests, and the mass continued out into the water of the bayou. Many had come, though not the one Fin had called. Not yet.

Hundreds of fangs had already sunk their hollow points into her flesh. Thousands more surrounded her now, waiting for the chance. Her body ached. She had spoken seven words over each of the seven snakes she had released, and they had called their brethren.
She forced the syringe's point through the skin of her left arm, forcing the plunger down just as she began to lose consciousness. But as her eyelids began to fall shut, she caught sight of a silhouette.

It approached through the water, enormous. She forced her eyes open and faced it. Would it be adversary or diplomat?

The snake was a combination of the most venomous locals: The keeled scales of the Canebrake, and the black crossbands ringing a beige body. The elliptical pupils of the Cottonmouth. The broad head of the Copperhead. The rattle of the Diamondback and the hydrophilia of the Coral snake. It was the biggest snake she had ever seen, tall as a house with a body thick and solid as a dozen trees lashed together.

More venom than blood now pulsed in her veins. She began to convulse, struggling to remain standing so as to face the approaching beast. She need not have bothered. As it sped forward, the snake opened its mouth and enveloped her in one smooth motion, continuing on into the night. Its brethren soon had abandoned the shallow waters as well, no longer compelled to remain by the summoning ritual. The bayou fell silent, a single cricket the only singer who dared break the silence.

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Unpublished manuscript, "Bad As They Seem"
Author: Hayden Collins
Undated
Bleached paper, typewritten, 8.5x11 in

-18-
Fin's body was found on a muddy bank by passing Hunters. It had been seven days. Devil knows why they even bothered to carry her back to town, where they delivered her silently to the doorstep of a doctor. They might have mistaken her for a corpse.

She was alive, but badly disfigured—bones broken or crushed, skin scalded by digestive acid—and thickly coated with mucus. The doctor assumed that she would not survive, but allowed her to occupy the single bed in his practice while he attempted to locate her kin. But she healed quickly, and the doctor, who was a devout Christian and could not attribute what he saw to an act of God, gave up the case, and threw her out without ever learning her name.

The flesh wounds did not scab, but scaled. Where the skin on the right half of her skull had been peeled away, her head was now covered with fig-sized green scales, as were her forearms and large swaths of her legs. She did not speak, and her movements had become more fluid. To look into her eyes—with pupils now shrunken and stretched to oblong slits—was to confront a being both cold and alien. She was no longer twinned.

She walked from the doctor's house to her own door, where she found Jos and Allison sat before the fire. Her first words were spoken in a dry but certain hiss, as they had been spoken to her as she traveled with the snake: Lynch cannot be trusted.

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Unpublished manuscript, "Bad As They Seem"
Author: Hayden Collins
Undated
Bleached paper, typewritten, 8.5x11 in

-3-
It took all night to clean the blood from the floor. The twins burned the bodies in the fire of the forge, and in its heat they fashioned two identical knives that they would carry with them for the rest of their lives. When the first customer arrived, they did not hesitate to speak of the murder. In the face of a visit from a local law man, Durant was handed the blame, and they were left alone.

They remembered their uncle-father over a single shot of whiskey every night until the bottle was empty, and then they called an end to their mourning. Fin became obsessive in her dedication to fashioning crossbow bolts. They barely spoke.

One morning, two strangers entered the shop: One a woman, one a man, both outfitted in the rugged style of gunslingers, both showing the wear and dirt of long travels. The story of the blacksmith and Durant had reached them on the other side of the country.

"You killed Durant." The woman offered no other greeting.

"That was what he said he was called." The woman, a stranger, could not yet tell the twins apart and did not know who spoke, though she had already been told their names.
The woman nodded toward the weapons displayed on the walls.

"You made these?"

Identical nods answered her.

"You know how to use them?"

Jos picked up her crossbow, strung it, and shot the man, who had hung back in the doorway, silent and grim. He groaned and fell to his knees, then onto his side. The woman, who had not flinched, not even looked down as the man beside her fell, smiled.

"I would like to place an order with the smith."

Hand Crossbow Poison Bolt

RN: The episode with the Teche Snake stands out as one of the most absurd. Did Fin really summon the spirit of an ancient indigenous snake? Was she really consumed whole? As experience has shown us, it is right to both treat the account as a fancy, a metaphor, an exaggeration, and as the gospel truth.

Crossbow

CROSSBOW. (Fr. Arbalete, arbaletrier, arbalest. See also, ARCHERY). The crossbow was originally a Saxon, as the longbow was a Roman, weapon. The principle of the crossbow is that of a perpendicular barrel, or groove, in which the missile is placed, with a transverse bow, the chord of which sweeps the barrel and discharges the bullet or bolt. The arrow discharged from a crossbow is called a quarrel, from its four-angled iron head; as that of the longbow was the shaft. A smaller missile, used for shooting on the wing before the intervention of the gunnery, was known as the bird bolt. Hence the old tavern sign of the bolt in tun, the arrow in the mark.

It can deliver a very damaging blow at a distance and has the advantage of being far quieter than a firearm.

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Unpublished manuscript, "Bad As They Seem"
Author: Hayden Collins
Undated
Bleached paper, typewritten, 8.5x11 in

-4-
Over dinner they—the twins and the traveler, who was called Lynch—talked of a dark future and a darker past. A rift had been torn in the world, and through the rift, a monster had come. It was an entity both one and many. It could possess humans in a way, shaping them to its will, yet the spread of its power mimicked human disease. Most assumed it was an epidemic.

"I would destroy this thing." Lynch was twice their age and looked older, her skin worn and weathered, leathered, her face crowned with a wide-brimmed hat covering a thick white-blonde braid. "And you, who both kill without hesitation or remorse, would be valuable allies against it. You need not leave the forge, but I would offer training. In the hunt. But before you answer, a question: Did you know Durant?"

Both girls shook their heads no.

"Well he knew you. Or of you, as having been gone these 16 years." She paused to take a breath. "William Durant was your father."

Silence followed Lynch's words. The blacksmith had been father enough. Even if it were true, they had no need for another.

She continued. "He killed your mother. Perhaps he returned to finish the job. Perhaps he was sent here, unknowing. I suspect, if you join me, we are going to find out. Now, would you join me in the hunt?"

They did not need to consider their answer. They would.

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Unpublished manuscript, "Bad As They Seem"
Author: Hayden Collins
Undated
Bleached paper, typewritten, 8.5x11 in

-26-
The colossal snake formed a loose defensive coil around the twins, who faced Lynch, poised for attack. Lynch's eyes brimmed with rage. The effigy could not be used again immediately, Nellie had disappeared with the first weapon the twins had brought back from the Land of the Dead, and the twins had found dangerous allies and weapons of their own. She would be unable to take on the Sculptor. She had few defenses left to take on even the human pair who stood before her.

Lynch's face went dark, as if fallen into shadow, as her form blurred and shifted. "We should have been allies. We could have stopped this! We could have stopped this together."

"Together?" Jos replied sardonically. "You mean that you would have mutilated us and sacrificed our lives, to satisfy your own grudge." In the end, it had been the Lord of the Dead who had revealed Lynch's secret. Lynch was not the only one with a grudge, not the only creature who could slip between worlds, and throughout her many, many years, she had accumulated more enemies than allies.

Lynch's arm was changing. Sharp carapace ripped through the leather of her coat, revealing a grey spiked limb, double jointed and bent at strange angles.

"Time for you to go home, Lynch."

"I am not your enemy!" The protest was a ragged, desperate snarl. The snake unfurled itself, positioned to deliver a killing blow. The twins began, slowly, the move forwards, one clutching a strange-looking gun, the other a crossbow.

Lynch's eyes flicked quickly around her, prey, hyper aware of the presence of the predator. She could not abandon her body as long as she was in this world. In that other place, she could wield so much power, yet here, she was bound and gagged by her own flesh. She unfocused her eyes, searching the Darkness for the closest rift. And when she ran, the twins did not follow. Only later, in order to find the rift Lynch had fled through and close it for good.

The work done, Fin turned to Jos. "No one left to lead the organization now, is there?"

"Not a soul," Jos replied.

"Then I guess it's time we found Finch." They exchanged a smile, shouldered their weapons, and headed toward town.

Hand Crossbow Chaos Bolt

RN: Collins may have taken the words of the local tribes and used them to his own ends. Or these stories relate a greater truth, to which the twins also gained access. Fin's disfiguration, as photographed, indicates there is more to this than meets the eye.

Hand Crossbow Choke Bolt

RN: The chimeric description of the Teche Snake was no invention of Collins; that honor belongs to the original Chitimacha tale. Furthermore, the ways in which his version differs from the known translations seem to prove that Collins could only have heard it from the Twins themselves.

Crossbow Explosive Bolt

RN: The Twins were such prolific weapon-makers—they must have had people working for them. So many examples of their arms were renowned through the era, I would assume that some were also attributed to them without any real connection.

Crossbow Dragon Bolt

RN: While reassessing these texts—in light of what we now know took place soon after—I have developed a biting curiosity regarding just how well Collins may have known whoever Lynch was based on.

Crossbow Shot Bolt

RN: L appears so mystical in these writings, and she was known to have that effect on people. Parlor tricks to beguile the simple, sway with an aura were Huff could only bristle. Would I could have met her!

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