Somewhat annoyed a Lilly's antics, Vera says, "Yes, it's bigger on the inside."
On reading the document, Vera seems troubled. "Well, that is... disturbing. But it meshes with other clues. Some sort of spirit or magical force posseses children, sending them on a murderous rampage. And the victim then attacks the possessed child." She looks up. "We must put an end to this!"
Lilly goes silent as the paper is read out loud. Then she goes transparent, nearly invisible. She then slides into Amelia's pack.
Amelia sighs. "I had hoped I was wrong actually. I do not look forward to finding the child that has been possessed. Does anyone know how to do an exorcism?"
Gar shakes his head glumly, staring at his hands. The thought that their foe might actually be a child begins to feel like an albatross 'round his neck. "No. Never was taught such secrets. Never got close enough to the gods."
"The man who signed in as the Crown Justice could have been an imposter," Elliomander offers, steering the conversation away from possessed children, "a lowly clerk, especially a lazy one, isn't likely to ask too many questions of anyone looking the part. And, it might still be worth checking on if there were any strange deaths or murders ten years ago if we can find those records..."
Returning to the shelves when Amelia proposes the idea that there may be a ten year cycle of killing here, Elliomander finds it much easier to peruse the decade old records - they are, after all better filed and less faded... yet, even with the help of the other investigators and with the majority of the evening spent looking for similar crimes, he comes up blank... and now, through the high windows of the Archives, sunlight has been replaced by darkness and the dim light of the gas lamp street lights...
"I think we may have exhausted the archives' information. Regardless, we have learned a lot. I agree with Lio's assessment that whoever signed in as the Crown Justice probably wasn't His Excellency, but it's still a lead. Shall we follow up on that, or something else?"
"Aye," Garvid stands quickly, apparently eager to leave the archives. "It's a lead. I'd also be interested'n seein' this crime scene. From what we've seen, the ghosts of the past ain't ready to move on. Seems there may yet be more to learn." He shivers uncomfortably at the thought, but says little else, merely securing his belongings and walking toward the exit. "And let's be on guard. Ragathiel knows what evil's lurkin' the streets tonight."
Frill follows the group out. They still had many more questions than they did answers. "Checking in with the Crown Justice is as good a next step as any that Mama can think of. Where are we bedding down tonight, by the way? With someone wanting us dead, Mama thinks it's good to keep together until we get to the bottom of this."
"There are other leads to follow. It is getting late in the day, so arranging an audience with the Crown Justice might be tricky... Perhaps we should try to set that up tomorrow. As for what to do tonight, maybe we should check out either Muncy's old flat, or perhaps the address of that fortune teller Madam Laura. I'm sure others reside at those locations now, but they're worth investigating."
In answer to Frill's question about quarters, she replies, "You're all welcome to crash on the floor of my office again, if you'd like."
"Office sounds good, also, we need to check on the friends of the tinker. See what his customers might know, especially the one he was doing favors for. See if they remember him 20 years ago... also, we need to track down Muncy, and after kicking his ass between his ears, make him talk." Amelia sits down, and looks to Vera. "Before we go, I would like to copy Muncy's family crime report, so we have a copy of it in case this one goes missing. Someone redacted that heavily to make sure it looked like something normal. I'm very curious who redacted that, I'd like to talk to them."
"Yeah, before we turn in for the night," Elliomander almost whispers as he looks around with suspicion, "we should go look around Muncy's old place... there's a good chance we won't be able to get in but we could try, and at the least we can look around for sewer entrances nearby."
As they make their way across the city, something is gnawing at Vera's mind... something that she has seen but not registered. Playing the events of the day over and over, she suddenly sees it - the crime report...
...the crime scene was, at least as far as the paperwork is concerned, never released from custody of the Office of the Watch.
The Portmuth Building, the location of the old Muncy flat, is right on the edge of East Ending not far from Theatre Town. The tenement is a four-storey building of flats that, from the multitude of hand-painted signs, are let out for rent... and sadly, the building has seen better days. In the darkness, the glow of candlelight shows that some of its apartments are still occupied, but a great many are empty as the building has become run-down and many of the flats are too dilapidated to be habitable.
A fire escape ladder runs up the backside of the tenement building, but only leads to a sagging, low-pitched roof of rotting shingles and several large stack-like chimneys. Entering through a tired lobby that is scattered with puddles and rubble, the group find a once-grand staircase and head upwards... The old Muncy flat lies on the third floor and, amazingly given the decades that have passed, is still sealed off by the Watch cordons.
Amelia blinks at the cordons. "What the... It's still sealed off? There's no way someone high up doesn't know something..." She hisses, and Lilly says a few words that make paint peel off the wall nearby in a hushed voice as well. "Don't disturb any dust or anything on the cordons, let Vera and Eli check it out and see if it's been disturbed recently..." She whispers to Mama Flick, but Lilly shakes a finger at Gar and glares at him, making it obvious the warning is for the big clumsy stack of steel.
The floor of the hallway creaks as Amelia leaves the warped stairs and makes her way down towards the door that the group are looking for. Seeing it quickly, there is the brass number “34” hanging askew from the paneling... and a faded, dusty, red rope still hangs across the door, nailed into its surface, sealing the apartment beyond by order of the Office of the Watch. It appears that the crime scene truly has been left undisturbed all these years.
"Well, Mama's shocked. Shocked, I say, that the guard left this place cordoned off, and that no squatter just helped themselves property.". Frill looked around to see if anyone was watching the group as they planned their actions.
"Should the rest of us wait outside, to be sure we don't disturb anything in there?"
"Lilly dear, peek your head through the wall next to the door..." Amelia whispers into the spirits ear. "Near the ceiling..."
Lilly nods, and floats up near the ceiling, and about 2 feet to the right of the door. She scoots forward slowly into the wall, until her eyes pass through the other side and stops.
Below her, Amelia's eyes are closed as they both look into the room...
Elliomander waits for an all-clear signal from Amelia before quietly slipping into the closed off room for his own look around...
Lilly, pushing through the crumbling plaster of wall, moves into a small living area. A fireplace at the far end is flanked by a small table with two stools and a worn, overstuffed leather chair. Nearer the door is a wooden rocking chair, the cheap carpet around it marred by dark brown stains... more of the stains can be made out on the wood of the chair itself. Two doors exit on the left, and an open doorway leads into a small kitchen on the right... Everything is blanketed in a thick layer of dust from long years of abandonment.
...and as Lilly surveys the scene, she notices footprints in the dust - moving from the entrance to the flat and the doors on the left. A further examination of the footprints suggest that someone came in... but they didn't leave.
"Living room... dusty... fireplace, possible entrance for Mama Frill... small table and two stools on one side, overstuffed leather chair on the other side... all old... By the door, to the right of it as you enter, throw rug, blood stains on it... rocking chair in the center also blood stained... Two doors on the left, open doorway to the kitchen on the right."
Amelia cocks her head sideways. "Footprints in the dust, leading from the doorway..." "Footprints only enter, one set, heading to the doors on the left... The door opens, apparently, odd, I thought it was nailed shut." She continues to whisper to the group.
Lilly floats along the hallway wall, to the left, and slowly pushes her eyes through the interior wall into the left hand area, where the footprints entered. The strain of being away from Amelia makes her stitches begin to push up through her skin, and blood begins to ooze from her left nostril.
It seems to Amelia, as she looks through Lilly's eyes, that the door was probably opened to let this recent visitor to the Muncy flat in...
...and as Lilly moves to the left, she flows into a tidy little nursery. The paint on the walls is faded and cracked with the years but was once a merry shade of yellow with a pattern of small blue owers. A cradle rests next to the door, and across the room is a wardrobe painted white.
There is noticeably less dust in here.
While waiting outside for Lily's report, Vera retrieves a stoppered glass test tube from her satchel. The vial is filled with a milky, dull, orange-colored fluid. She uncorks it. Yellowish vapor rises from the tube, and those near her smell a pungent chemical odor. She then unceremoniously raises it to her lips and drinks it. She grimcaes, but then you all notice that her eyes now shine in the dim shadows like a cat's. "I'll be able to see the unseen for the next hour or so," she explains.
"Left hand side, first room, next to hallway wall... nursery.... chipped paint, much less dust... yellow walls with blue flowers... crib next to door... white wardrobe..."
Lilly moves over, cautious and ready to move at the first sign of trouble again. She moves to the wardrobe and looks inside, sticking her head in through the top of it, not the door.
As her stitches begin to pop and bleed, Lilly zooms back out the wall into the hallway, so she can see Amelia again.
She floats in the hallway, dripping ghostly blood and panting. Slowly she begins to heal over. "Need a minute, Ace. It's hard being out of line of sight."
Amelia merely nods, keeping her eyes closed, enjoying watching the others from the vantage of the ceiling.
Before Lilly reappears in the lobby outside the Muncy flat, she peers into the wardrobe to see that it has a low chest-of-drawers holding old garments and toys suitable for an infant, and atop the chest of drawers stands a gilt, 3-foot-by-2-foot, looking glass. As she looks at the mirror, she gets the unnerving feeling that something isn't quite right... and, as she investigates the wardrobe, the temperature suddenly dips to near freezing for a moment or two... before returning to the warmth of the still Castorhage night.
Amelia shivvers just before Lilly comes out of the wall. As Lilly's features return to normal, she finally speaks again. "The wardrobe had baby clothes and toys... and a chest of drawers inside. Why would people put a chest of drawers in a wardrobe... something odd about the chest of drawers... it had a gilt looking glass, about yay high and this wide..." She holds her hand out indicating about 3 foot high, and then both out in front of her, about 2 feet apart. "Something not right about it..." Amelia waves her hand, and speaks under her breath.
Lilly moves back to the wall, sticking just her head into the nursery, and focuses the detect on the wardrobe.
Frill watches on in amazement, observing the link between the ghost and her 'master.' Millie could do quite incredible things, but even they didn't have a connection like those other two. She reaches in her robe and strokes the rat absentmindedly, feeling bad about her envious thoughts on the others' relationship.
Lilly, floating around in the nursery, notices the lack of dust... but there are footprints here - marks left by sooty boots entering the nursery, heading towards the wardrobe and disappearing. And then, looking for auras, Lilly sees something folding in on itself around the mirror... the tell-tale sign of conjuration.
"So," Gar whispers, back to the wall, "Does it look like the coast is clear? Could we ease our way inside and have a look for ourselves?"
"The footsteps lead to the mirror, and then vanish. It may be a portal... Let me try to identify it first. I'd hate to step in and find out there's a thousand undead on the other side of the mirror waiting to burst out."
Lilly floats into the room and looks through the top of the wardrobe again, so Amelia can try to identify the magic mirror or whatever it is using her vision.
Amelia, looking through Lilly's eyes, tries to deduce the source and purpose of the magical aura swirling within the nursery... but somehow, even though she has suspicions as to what Lilly might be looking at, it somehow eludes her.
Amelia sighs. "I'm not sure what it is, but I suspect a portal of some sort. It could be very dangerous."
"Shall we go in to have a look for ourselves?"
Heeding Amelia's warning about what Lilly discovered in the nursery, Gar cracks the door to the Muncy flat open... and, stepping into the long abandoned rooms, sends a flurry of dust spiralling within the room. A sense of unease and terrible wrongness builds in Gar as he stands and surveys the scene... the dark stains on the floor and furniture a harrowing reminder of what took place here...
Vera follows, looking for any tracks in the dust and where they might lead.
The eeriness of the long-abandoned murder scene gets under her skin.
Gar's stomach sinks, his heart shrivels at the scene before them. Decades of time could not have prepared him for this, a stain upon the floor, bleeding into his eyes, and seeping into his soul. It is a tangible reminder of the wickedness in the world, and the splinter that dwells within his own heart. Lilly might be only a memory, the residue of pain and injustice wrought on an innocent. But this, this is something far more personal, and much too close for comfort.
His pupils dilate and his mouth runs dry as he clenches his weapon so tightly his hands ache.
"She's right," he croaks to those behind him. "Somethin's terrible wrong in here."
"I'm always right... except when I'm mistaken. I'm never, however, wrong." Amelia says spritely, seemingly completely unaffected by the palor on the room. Then again, someone who keeps a ghost in their soul probably has experienced worse than this at afternoon tea.
As Vera joins Gar in the room, her examination of the footprints in the dust reveals that they don't actually originate from the main door into the flat... instead they come from the fireplace and are laced with a black soot - they meander through this room, stopping near the blood-stained furniture, and then disappear into the nursery...
The clouds of dust kicked up by Gar and Vera move through the room... and start to coalesce in the fireplace. Unnoticed by the group, the dust clumps and grows in density within the darkness of the hearth... before, having formed the approximate shape of a disembodied head, the dust rushes back out into the room...
Something about the scene connects with the primal darkness that dwells deep within Elliomander's tainted soul, filling him with dread. With his gun in hand, he attempts to disappear into the shadows while following the others.
Will
Frill pulls her wand of Ice Armor, and applies a charge to herself.
"What the...?!" Seeing a disembodied head materialize in a haunted room, Vera quickly realizes its malevolent intent. She pauses to study its motions for a moment, then draws her blade, trying to anticipate its next action.
Already on edge, Gar spins around with a growl and charges the shadowy intruder. His blade ignites in an angry amber glow that only accentuates the desperation in his eyes.
Rushing forwards, Gar slices his blade through the conflagration of dust... it explodes in a rapidly expanding cloud of debris before reforming, somewhat diminished, before Gar's eyes. Flowing backwards on a bow-wave of airborne dirt, the creature opens a crude approximation of a mouth...
...and shrieks in a high pitched, blood-curdling animalistic scream. The voice, supernaturally loud, bounces around the room and sends the dust of the room spinning into the air - a choking, blinding cloud that spills out of through the opened front door of the Muncy Flat.
"Son of a b@%$#!" Gar barely coughs out as he squints his eyes shut when the dust cloud consumes the room. The scream itself is also jarring, and threatens to send him to his knees. Coughing and sputtering, he focuses his attention on his grip, rubbing his thumb over the wing-shaped cross-guard of his sword. The bastard sword begins to thrum in seeming excitement and anticipation to seek out the target of Gar's anger.
"Get over here and fight like a man, you little worm!" Effectively blind, he swings his blade into the space he last saw the ghastly head.