Character:Maxwell Valiant
Letter One – 
I've arrived! Holy Father who art in heaven witness me for I have arrived, hoping against hope and in spite of every errant voice who sought to rob me of the passions that have driven me here!
I worried that I may be unable to document my ongoing journey into the strange and repeating depths of this otherworldly vessel, but I seem to have made an unlikely friend! A small rodent hiding inside a hole only slightly larger than he. 
Going by the name Faulhurst, a strangely regal moniker for such a humble creature, he provided me with pen and paper with which to continue my diary, the last page of which I had long ago filled, appropriately, with the entrant I believe would be my last before an untimely death.
My hand quivers and shakes at the prospect of continuing forward into this queer abode. 
My mind reels, not only at its very discovery, but at my meeting with Faulhurst, which many times my better judgment insisted was simply a series of delusions and a failure of the sensible mind. I shall continue my writing at an appropriate time.
To thee who discovers my writings, take comfort. Drain these words of what comfort they have to give: The impossible is self-evidently possible. You and I can both see that is true now.\n
Yours in the sacred bond between author and reader,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Two –
I write these words today with a quaking hand, trembling with the fresh and still bleeding wound stored inside my mind. An attempt has been made upon my life! 
The dead have risen from their slumber and are nipping cruelly at my heels! \n
Clean, white, frightful skeletons wielding crude, rusting weapons have charged me! 
Two, I counted, teeth and bones clattering against each other. like hellish percussion underscoring my demise!
I managed to escape with my life! I am still entitled to it and I intend to forfeit it for no creature! \n
In time I may join the dead, but if my word carries any conviction, it shant be soon and I shant join them in their apparent uprising. \n
In fact, a small nap may do me some good…
Yours in the sacred bond between author and reader,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Three – 
This train has far many more dangers to offer than simply the waking dead, though I find myself turning sour at the phrase. 
Not two days ago I may have scoffed at the idea of fearing what has already passed through our mortal coil.
Large slimy creatures, a rancid lime green and animated by some foul, malignant force, charged at me today with evil intent. 
With some effort, more than I expected to exert against such strangely simple creatures, robbed them of the accursed life force within their translucent bodies. 
So far, of my many discoveries, the lion's share has been of turmoil and danger. I fear I already sense more on the horizon.\n
Yours in the sacred bond between author and reader,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Four – 
I crossed paths with a wandering shopkeeper today. His was a strange nature, one I'm not firmly certain I understand. 
He offered goods in exchange for coin, some food rations, a small silver harp and a roughly hewn shield. 
I declined his offer and he seemed taken aback by my speech. As if there were something odd about the way I spoke. \n
I found his manner of speech queerer still, but I mean when you're on an endless dungeon train, what's weird anyway, right?
I don't know. I kind of tire of that kind of cynicism. "I have to question everything, even in places where the dead come back to life." \n
Why even be cruel about it anyway?
I'll write once more when seems appropriate.\n
Yours in the sacred bond between author and reader,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Five –
Cassandra.\n
My thoughts return to you now, though I can hardly expect the same. 
I came aboard this frightful, yet ponderous vessel hoping to rid my mind of your distant, beautiful visage. 
Now that I'm here and I have a moment amidst my explorations to watch a glittering sunset pass behind the greenish walls of the valley, wishing against hope that my journey could somehow be in your service. 
That, perhaps, my mettle being tested again and again against the stony walls of this dungeon could make my mettle shine and strengthen and glisten so that it may better please you.
However, your scorn remains as steady and insistent in my memories as it did in that baneful moment when you turned me aside and cast my heart in ice.
My thoughts return, for ill and against my wishes, to you, Cassandra, once again.\n
Yours in the broken bond between angel and mortal suitor,\n
Maxwell Valiant


Letter Six –
I've once again come into the good graces of the shopkeeper, if good graces they can indeed be called. 
Two things spring immediately to mind: \n
that I may have mistaken his position as a wanderer not unlike myself who wished to unload unnecessary goods from beneath a black and concealing coat for a man who makes unloading needless goods a profession. We're not so different and I believe our means and possibly our ends are more similar than they are not.
I shall, however, continue to refer to him as the shopkeeper. It seems to get his goat, but, like, in a funny way rather than a serious way. I don't think he likes me very much but that's beside the point.
I asked him about The Erstwhile Monarch. He either didn't know anything about him or didn't feel like talking about it. Which I certainly can't blame him for.\n
Yours,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Seven – 
I hope I am once again mistaken. As my steel clashed against the earthy stone of the golem and I crawled from that horrible battle bruised, bloody and alone, I felt as though my words committed to my old journal would be my last. 
After have bandaged myself up and resting a while, I found myself criticizing my last words and their melodramatic procession endlessly until I felt quite myself again.
This time, I fear though, that hunger will take me in the night. 
Not a crumb in sight and no hope reaches me here. Perhaps this sunset shall be my last.
I shant waste as much ink as I did before. I shall only sleep.
Goodbye, cruel, blackened earth. I will not miss your enduring stings.\n
Yours in the sacred bond between two of God's breathing creatures,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Eight –
Against all odds I have once again survived!
The shopkeeper, who I guess I have to call Lucas since he saved my life, told me how to harvest food and gave me some wine and bread, which felt very appropriate.
We spent some time traveling together and he is a fine man, he seems to have just been initially put off by my manner, something I didn't feel was particularly revolting, but I won't begrudge him his faults of course. 
He told me his troubles, I told him of mine, and the way my thoughts occasionally drift back to Cassandra. \n
He's a good listener. I hope I was as well.
I decided to set up camp and he decided to continue moving. \n
I do I hope his path and mine cross again soon.\n
Yours in the sacred bond between author and reader,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Nine –
I haven't written in a while, huh?
I guess I haven't had a lot to talk about. 
I've been put into something of a groove. 
When I got here, every monster I killed felt like its own story. Now it's normal, it's what I keep doing and it's what I want to keep doing. 
I suppose that's always how it was going to go. \n
The train's getting darker and more dangerous. 
I feel like it's moving toward something. \n
Possibly The Erstwhile Monarch? \n
Found a lot of documents about him.
I haven't seen Lucas in some time.
And I haven't had a lot to keep my mind off of what's probably happened since I left. I've probably been dropped from all my classes and I've probably been fired. 
My parents aren't going to be happy to know that I'm probably going to have to drop out of grad school. \n
They used to make fun of Bachelor's Degrees and I used to join them. 
I stopped thinking about Cass. \n
Don't know why, it sort of just happened.
I'm not sure why I'm still going. I'm not… I'm glad I came. 
I'm glad I ran and if I had taken any more time before I finally ran, I probably never would have done so. 
I'm glad I came here. \n
Honestly I am. 
I just wish I had come for different reasons. 
I wish I had given myself a reason to come back before I decided to go.\n
Yours,\n
Max

Letter Ten –
The Erstwhile Monarch's poisonous touch has seeped into every aspect of this God-forsaken train. 
I can feel his eyes on me at all times. I've even begun to suspect my miniscule friend Faulhurst of wrongdoing. 
I curse the decay that has taken this train. And if it's the train doing it then I curse the train itself and will seek its end with my last breath.
His crimes become clearer to me with each passing car. 
I understand how his evil grip extends from the future into the past and it chokes me and the light that once shone through these train cars like a venomous fog.
My sights are set on you, Erstwhile Monarch. \n
Wherever you are. \n
Whenever you are.\n
Yours,\n
Maxwell Valiant

Letter Eleven –
Lucas has been slain. 
I write for him a dirge. It will be every bit as regal and corny as I'm sure he'd hate it to be. 
And here it is:
On unsure ground, through endless streams,\n
Lucas pinned his youth to his chest\n
Freed of the burdens of uncouth dreams,\n
Lucas wandered, caring little for rest
When I met him, his heart lived ever so fiercely\n
He could not stop for an instant\n
If you wished him a word, you must match his pace\n
One minutes delay and you'll find him distant.
But now he's at rest, a piteous rest,\n
And I'm sure that he curses his bed,\n
It is made of stone and of clay and of wheels\n
And it is stained a deep, haunting red
He who laid him down will be thanked in kind,\n
For the monarch is in my debt\n
He's taken from me a brief, wondrous friend\n
And I'll take from him his coronet.

Letter Twelve – 
It's over. He's dead. The Erstwhile Monarch. 
I'd better leave. Now. 
I've traveled two boxcars since he fell at my feet and everything has gone back to normal. And that scares the hell out of me. 
It's been real, dungeon train, but it's time for me to go. And fast.

Letter Thirteen –
Lucas was many things, and of them, aloof,\n
Though some might say cavalier\n
I may have held against him his personal truth,\n
That to him, this place held no fear
I resented that, in some subtle way,\n
For I found him to be undeserving\n
Of the treasure that he'd seemingly just chanced upon\n
Or at least such had been my observing
But we both came for reasons, a lacking of sorts\n
A hole that we just couldn't fill.\n
If the stings and delights of society won't cut it\n
Then we resolved to find something that will.
I think he found the thing that he sought,\n
And he took it with him to his resting bed\n
Did I find the thing that Lucas fought for so gravely?\n
No. I don't think that I did.
