Utterly Mad

Ferret awoke with a start. She coughed fitfully. There was an odd metalic quality to that sound. It sounded like her voice, sort of, but as if she was coughing through a fruit can. The ceiling above her looked familiar. A thatched roof. Ferret blinked. She was back in the farm house she had spent several nights in before entering the city. She went to sit up but felt the her back protest and laid back. It reminded her of the fight she had with the demon, which reminded her of Lydia. "Lydia?" she said looking around again. That odd tinniness to her voice was bizarre. She looked around as best she could but didn't see Lydia. Why was everything so vivid? Every detail seemed so clear. She could see each distinct splinter of the chair across the room, could even pick out the movement of a beetle as it crawled into a tiny hole beneath the chair. "Lydia?" she called again, becoming accustomed to the sound of her voice. Her throat was sore, sore and dry. When she rubbed it, she encountered something hard. It felt like a metal strip tracing the contour of the underside of her chin and ending at her throat where her voice box was. It didn't hurt, just unusual. There were stitches in her back too. Tried to sit up again and managed it. She spotted a bag near the foot of the bed and as she reached for it, received the shock of her life. The hand she reached with was not hers. She looked at it wide eyed. Ferret had seen a similar hand before, in the historical colleges museum. In fact, if she was not mistaken, it was the same hand she had seen under glass. Blue glaze with red sparks and all. The fingers moved as if they were hers. She barely needed to think about it and they did exactly what they should have done if they were her own fingers. It had been modified of course. Unwrapping the bandages at the base of the hand showed the it had been capped in silver. She couldn't tell how it was attached, but it was clear that it was not coming off any time soon so she wrapped it back up. Again and again she found herself unable to look away from her own disfigurement. What had happened? The elf! Ferret panicked for a very brief moment, what had happened to the elf? Had it done this? She thought not. There had been nothing but malice in that creature. It would not rip off her hand just to replace it with this... thing. Maybe Lydias calls for help were answered? Maybe. She reached again for the bag, trying not to stare, and pulled it over. It held food, water, several small jars, a few personal effects, Lydias knife, and a pile of notes. The first of these was scrawled in a nearly unintelligible mess. Most, if not all, lacked any kind of greeting. No greeting, no signature, just sheets of old paper with some writing on them. From what she could gather though, the first she could read said this;