Open The Trenches Occult Division Das Verbotene Wissen

[Dusk Rainblade]

@Neame Grosvenor

(First three posts are a scripted prologue, but from there, it gets into the first official thread for Occult Division! Anyone with an interest in the creepy, kooky, spooky, and ooky can happen upon the scene at that point, or come with Nutty to investigate the break-in)

The sound of breathing was harsh and tinny in the mask, the field of vision restricted by the thin slits which barely allowed the beast to see the back door to the apothecary's shop. Heat swelled on their face with every harsh breath, the stench of food rotting on their teeth filling the enclosed space and pushing back the snapping cold of night. The door was bolted from the inside, but that was not a problem for them. A black-gloved paw pulled out a dark, flat stone, placing it on the door near the frame until it stuck. Then, dragging it away from the frame, a small scrape sounded as the bolt followed, leaving only faint scratches on the frame of the door.

The gloved paw pulled the stone further until it lifted away easily from the door, then tucked it away. Carefully it turned the latch, moving slowly to avoid any telltale clicks or creaks, and pushed the door open. The back hallway was dark, only a dim flicker of firelight at the end illuminating the door to the room on the left. The mask and its restrictive field of vision bobbed slowly as the beast crept in, dipping as they surged smoothly toward the door at the end, left half ajar. They paused, gloved paw on the door as they heard a sound from within. A beast, awake. Not the plan. Slowly, trying to make no sound, they edged the door open, only to freeze when it loudly creaked.

 

[Yfanti Walzetung]

The hour was late, and Yfanti was tired. Another long night to follow a longer day, the albino ferret taking stock of the shop's inventory by candlelight. The flickering flame passed over various jars and bottles, illuminating their contents enough that she could mark down their number and condition. A few things were out of place. It happened.

It was a cool night, even inside. Crisp. There was a stillness in the air she couldn't quite place, something different, maybe. Shuttered windows and bolted doors kept the worst of her anxieties out, as they did the worst of the fresh winter chill. But the cold crept in, and other things also.

She set her book down, reaching for what was left of the evening's tea, pouring herself another short cup. The tea was still warm, a blessing that pushed her worries aside as she took her sip. Ginger and chamomile.

It wasn't often these days that her nerves crept up on her. Business might not have been great, but it wasn't terrible, didn't haunt her thoughts such as it had only some months ago now. She floated high above that spiral of worry, of all that had gone wrong before, and all that could or would go wrong in the future.

A sound not far from her tore her from her thoughts. It'd been quiet before - she was sure of that. Sounds in the night were something she noticed, something the ferret picked up on, gave unnecessary weight.

This had been sharp, quiet but pronounced all the same. A creaking of wood - or the squeak of an old hinge. Her red eyes turned to the door, candlelight shimmering across her glasses as she peered fruitlessly into the darkness.

She said nothing.

Whether her mind was playing tricks on her, or it'd been a gust of captive wind - or indeed if the worst fear she could conjure up was soon to pass, it would make no difference what she spoke into the darkness.

Taking one of the candles from the table in its candleholder, and pulling a sharp knife from a drawer, the ferret walked slowly towards where the noise had came.

She'd left the door open. Carelessly, for she was the type to always keep such things closed if she could, even alone - and especially at night. Darkness had to be kept in compartments, kept away from light. Minimized. Her mother's delusions, but also her own nightmares, had left their mark years ago.

Yfanti pushed the door open.

Nothing.

She looked around, past the doorway, into the hall, both ways, so far as her flickering candle could shine.

Nothing... But something felt wrong, little pricks of cold racing down her spine, up through her arms.

It wasn't til she turned back around that she saw it.

 

[Paphnutia "Nutty" Gowdie]

The mask was a hideous abomination of steel, harsh lines hammered into the folds where the creases had been forced together. The cowl thrown over the mask, a dark cloak obscuring the beast's large form, darkened the thin slits for eyeholes, allowing only a hollow reflective gleam to indicate the presence of eyes beneath, and nothing of the color thereof. A gloved paw shot up and caught the apothecary beneath her throat, the door slamming shut behind her as she was lifted and pinned against it.

A desperate swipe of the knife at the beast's side produced a small grunt, but little measurable impact save for the harsh jangle of chainmail beneath, turning what might have been a glancing wound into a bruise. The beast's free paw swiped down at the knife, grabbing Yfanti's wrist and twisting it until the blade clattered on the floor. The hot breath that hissed from the mask was rancid, vapor carried on it turning to steam in the chill air. "Where is it?" the masked beast demanded, his voice a harsh, metallic rasp. His fingers tightened on her throat, restricting her ability to speak, to breathe, inviting the darkness to encroaching upon her vision.

As she went slack, the beast hissed and threw her sideways, her head striking the flat of a cabinet as she fell. The last thing she saw were dark booted feet stalking away, and the darkness overtook her with the sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood.

~~~

Nutty munched on one of the bread rings she'd picked up on her way to the crime scene and surveyed the apothecary shop from the outside. They'd been told that an offering of bread rings, accompanied by a loose, almost watery flax cheese spread upon the bifurcated halves, was a gesture of welcome and solidarity to new comrades in law enforcement. Paphnutia Gowdie wasn't law enforcement per say, since she'd seen enough to know that the laws of the universe were really more polite requests than anything else, and enforcing them upon anything inclined to break them was a laughable idea for any mortal. Still, it was a ritual of the prevailing gestalt, and they knew better than to upset the gestalt at the onset of a new case.

The Fogeys had responded to the shopkeeper in their own bumbling way, of course, showing up to take a statement, clumsily document the damage to the apothecary and her store, and pin a piece of yellow ribbon across the door, a bandage upon an axe wound. The last of them was leaving now, chatting with his partner about what they would have for lunch. Nutty derisively exhaled through her nose, then nearly choked at the sensation of a loose seed migrating through her sinuses. They fell to awkwardly blowing their nose, trying to expel the intruder as they waited for the other agents to arrive.

Pudge, the weasel who rivaled her in the lack-of-height department, was someone Nutty knew by reputation. The Research Department worked closely with Rites and Countermeasures, providing the base historical research that the latter used to figure out how to disarm Weirdness in the field or to dispel it entirely once contained and brought back to the Sunless Chamber. That lot were, Nutty thought as she wiped their nose with a boysenberry-colored pawkerchief, a very strange group all-in-all, and Pudge was reportedly a little stranger than most, hence the lack of time in the field. Well, the Minister had made it clear to Nutty that they were to be responsible for her new team and its members, so she would just have to do her best to deal with any weirdness, capitalized or not.

The other trainee they were waiting on was a personal recruit of the Minister, and a bit of an unknown variable. "You're to hear him out," Dusk had warned Nutty sternly, "and give full weight to his interpretations. He may be quite orthodox, but that is a good thing. After what happened to your last partner, maybe you need a bit of orthodoxy." Nutty had rankled at the mention of Took's fate, but knew better than to snap back at the beast who had the power to banish her and their whole library to the island of Magh. So, she waited for both recruits and, in the meantime, observed the haze of colors drifting through the air as the boysenberry kerchief's side effects crept in through her nose.

 

[Nevali]

To The Gang... I've been informed that our Starmist is going to be once again and Far too soon slow on the replies, as She is aboard a ship and leaving Vulpinsula for some Time. The distance travelled may be too Great for the mission to Proceed via Missertross or Alternate courier, and she has Given us blessings to proceed with another Mission provided, we do not out-pace Her rankings by too great a Degree. Heretofore I propose, a unique Side mission in which--
"Aren't you supposed to be at that thing, the break-in, in the Trenches?"

Nevali glanced up from her desk with surprise, blinking furiously at the speaker - one of those nosy office foxes who always wore a suit without a jacket and carried a mug around to bash poltergeists with. He leaned on the wooden wall separating her desk from her neighbours.

"Um," she said. "What thing, I didn't hear about a thing?" She pushed papers around on her desk. What thing? Someone should have told her in person if...

"Mm, break-in and assault, theft, the lot. Nutty's leading it. You're her new partner on this. If you could see to it you're not late, that'd be grrrreeeat."

Oh. The somebeast they had chosen to tell her in person had to be him.

She grabbed her hat from its hat stand, and the stand popped back upright with a thankful creak. Half a roast pigeon fell out. She stuffed it back in and tucked it on her head.

"Woohoo! I'm off! My first in-person case! Woo--where is it, exactly?"

~ ◄ ۞ ● ◄ ☼ ● ◄ ۞ ▲ ۞ ► ● ☼ ► ● ۞ ► ~

Clutching the hems of her robes, Nevali scarpered, scampered, and skedaddled to and fro through the winding Trenches, eyeing every street sign with the suspicion of one who hasn't memorized a single thing about the city they're in and has absolute certainty that the locals are playing a huge cosmic trick on them.

One street away from her destination, she gave up with a sigh and stopped a moment to catch her breath. Breath caught, she slipped the roast bird from her hat and gave it a quick gnaw for sustenance. A quick gnaw turned into a furious chew, and then a frenzied tearing as she finished it off, crunching a few bones and spitting them out into her paw. These she threw on the street near the gutter - she was not a litterbug! - and blew on them. And then poked one or two, so that the shape of the bones could vaguely be described as an arrow, if you squinted just right.

She followed the way the arrow pointed at the end of the street.

And there was Paphnutia, her new partner, in one of her garish jackets.

"Ooh, you have baggles," she squealed. "Hi, hello, it's me, Wayward, I'm your new partner - you can call me Pudge! Tell me, Pappy - do you mind if I call you Pappy? - what do you call these amazing faҫades you have here in the Trenches?"

She gestured with a wild grin at the building before them.

 

[Paphnutia "Nutty" Gowdie]

Nutty started at the voice, which sounded at a pitch and timbre that made her over-large ears fruitlessly flatten to protect the longevity of their hearing. She stared, somewhat astonished, at the figure that presented itself. Perhaps it was the boysenberry, but the entire ensemble seemed to shimmer and dance, the cosmos swirling in violet and pearl across the robes, red and blue stars conflagrating for her eyes. And the Minister chides me for lack of subtlety.

"Nutty," they responded automatically to the choice of nickname. "Pappy was my grandfather." She blinked, hoping that clearing their eyes would help. It didn't. She offered the bag of baggles (a baggle bag? A bag of gles?) to Pudge, peering up at the facade of the Trenches. In truth, much like everything mundane, they hadn't really paid it much attention. She found it far more interesting how, every time a new map of the Slups and Trenches came out, there were always at least three sigils of various Unknown Ones buried in the road map, and with each new edition of any denomination of gilder coin, if one read the milling along the edge through a mirror and a magnifying glass, one would find the words of a ritual to open a portal to various dimensions of utter madness*. Things like normative architecture, what day of the week it was, and whether forks went on the left or the right side of the plate all eluded their mind, written off as dull dull dull before she could even process the information. "Tall, I think," they answered the question, not entirely wrong in her assessment of the three-story maze of monoliths in which they presently stood. She cleared her throat, considering how to breach the matter of the weasel's dress. There was weird, and then there was Weird, and the line between them could become blurry, especially when observation by the normative folks got involved. Then again, this weasel was from R&C, and they were a fairly small-w weird bunch on the whole, so maybe there was some purpose in the attire that eluded Nutty's more tradition-steeped sensibilities.

"The Fogeys are all out," they advised, "so once our new recruit arrives, I suggest we proceed in. I'm not quite sure why this got sent up to us, but we'll play it by ear." She paused, then their face fell. "Sorry. That's where my old partner would say, 'I'm glad you've got enough ear for both of us'," she explained, her tone matter-of-fact.

*Nutty's multitudinous requests to inspect the Imperial Mint for possible sabotage by agents of a nefarious extraplanar entity had, thus far, gone unanswered.

 

[Nevali]

Nevali continued to smile through Nutty's reply. She placed a paw behind her hat's cone, accepted the bag with the other, and craned her long weasel neck upwards. Tall, yes. But so few noticed the intricate carvings in the wood panelling! Some of them had little ratgoyles, as if the common carpenter had an artistic soul yearning to be free, and in expression, there was history. Dark Forest wasn't the eternal rest some believed it to be; it was, Nevali was certain, just a waiting room, a spa retreat, until one's soul could be crafted a new body. The makers of old wandered even now, unaware of their role in the creation of their new world.

Perhaps that information would benefit the sudden mood shift in the little fox's face, she thought. Some got rankled by it. Better be cautious first.

Her smile flipped upside-down to match, and she moved to lean her rear against the wall and rummage in the baggle bag.

"I'm glad you've got enough ear for both of us," she repeated dutifully. "Truly. Oh my, you've pre-greased the bread?"

She pulled a piece from the bag and peeled it apart, sniffing the spread on it. She gave it a tentative lick, nodded in approval, and turned around to slam the bread ring onto the wall by the doorway, holding it a few seconds. When she pulled her paw away, it stuck there. She gave Nutty a confident grin and a thumbs-up, then handed the bag back and placed her paw comfortingly on the fennec's shoulder.

"If you're missing them, you may reminisce, I would love to know more about you, your old partner - as long as it doesn't upset you?"

 

[Paphnutia "Nutty" Gowdie]

Nutty started as the weasel took one of the greased baggles, tested it, and then seemingly glued it to the facade of the apothecary shop. Apparently the result was satisfactory to whatever standard she'd expected, because Pudge returned the rest of the baggles to the researcher's paws. Is that a countermeasure? Some of those could be truly strange at times, but, when one was dealing with Weirdness, that was to be expected. Took had always sworn that one should never cross a threshold with the right footpaw, only with the left, but that doors should only be opened with the right paw. It was a strange superstition, but Nutty had dutifully kept it up even after his death. She sometimes wondered if, in entering the cave where he'd met his fate, they had misjudged where the threshold lay and crossed with the wrong footpaw.

Nutty gave a small shrug. "There's not much to tell for me," they allowed. "I've been a resident of the Third Manse for, oh, a decade or so. I'm originally from the Fifth Manse, so it was a bit of an adjustment, as you can imagine." She didn't offer any additional context for this statement*. "Minister Rainblade brought me in to help establish the department and run the library, though by course of necessity and lack of personnel I had to do fieldwork as well. My partner, Tookumberry Fones, or Took, was a bit of an unconventional M.A.U.L. agent, though we got along well enough. He perished earlier this year, stopping the emergence of an Unknown One." They sighed, looking to the shop door a touch regretfully. "He was supposed to keep in touch via spirit board, but he's been less than helpful so far. He keeps making tail jokes, which is quintessentially him, but not much help in delving into the mysteries of the great beyond."

The fennec looked back to Pudge with a touch of curiosity. "What about you?" she inquired. "This is your first field assignment, yes?"

*Many of the esotericists in the Research Department would happily expound upon the Manses, the Unknown Ones, and all of the various kingdoms-that-never-were for hours, if given the chance. Those subjected to these explanations frequently walked away understanding even less than they had before, which, according to the esotericists, meant they 'got it'.

 

[Nevali]

"Oh, aye... First time out and excited! So excited, I can barely remember any trainin'! It really seems to be just making it up as you go, which suits me fine. Not that I made anything up. I hate bein' accused of that..." The weasel's face rankled, her mismatched glasses going askew with the snarl of her maw. There was pigeon stuck in her teeth. "I been up in one'a them star-sail ships, all silver an'... well, I don't have much memory of what it was like inside, no idea why they put me back..."

Her shoulders slumped. "But everyone always does, I guess... Always the last to know. Always the first to leave."

She stared moodily at the cobbles in the street for a quiet moment, paws dug into the pockets of her robes, blinking only one crossed eye at a time.

One thing she had to appreciate about the innkeeper stoat who had raised her; he always brought her back in. Out in the woods too long, he'd send Caltrops to fetch her. Out in the caravan stable too long, one of the kitchen staff would pop in, make sure she wasn't fooling around with somebeast, and drag her back. Even a few times he'd come along himself to find her out in the fields and haul her by the tail back home. Mostly just for work, but sometimes just because it was late. For all his grousing about how putting her up was costing him space he could rent to somebeast else, he sure didn't like the idea of losing her. She rather missed it.

Sometimes she wondered if stopping these Unknown Ones from showing up was really the best plan. It felt taboo to bring it up, at least outright. But a little weaseling could open the door to the long, twisting corridor of conversation, and maybe the right choice of words would unlock the next hallway of humouring the idea.

"Y'know... I bet he's doing you a favor. I mean, where would we be, without mysteries? Knowin' stuff all the time. Pretty boring if we knew it all, I bet. So he's just makin' sure you're havin' a good life, questionin', seekin'. An' before ya know it, he'll be back around, squallin' in some li'l babe's body, gettin' ready for another big adventure. World's too big for just one life. Too much to see. An' when ya don't need him anymore on the other side of that board, I reckon he'll come back for another go."

She leaned over and gave Nutty a hefty pat on the back, to make sure the watermelon seeds would stick, and then surreptitiously licked the glue off her fingers.

"Thought I'd be late, actually, who are we waitin' fer?"