Grugg didn’t know why his life had to revolve around finding giant evil things beneath the earth. It might only be an assumption that thing below the village was indeed evil, but he had that feeling in his gut. Right beside his hunger. It was almost enough for him to not want to use the Moonchaser Orb anymore, if it was just going to bring up untoward beings beyond his understanding.
“The question is,” the wizard’s hat said, from atop his head, “how do we get down there?”
It would take too long to dig, and the villagers may take notice. The cyclops slowly turned around, his eye taking in every building. There wasn’t anyone standing around again. Were they ghosts?
Without needing to say anything, Bart understood his thought process. “I am wondering if perhaps what we are seeing aren’t normal people. Unless they are very shy.”
Grugg grunted. While he usually gave others the benefit of doubt, he had never met anyone as continually spooky as the people here. Even Gregor took breaks from being sinister all the time, if you caught him at the right moment.
“If Grugg was secret entrance, where would be hiding place?” He rubbed at his chin and looked about. Any of these houses could have a trap door leading below ground, but it seemed rude to start knocking them down. Even asking nicely first wasn’t likely to go down well.
“Perhaps we should have a walk around. Find some clues or… Gregor, I suppose.”
Grugg nodded and caught the hat from falling again. Although magical items were supposed to change to fit the wearer, now that it was just the wizard shapeshifting into the appearance of a his hat, it didn’t work quite the same.
Eye peeled and Thud still in hand, the cyclops huffed and started to walk about the village.
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Claudia blinked and looked around.
There was something about this long room that made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was the odd lighting - lanterns spaced along the walls that faced upward, illuminating the ceiling in an odd amber-brown that faded into the white of the plaster.
Or it could be the long table. It was cold, as if made of metal, yet it was grooved like wood. Thankfully, she could cover it with the thick folder full of paperwork. The itenerary for the meeting was extensive, and it was only now she realized she would have to survive this for two whole days.
And it was all day. There would be breaks for lunch and dinner, but it would resume soon after, all the way up until the early evening.
She had caught the hint of a wry grin on Peony’s face on occasion, in seeing her completely drained from having to listen and read so much.
It hadn’t taken too long to notice that none of the other Investigators or Council officers had brought a plus one with them. Yet, despite the gathering of stern, aloof, intense, or sour people in the room - none had given her a second look. Perhaps her attendance wasn’t so unusual, or they at least knew why she was here.
Claudia only wished she knew exactly why she was there.
As if hearing her inner monologue, the speaker - a tall man with small eyes and a thin mustache - finished his report on some… smuggling or something. It was rather drab. The man sat at then the head of the organisation stood, and looked her way. A thick-set man with five o'clock shadow and tidy black hair.
“Next up on the agenda,” he began, his voice low but stern, “we have Investigator Valoth and Miss Ollen to report on the NIghtshade activities in Helpart. We are of the understanding that Miss Ollen here played an important role in the apprehension or destruction of the leaders and what they intended to carry out there.”
Peony stood. “That is correct, and there is certainly more to that story that we have to share.” She gestured towards the clothesmaker.
Claudia stood too, a panicked smile on her face as she shivered.
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Grugg felt cold. Something about the fog clung to him and made his detective suit feel damp. He’d been getting soft, he was sure of it. Living in the mountains for so long, he wouldn’t have complained about the weather, much less let it bother him. A few months of wearing clothes and sleeping under a warm roof and he’d all but acclimated to being a functional member of society.
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He stopped in an alley between two houses. The side windows were covered up, but the houses were dark inside, anyway. A weird smell was in the air, but he couldn’t place it. Nothing obvious, and it was hard to bring it out against the thick mud and wet mulch that covered the village and its surroundings.
“We’re nearing the edge of the village,” Bart said from atop his head. “Perhaps let’s circle around the outside.”
“Okay.” Grugg shrugged. He had already stepped into enough puddles and mud to get both his boots and slacks filthy. Claudia might be mad at him, although ruining suits was his part-time hobby. Over the last few weeks, they had built up a wardrobe full of them, but they’d surely not last. Once he had some privacy, he’d change into his kilt. Maybe destroy the evidence.
The back sides of the houses didn’t have much interesting going on either. If anything, they just gave more weight to the appearance of being abandoned. Windows boarded up or pitch black. Gardens all but left to decay, any potential plant growth just mush amongst the mud. There was no life here, aside from the creepy villagers.
“Grugg not liking this case anymore.”
“It seems a lot more… supernatural that we have been used to lately.”
Organized crime was one thing. But whatever was going on here was clearly more than what it appeared on the surface. There must be a good reason why the disappearances hadn’t been investigated prior to their arrival.
The cyclops turned his single eye out toward the forest itself. Anything past thirty… maybe forty feet was just a wall of darkness. Dead, miserable trees lined the outer perimeter. No sign of farmland or animals. Bart had been right in his line of questioning. Either they ate something strange, or they didn’t need to eat.
Or they ate stagecoaches.
Grugg rubbed his head and nearly knocked the wizard off again. He stepped around the next house to find a larger building. They must be around the north side of the village now. At least in relation to the direction they entered. Against the back wall of the drab wooden building, Gregor stood, leaning against it with his arms crossed.
“Took you long enough,” he said with a sour expression. “You didn’t get eaten then?”
“Not yet,” Grugg said with a grin. “Gregor find Grugg any food?” His smile then turned into a pout and he gave his stomach a pat.
“No.” The ratman shook his head. “This is some kind of storeroom, but I don’t seem to have a ‘key’.” A dry grin went up at the sides of his mouth.
Grugg lifted up Thud. “Grugg found key!”
Bart would have sighed if the hat were capable. “I’m not sure property damage is the correct way forward, and it’s bound to draw attention our way.”
Gregor rolled his eyes.
“Although Bart right,” Grugg rolled out his shoulders. “Grugg think things boring and need to shake clues loose.”
The hat slid from his head and the wizard dropped out from under it, to land back in the mud in his normal form. “Well, if you’re going to be the decoy and shake things up, allow me to play devil's advocate. I’ll shift and see if I can mingle amongst the… villagers.”
Grugg raised his eyebrow. “Oh? Bart will be safe?”
“Unlike spell-casting, this is something I’m actually good at.”
The ratman opened his mouth, but then closed it and glared at the wizard for preemptively putting himself down.
“I think I’ll go with Kurt. They might be more receptive to an average looking human.” Bart gave them a brief bow and started to walk off.
The cyclops grunted. Kurt. Not the most heinous criminal they had killed, but he made the mistake of trying to mug Claudia and Bart one evening. Thankfully, he was wanted enough by the Crown to make what the pair did to him… acceptable. It was Bart’s second shift, and even now he didn’t like talking about it. Claudia, likewise, kept her mouth shut for the wizard.
Bart walked behind a tree, appearing on the other side not as an old man with a gray beard and long burgundy robes, but as his chosen shift. A man in his late twenties, perhaps. Thin greasy beard and slicked back hair. Cold look in his eyes. Dressed in dark leather armor, with a gray cloak to better obscure himself.
With a nod, Kurt then went back the way he and Grugg had walked, to that he could enter the town from the rough road.
“I wonder if Bart kill ghost then can be ghost?” Grugg rubbed at his chin.
“You already spent too long trying to convince ser Hat to kill a goat, ser Grugg.” Gregor pushed himself away from the wall and stepped a good dozen feet away. “As much as that would be amusing, you have to respect his craft.”
The cyclops frowned at his Deputy. That almost sounded like a compliment, which was highly unusual. “Like how Grugg respect Gregor do sneaky things?”
“Sure.” Gregor wrinkled up his nose and gestured to the top of the wall with his snout. “I would have climbed, but they have sharp glass up there.”
“Odd.” Grugg tried to look around at the nearby houses. None of them looked to be similarly defended. “Must be special.”
“Ser Wizard should have had enough time to distance himself from us.”
He nodded. “Oh, there’s a big monster or something evil under village.” Grugg grinned sheepishly. “Gregor might want to know.”
“Gregor did not want to know.” The ratman rubbed at his red eyes.
It had been way too nice beating up humans who were breaking the law. Helpart had a lot wrong with it, but other than a handful of mimics, and whatever the courthouse monster had been, they hadn’t needed to engage with anything truly terrible. Perhaps it wasn’t a creature.
Grugg shrugged. They weren’t going to get any answers standing out in the gloom and slowly sinking into the mud.
He spun Thud around and then charged toward the wall, winding up a wide swing with the heavy club, a wide grin on his face.