From the Journal of Captain N.V.A. Mayweather as dictated to his faithful scribe, Yonten

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(Scribe's Note: Recent events have been quite distressing to my dear Captain and, once again, this entry is my interpretation of the what he might have related to me had he been his normal, boundlessly optimistic self. He is currently occupied with his "Great Project": a global chain of luxury hotels catering to travelers such as himself. He is personally overseeing the design of the flagship hotel in Paris: The Lady Catherine Grand Deluxe. It will no doubt be the finest establishment of its kind and the first of many such temporary residences that even one such as I might dream of acquiring the means to spend even a night in lavish elegance and comfort.)

I have of late lost all trace of the joy which so often held me aloft despite the many trials I have faced. If not for my dear Yonten, I do not know if I could have survived this dark and dreadful chapter of my most celebrated career. Yea, I must go on if only to honor the loss of my dear Lawrence, the somewhat less dear Armaud, and the fellow with the Greek name who also died at the Baron's hand. May they rest easy knowing that the Baron's life was taken by my merciless hand. My wrath, once unleashed, is equal to that of the combined pantheon of Olympus. May the Baron take no comfort in his grave as once dead, I will continue to torment this most detestable villain until eternity itself seems as momentary as the blink of an eye.

I would give a thousand Lady Catherines to have dear Lawrence returned to me!

I am greatly concerned for the mental health of dear Du Sang when he discovers our friend's most cruel and awful end. He will be filled with guilt and remorse that upon leaving his post at my side, such a tragedy befell our crew. He will no doubt blame himself and take to the bottle, attempting to absolve himself through perpetual inebriation. It will be up to us to coax him back to the sober truth that while he may be to blame, Lawrence would want not want him to surrender to the darkness.

Perhaps I will direct Yonten to mix an Eastern tonic for him.

(Scribe's Note: I have a confession. Lawrence is not dead. I have not informed my dear Captain of this as Lawrence wished those who knew him to remember him as he was when he bravely galavanted across the globe. Unlike Armaud and the Greek fellow whose name eludes me most likely because he thought himself so above my station as to only address me as "boy" or "you there" or "Mayweather's dog", Lawrence's light was not put out by the hangman's noose. Perhaps it would have been less cruel had the rope done its work, but it failed, sending our dear dear friend's body to the deck below where a barrel proved to be a cursed bane and broke Lawrence's back.

Many is the man who, with body left bereft of the ability to stand and thus banished to a life of dependence and misery, would give up the ghost and take an easy rest in their grave. But not dear Lawrence. At first, I told him the gentle lie that our dear Captain had provided for his care and comfort. And, at first, he seemed to take solace in this, as well as in the telling of tales to any who would sit with the poor, crippled wreck in the lonely tavern by the sea where I had installed him. As I visited him, I began to detect an air of inconsolable despair leaving me with little doubt he was no longer possessed of the will to battle on.

So one day, after listening to his tales which, I must say, have grown ever more mythic in the telling, I felt it was time to attempt the kind of restoration which my masters at the temple reserved for those of the strongest mettle, those with the strongest metal in their veins and the greatest medals upon their uniforms. Only for those would we meddle with the whims of cruel fate. I wheeled him to a yurt I built in a nearby meadow.

He believed I intended to show him the view from the nearby cliffs and administer a gentle sedative to ease his journey to everlasting slumber. To his great surprise and somewhat surprising objection, I moved his broken form from its chair to an apparatus I had constructed which was meant to restore the function of his back via ropes and pulleys. There was no remedy I could offer to alleviate the pain of hanging there with a rope around his torso. Men must be reborn through a crucible of agony, Mercy had no place in that hut of healing.

I left Lawrence in the care of an old fellow I had befriended in the nearby village. Being deaf and mostly mute, I knew he would feel no sympathy for my friend. His job was to keep Lawrence clean and well nourished until such time that he had grown strong enough to remove himself from the healing machine.

I will continue to visit Lawrence as my commitment to Captain Mayweather allows. I know this healing can take years...decades even in some cases. But Lawrence's eventual Phoenix-like rise will be worth the unending pain he must suffer to climb from the prison-like pit his bane-broken back left him rotting in. I cannot wait to see the face of my dear Captain when his dearest friend once again stands at his side aboard the Lady Catherine's Current Iteration.)

Yours,