The Curious Tale of Alvin Spinnet

Angular. Uneven. Awkward. How else does one describe a boy of 16? Not yet a man, definitely not a child - but ill put together, as if the sculptor forgot proportion and weight, meter and rhyme, perspective and distance. This would have been the kind way folk described young Alvin. Most simply called him an idiot, damnfool or Anvil Spinstermaker.

In short; an awkward teen with few to no friends, a social outcast, a pariah.

His family tolerated him, his father disdained the boy from ever doing anything useful, after having nearly shot himself when learning the pistol, then actually shooting his aunt Maude who was on the other side of the barn. He was a dreamer, an introvert, a ‘serial disaster who tried to damn hard’.

It is little wonder that Alvin became sullen and spiteful. Willing to leap into fights with his peers over slights, both imagined and real (which he generally proceeded to lose). Girls in town would mock him - it is said a whore even turned him down.

Shunned of normal contact, Alvin turned to mysteries. He disassembled pre-fall tech. He questioned the priest. He read, overly much perhaps. Until one day he heard about a bibliotech in the ruins of Old Memphis. Alvin packed his bags, managed to raise enough funds to buy some equipment and sent off, with the entire town wishing him well and good riddance.

Two years later he returned, a different man. Athletic. Confident. Handsome. Charming. The women swooned for a glimpse. Soon it was observed that he had moved in with the widow Stamford and her two daughters Esmeralda and Mary. At first there was a hue and cry over this degeneracy, but soon the parish priest himself was vouching for the upstanding nature of Mr. Spinnet. So popular was Alvin that within a month he was made Sheriff, Preacher and Defender of the Virtue of the Daughters of Pine Bluff.

A wandering Inquisitor Ned Bedford caught wind of all of this and soon decided to have a look-see. You see my friends, some of the young people from the neighboring communities had been moving to Pine Bluff, doubling, even tripling the population in short order.

Ned found himself beset by trials and tribulations as he approached the community. His horse threw a shoe. Sickened cattle along the way demanded his attention. A family of settlers was beset by visions of discord. Soon Ned arrived in Pine Bluff.

Ned managed to compel and talk his way to the central church where he found a vision of horror: a carnal communion with most of the young and attractive engaged in an unholy orgy and there, standing at the altar was Alvin himself, is visage alight with a monstrous leer illuminated by the fires of braziers and foul incense.

Ned was beset by female furies and possessed young men. He fought his way clear but at a terrible price, his left hand and worse, he was forever more haunted by night terrors.

But the story does not end there my friends. No indeed. Soon Alvin and his Host assailed Memphis, burning it to the ground and enrapturing many of the inhabitants. It took the Militia of Tennessee and a group of companions led by the Tormented Ned to put down Alvin and his corrupted.

And the source of all this? A single book. A small thing really, which whispered of secrets, of power, of domination, of revenge.

Many died in the Corruption War.

Thus we shall not suffer a Warlock or Witch to live.