Entry 1

The transcribed personal written records of Johnathan Altman in relation to his debaucherous research in Relative Magics and their implications. The staff of the Saunders College of Magics of Boston, Massachusetts, procured them as evidence in the lead-up to his trial. August 13th, 1911

May 7th, 1896

I have finally finished unpacking my belongings in my new home, which the institute kindly provided after I accepted the role of Apprentice Metallurgist and professor of Magic Basics 101. To think that only eight years ago, I had started my journey from nowhere to professorship. I thanked my father greatly in a letter that I sent him yesterday. I am sure that he will wave off my gratitude, but I remember the late nights my father would come home from the metal mill, and I remember my visit at the end of last year. The man I once knew to be stronger than an Ox struggled to get to his feet. In all honesty, it is more than the opportunities he has gifted me that I am here; it is the pain he suffered at that factory. Just thinking that more good men are being broken down like him devastates me. It is my cause that, god willing, I find better methods of safer magics that can replace such practices for the betterment of this great country.

I will be working with my old Metallurgy professor, Gerold Bass. The man is incredibly particular, and while I have seen few papers released by him, I always enjoyed his lectures on Norwegian Alchemy and its evolution into the scientific practice of chemistry and metallurgy. He was the one who firmly got it through my thick skull that the scientific world was just as important as magic and that magic was little more than the outlier to science. It is with this in mind that I committed myself to his philosophy and field of study.

However, I might be a bit of a failure as a disciple because I am a romantic at heart. I fell for the romanticism of the old country quite by accident. You see, when I was visiting my father, I learned that within the income that I had sent to him, which I had received as an advance for the institute for accepting the job, he had gotten into the habit of reading. I had taught him how to read as a way to bond over the breaks in school. He had never learned how, and now that he was the floor manager of the metal mill, he had a reason to. I would come home from the institute and share with him what I had learned and teach him to read the lighter stuff. Of course, I was unable to visit during my doctorial studies, so when I came back and found his small library, I was ecstatic. Until I realized they were works of fiction.  Professor Bass would curse the corruptive nature of fiction whenever the topic arose outside of his lectures. He believed that it was the greatest distraction and that the only texts that one should read were the histories, sciences, and the Bible. Despite my professor's teachings, I am truly my father’s son, and when he insisted that I read all of his libraries, which consisted of merely five books. Since then, I have been obsessed with these books and the like. I long for the magical words of Gabrial LeBeau and his descriptions of magical feats. My heart still fills with the memories of those weeks when my sister and I finished reading one of Jane Austen's novels and talked until the candle was low. 

I miss my sister greatly now. She is betrothed to the Jones boy and will be wed in June. When I went to visit, I thought she would be ecstatic about her coming marriage. However, when Father was out of sight, her face showed such sorrow. She never admitted her pains to me, but I’ve always had this instinct toward her emotions that others seemed to lack. I think it may be due to the fact that we are twins and our closeness has been our whole lives. Or that the prospect of marriage and motherhood never appealed to her. In fact, I think she was always drawn to intellectual study, just as I was. This is the one factor of life that I have never seen eye to eye with my father. I truly believe that women deserve the right to be just as educated as women, and arranged marriages were an archaic practice. I think about how limited the current field of study is in the inclusion of more great minds. I wish I could teach my sister the magics I know, but the magic I am practiced in may be too gentle for that sort of exercise. I will take time out of my schedule to learn some Weavatry so that I can teach her.

I hope to write to her soon. Hopefully, she has come to terms with the wedding. The Jones boy is a gentleman and has been perfectly polite. I am sure the two will be happy given time. My own work keeps me from writing her.

I am working as a teacher's assistant for this term to prepare myself for my own lectures. The introduction to Magics is incredibly dull. Professor GillGrass is insufferable. His voice feels as though it slows all the time, and he is only interested in the most explicit technical wordage. I have been spoiled with romance. The texts and class do not ascertain the elemental grandeur of magic; instead, they replace it with formulaic and confusing babble that will only limit these young magicians from true imaginative discovery. I have already started constructing a lesson plan. It is premature, I know, but I must do something in these classes other than doze off. Perhaps I will even write an introductory text over the summer months.

While I am out of those dreadful lectures, I have taken a few humanities courses. I am particular to the Rhetoric courses. It is my belief that the humanities, like magic, are equal to science and that a measure of all three is necessary for a worldly view of Earth and our place in it.

Then, there are Casey Summer's experiments on comparable spell work, in which I volunteered a moment of my time each day to contribute an hour or two to the research. I do not do so for his betterment but rather for the research. He has made a complete circus of the whole experiment, calling in untrained spell crafters and using them to bolster his data on the variability of spellcraft. He promotes outlandish theories to press just to drum up more excitement and funding for the experiment, but I think that it draws too much attention to what I find to be lackluster results. What he does is he will take two spell casters to perform spells that have the same outcome but have different activations. He is doing this in an attempt to document as many spells as he can and formulate some sort of hierarchy. I ask myself why I have even agreed to put any time into the work. I think that it is because occasionally, an interesting insight comes to the formation, but more often than not, the Merlanic doctrine is the best method, and the others are no more than interesting flourishes on the same spell.

I have also been in the habit of visiting my old colleague, Alistar Calsoar, for lunch. He now teaches the Archeology of magic, which I had considered for some time. He tells me all about the digs that he goes on over the summer months and his grand theory of magical origin. He believes that all the magic originated from one point and that from this point, as people spread across the earth, the magic delineated and that there is one true method of spell craft. I admit the idea is appealing to me, but I find it unlikely that the Merlin method is a derivative of any other. Perhaps the origin is in Europe, which would explain its dominance.

Alistar’s theories are not my only company. On the rare Friday night, I sneak off to one of the dance halls. Students and staff of the instate are prohibited from such activities, but I have yet to meet anyone who enforces the ruling, although plenty of them fear it. I have begun to converse with a young woman named Madylin Fair, who is a seamstress at a small tailor in the area named Fair’s Tailoring. When I told her my wish to learn Weavatry, she told me that she knew some and would teach me if I were to visit her at her father’s shop, which said Fair’s Tailoring. I agree and plan to make time this Thursday to make my way out to the shop. She was such a pleasant person to talk to. I look forward to meeting her again.

Tomorrow, I will be helping Bass organize some of the older files, the Metallurgy files, and remove redundant, false, or incorrectly formatted files. I will do my best, but I find that in the past, when we have done such work, I have been far more gentle with my judgment of these papers. I think I might salvage some of them and write to the original authors and perhaps get permission to rerelease them or develop the papers to what they were meant to be. This would be a tremendous task to add to my already strenuous workload, but it breaks my heart to see the destruction of another's hard work.

Dr. Altman

This Journal entry is seen as the origin of the Archlight Coven and its scandalous practices and teachings. The names Habel Altman, the Father of Johnatan Altman, and Abigal (Altman) Jones were omitted from the text.

Notes of Mr. Mathew Maroe on the evidence above. 1911 August 16th

After being assigned prosecutor on behalf of Sander’s College, I had not expected the sheer amount of text that I would be expected to read. While this is the case, I would not be surprised if it went to the Supreme Court with the intensity of the implication posited by Mr. Altman. I have what has been legally acquired by the state and college regarding everything about the members of the Archlight Coven. A name that used to inspire so much hope. This article reveals the beginning of the club and its key members, including some of their secret inner circle. I am surprised by how high the prospects were for Mr. Altman and how standard his views were. I believe that his corruption began here with his liberal values and immoral interactions with the gentler sex. Perhaps if Mr. Altman forswears his theories, the institute may reinstate his doctorship, and he may find work at a smaller college. He is still, in fact, the greatest Metallurgist in the country, and the loss of his skill would be devastating for the country. The letter mentioned is still in the possession of Habel Altman who has refused to turn over any letters of either of his children. He believes that they are personal affairs and the court has no right to them. This is a minor Set back at best as other documentation of the coven have been recovered that will greatly assist the prosecution.