These texts were originally published as part of Hunt's Tide of Corruption, the live Event that ran from October 4th to November 29th of 2023. The excerpts featured here are a continuation of those from Tide of Corruption: Part One. Are they fact, fiction, fable, or fallacy? We may never know for sure, but there's truth to every lie, and a lie to every truth. Read on, and decide for yourself.

Summary: Sofia's search for ways to destroy the Murmurstone leads her to Elwood Finch, who gives her vials of his blood and tells her to shoot the stone with them. "There will be one opening," he tells her. "Don't miss." Soon after, Mr. Chary catches up with Finch and sends him to a watery grave before conducting a ritual with the Murmurstone to open a passage to the Land of the Dead. Before the ritual is complete, Sofia bursts onto the scene, shooting the stone with a crossbow bolt that delivers a vial of Finch's blood. But the blood does not destroy the relic. Instead, it corrupts the doorway to the Land of the Dead, brining swaths of bloated corpses through from the other side.

Chapter Eight: Sofia

Floating at the Docks – Mama Maye – Catfish Chandeliers – A Crooked Spine – Severed Fingers – Jellico – Brain Among the Stars – Death's Mouth – Pruning

Addressed to: Lulu Bassett
Translated From Spanish
Written On a Page Torn from a Ship's Logbook

We passed the Kid floating at the docks swaddled in pig meat, straw, and pumpkins. Half his face was gone. The water and mud parted like a mouth and swallowed him away.

Our search led us to Mama Maye, tending a new flower that could give us answers.

In the warehouse with catfish chandeliers, we found a board in a planter propped against a tomato trellis. It had a crooked spine grown from it, a skull, and a half-flesh, half-wooden face that blinked at us. This was wreckage from that cursed steamship, this Delphine. Haunted. Dreaming dead ship dreams.

Mama Maye buried severed fingers in its soil and left us to interrogate.

"Give us your name," I commanded.

The face spit seawater at me.

The Bone Mason waddled up to the board-man. She pulled a cracker from her satchel and offered it to the thing. It refused.

"Nothing matters," it rasped. "I've sailed winds born from the mouth of death."

The Reaper took the cracker for himself. Then he crooked his scythe into a soft spot in the board's skull. Lulu, did you know wood can scream? It sounds like piss on dry leaves.

"Tell us how the ship was hexed, Jellico." Worm Bite held a work coat, ran his thumb across its nametag.

The wood cried. It sounded as pathetic as all men's tears. "There is a deadland underwater," the wood spoke. "I've been there forever. All dead have too. A storm dragged us there. It's ruled by an insect on the moon with a brain among the stars and a body as hollow as air."

I threatened this Jellico with a lantern. "Is this the truth?"

"We brought a monster onboard. We fed it the artifact, the holy stone, the god larva. The ship absorbed us, paddled through death's mouth, and now death is almost out of the kind of dying you want it to give."

"Who knows how to break this stone?" Worm Bite asked.

"Mr. Finch," the wood replied, coughing up more sea water. "We had the stone onboard the ship because of him. Drown. Drown. Drown."

Mama Maye returned with a cart.

"Time for your pruning," she said and transplanted the board. She left to the sound of rain on dry leaves.

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Chapter Nine: Sofia

Ruined Paintings – Elwood – Killing Time – Dirty Corners of the World – Mistakes – In the Way – Three Vials – Pure and Ancient – Sliver of Bullet

Addressed to: Lulu Bassett
Translated From Spanish
Written on Correspondence Stock: Elwood Finch, Director

We found Finch in a rocking chair at the center of a ruined house. Ruined paintings hung on the wall, rotted for centuries. A grandfather clock leaned on its side, ticking.

"Where have you been?" Worm Bite asked.

"Killing time." Finch threw a knife at the clock. It didn't stick. The Bone Mason hurled an axe and smashed the clock face.

"I stepped down to search for answers, just like you," he continued. "I spoke with the Delphine's captain. He failed to deliver this Murmurstone, and his story is a lie. But he owed me, secured my passage on another ship to the dirty corners of the world."

"You ran away," the Reaper said.

"I went to discover how to stop this, how it's been stopped before," Finch clarified. "I learned that my blood is old. It hails back to a time of cave paintings and the deep rumbling wells of the earth."

"Now you lie," I told him. "You ran from death. You went to enjoy yourself."

Finch stood and bowed.

"I made mistakes, perhaps valuing my life was the first. The last was to let Chary set his plans in my absence. The Demented think I'm blocking them from ascension. Some of this Grounded Pact believe I summoned Rotjaw. Everyone wants me dead, except you."

"Don't speak so soon," I told him.

"I will be caught. There is no stopping that. I am in everyone's way."

"Then how can you help?"

"It is called sacrifice. I've learned that it is how our association has always won. I know where Chary is going, how we can make him lose."

He handed me three vials of pure and ancient silver, filled with blood. His blood.

"I'm charging you with my final task," Finch said. "There will be one opening. Don't miss."

P.D.

There is a sliver of bullet stuck in my arm from the day you saved me. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it's warm. Just wanted you to know, in case I don't come back: I don't think I could ever carry you in any other way.

I've etched your name on the vials. You know I never miss.

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Chapter Ten: Mr. Chary

Sinking Man's Song – Trap of Nest – Afraid of Clouds – Hurt Feelings – Kind Goodbyes – Table for Two – Gone Too Far – Magic Tricks – Pleasure Beyond Recall

Wax Cylinder Transcript
Sealed With a Bird Feather, Sugar Stained
Labeled: A Sinking Man Sang

As one who enjoys the finest thespian pursuits and drama, I want to recount the last moments of a truly beloved friendship:

"Elwood," I called. "You thirsty?" Finch hung from a high beam, wrapped in rope, cannonballs, vines, and oleander sprigs, much like a bird that had built a trap of nest around itself.

He nodded. I strapped a glass to my cane and held it up for him to sip. It was just us two—I'd sent the rest to hold a wide perimeter as our ferry drifted out into the water.

"I heard you were afraid of clouds, is that true?" he asked me. Pain flared in my leg at the thought, but his inquiry did not warrant a response. He was just trying to hurt my feelings.

"Finch," I said, "let's not strive for cruelty here. I'd much like for this to be as kind a goodbye as goodbyes can be."

I took in the scene, smelled the fine autumn flowers that were set in big arrangements of firebush and angel's trumpet. I sat down at a table set for two, lit a candle, and began to eat my duck.

"That's the same dinner we had when you signed on to the organization," he observed. “Did you bring the beignets?"

I pulled a cloth from the top of a basket and blew powdered sugar off them.

"I guess I am a bit sentimental," I said. "Who knows what's going to happen next? Between you and me, sometimes I wonder if I've gone too far."

"Well, a normal man would just stop," Finch said.

"But a normal man doesn't learn magic tricks." I flipped open my revolver, flourished my hand to produce a bullet. I held it to Finch, rubbed it, and it swept off into the air, spun, held still in the breeze before gliding into the chamber.

"I'd applaud if I could."

"No need." I spit out the thinnest of thin bones, and it cut my lip. "You know, for such a shallow creek, the sinkhole below us is ghastly deep. Strange things moving at the bottom."

Finch craned his neck to look. "I'll say hello to your friends down there."

"It's been a pleasure, Elwood."

"A pleasure beyond all recall," he said.

Then I shot the rope.

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Chapter Eleven: Mr. Chary

Cleopatra – Knights Templar and Witches – Marengo – Sacred Boundary – Insectoid Maidens – Silver Scarab Goliath – Fabled Worms – Memories Inscribed – Mind Shrouded Sky – A Child's Question

Wax Cylinder Transcript
Sealed With a Cicada Husk
Labeled: The Storybook

Cleopatra pulled a snake from the moon. She rode it for forty nights, eating men, soldiers, and children who cried when a breast was pulled from their mouths. The Knights Templar were birthed from an enormous witch enshrined by foundation stones. Napoleon's horse, Marengo, had a ribcage that could split open and eat other horses whole. After Bonaparte burned bridges, the stallion could still canter across the ghosts of them.

The Murmurstone is a library for such tales.

It can only speak the truth, or so it says. Its presence demarcates a sacred boundary of the Sculptor's will and influence, much as the pomerium outlined the border of Rome. It is a force of physics and myth intertwined. Emperors have been driven mad with its promises.

The Murmurstone seems primed to tell the tales of women and men, but these are not the histories I am interested in. I seek epics never scribed by personkind and the knowledge hidden in them.

I wish to hear of the nameless Silver Scarab Goliath who pulped insectoid maidens into mercury at the first age of the Sculptor. There are fables of worms endlessly burrowing across desolate lands, sludging in unison, charting pathways and inscribing memories for a mind too big to shroud a single sky.

Still, the story I want to hear most eludes the Murmurstone's mouth.

I think it is because the question I ask is the question of a child. It is not what the Sculptor wants, but why?

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Chapter Twelve: Mr. Chary

Silver Milk – Curious Ornaments – City of Bath – Quicksilver – Abominations and Calamities – Siren Continent – End of an Age – Digestion

Wax Cylinder Transcript
Sealed With a Cicada Husk
Labeled: Silver Milk

I shall re-enact our reconnaissance to make note of the Demented's care in their rituals:

"If you're not worried, why are we scouting them so close?" Private Eye asked me.

We laid atop a berm, watching a trio of Demented surround an altar. They placed a dismembered body in the mouth of it. Curious were the ornaments and decorations that covered the remains. Their attempts to divine wishes from their Lord were desperate, more intense after losing the Murmurstone.

"Candice, did you ever travel to the city of Bath?" I asked.

"Once." She looked uneasy.

"The Roman bathing pools in Bath were used to heat a unique kind of quicksilver," I said. "This was used to feed abominations bonded with the Sculptor. They used them to summon calamities, overthrow empires."

"Sounds like conspiracy and hearsay," she muttered, adjusting her scope. "Unless the mercury was explosive."

"There was a sound these creatures made. The sound of continents halving in two. It was a siren, a call to mark the end of an age. I've heard this sound now. I want to see if it is truly time for such a thing to transpire."

The trio knelt. A scarecrow rose from a stack of hay by the altar as if freshly given life. It moved stiff legged and dry and slit two of the Hunters' throats. The Butcher's Cleaver emerged from a shadow.

Again, the ground trembled. The Butcher's Cleaver placed the third kneeler inside the altar, and they burst into a pillar of flame and smoke. Far below us, in the Land of the Dead, I could feel a gurgling, a response.

Something was being digested to make room for something new.

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Chapter Thirteen: Mr. Chary

Crushed Bird – Segment of Revenge – Heave Ho – The Question – Murderous Cloud – The Cane – Lover's Jacket – Heave Ho Redux – Eyes to Be Stabbed

Wax Cylinder Transcript
Sealed With Shred of Tattered Flag
Labeled: The Last Bird to Be Crushed

I am free to do as I please. I enjoy recording these little plays, the games and clever moves we each make:

Finch is drowned, his blood sealed inside his body at the bottom of the blackest of black water. No one but he possessed the qualities needed to banish the Murmurstone. In a long line of revenges, I am balanced perfectly upon the last, blade-sharp segment.

The Burnt Marshall and Hawkshaw Jack heaved on one rope. The Delphine's captain and his new crew pulled on another. The Rift at their feet glowed red, resisting their attempts to retrieve the object.

"Pull harder," I told them. "This shouldn't take all day."

"Tell you what, boss," Jack said, dropping his rope. "You tell us why you carry around that goddamn cane, and we'll pull the shackles out faster."

They paused their yanking to hear my response.

"When I was a boy, a cloud tried to kill me."

"How?" the captain asked. Ah, how insolent children are best punished one at a time.

I lunged my cane through the captain's eyeball and clicked it to the back of his skull. He dropped, and I stepped on him as daintily as a lover steps on a jacket laid over a puddle. The Rift swallowed his dead body.

"Anything can kill you if it has will and agency," I told the rest. "Now pull those ropes."

They hoisted Rotjaw's shackles from the Rift, but I did not watch. Instead, I looked to the late November sky and its crimson burning. I hoped the Sculptor was watching. I hoped it had a thousand eyes waiting to be stabbed.

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Chapter Fourteen: Mr. Chary

Mise-en-scène – Delphine's Grave – Sieved Body – Shame – Symbols and Weight – Yearning Siphoned – Roles Cast – How Decayed the Rabbit

Wax Cylinder Transcript
Sealed With a Ticket
Labeled: Mise-en-scène

Eventually we made sense of the captain's map. I knew when we stepped on the banks and discovered the remains of a bloodied circus tent. Downriver we found it, the site of the Delphine's disappearance. Or rather, traversal.

It takes great sacrifice to travel to the Land of the Dead.

My first trip there was an accident. A city burned. The flames were spread by entities of infernal sensibility. When they burned through a person, their shadows forged pathways. And so I secured passage to the Land of the Dead by walking on the ashes of a hundred merchants.

My second traversal to locate the Murmurstone on the Delphine was not so kind. A live body is too resonant to traverse a Rift by normal means. It must be cut into pieces, bit by bit, and sieved down into the dead world's waters.

I will not relive such shame again.

Much was learned from my manipulations to pull the Murmurstone back to the bayou. Most importantly: symbols carry weight. Souls do not just disappear, they stick. They haunt and howl to fulfill old promises. This means souls can be baited, misdirected, their energies utilized and bastardized.

The Delphine's debris contain a host of souls trapped within its woodwork and corrosion. We have constructed a stage of its remains to perform our ritual and siphon their yearning.

A play of sorts must be conducted, each role carefully crafted. Some have taken weeks, some years, some gulfs of time that betray the ever-present eye of the Sculptor.

Oh, to be a member of the audience for this magic show, to see how decayed the rabbit pulled from my hat will be.

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Chapter Fifteen: Mr. Chary

Echoes of a Bird – Set Stage – Permanent Passage – Spiritual Architecture – Ambush – Sofia – Corrupted Door – Stolen Diamond – Bloated Eyes – Desolation

Wax Cylinder Transcript
Sealed With a Silver Vial
Labeled: Echoes of a Bird

The stage was set. Black Coat played the role of Finch, kindly strung up from a branch. Private Eye played the Steamboat captain, spinning a helm nailed to a tree. Devil's Advocate was dying to play the part of Rotjaw, so I let him roam in circles on all fours with his makeshift gator mask.

With the symbology complete, I activated the shackles and shoved the Murmurstone inside. It was instant, nonviolent. A permanent passageway to the Land of the Dead was forged.

The soul of the Navigator existed inside the Delphine's remnants, longing for dead waters. The soul of Finch yearned for the Murmurstone as Rotjaw sought her master as well. These feelings were fuel and ley lines. They were so easily baited, molded into spiritual architecture.

Then the Death Pact ambushed my achievement.

They could have only learned of this site from Finch. Beetles choked the high ground. Worm Bite sniped everyone on deck. The Reaper found many soft spots on necks with his scythe. Everywhere that Bone Mason aimed put a hole in someone.

Sofia rose from the creek flotsam, dripping, her skull-face looming behind a crossbow.

I am not a coward. I must have sensed a miracle about to unfold, because I ducked, and her bolt flew and met the gateway. The silver of its casing should have been stopped by the physics at play. Its metal must have been cursed, blessed, enchanted, I do not know—because it punctured the veil and splattered red against the Murmurstone's mouth with the bright, speckled red of Finch's blood.

All I wanted was an easy-to-trod pathway. A personal back door. But even doors can be corrupted, it seems. The Murmurstone screamed wide, banished, and its connection to the Sculptor multiplied as eyes do in the facets of a stolen diamond.

Dead arms flushed from a chasm that split the shackles, the stage, the very ground itself. The arms recognized me. The bloated eyes knew my name. I smelled sulfur steaming from the Delphine's captain as his spine emerged and bent at sharp angles, his hand grasping for my cane.

The clarion call of a new age rang out.

Its name was Desolation.

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