Elliomander continues to stand motionless, his left arm curled defensively before him and his gun so pointed at the street...
Amelia nods, as Elliomander and her appear to be those staying. "Yes, my companion and I saw a strange emaciated dog on the street, dripping blood. If you check there, you'll see the blood trail. I cast a spell and confirmed it was not a living creature. As a bounty-hunter, I know there are standing bounty's on undead creatures." She points to the four undead dog corpses. "Take those in, their necromantic aura will be easy to confirm. They did not last long against my spirit, my companion's gun, some alchemical fire, and good old fashioned weapon play. You should have a priest deal with the poor constable. Just in case the dogs somehow left something in him to raise him as undead. I'll need a receipt for the dog corpses, to claim the bounty in the morning." She holds out her hand.
Frill had no qualms about making herself scarce. She took off behind Vera, not wanting to encounter more of the guard than she had to. She apparently had developed a bit of a reputation around town. Might as well make myself scarce...it might improve the legend!. She whispers to Millie, "We're famous," she laughed quietly.
As Vera and the Dread Rat melt into the shadows, Gar sheaths his bastard sword and stands back behind Amelia. He remains quiet and motionless as she gives her report to the Watch. This, he hopes, will be interpreted to mean that he is simple, harmless.
He is suddenly anxious to return to Vera's flat, though. Something gives him the idea this was intended to lure them away...
Once they're out of the alley, Vera sees that it's only Fril with her. "The Watch doesn't care for my methods...they'd likely try to pin it on us if I was there."
Quite out of breath, the officer that Amelia provides a report to looks beyond her - towards Eliomander (who is only now shaking off the effects of the ghoul paralysis), towards Gar standing quietly as though he and his massive blade had naught to do with this dreadful scene and towards the collection of corpses strewn across the alleyway. A second officer, younger and far less debilitated by the run to the alleyway, kneels over the slain watchman. Examining the grievous wounds to the officer's neck and the post-mortem damage inflicted by the hounds, he turns back to the larger man, "Miss Blackheart has the truth of it sir... Constable Perrin was brought down by these..." he turns to examine the closest of the slain hounds, "...they're definitely revenant sir".
The fat man, tapping his pencil against his notepad, looks at Amelia once more, "I don't like it Miss Blackheart... not one bit. It's been many a moon since we had undead stalking the streets at night... yet here they are... and here you are as well", if there is any inference being made, the officer makes no further note of it. "Very well... it looks like we're going to be here until sunrise at least. Here, take your damned receipt and make yourself scarce", a scrawled note embossed with the arms of the Office of the Watch is thrust into Amelia's hands...
****
Making their way back to Vera's, the two separate groups get the nagging feeling - once again - that they are being observed. And again, whenever they turn and look - hoping to catch their watchers off guard - there is nothing there. Back at Vera's which, in spite of Gar's suspicions, is exactly as they left it, the group somehow manage to grab three or four hours of fitful sleep...
The noise of the approaching morning, boots, hooves and wheel on cobbles, intrudes on the slumbering folks rest some time before the sun drags itself up from the horizon... a new day, bringing with it another fog-blanketed morning in East Ending, has arrived.
When Amelia notices his glance at Gar, she waves her hand negligently. "Oh, Gar is my apprentice in the Guild. He's not allowed to do bounties without my supervision, currently. Therefore, I am fully responsible for his actions tonight." She comments dismissively. She takes the receipt, and gives the man a bow. "If it makes you feel any better, sir, I do not like it either. Undead are bad for business, yours and mine. I have more than enough bounties on living monsters without the headache of undead monsters." She taps her temple. "Even if I can sense them, I don't particularly like them. If you need me to testify against any Necromancer you catch who raised them, do send me word through the guild." She takes the receipt, and shoulder's her scythe. With a head nod to Gar, she offers her arm to Elliomander. "Come Ellio, shall we continue our discussion where we left off? Gar, do follow behind, like a good boy."
****
Once at Vera's, she turns to Elliomander and Gar, and gives a curtsy. "My apologies for denegrating you back there. The watch, I've found, enjoys throwing their considerable bulk around, especially those with considerable bulk. However, they seem to have a hard time yelling at little girls. While I don't always enjoy looking like a little girl, it does sometimes come in handy." She looks to Gar. "You do not have that luxury, as a Bounty Hunter, if I were you, I'd cultivate an aura of dumb menace. The watch thinks they understand a muscle bound idiot bounty hunter, and they won't suspect you of subterfuge if you can develop that reputation. When dealing with them, I'd keep my words short and grunty. That's your decision of course, just my suggestion."
****
The next morning, Amelia yawns and awakens. "If you'll excuse me..." She steps into the restroom and freshens up, washing as best she can in the small sink before putting her clothes back on. One advantage to favoring dark dresses was that people didn't know you had slept in the same one for 3 days while on stakeout. When she steps out, she sighs. "If anyone has prestidigitation, I'd appreciate a casting. If not, we can stop by Caster Row on the way and pay a few coppers for a casting." She checks on her scythe, rubbing the oddly translucent blade. "Now then, where do we go first? I lean toward getting something of Old Bills and going to the Violet Lady first, then to our questioning of the gear works owner or the friend he was doing a favor for..."
Elliomander blinks and stretches his sore joints as the paralysis finally leaves him. He gratefully accepts her arm and leans on it slightly as they start moving.
When Amelia offers her apology and explanation he shrugs and answers, "Mostly the watch doesn't give me any trouble- I've built firearms for a few of the officers, and sold ammunition to many others. I always give them a 'watch discount' on cartridges and powder and they usually remember that kind of thing."
In the morning Elliomander heads to washroom after Amelia is finished. After washing up a bit he emerges wearing a new outfit- gray and black like yesterday's but now styled very much like a watch uniform (save for the color, and lack of shield).
"If you want to head back to your violet friend," he answers Amelia, "I can go talk to the people at Grindylows, and then the sharpening customers near there. I'm, uh, not the best at dealing with people though, if anyone wants to come with me and handle that?"
Amelia rubs her nose sheepishly. "I'm better at scaring people than I am at questioning them nicely. Even when I try to be diplomatic, I usually come off as haughty and opinionated. So I usually just roll with that."
In the morning, everyone staying in the office hears the door at the top of the stairs open and soneone walk down. Vera emerges from her upstairs flat, dressed for action.
"Good morning, everyone. Sorry, I don't hire a cook and can't offer you anything by way of breakfast. I usually pick up the morning's Chronicle from the boy on the corner, and read it over a cup of tea and a sweet roll at Eloise's Bakery down the street. It's far enough from the river that the stench doesn't compete with the bakery's aroma...usually."
At Eliomander's suggestion, Vera agrees to go with him. With a smile that doesn't extend to her eyes, she replies, "I can be very persuasive."
"And I can eat sweet rolls," Elliomander replies flatly to the investigator, "I suppose we'll have to wait for everyone else to leave before we can go though..."
Gar raises a hand dismissively when Amelia attempts to apologize. "No need to explain. Your intentions was quite clear, and your take on the Watch is correct. As to your faith in the Violet woman, I can't say I share your enthusiasm. But I would still like to hear her thoughts on the matters, 'specially after last night's dramatics."
In the morning, Gar takes an appreciable amount of time encapsulating himself in the suit of armor, as though he lacks a great deal of experience wearing the thing. A slew of curses emanate from the shadowed corner of the study, accentuated by the occasional sound of something heavy falling to the floor.
"I don't count myself a diplomat, per se..."
Crash "Shit."
"But I've been known to bust a few--"
Bang "Goddamnit."
"--teeth."
He emerges into the light, a thin film of sweat coating his creased brow. He grins mischieviously.
"Who said something about breakfast?"
Amelia raises an eyebrow. "If you need help with your armor in the mornings, do let me know. Lilly is quite adept at assisting with donning armor." She thumps her chest, and there's a stiffness to the dress, and a dull thud as if she had strong armor on under her dress. "Lilly made me a very heavily tailored breast plate, it fits snugly enough to be worn under my dress. This way people think I am unarmored, until their knife doesn't penetrate my dress. It's quite useful with having people underestimate me. The straps, on the other hand, are quite tight and chaff, and I must constantly watch my weight. Fortunately, I don't age very quickly, if at all, so we've only had to adjust it once or twice over the last 8 years." She grins. "Just be aware she'll curse quite a bit more than you do putting your armor on." She then ducks her gaze. "I believe last night was the first time any of you have seen Lilly in her full rage. I understand if you would rather not associate with us going forward... or if you have any questions about it."
Vera parts her blouse slightly to reveal brightly gilmmering silvery metal underneath. "Likewise, I paid a dwarven smith a pretty penny to have this chain shirt forged of mithril. It's turned away many a dagger that was meant for my heart." When someone shoots her a questioning glance, she shrugs. "What can I say? I have a way with people."
Amelia grins. "It is a good bit easier to move around in Mithral than it is anything else." She agrees...
Making arrangements to meet after their first meetings of the day, the group head towards their early morning destinations... stepping out into the misty streets of the Blight...
Grindlylow Grinders stands several blocks from the great river, where small tributaries and brooks break away from the slow moving filth of the estuary... several businesses, many of which are slowly sinking below the dark waters of bankruptcy, have premises here. The rumble of a millstone and the screeching of metal grinding metal fill the air as you approach this building. A much-repaired retaining wall surrounds a courtyard before the two-storey building whose own walls show many patches of mismatched brick. The wooden roof of the long main building sags in the middle, and just below its eaves faded, flaking lettering has been painted directly onto the brick, identifying the establishment as “Grindlylow’s Grinders”. Below this a patch of brick wall has been painted over and additional lettering added more recently, “Horatius Grindlylow, Proprietor”.
A wrought-iron gate stands open allowing entry to the hard-packed dirt of the courtyard before the building’s barn-like doors. Within its dust-clouded interior can be seen large mechanisms driven by long canvas belts running over pulleys and powered by a large waterwheel in the back. Numerous small outbuildings cluster along the edges of the courtyard.
Seeing the group approach, a dusty, middle-aged man in a worker’s smock walks out of the dimly lit main building to meet them, Top o' the morning to you!!! You got a job needs doing? You're in luck... we've got a gap in our schedule, I'll even do you a deal for a bulk order".
Treading the familiar steps through the derelict tenements to Old Bill's, Gar and Amelia are stopped in their tracks by a bored looking Officer of the Watch. Standing in front of the rope strung around the crime scene, the officer watches as they approach, "'fraid I can't let yer get past Miss... more than me job's worth if yer know wot I mean".
Amelia nods. "I understand. We are looking into a bounty that has been offered for the resolution of this murder. As such, we require a small something from the victim, so that we might have a seer look at it. I can give you my card, if you can grab anything from the workbench, we've already been allowed to see the scene as part of our bounty search, you can leave my card where the item was, and I'll return the item within 4 hours. You, of course, are allowed to gather evidence as long as you document it, yes? And since I don't care what work tool it is, your selecting it confirms I'm not removing actual evidence used in the crime. The only thing I ask is that it be something that actually is used regularly, not something new." She produces her card.
Frill nods at the others. "We've got a gear we'd like you to take a look at. See if you know who this might have belonged to. Or if there's anything there that jogs any sort of memory for you.". She didn't want to tell him too much about the piece, without being sure if she could trust him.
The man, wiping oily hands upon his smock, looks quizzically at Mama Frill, "A gear? Sure, I could take a look at it for you... not sure I'd be able to tell you much about it, I ain't no machine expert for sure". Taking the small gear mechanism from Mama Frill, he turns it over and over in his hands...
"Sorry friend, just looks like an ordinary piece to me... well maintained for sure, someone's done a lovely job of sharpening the teeth on those cogs... it could be from any one of a thousand machines - why d'you ask? Where did you get it from? You're not peddling it are you? 'cos, if you are I'm not interested... got enough troubles without running the risk of handling knock-off goods".
"Four hours? I dunno... I'm due to knock off in three hours - and that's if I don't get reassigned before you're back anyway", but then, seeing some frustration building in Amelia's demeanour... and presumably having heard stories, he relents, "Tell you what... I'll do it but you gotta make it worth my while... I could get into trouble for doing this and I've got a wife and three children to feed..."
Amelia briefly considers asking him if he will accept sexual services in exchange for his assistance, and then instructing Gar to perform them as part of his training if the officer agrees. But then she decides she's not really in the mood to fight both of them over the joke. Besides, she'd need a minute to summon Lilly to make it even.
Instead, she retrieves the bounty receipt. "One bounty receipt for four undead revenants. That's 20 gold pieces. Surely that would buy your family some small meal or two..." Considering that's two weeks pay, her tone of voice indicates it's more than just a bribe for this, it's a bribe and down payment on future services.
"C'mon now, boss," Gar says in a friendly tone as he pats the hilt of his sword . "Gods know there's enough trouble on these streets. We'd all rest easier knowin' such things's taken care of. Ya got a misses? Little ones at home? Think how much safer they'll be if we catch the sick son of a...perpetrator of this here crime." He offers a wide grin, hoping he looks nice.
The sentry at the crime-scene smiles back towards Amelia's protege, his grin mirroring Gar's somewhat... and then, as moral duty gives way to flat-out bribery, the officer's smile grows larger still. Quickly crumpling the bounty receipt into the pockets of his standard-issue cloak, the officer doffs his cap towards Amelia, "Wait right here miss... A couple of his tools should do the trick?"
Disappearing into Old Bill's hovel for a couple of minutes, the officer returns with a furtive look on his face... checking that no-one is paying too much attention as he makes a show of 'idly chatting with Amelia and Gar', he slips a cloth-wrapped package into Amelia's hands. Purposefully putting some distance between himself and the bounty hunters, the officer warns, "If anyone asks, we never had this chat...."
The reason for the Officer's caution is apparent as soon as the pair are far enough away to examine what they have been given; the bloody package contains two files and, maybe as an attempt to curry favour with Amelia, a heavily blood-stained knife.
Amelia sighs. "The murder weapon? Or rather, one of them? Really? Muncy's fellow officers are completely useless as cops, aren't they?" She shrugs and rewraps the package before putting it in her pack. "Let's get to the Violet Lady's then. We have to go down Caster Way to get there from here anyway, so we'll stop and spend a few coppers for a prestidigitation casting on each of us, so we look presentable." She leads Gar along the way, and then smiles. "I didn't tell you this, but she uses mirrors to see who is coming and when. You really do need to pay more attention."
Along the way, they pay an acolyte a copper each for a prestidigitation to clean their clothes and them, and then reach the Violet Lady's shop.
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The Violet Lady's premises are a fair walk away from the crime scene, in an even less desirable area of East Ending... crematoria, abattoirs and worse are mixed in with the poor quality housing of the streets The local businesses, with their primary revenue built upon death, lending the local traffic a somewhat morbid air. Above the low murmur of the downtrodden populace, the occasional exclamations of grief or of animalistic terror punctuate the air... and, with their bloody package held out of sight, it takes Amelia and Gar somewhere around half of an hour to arrive at 'The End', the slaughterhouse over which the Violet Lady has housed her occult business.
Instantly they feel it, something is not right... looking up the stairs, the door into the Psychomytyrst's rooms hangs open... and, stepping on the lowest step, Gar's foot crunches against broken glass. Looking upwards, one of the mirrors that Amelia had noticed the day before has become detached from its frame. Hanging limply by a single wire, half of the mirror - jagged and cracked - faces out towards the street whilst the other half lies in fragments beneath Gar's feet.
Gar draws his blade as a jagged piece of glass is crushed nearly to powder beneath his massive sollerets. He draws a finger to his lips before extending his hand out, feeling the air for the electric heat of corruption.
Mama decided it was time to drop a bit of the facade. She pulls out Old Bill's receipt and hands it to the worker. "This was with that gear right there. Does that name ring a bell? Any special orders for him over the years?"
Amelia begins to spin her scythe at the bottom of the steps, chanting softly under her breath, bringing out Lilly.
"Okay... let me take a look at that", the man examines the receipt when Mama Frill produces it, "Blimey... this is old, older than my time for sure - you aren't trying to claim for this are you? Tell you what, there's a feller still working here who was around back then - he's been on the main grinder for decades. Hang on a moment"
Calling into the main building, "HEY EV!!! EV!!! SOME FOLKS HERE TO SEE YER!!!"
...for a moment it seems that 'Ev' hasn't heard anything over the noise of the machinery but then out walks a bent-over, older man with soiled, grizzled features and worn coveralls. Horatius, the owner of Grindlylow's Grinders and the man who Mama was first talking to, introduces 'Ev' as "Everett Schimp, the grinding house foreman... mebbe he can help you out? Good day to you...", and then leaves, too busy to waste time with people who aren’t paying customers.
Schimp is an irascible old man and seems highly amused when he is shown the gear and the receipt. He talks readily enough, "Yeah, it was a long time ago for sure but it was me what hired Old Bill to make the repairs on the gear mechanism. See, I got cause to remember on account of Old Bill nearly getting me fired for it. The rascal was to take the gear home and have it fixed overnight before returning it and collecting his payment. 'Course, he never showed up the next day (or the next, or the next), and soon enough, I realise he ain’t going to be coming back".
Surprisingly Everett doesn't seem too bitter about Old Bill having disappeared with his gearing, "Couldn't find him in the rabbit warren that is East Ending, I tried... but to no avail, and soon enough I had to admit to Old Man Grindlylow what had happened. Docked me two weeks wages he did... I always wondered what happened to Old Bill - and now you're here... How is he anyway? Life's too short to bear any grudges, he alright?"
- there is no aura coming from atop the steps - nor, as Gar 'looks' towards the direction of the Violet Lady's rooms, is there anything coming from within the building. Listening, as well as looking, all seems quiet...
...and so, climbing the steps, the pair of bounty hunters are poised. The door at the top of the steps swings slightly in the breeze... and a smell insinuates itself into the alleyway. As a sudden screeching comes from the abattoir beneath Lady Violet's rooms, the unmistakable scent of violent death.
Amelia grimaces. "Lilly, check below." She orders, pointing down. Lilly drops through the floor, her face sticking through into the below room.
Lilly, blending with the wall and then reforming beyond it, is confronted with a scene of absolute carnage... a huge chamber tiled from floor to ceiling with granite tiles, nearly the entirety of the ground floor of the building is given over to the working area of the slaughterhouse. At one end of the building, the far end from where Lilly is watching, animals are herded in... it seems that currently 'the End' is processing aurochs... and quickly they are moved into a processing line that starts with a leather aproned man, wielding a brutal looking hammer, euthanising the beasts.
As Lilly observes the manner in which the newly arrived aurochs are despatched, it becomes clear that it was this particular part of the process which gave rise to the inhuman shriek...
...further 'downstream' of the 'hammer man', various workers - aprons spattered with gore - are busy at work reducing carcasses to their component joints and viscera. Until, nearby to where Lilly floats, the cuts of meat are packaged up into wooden crates... most of which have well-to-do, uptown addresses placarded across them.
Frill didn't want to give up too much info, but the fellow seemed truthful so she shared a bit. "He's not doing great. That's why we are here taking up your time asking questions. Maybe someone else had a grudge against him."
Sense motive on the man's information.
- there is nothing in Everett Schimp's demeanour that would suggest he is hiding anything...
"I'm afraid I honestly wouldn't know about Old Bill's associates or whether anyone held a grudge against him... if you'd been asking me thirty year ago, maybe I'd have had strong words with him... but, like I said, not any more", Schimp smiles as he thinks back, "Course, I always figured the old tinker had gotten the worst of it. He left his cart at the grinding house when he took the gear home and had said he'd pick it up the next day when he returned the gear. Well, when he never showed up again, Old Man Grindlylow pawned every tool and scrap of metal on the cart to make up for his loss and repurposed the old thing for storing cans of paint and grease".
"Actually, come to think of it... it's probably still around here somewhere if it hasn't collapsed to rot. Last I saw of it, it was just in the back of the tooling storage shed gathering dust".
"Smoke'n mirrors, like I said. But wait..."
Gar casts his gaze up to the top of the stairs, just below the broken mirror, squinting his eyes shut then reopening them from the vantage point of the landing.
"Pumpkin, you think your boss would mind if we just poked around his old cart for a second? I doubt anything would be here after all this time, but if you'd let us check to be sure, that'd be most kindly of you, of course, if one of you would accompany us, that would be fine....don't want to be accused of doing anything sneaky."
Amelia stares off into space briefly, then snorts in amusement. "Cattle dying down stairs." Lilly floats back up and Amelia motions toward the wall ahead. "Peak through Dearheart, see what you see.." Lilly floats upwards and then sticks her head through the wall into The Violet Lady's room, a few feet away from the door. Amelia again stares off into space as she looks through Lilly's eyes again.
Everett smiles at Mama Frill, "Sure, it shouldn't take too long to find it... The sheds are over this way"
Crammed into the back of a storage shed, stacked with old cans of dried paint and jars of grease is Old Bill’s tinker cart. It is a two-wheeled pushcart approximately 4 feet long by 2 feet wide with a bin occupying the front 2 feet of it for holding items to be repaired, and the back half consisting of a large wooden box with dozens of pegs on the outside for hanging the tools of his trade from. The tools are long since gone (as Everett had suggested they would be), and the cart is now covered in spatters of paint, old grease, sheets of faded newsprint and rust flakes from its years of service at the grinding house.
There really seems to be nothing of particular interest about the cart. Anyone knocking on the wooden box that the tools once hung from confirms that it is hollow, as might be expected... first impressions suggest that this was a wasted trip... a dead end.
Without needing to climb to the top of the stairs... and with no need of the mirrors employed by the Violet Lady... Gar and Amelia both 'look' through the open door into the Pyschomytryst's parlour. The scene beyond is one of ruin - the drapes and curtains have, for the most part, been ripped from the walls and the windows whilst the luxurious furniture; seats, tables, etc have all been thrown or tipped over... it is obvious, even without entering the room, to conclude that some kind of a struggle occurred here.
...and, her eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling, the Violet Lady lies in the centre of the devastation. Her head faces in an unnatural angle away from her body... and, in her hands, she clutches a rolled up scroll...
Perception
Frill points out the latch. "Now sugars, you all take a couple steps back and let Mama operate. Hopefully if there was a trap, it'll have rusted long ago.". She flips the latch.
"Hells!" Gar exclaims as the scene unfolds. He examines the staircase one last time...
...And, sword drawn, lumbers up the stairs, his armored feet thundering against the wood.
He stands mute in the doorway, taking in the scene with grim determinism. The angle of her neck has her lifeless eyes staring toward him. He is about to step inside, then remembers Amelia's rules about contaminating crime scenes. "Lily, be a peach and get that scroll."
Lilly looks back to Amelia, who nods, before waving her scythe. Lilly's form becomes solid, and she floats through the doorway and over to the Violet Lady's body. Carefully she takes the scroll. "I'm going to rip their guts out and string them up by the rafters, Lady. And I'm going to make Amelia shove her scythe up their arse before I do it, so their guts are in nice little pieces before I yank them out through their nose." She tells the corpse, closing the woman's eyes with her small fingers.
Then she brings the scroll back over and hands it to Amelia, two blood tears streaking down her cheeks. Stitches appear on the small girls form as her anger threatens to rip her careful stitches apart again.
Amelia frowns, but doesn't contradict Lilly's words. Perhaps more that they are not there to immediately execute that bothers Amelia. "Gar, go and find a guard officer, please. And then We Will Have Words With Muncy." The last few words are bitten off, and her eyes are practically ablaze with fire to match Lilly's. Murder hangs on the air, not just the Violet Lady's, but in the aura that surrounds Amelia. The smell of blood fills the area around the two as Amelia takes the scroll from Lilly. She makes Lilly incorporeal again, and then carefully unrolls the scroll where Lilly can see it, but neither she nor Gar can, in case someone laid a sigil trap on it.
At Grindylow's Grinders...
As the trio is being shown to Old Bill's abandoned cart, Vera pats Frill on the shoulder. "Excellent work!"
At the cart, before Frill can lift the latch, Vera gasps and grabs her friend's hand. "Don't be too hasty there..." The detective takes out a small satchel and selects a thin metal probe from the instruments therein. She pushes up her spectacles and peers through them while carefully probing the latch.
Secret compartment, eh? I wonder if Ms. Marshall here would be able to find a magic trap? Seems unlikely Old Bill could afford that, but it seemed awfully unlikely that he'd have been a meat suit for a blood demon and here we are... wait a minute... didn't the Snake say something about magic traps sometimes summoning things...
Elliomander takes a step back while Vera looks for traps. Before anyone opens the hidden door he draws his gun and aims at the cart...
Everett Schimp expresses surprise at Mama Frill's discovery, "Who'd have thought there was some kind of compartment in there!!! I always figured it were just a box to hang 'is tools and notices on".
Working together, Vera and Mama Frill quickly satisfy themselves that the cart is not trapped in any way... although they do then find that the latching mechanism is quite complex and, partially rusted through years of neglect, is rather challenging to operate. Eventually though, the mechanism clicks open and the compartment is opened - Elliomander pointing his gun at the cart throughout the entire process.
Opening the compartment reveals a hollow, as expected, but it quickly becomes obvious that it is not an ordinary compartment. First, the wood is double-layered to make it sturdier and, possibly from the insulation stuffed between the layers, proofed against sound and light. The additional thickness of the wood makes the compartment interior no bigger than could hold a creature of three or four feet in height. Second, the inside is smeared in many places with brown stains, suspiciously like old blood, and there are many scratch marks in the wood as if something had tried to escape... it is too dim within the storage shed to truly examine these stains.
Also within the compartment is an old tool belt. Stored within the tool belt are a small clay bottle with a rag stuffed into its neck to serve as a stopper, and a strangely crafted iron key wrapped in a piece of parchment. Everett, who had been standing to one side with a vaguely intrigued expression whilst the group attempted to open the cart, now has a much more concerned face, "That's... that's just weird... what d'ya think it means?"
The parchment, removed from the now-cold hands of the Violet Lady, is smeared with bloody footprints and has been untidily scrawled over... the writing is clumsy, as if the writer was unfamiliar with how to handle the charcoal stick they used, and simply says, 'He had to die... leave the past behind and return to your lives'.