< Mask Of The White Wolf | Tokens N Trifles | The Chronicle >
Only a few privileged souls have ever seen the fabled Press that the Boston Chronicle uses to print its periodical, and they describe it as a great nightmarish contraption of twisted metal and less certain materials. When in operation it rattles and roars, and even when quiet it seems to hum with potential. Norus himself has bragged that rats are deathly afraid of the thing, that it sometimes prints stories that none of his people wrote, even that it refuses to print certain issues if it doesn't like the "feel" of them. How much of this is truth and how much is deliberate spin created by the master of the unexplained is uncertain, but most everyone at least knows the story.
Back in 1963, there was one of the Gentry. He was called the Sibilant Word of Madness and Pain, or just The Newsman, and he terrorized Back Bay for months. He'd appear for a few hours, distributing his maddening tracts, and then disappear back into the Hedge before any in the Freehold could track him down. Those unlucky enough to find these mere pieces of paper would becoming gibbering insane slaves to the Gentry, and worse, the magic was contagious and lay within the words themselves. Some tried to pass on their masters words themselves, copying them as they could or simply forcing others to read them. David Ironhands took personal control of the situation, gathering up the slaves that he could and doing for them all that could be done. The tracts themselves were gathered, to a one, and burned so that they could not trouble the city any more. Yet the Newsman remained, and a party was sent out into the Hedge armed with Iron and potent Tokens, charged with putting an end to his threat.
Of the souls sent to face the Sibilant Word of Madness and Pain, only Norus Neveria - then calling himself Norus Kerly - returned to the city and he came back with his marvelous contraption. It was an even stranger and more horrible thing then, and the Autumn Court marveled over it for a time before Norus took it for himself and withdrew from the Freehold to recover from his ordeal and work on taming the Presses' power. Some worried over him, his sanity or even that his will was his own, and he reassured these as best he could. Others were overcome with envy and sought to claim the trophy for themselves, and the fate of these is unknown, though most suspect he ate them. A rare few simply wished to help, but the Press was a fickle thing, used to serving only one powerful master, and having too many hands picking at it only made things harder. Months passed until finally, well into the reign of Blind Thomas, Norus emerged from his seclusion claiming to have turned the Press and mastered its power.
To display this, he offered a simple eight page newspaper, filled with stories of anguish and tales of woe.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Back to Boston Chronicle.
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