Fragmented Journal - Flugel's Dismay

Day 361 of Flugel's Research of Project Diamond

It's been a full year since I started to study all possible chances to save Satella from herself.

Last months proved that her Witch Authority was indeed growing too unstable for her body to handle as her outbursts required the use of numerous amulets to prevent any destructive behaviors. Echidna was willing to provide some at the expense of some resources I had. It felt horrible to make that exchange, but my current worry was on that. I was running out of time and I blamed nature itself and myself for causing this kind of delay. Due to its intense attachment to her emotions, negative feelings suggested that she was growing more 'unloved' with my interest in saving her. She knows nothing of my current plans, but she suspects simpler things. Cheating, a betrayal, she is angry at me for even bringing her favorite food since it feels like I'm apologizing for something bad I did. Which was technically true but also not. My own bouts of anger have started to gain momentum, becoming too unstable for me to remain around the laboratory while I claimed some peace and quiet for myself. I am normally more patient, less brutal, but all of this was easily starting to chip away my own sanity. I am challenging nature, and nature is taking revenge through my sense of remorse by taking so many lives for this ambitious plan.

Writing is usually therapeutic, but this time around the journal feels heavier than how it was a beginning. I caught myself reading a few pages from the early days… and I found out that I am growing too dissatisfied with what I am doing. So many failures, and the best path was taking too long. I am not planning to stop, not when I could tell I am there to grasp victory and complete the Project. I never felt myself so close to success to the point of throwing my morality out of the window. I wanted to be the one to bring an end to my wife's plight for good. She was able to hold it well before we married, but love seemed to destabilize her even more. I believe the 'schism' happened way before I even met her. She was already suffering from it for as long as she could remember. At first, I thought of separating the two, but it became clear her second 'personality' was tied to her magic and any division would only cause more harm than good. Someone had damaged her magic and her authority in the past to the point where she was starting to become a ticking bomb. She is dangerous but… Satella is my wife. I had to do my best to save her.

So, I decided to finally do it. I relied on magic to try and find a solution to my long-term effort. Pandora, she needed someone to wake up to. I wasn't going to be her 'father' since she would need to die once this was all over. It felt horrible to merely think about it, to kill a child. But she was my abomination, and I had a reason to do what I had to do.

I made a deal with someone that preferred to be called 'just John'. His surname was unknown for the time being, but my curiosity was eventually going to prevail. I knew that much.

Day 398 of Flugel's Research of Project Diamond

Another date went awry with Satella.

She is holding well, but she is also upset that I forgot about our anniversary. I had been so wrapped up with this project that she had been asking to spend the night with her. No amount of convincing seemed to work, and I decided to concede to that request. Regardless of that, the project was finally going smoothly. John seemed to have a 'distinct understanding' of what was going on and wished to help as much as he could… at a price. He argued that he needed help with a sickness he had. In his own homeland, it was incurable and he had reported that he knew magic was the solution to solve this. He asked me for help and how he would do his best possible for that. Another project was opened, this one lacking the same drive and fierceness I showed into Project Diamond. I cared more about my wife than a single subordinate. I decided to accept and the first results were… curious. He had magic, and yet it was different from anything I had seen up until that very moment. I was shocked, but I also found it interesting to get my mind off from the main task at hand. I felt like I was burning out, so the fact I had a side-project to work on made the whole situation somewhat more manageable.

There were some clashes from time to time, but he did what he was asked for and he brought some interesting results when Pandora's eyes opened. She showed intelligence and her proper selection of emotions towards those around her tube confirmed that she had a clear understanding of what was going on. It had come at a fortuitous time where I felt close to giving up on the whole process. Too much time was being wasted on it and the damage it was causing to my social life was taking a toll on my sanity. The only saving grace was this discovery and the fact that I found a new researcher to add to the team. Dolos was a young man, a peasant at first glance, but some of the bishops confirmed he was trustworthy and gifted in alchemy and magical studies. Quite shy, but also easy to discuss as soon as it came to theories. A good teen, but still someone that didn't outright gain my trust. Something about him made me feel worried he wasn't really what he appeared to be and the fact that John didn't trust him further expanded on this. Nonetheless, he showed himself as harmless and quite a boon when it came to possible theories. Rather open with his mind and seemingly bearing no arms on others from the way he behaved around others.

I had made plans to further test him and see how things were going with him. He was going to either prove himself a valuable addition to the project, or a problem I would have to solve as discreetly as possible. Only time was going to give me anything to work on and… I could tell that the whole situation wasn't going to get any better for me. The project was going smoothly, but Satella's issues were intensifying by the day.

I'm terribly worried about the worst at this point, so much so that I saw fit to contact Volcanica for advice.

Day 533 of Flugel's Research of Project Diamond

Volcanica was as abrasive as usual.

Nothing weird considering the normal way he addressed people he didn't like, and yet there was one detail that made the whole request quite difficult to digest. The dragon reminded me that some things were unavoidable, and that I should have wasted this time to hunt down the cause of my wife's sickness rather than kill innocent people. I ignored that as usual, but I could ignore something that was leaving me particularly… upset. John was keeping a jovial attitude despite how unpleasant the laboratory was. Sure, I knew of people that would be able to manage this behavior, but there was something tied to my own decline to his attitude that just made it worse for me to digest. He didn't mean to be 'offensive' or 'particularly teasing' on me, but he was steadily becoming a problem.

The fact Volcanica considered him a 'wiser man than that fool of Flugel' was enough to reinforce that notion. It was odd to see a dragon and a human bond so effortlessly, and yet the two did so for stupid reasons. John had grown to hate the food dispensed around in the laboratory. Preferring to hunt his food, he would usually take a sheep or two wandering off from their flocks on a daily basis. He was proficient, saying that he was 'one of the best hunters' in his town. Something tied to making it an adult or something of the kind. As much as I would have delved more in this societal element about his culture, I preferred to not inquire more about it. Instead, I had to handle the mere idea that Volcanica could turn so 'crass' and yet so talkative when he was offered 'good food for once'. Five of the dead sheeps were consumed easily by the dragon, while John took his time to eat the smaller portion that was meant to be enough for a few sandwiches. The two talked about stupid stuff that didn't help with the research, but it also brought up a few elements he didn't know about dragon. Like how they were still able to perceive something like senility the moment they got too 'old' in their existence. The moment their minds weren't properly challenged, that 'muscle' tended to get too strained and too weak to handle even the simplest planning possible.

To add salt to the curious injury, I also discovered how much attached Pandora really is around John. I thought he was just growing close to her as a caretaker, but the naming issue had manifested even before she woke up. To think that all that subconscious learning led her to believe he was her real father made my blood boil. She tended to call him 'dad' or 'father' despite the repeated efforts to see her consider me as such as none of them seemed to work on her. In fact, the more I tried, the more I felt like I was getting the opposite results. Why does she call him her father? He created her, shouldn't he be considered as such? No matter the effort put through to rationalize that entire circumstance, I just couldn't find a reason for it to be so complicated. So incredibly bad for myself.

I had another date with Satella, this time we ended up cuddling and there was no reason to worry. Dolos finally met her, I decided to introduce him to her but… something is wrong about him. The way he looked at her was intense, but it lacked the usual warning bell tied to a lustful glance. No, this wasn't an attempt to take her as a person. He eyed something beyond what Satella was at first glance.

I am worried, but I will try to make things right as soon as I'm done finalizing Pandora's Authority. It was too unstable right now and I knew a small mistake could turn her into something more dangerous than Satella is.

Day 761/ End of the Project – It's all over.

John was sent back, his departure led to Pandora losing control and destroying a good part of the laboratory.

It didn't help that Satella snapped, with the other one taking over. Dolos managed to set up a tracking spell on her before she left, and now I need to assemble the others. The kingdoms have demanded an intervention from us and...

Forgive me my love, for I will not rest until you're whole and free again.

12 June 1

It's been a full year since I touched this journal and yet I remember all of it perfectly. The unpleasant moments, the curious hindrances and then the main issues that sees me here writing on it.

I plan to deliver this to Shaula. She was going to keep it stored while I'm gone as I know something is really wrong with Dolos. His participation to contain Satella was minimal and several times that messed up with our efforts to stop her rampage. We thought little of it, but Volcanica confirmed that he was evil. A dragon of his status could tell this much from a glance, so I am preparing to face him. He had answers to some of my questions. About why he was around when Satella snapped and how he managed to know which tracking spell would have worked on her.

I have a strong feeling it's not going to be easy, which is why I set up a plan, one that relied on two elements. Taking inspiration from the summoning spell that sent John in this world and then brought him back to his original one, I will try to subvert any plans from Dolos by preparing a long-term 'cleaning operation'. I already casted the required spells, and those would activate fully at the best opportunity in this world to allow a reveal of the truth. There is much to say, but I believe I can only state my regret for hurting my wife, killing so many people with my experiments, breaking Pandora and removing John from this existence.

This last one, I knew, was going to be a problem that could be solved. John… he was someone that Satella would have liked as a friend. But I doubt the same thing I did with these two can apply with John. By the time he would end up summoned again, he would be long dead. No, I altered the formula so that someone else would come. He spoke highly of his family, surely someone from it would do. I entrusted the formula with the spell to a young apprentice of mine. Egubert was young, but he had the potential to make it to become a great wizard. I just had to put my hope in him. But for now, these are my last words. To anyone that reads this message please… don't allow Pandora to end it all due to her hatred of me. Let me be the monument of her hate, let me be the burial of her pain.

Let me be… an end to the worst and the beginning of something greater.