“What?” Schirmer spat out.

“You’ll understand when you see what I’ve got here.” Rasmussen replied. He then produced a key from his robes and unlocked the thick lid of the strongbox. To Alexandra’s surprise, the strongbox had one unusual trait that made it very different from those that she saw her father and brother use: it’s storage area. The strongboxes she had seen before were made of metal that was, in the most heavy duty of strongboxes, about as thick as a pinky finger was long. The rest of the strongboxes’ volume was just empty space used for storage. This strongbox was mostly metal. When Rasmussen opened the strongbox, Alexandra could see that the storage area that it provided was about the size of a slice of bread. Everything else was one lump of metal. He then reached in with his tweezers and picked up the sole object stored within the strongbox: a strange medallion. It was constructed of some sort of white metal and it’s design bore no resemblance to any jewelry that Alexandra (someone who had seen jewelry from every part of the known world) had seen before. Within the center of the medallion there was ruby gemstone cut into a square shape.

Rasmussen then picked up a long metal pointer and tapped the gemstone in the center of the medallion. Suddenly the medallion was engulfed in a fireball the size of a fist. Alexandra could feel the heat from the fireball despite the fact that she was some distance away from the medallion. It was as though someone put a candle in front of her face. For some reason, she felt a breeze moving towards the fireball as the room was filled with a crackling sound. After a few moments Alexandra saw a face within the fireball. At first she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Then the face opened its mouth.

“Burn! Burn! I will burn you!” It shouted with a voice full of malice and agony. The fireball began to grow bright and expand. Alexandra now felt as though she was standing in front of a large bonfire. Just as the situation felt as though it was going to get out of control, Rasmussen dropped the medallion back into the strongbox and shut the lid on it. He then pressed down on the lid as he struggled to get the lock back onto the strongbox. Once the lock was secured he sat back down as the strongbox reddened. Schumacher looked as though he was about to say something, but Rasmussen cut him off.

“Don’t worry. That’s normal. It should burn itself out in a few minutes.” He said.

“That… that wuh…” Messerschmitt spat out.

“One of the medallions I mentioned? Yes; yes it was,” Rasmussen answered, “That medallion was the one the villagers brought back from the cave. The fire you saw was created by the spirit housed within it; the same spirit that possessed the boys from the village. I was able to use a recipe for a potion I found in Papadopoulos’ codex to expel the spirit from the boy and return it to the medallion. Once I did that the boy returned to normal. It was like there was nothing wrong with him in the first place.” Suddenly Alexandra spoke up.

“So you’re saying that you can fix Alexander?” She interjected.

“Well, technically yes, but practically… I would need someone who could administer the potion to his highness…”

“Done!” Schirmer announced, “With my influence within the gendarmerie and knowledge of the imperial palace, I’m sure I could reach his highness.”

“That could work,” Ekkehardt added, “There are still people within the palace that are sympathetic to our cause. If we could get even a fraction of them on our side then it could be possible to get to Alexander without having to draw blood.”

“Hey, this all well and good, but even if you could get this potion to his highness, there is still the issue of making it.” Rasmussen explained.

“Well, you did that before, so why can’t you do that again?” Messerschmitt asked.

“Because it requires one particularly rare ingredient, one that not even I have on hand.” Rasmussen answered.

“What is it? I’m sure that if we can pool our resources together and maybe get some help from our friends we can get enough money to purchase it.” Messerschmit suggested.

“I’m afraid that’s the problem. We can’t exactly purchase it,” Rasmussen responded, “Most merchants that deal in medicinal substances don’t even believe that it exists. The active ingredient of the potion is the blood of a moonman. It doesn’t have to be the same moonman that was used to create the medallion, but it has to be a moonman; the more powerful the better.”

“Well, where did you get moonman blood when you made that potion for the little boy in Suidmania?” Alexandra asked.

“The church has a reliquary located in the city of Čistgrad1, just two days from the village by horse. Inside that reliquary was a small vial of moonman blood that was just sitting there for decades; maybe centuries. It was just enough to make the potion,”

“Oh, how did you convince the church to let you use it?” Alexandra asked.

“I didn’t.” Rasmussen said bluntly, “I was able to swap it out for a vial of goat’s blood and they are still none the wiser. That’s the reason why I never publicly spoke about these events. If I was able to acquire the moonman blood legitimately, then every scribe, nobleman, and physician on the Yerbian continent would have heard about it by now. I actually have a lot of notes written down about the whole ordeal, so that I can have my associates publish it after my death. Still, none of this matters unless one of you knows where we can get some moonman blood…”

“And what if I do know where to get some moonman blood?” Schumacher interjected.

“Excuse me?” Rasmussen blurted out.

“I think I know where we can find some mooonman blood. I think that there is a living moonman in Nordfell…”

“You think? What evidence are you basing this off of?” Schirmer demanded.

“Well, it’s a long story. I have this… uh fascination with morbid topics. I’m not some sort of sexual degenerate or anything like that, I just find things like murders and demons interesting. I also wound up learning about moonmen when my boss sent me on some errand within the imperial archives, something about crop yields in Barbalunga, I got distracted and started reading about records about mass killings within the empire. I eventually stumbled upon a series of letters discussing someone called ‘The Cursemaker’...”

“Oh, you mean the guy who supposedly had the ability to make people kill each other?” Alexandra interrupted.

“Um, yeah. How did you… oh nevermind,” Schumacher said, “Anyways, I started reading about this Cursemaker guy in my free time. I became obsessed with him. I learned the details of every single murder in and out. I think I even figured out what his first name is. I was, and probably still am, the single greatest expert on this guy in the empire. Then, everything changed one night when I was drinking with a friend of mine. He told me about how he was tasked with inspecting the books and codexes in the restricted section. It’s standard procedure; just do a quick look around to make sure nothing is damaged. Long story short: he got bored and started reading about demons; probably from that LeNoir book you were talking about. He started telling me all about demons, including moonmen. That’s when something clicked inside my head: the Cursemaker’s abilities sounded a lot like something a moonman could do and his actions sounded a lot like something a moonman would do. At first I thought that this was just some stupid conincidence, but then I checked the astronomical records. Every one of the Cursemaker’s murders on the record took place during a time of the month where the moon was bright in the sky. His most gruesome murders; the ones with the highest number of fatalities, took place on days preceding full moons, and none of his murders occurred on new moons. The more I looked into this, the more everything added up,” Schumacher explained.

“Okay, but none of this explains how we can get our hands on some of his blood.” Messerschmitt remarked.

“Well, what if I told you that I have some information that would suggest that the Cursemaker is in one specific location and is in a state where he’s too incapacitated to move or put up a fight?” Schumacher asked. Messerschmitt nodded his head in approval.

“Okay, go on…” He replied.

“I have this pet theory on what happened to the Cursemaker; why he disappeared. According to the imperial records, the Cursemaker’s last known set of murders took place in Peschtia. He ordered a group of thirty villagers to grab whatever tools they had lying around and fight each other to the death with them; like some sort of Reman gladiator tournament. Unlike many of his previous murders, this one had a witness who would live to give a testimony to the gendarmerie. She was a shepherd-woman by the name of Boglárka2 Juhász3. Ms. Juhász was away from her village when the Cursemaker arrived. By the time she returned, he was already in the middle of his killings. Thankfully, she was smart enough to hide and ended up observing the situation from a distance. In her testimony, she said that one of the villagers that the Cursemaker was controlling resisted him and struck him in the back with a hatchet. The villager and the Cursemaker then spoke to each other for a few moments before the Cursemaker used his powers to make the villager snap his own neck. Due to the distances involved and the fact that Ms. Juhász had a hearing impairment, she wasn’t able to make out what was said. Ms. Juhász then saw the Cursemaker order the remaining villagers to kill themselves before fleeing from the village. After that, there were no more recorded murders that can be linked to the Cursemaker. I thought that point was where the trail went cold, but it wasn’t!” Schumacher explained. Despite the grim nature of what he was talking about, he seemed absolutely enraptured by his own words. It was as though he was finally able to release something that he had bottled up within him for a long time.

“So you found another Cursemaker murder?” Schirmer asked.

“Yes!” Schumacher replied with the energy of a teacher’s pet who just got asked to answer a question in front of the class, “...well sort of… I’ll get to it. Sometime after the Cursemaker’s final murders some villagers in Nordfell started complaining about an impenetrable white dome in some forest called ‘the Frauenwald’. I didn’t think much of it until I learned of two things; the first of them being moondomes,”

“Moondomes?” Ekkehardt repeated.

“Yeah. It’s supposedly a power that moonmen are capable of. According to LeNoir, they are able to will an impenetrable white dome into existence. This is supposed to be a last ditch defense mechanism for when they are wounded,” Alexandra explained

“Yep. That’s what I was also told,” Schumacher agreed, “The first reports of it came in just after the Cursemaker was struck by that villager. Now, that got me to believe that the Cursemaker might have been gravely wounded by the villager,”

“But, I thought that moonmen were supposed to be extremely hard to kill. How could one villager with a hatchet gravely wound one?” Alexandra asked.

“Well, they may have the ability to look like humans, but it’s entirely possible that their biology is completely different to us. Maybe that villager hit the Cursemaker in some sort of weak spot?” Rasmussen suggested.

“I think you two are overlooking a major problem in Schumacher’s theory: if the Cursemaker was wounded in Peschtia then why did he go all the way to Nordfell to put up this ‘moondome’ thing? That doesn’t make much sense to me.” Schirmer asked.

“That’s what I thought too!” Schumacher replied, “I thought it had to be a coincidence, but then I started researching the history of Nordfell; specifically the history of crime in Nordfell. This started out as being an assignment given to me by my superiors; completely unrelated to my interest in the Cursemaker. They wanted me to conduct a survey of violent crime within the county. This was basically a fool’s errand since reports of violent crime are Nordfell’s single greatest export. I spent three weeks analyzing and tabulating crime reports until I found one report of three murders and an assault in a village called ‘Weisshart’. According to the report, these crimes happened all at once right before the Cursemaker murders began. It started off with the assailant walking into the village’s bakery. He gets into an argument with the baker and a second man, the village’s butcher. This argument turns violent and the next thing anyone knows, the interior of the bakery has been turned upside-down and the three men are fighting with knives in the street. When it’s all over the baker, the butcher, and the village elder are all dead and a fourth man is wounded. Here is where it gets interesting: the fourth man, the one who was only wounded; he was some sort of soldier or militaman who tried to break up the fight. He was carrying a crossbow at one point he aimed it at the assailant, but the assailant was somehow able to get him to shoot himself with his own crossbow. This was followed by the assailant successfully disappearing into a nearby forest. This was especially odd when you consider that many of the witnesses claimed that he had multiple severe knife wounds,”

“So you’re saying that those four men in Weisshart were the first victims of the Cursemaker?” Schirmer asked.

“Yes!” Schumacher answered, “Think about it this way: We don’t know why he was arguing with the baker. It’s entirely possible that he didn’t go into Weisshart with the intention of killing anyone, or at least without the intention of killing anyone that particular day. Maybe the baker or the butcher said something that ticked him off and he responded violently. This is the event where he first got to experience killing and probably what got him to realize that he enjoyed it.” Schumacher argued.

“That would make sense,” Schirmer added, “I would like to look over the records myself, but none of what you’re telling me sounds like these actions are premeditated. Still that does raise the question: Why not just tell the baker and the butcher to slit their own throats? Why bother getting into a knife-fight with them?”

“Maybe he didn’t understand the extent of his own powers?” Rasmussen suggested. Schirmer and Schumacher looked confused.

“You said that, at least as far as the records are concerned, this is his first murder. Maybe moonmen have some sort of life-cycle, like what humans have, and he was still just a child… or maybe the more correct term would be ‘developing’?” Rasmussen elaborated.

“There are two more things I have to say about the murders in Weisshart,” Schumacher said, “Both of these facts back up my theory that the Weisshart murderer was the Cursemaker. The first is his name. I’ve read two eyewitness reports from survivors of the Cursemaker’s attacks that claim that he used the name ‘Cedric’...”

“Cedric?” Alexandra asked, pronouncing the foregin and exotic name with some difficulty. ‘What a weird name…’ she thought to herself.

“Yes, it’s apparently from the islands to the northwest of Yerb,” Schumacher answered, “Now, according to the daughter of the baker in Weisshart, the Weisshart murderer would also use the name ‘Cedric’ to identify himself in the days leading up to the murders. She said that he was some sort of hermit that lived in the woods next to the village, which brings me to my final point. I had to spend two hours searching through the archive’s cartology wing to confirm it, but I swear this is true: the forest next to Weisshart is the Frauenwald; the same forest where the moon dome is!”

“So you’re saying that he’s hiding there, because, to him, that’s a safe place that he’s intimately familiar with?” Schirmer asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. The only problem is that I don’t really understand why he’s in this dome, what he’s doing in there, or how long he intends to stay there. I know that it was there a year ago, because that’s when an imperial official mentioned it in a report. Well, there’s also the problem of how to break a moondome and I don’t really know what to do about that.” Schumacher explained. The room was silent for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, Messerschmit spoke up.

“...I think I might know of a sword that can break a moon dome…”

Brandt Castle (present time)

Alexandra winced in pain as she gulped down the last bit of her meal. She could feel her stomach churn as it struggled to process the food. With Adrian nowhere in sight, she decided to get up and stretch her legs. She found herself drawn to the one painting hanging from the wall. Alexandra casually walked up to the painting, stopping next to another girl who was also looking at the painting. Unlike, Alexandra, this girl was dressed in feminine clothes. She was somewhat short and wore her dark brown hair in a single braided ponytail. While she was definitely of Yerbian extraction, her skin was a slightly darker shade than that of Alexandra’s or Ekkehardt’s and she was dressed in the clothes of a barmaid. Strangely, her dress and apron had a number of stains on them, each of a variety of colors. Alexandra couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was clearly something odd about her. Despite this, she decided to just ignore her and focus on the painting. It was a scene depicting five people. The first four were definitely related; each sharing brown hair and blue eyes. These four individuals consisted of a middle-aged man, a sturdily built young man with wide shoulders and a bright smile, a frail and sickly-looking young man who was the only person within the painting to be seated, and a young woman. Next to the young woman there was the fifth individual: a thin man. He had short, jet black hair and high cheekbones. He was incredibly pale and his green eyes appeared as if they were looking directly at Alexandra.

“So, you like paintings too?” The girl beside Alexandra spoke up. Her voice was a little high-pitched and she spoke as though she was trying to talk someone out of attacking her. It was faint, but Alexandra could detect a very mild Strivalian accent. Alexandra took a moment to consider her question. She had been painted multiple times before, but never really cared much for the art.

“Uh, it’s alright, I guess…” She responded. The girl’s brown eyes lit up with excitement.

“That’s incredible! I always wanted to meet another person who appreciates art! Ever since my grandfather died I haven’t had anyone to talk to about painting. My parents absolutely hate it, so I can’t talk to them. What’s your name, by the way? I’m Rosalba4 Artemisia5 Zimmerman, but everyone just calls me Rose.” She shot out.

“My name’s Al...f; Alf Neuman.” Alexandra responded.

“Oh. That’s a nice name,” Rose replied, “Have you ever been to Strivalia, Alf? My grandfather told me that there are painters in some of the Strivalian states that are doing things with color and perspective that haven’t been done since Reman times. He said that he’s seen a lot of it himself. He traveled all over Strivalia as a painter when he was younger. He actually lived in Barbalunga until those no-good-dirty-rotten-throne-stealing von Adlers sent him here,” Rose explained, the words rushing from her mouth like water out of a fountain.

“Oh, I didn’t know that…” Alexandra began, only to be cut off by Rose.

“Yeah, it’s all because my grandfather was commissioned by some baron to paint a depiction of the martyrdom of Saint Calvus of Mizraim, but the baron took offense to it, because he thought that my grandpa was ‘coding’ the Reman soldiers in the picture as Ostermanians and their Kroppian prisoners as Strivalians. I don’t even understand how that is supposed to work, since everyone in that picture was supposed to be of the same ethnicity. I think that he was just trying to weasel his way out of paying, but that’s just me. At least grandpa was able to paint this picture here after he was forced to move.” Rose complained and she looked at the picture. For some reason she was unable to make eye-contact with Alexandra.

“Wait, your grandfather painted this picture?” Alexandra asked. She wasn’t sure if she could politely exit the conversation, but at least by asking this she might end up learning something useful.

“Yes. It’s a portrait of Count Claudius’ family shortly before the Time of Red Snow began. The old guy is his father, the strong-looking guy is his brother, the girl is his sister, and the guy in the chair is the count himself. Now the majority of this painting is supposed to be interpreted literally, but there are many small details that were added not because they were actually there when the scene was painted, but because of the symbolic values they held. For instance, the groma behind the elder von Brandt symbolizes his ambition to reinvigorate the family’s finances through the exploitation of the county’s natural resources, while the shoes next to Lady von Brandt’s feet symbolize…” Rose explained, speaking without any breaks as though she was in a trance right up until Alexandra interrupted her.

“Wait, what about the guy on the right? Who is he? Is he supposed to be a symbol or something?” She asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I must have forgotten about him. That guy was a former nobleman from one of those islands to the northwest. He was exiled from his home country due to some war or something like that and he bounced around Yerb for a while until he wound up here. Ended up becoming real close with the count’s family for some reason. I think his name was Cedric of Sortpool.” Rose explained. Alexanda’s heart skipped a beat.

Before she could ask any other question, the door to the hall opened behind her.