EXPECT THE... was the last part of the cryptic message we have found at the doorstep of our Abby. Tonight we have found another, we hurried to make it available for you, inquisitor, as you would be prepared for what is destined to come.
We have compiled the Book for you to use— inside you will find prayers, symbols for inscriptions, potion recipes, and documented symptoms of every strain of possession we have encountered. Study it. Refer to it constantly. Do not use it as a doorstop. You will be given tools of immense importance that will help you to interrogate and discover anomalies of those who end up in the monastery dungeons.
We have a mirror that will tell you things a man's face will not. Hold it up and watch carefully: no reflection, a clouded image, or — God help you — a crack spreading across the glass. These are not manufacturing defects.
A bell that irritates certain possessed people. Holy water that frightens others. A torch will reveal how a suspect reacts to light, which is sometimes illuminating in more ways than one. Salt, sprinkled along a cell threshold, restricts the movement of several lower categories of the unclean. Simple, cheap, effective. I cannot tell you how many of my early cases were resolved with nothing more than a handful of salt and a firm expression. (No better way to safeguard a privy)
On the Matter of Potions- You will want to brew. The potion room is essential — stock it well, and treat it with more respect than you would treat, say, the torture chamber. I will address that particular room shortly.
The cauldron does not forgive impatience. You must gather your ingredients, prepare them correctly — grinding, cutting, drying, the whole exciting process — add your base of water, wine, or oil as the recipe demands, and add each ingredient in the precise sequence prescribed. Then apply heat. Then read the appropriate prayer or spell over the mixture. Skip any step and what you produce will be approximately as useful as warm dishwater, and considerably more dangerous.
The effects you seek are healing, pacification, sleep, and the detection of hidden symptoms in suspects who are being cooperative about exactly nothing. You can also brew potions to weaken an attacker, or to strip possession from a soul entirely, which is the intended point of the whole enterprise. Bear in mind that every potion carries a risk of side effects — and I use that term loosely, because "the suspect briefly floated around the examination room like an untethered bubble" is not what any respectable physician would call a side effect. It is, however, a documented outcome, and I recommend having the cell door secured before administering anything experimental.
You will be attacked. I say this not to alarm you, but because several brothers in the past have been surprised by this development, and surprise at the wrong moment is a leading cause of early retirement from this profession.
Blunt weapons — clubs, maces, the consecrated cleric's hammer — allow you to stun an enemy rather than kill them. A stunned suspect can be moved back to their cell. This matters because a dead patient cannot be cured, and our mandate is not simply to execute the possessed but to understand them, and where possible, to restore them.
On the Matter of the Monastery Itself- The monastery requires wood chopped, water drawn, floors swept free of cobwebs and anomaly residue, blood cleaned, corpses burned, and unclean beings driven out before they damage your infrastructure and eat your supplies. In time you may hire monks — combat brothers for patrol and guard duty, servants to pray at the altar, and support staff to handle the perpetual, grinding maintenance that sanctified premises apparently demand in abundance. They can be commanded to follow you, to remain stationed or to work. They can be dismissed when they disappoint you, which will happen.
I cannot relay everything through this letter. Partly, because some knowledge is better earned than inherited, and partly because there are things moving in your province whose nature I do not wish to commit to writing. Suffice to say: ALWAYS expect the unexpected. You will begin to see it around the edges of the cases that arrive at your door, in the way the darkness seems to linger, in the moments when something looks at you through a suspect's eyes with an expression that is frankly too knowing.
When that happens, stay calm. Make a note. Consult your Book. Brew something.
So, you see my brother. Whether you find your particular niche in the craft of alchemical culinary, caring for the monastery herd, tending to the human flock or by taking up the sword, I hope that my letters will make your burden easier. Told you, it's not just about torture (that would be weird). I am awaiting your arrival and will reach out again if the circumstances force me to do so.
Grace be with you,
Brother Martius