Almost looks like an hourglass. I hope that’s not its way of saying we have til the 21st to finish.
Wonder why there is an S there. Is it for Start? Or spelling oit something?
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I wonder what the connection is between the two drawings (if there is one)? Maybe it can be folded over the other to reveal some new pattern…?
Edit: So, Cagliostro responded to Lauren’s email with just one sentence: “Why wouldn’t they?” It seems pretty evident to me that Cagliostro himself is the real deal, but I’m wondering if the guests are, too? Is there some kind of elite magimystical society out there? 
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The page 7 has updated again and Laureen has commented on it.
Good morning,
I have to admit that I ended up staying the night in the loft with the journal. Hoping something would happen. It didn’t.
But just now I logged into the file index to triple check on the pages I uploaded for you. There are now strange symbols beside two of the dots at the bottom of the Yule page.
They almost look like letters but I can’t make them out. It’s like a typewriter stamped the same place with different characters over and over. The thing is… the journal itself doesn’t have them. I tried re-uploading, thinking that maybe the image was corrupted, but they appeared again. They only show up when scanned and uploaded.
It has to be some sort of glitch. Something the scanner is recognizing? There’s no way this could be done chemically… right?
Is this what was supposed to happen on December 21st? I had come around to thinking it would be something… else. Something more?
LE
There is now a ‘K’ on the middle dot in the last row.
One random theory is this would be a 10 letter word that, read left to right, top to bottom, that now starts with S and ends in K*. That might be our fragment.
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If that is how it ends up, here are a list of common words fitting the bill (not that I expect it to be a common word):
saddlelike saucerlike scrapbooks seamanlike
selfchecks shakerlike sheephooks shellbarks
shieldlike shipwrecks shrimplike shrinelike
shroudlike sicklelike sidestroke sidetracks
siphonlike siskinlike sisterlike skateparks
sketchlike slapsticks sleepwalks sleuthlike
sliverlike sluicelike socketlike sonnetlike
spacewalks spellbooks spherelike sphinxlike
spiderlike splintlike spongecake spongelike
springboks springlike spritelike starchlike
statuelike steelworks steinbocks stitchlike
stoneworks storybooks stringlike stylebooks
stylemarks suckerlike summerlike sweepstake
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Woah… (pasted from the latest email on The Cagliostro, so read from bottom to top)
Will Carfax handle all of this or should I make my own travel arrangements?
On 2016-12-21 21:19, c@thecagliostro.com wrote:
I don’t care about the journal. You have proven yourself worthy, as I suspected. Now we have important work to, you and I.
Return to the loft immediately.
On 2016-12-22 06:13, l@thecagliostro.com wrote:
I’m so sorry, what do you mean? Cancel my trip to see my family?
Is this about the journal? Did I do something wrong?
On 2016-12-21 21:10, c@thecagliostro.com wrote:
Cancel your travel plans. I want you here in Turin immediately.
On 2016-12-22 06:09, l@thecagliostro.com wrote:
I’d been thinking…
If Samhain (the previous section of the journal) worked, why didn’t Yule? What was different? Then I remembered that the journal spent a week traveling from wherever you found it to here. So what happened on that trip? Something that would reveal Samhain? The temperature dropping? What if the cold of the cargo plane or New York city revealed those pages? So what would trigger Yule?
Cold, but more than cold. Freezing. Frost. And so yes, I put the journal in the freezer. For hours. And nothing happened. But I felt like I was onto something. I had hooked into an idea, or it had hooked into me…
And so I did something I knew I wasn’t supposed to do… I took the journal outside. I thought the natural cold might trigger it, despite all logic and common sense. It didn’t. I wandered the streets around the loft for hours. Nothing changed.
Where does winter start? Fall starts in the sky, turning gray, leaves falling, leaving limbs bare. But winter starts in the ground. The frost on grass, the cold frozen dirt.
I was nowhere near a park, and didn’t want to be caught in a sidewalk flower bed burying a book. For some reason Central Park came to mind, even though it was dozens of blocks away. Without a coat I walked all the way there, into the Ramble, and I buried the book, digging a hole with my bare hands. I was possessed.
I left it the ground until I couldn’t stand it anymore and then I dug it out.
And it worked.
I unlocked the next part of the journal. I’m in a coffee shop, warming up, writing you. I’ll get in a cab after I send this and head back to the loft, then I’ll scan the new pages.
I don’t know why, but I’m in tears. I found the connection. I don’t know how. But it was exhilarating.
LE
And the coolest part is Cag’s last reply:
You won’t be taking a plane.
Magiq?
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OOOhhh, That is rather exciting!!!
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That was definitely pretty cool. I’m actually pretty glad for Laureen.
Edit: You know. Just thinking out loud here. If AC and LE aren’t using this email account to communicate anymore, he may stop checking it. If he stops checking it we might be free to use it. Say to send emails from his account to Martin Rank and ask him what he wants to know and why? Just an idea to toss around.
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Woah, so I finally got a response from Marty. He might actually be interested in working with us!
I been around long enough to know that the people you’re messing around with are more dangerous than you think. But you got my attention. Who are you?
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New email from Lauren to Cags
Blurred vision. Not actual vision, more like hindsight. Nothing before this matters anymore. Not my childhood, my family, what I did to my sister. Why I came to New York. It all seems… small, fragile. Like looking at a paper model of someone else’s life. This is all that matters. What I’ve seen and done these past days. The magic.
My mouth is filled with thorns. Speech seems pointless, antiquated. Only learning, creating matters. My skin is electric. No longer mine… it’s shared with you, bound with yours. I feel like I could live forever and sleep for a year all at once. Wrung out. Undone.
I’ve seen the seventeen wonders, followed roads to sunken cities, touched the secret light that lives in the space between everything, and heard whispers just beyond darkened star-rimmed doors.
It’s all true. It’s all real. And I can see what everyone is blind to. And always could, if I’d only known how to look. But how? You tell me without speaking that I’ve always been able to do this. That I have lived to reach this moment. I am “adept.” I can see beyond the delimiter. The separation.
I have to sleep now. Here. This loft is my home, as you’ve told me. As if I would leave. My center to recover. And grow. A place to learn from you everything I’m capable of.
Lauren
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… Thornmouth … coincidence?!
Now I want to know even more what they have done in Turin!
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I mean yes it could be the devoted… But what do we know about the early Mountineers?
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I’m definitely interested in what went down as well.
Is anyone else a bit concerned about Lauren, though? I mean, now she’s talking like she doesn’t care at all about her family. Before everything happened with the journal, she seemed to care quite a lot about them…so what changed? I just hope she’s quite alright… 
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Honestly this is the kind of stuff I meant when I said
cause it sounds like that basically whats going on. She might have a special sort of magimystical ability but I think it might have all gotten to her. It sounds like she’s completely lost it. I say its important to explore and learn about your magiq but its not good for you to leave everything else behind, other things matter too. Hopefully she is okay and can handle all the mental/physical strain thats going on with her.
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Didn’t they call the book “The Lunatics Guide”? Also I hope she’s okay… if we can reach out we should, strategy be damned. She’s a person that obviously is having negative influence from the book. We are Magi right? This a chance to use that power to help someone!
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I don’t think it’s the book that’s having a negative influence on her. I think the Cagliostro has convinced her that he’s the reason she’s discovered all this and is exerting an influence on her. Much like the original Cagliostro played up his skills to be an influencer and acquire a cult following.
Look at Brandon, he didn’t suddenly stop caring about his family when he learned about magic. No, this is something more basic than the fact she discovered magic. This is one person manipulating another I think.
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Than shouldn’t we try and help her get away from him?
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I’d say that should be on our list of things to do.
However, she’s a person with free will and if she decides to dedicate her life to someone I’m not sure we have the leverage or the right at the moment to convince her otherwise. Unless we find that she’s being harmed in some way, I’m pretty sure all we have to go on to stop her is ‘You’re acting cray cray in your last email, maybe dial it back’.
If we wanted to act on this, well maybe the best course of action would be to start talking to her. Perhaps we could try to reach her through their emails generic address and somehow convince her to talk to us. Then build up the conversation over time. It’d be hard to do without giving ourselves away, and right now we don’t want to destroy our access to their website because it’s very possible the 7th and 8th fragments will come from her.
Watching and looking for opportunities to help her might be the best course right now, but I’m open to anyone with a different plan.
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I agree. Using brute force won’t help anyone. But coming down to it I think saving her from whatever dark magic he may be using is more important. I mean let’s not give ourselves away, but possibly send in some Gossmere? We could try and use “Trusted Confidant” to see if it is magic or just her free will?
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I’m inclined to agree with Robert here. I don’t think it’s the book, after all, what would it gain from messing with Lauren? It just wants to be opened, and her being a servant to Cagliostro doesn’t benefit it in any obvious way. But Cagliostro? Obviously, having a magically skilled devotee would be a huge boon, and I suspect that was his goal all along with bringing on an assistant…
That said, I’m not sure what we could do or say at this point. Right now, Cagliostro is kind of her hero. If we send her an email, what could we possibly say? “Oh, hey, the guy who’s basically the Dumbledore to your Harry Potter in your eyes is actually kind of controlling your mind?” That’s a hard sell, and we don’t have any kind of proof that he’s done anything bad, either to Lauren personally or in general…makes it difficult to be convincing.
If someone has any ideas on how we could help her, I’m totally down for it, but I think right now we just need to wait and try to figure out the most effective way to get through to her. If we roll in with some big accusations, we could scare her off for good.
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Cags responded to Lauren:
I remember my first taste of magic. It is a cursed gift to see what the world cannot see. To know how far we stand apart from the blinded mass. We may as well be a different species.
We siphon energies that have been left behind, scavenging for scraps, but in time I will pierce the veil to the world beyond. The source. Perhaps you will join me. The book and our travels were tests of your will and aptitude. In all my years I’ve never known anyone like you, save for myself and the other Cagliostros.
For now our focus must return to the performance. It may not seem imperative, but it is.
I have chosen a location. There is a Rosicrucian temple deep within Grand Central Station called The Crimson Hall. It is the perfect setting for this particular show. Carfax will forward you details for procuring its use.
You will recall the box delivered to the loft when you first began working for me. You may open it now. Inside are the materials you require to begin your lessons. To understand and use the power you have inside you.
Yours faithfully,
AC
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