The Seventh Letter

Below is all we know about the scandalous and forbidden play, The Seventh Letter.

Fate-locked content ahead. This is one of the few cases where I'm posting it, because it's possible to find this in many users' journals. This is an interaction between the player character and Millicent Clathermont. Also, there's an atrocious pun in here, perhaps the worst in this entire game...

Masters

The Dragons who bring the Messenger to justice are seven in number. One carries Time gored on a horn. Another has the Hunter carelessly slung over one huge shoulder. Two more each are daubed with red – 'The Blood of the World,' Millicent whispers. They drag the Messenger screaming, up the steps to the scaffold at the back that represents the Wound in the World, where the Chained Sun and the Messenger's Daughter wait. The Seventh Dragon recites the crimes of the Sun and the Messenger – Betrayal of Messages, Undelivery of Words, Vile Breeding, Conspiracy in Darkness, and Unlicensed Love. When the Dragon says the words 'Unlicensed Love', its fellows set up an astonishing, breathless scream of rage – metallic, like the tearing of ships' hulls, and so loud! Loud as thunder or the collapse of buildings. You see others in the audience rise from their seats, clutching their heads. Millicent dabs at her own ear – a trickle of blood runs down her pale neck. And the screaming grows yet louder! The stage, the roof, the box you sit in, all shake like a ship in the grip of a hurricane. The audience are rushing for the exits now. It is a relief when the Dragons cease their screaming and lunge forwards, to feed on their prisoners. The curtain falls on the sights and red sounds of their feasting. Even before your hearing has cleared, Millicent turns to you. "Now," she says. "Love." "Is that so strange? Perhaps. But I'm not the only one. Penstock, too. There are others... some of us came to it naturally, some with assistance. But the passion in those spires!" Her lips are parted as she pauses: a curl of hair falls across her cheek. "It cannot be denied forever." The Messenger is – you've heard – always played by a man and a woman, alternately, scene by scene. In this performance, there are three actors, and you're not sure any of them are a man or a woman, precisely. The Messenger-actor who receives the flattery of the Owls, and warns the Hunter against greed, is bald and burning-eyed. Millicent watches closely. "Not so very unlike," she murmurs to you. "I think that had the Messenger succeeded, I would not love it so – but I know that had it given up, I would despise it—" The Hunter begins his litany of solar insults, and Millicent goes guiltily quiet. "A price. Or so I fear. I have two loves. Deep true ones. Let us call them the Artist, and the – the Courier. (Though neither has proven successful in their roles.) They love me, and I love them. Each of us wishes something of the other. If I give up that thing – if I give it up—" She makes an inconclusive gesture. Her eyes flash. "If I give it up, then love will be satisfied. It's always a transaction, is love, even outside the establishments of professionals." "Now, will you be as honest with me?" This year, an unproven young actress – an alumna, it's rumoured, of the Foreign Office's mysterious choir – has taken the part of the Raven. Her rendition of the Hymn of the Shames sends a bankerly fellow fleeing from the auditorium in tears. Millicent mouths the words along with her. "The glowing-hearted mountain / the river in the sky / the near night and the deep night...' "I requested a special dispensation, at the Feast. It has sentimental significance for me. It was the only payment I asked, for my work. And I will ask only one payment for your time here. Tell me, in this time of festival: what is Love?"