Ladies, Gentlemen, and Fae-folk,

I am pleased to report that we have recovered the fourth of Myatt's sketches, titled "Knife". Once again, I would like to thank everyone who responded to this manifestation. Particular thanks go out to Nezaya, who quickly rallied and organised what would have otherwise been a roving mob investigating multiple rooms all at the same time, as well as to Blackwillow, the first to find the body (I will elaborate on that) and Grandue, the first to piece together and grasp the vast majority of the story.

It was a nightmarish house we found ourselves in when we approached this manifestation. It was a house full of blood and death, disarray and dismay meted out in equal measure. The many adventurers who entered sifted through the clues there to learn the truth of the house: it was the den of a crazed and murderous woman, and she was not done killed. Many adventurers fell to her rusted blade, all while she screamed for us to tell her where "he" was.

It took time, but eventually we figured out the story: she was a pregnant young woman living with her husband. Everything seemed good, they were looking forward to the child's birth. But then, cracks began to appear in their marriage. A little doubt here, a little envy there. He travels often, she gets lonely, then suspicious. He makes an off-hand comment about how nice it'd be if the child has dark hair, but both of them are fair-haired, so why would he think that could be? She starts to obsess over the baby, he thinks she's starting to love the unborn child more than him. Accusations are insinuated. Arguments break out. And finally, one day, she tells him that maybe he should just leave...and he, unthinkably, agrees.

And in her terror, her fear that he would truly leave her and their unborn baby, she kills him.

And she goes mad.

The apparition, the twisted version of this story, goes on to become a murdering psychopath, slaughtering him, the neighbor, the neighbor's wife, and anyone nosy enough to come sniffing around. She kills them all. And in order to stop her, we needed to confront her with the truth of what she'd done. Because she'd deluded herself into thinking he was just missing. That the woman next door stole him. That the man in the other house robbed him. Something, anything, anything but the truth.

So we summon her to their bedroom with the pull-bell he'd installed for her, anticipating her needs for when she was too heavy to move around much. She appears. We confront her with the truth. We talk her through her madness. And when she sees, at last, what she has done, she is anguished. She is distraught. And she falls upon her own blade.

In her last, fleeting moments of existence, sanity is restored to her. And then she disappears, returning the sketch to its normal state.

Forgive me. I do not believe I can write anymore on this.

Thank you all, once again, for coming to Myatt's aid. Thank you for your continued respect for Art.

If there's anything left to say, it's this: cleave close to truth and reason. Cleave close to the ones you love. Communicate with one another. See one another. Accept one another for what they are, no more and no less. Let not resentment fester in your hearts, for it is a terrible poison.

The hooded stranger was right. It's resentment.

In Song,
Taelle Starling

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Mayan, in the year 958 AF.