Grugg wobbled as he tilted toward the pit full of the strange vines, before righting himself. With a deep breath, he turned his head to give Gregor a sheepish grin.
“We both know I can’t catch you, ser Grugg. Be careful.” His scowl looked twice as menacing under the glow of the torch he held.
“Grugg know.” It wasn’t his fault he was the biggest, heaviest, and most charismatic of the group. Just one of the burdens of being the leader, unfortunately.
With slightly more care, they stepped over to the smaller door in the wall. This one also had a Nightshade logo engraved onto it - which seemed like a silly thing for a secret organization to do. Grugg grunted and narrowed his singular eye at it. There could be a trap, or something even worse than the strange plant.
“Allow me, ser Grugg.” The ratman nudged the cyclops out of the way and opened up a flap on his belt to reveal a group of slim metal tools. “If only ser Wizard were here to pretend to sense for any magic.”
He paused at the sound of scratching behind them. Slowly, they turned to see a shadowed shape in the open entrance they had come through. It growled at them, which was somewhat concerning.
Hunched over and covered in patches of wiry fur, it didn’t take Grugg long to recognize what this was. A werewolf, or at least something adjacent. The last time he had seen one was when he had cleared out the mines just outside of Helpart. It seems as though he hadn’t gotten all of them, and his teeth clench in anticipation as he turned to bring up his weapon.
The creature rolled out his shoulders. “Seems you were right Grugg, Nightshade it is.”
“Bart?” Grugg grinned.
“Mostly. I lost a lot of blood, so I can’t shift to my normal form until I’ve recovered a bit.” He slowly padded over toward them, looking up at the vines. “Fascinating.”
Gregor rolled his eyes. “Suspicious that you can’t prove that you are ser Bart, is it not?”
The wizard ran his tongue across his lips. “That is rich coming from you. I know where you went last Wednesday.”
The ratman narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.
“Can Bart look at door please?” Grugg stepped a little further away to allow them all room, only briefly slipping and having to adjust his footing again.
Bart nodded and moved up to the door. He sniffed at it, and then turned his bright eyes back to the cyclops. “Yeah, it’s a door.”
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“I’m not sure I agree.” Claudia slumped down into the break room chair.
“Nonesense.” Peony smiled before biting into an apple. “Public speaking is a learned skill. You’ll get better in time.”
The clothesmaker lifted her head up so she could narrow her eyes at the Investigator. “You make it sound like this will be a regular occurrence.”
“Oh?”
Claudia sighed, thoroughly exhausted now. Peony didn’t elaborate, so she knew that her assumption must be correct. But to what degree? Just as an assistant when the group had things to report? As a more official delegate? She didn’t actually want the answers right now. Just sleep or some excitement.
The break room had neither available to her. It had an odd dimness to it, as if the air was thick with dust. Muted browns and beige decor didn’t help the look, and all the grumbling Investigators who looked just as bored as her but dressed in pure black made it look more like a funeral gathering.
“You’ve got a decent head on your shoulders,” Peony eventually explained, the apple now finished. “The others are capable, but they think with their instincts rather than their brains. It makes for great detective work, don’t get me wrong…”
“But we need something more guided if we are to be more than rough-housing private eyes?” Claudia tilted her head.
“Precisely. If you want to do that, then fine. There will be plenty of work, of that I have no doubt.” She gestured her head to the corner of the room where a slim man with a gray beard was reading through a book. “Hessler is up next, and he deals with one of the bigger pies we have our fingers in. Listen carefully and have a think about what you and the rest want.”
“No pressure, huh?” Claudia glanced over at the unassuming man before giving Peony a glum smile.
She smiled back. “You may be surprised.”
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“No, it is what it seems.” The wolfman Bart stepped back away from the door. “Nothing I can detect, at least.”
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“How comforting,” Gregor said, rolling his eyes. “Allow me to unlock the door, then.”
“Grugg could open.” He waved the end of Thud toward the small opening, almost catching the ratman on the side of the head as he moved in. He gave the scowl brandished by his Deputy a sheepish grin and lowered his club. Perhaps a little bit of subtlety would be a good idea here until they knew what they were up against.
Gregor took maybe three seconds at most with one of the tools from his belt, before there was a click and he stepped away. “After you then, ser Grugg.”
The cyclops grunted and moved up to it. Despite hardly fitting through most human-size doors, he was still the first one through due to being so tough. That’s what he liked to think, anyway. He pressed his left hand against the door, expecting it to open easily enough. It was apparently latched, however, and instead just buckled before popping off the hinges.
It clattered into the dark room beyond, blowing up a small cloud of dust.
“Don’t know why I bother,” Gregor murmured to himself, before passing the torch forward to Grugg.
The Detective stepped through the threshold, holding the light up to focus on the interior. It wasn’t a very large chamber. A small room with a table and chair, a couple of filing cabinets. Probably all full of clues - however, his height made it difficult to maneuver in here, and the low lighting would make it difficult to read anything.
“Looks like evidence,” he said, trying to turn back to them.
“Perhaps you’d better wait out here, ser Grugg?” The ratman took back the torch and allowed the cyclops to squeeze out. “Don’t want you stuck in there.”
With a groan, Bart shapeshifted back into his default wizard form. “Ah. That was a weird one.” He shuddered and followed inside the room.
“Wolf-Bart means some Nightshade escaped Helpart?” Grugg sat down beside the doorway and tried to imagine why they’d find a werewolf out here.
“I believe a lot of Dogman’s gang came from outside of Helpart, which is how he amassed such a large group… which we dismantled.” Bart ran his fingers through his beard as he stepped over to the desk. “It’s possible they had scouts or some out on errands or the like.”
Gregor fiddled with unlocking the file cabinets. “Then when they ran away scared, they joined up with ser Harold or the other bosses here.”
The cyclops nodded. That made sense. His eye wandered up the root-like vegetation that went up to the tall ceiling. His sense of direction wasn’t great underground, but he’d bet that they were roughly under the middle of the village. Right where the town meeting was taking place. His eye narrowed.
Bart flipped through a ledger. “I spoke with the red-haired woman, Lauren. She all but confirmed that an organized group was running things here. Thinks ‘Kurt’ is off to get rid of us three.”
“Kurt couldn’t deal with Lady Clothesmaker and yourself,” Gregor replied idly, popping the lock and sliding out the first drawer.
“Well, sometimes you catch more flies with honey.”
The ratman turned his head around and scowled. “What are you going to do with flies, ser Wizard? A reagent to finally cast a spell?”
Grugg cleared his throat. A little banter was fine on occasion, but he had to remind them to stay on task. He was fine with Peony thinking Claudia was the only level-headed one, because it was mostly true. They each had their moments where their intellect or smarts would drive the group in the right direction. For as goofy as he could be, he was the stern hand that held the rudder in check. Or at least that’s what the Investigator had told him he did.
He wiggled his toes inside his boots. For as strange and miserable as things seemed, he was excited. The first glimpse of Nightshade activity in Galeden - although it was outside the city boundary. There was nothing Grugg liked more than wrapping his meaty hands around a thread and pulling on it with all his strength.
Well, he liked eating more.
“Any food in little room?” he asked.
“There are… things,” Gregor said, his nose turned up. “Not edible, however.”
“Afraid not, friend. Only books and words.”
Grugg sighed. He always kept an emergency snack in his adventuring kit. Did he leave it at home, or on the stagecoach? He furrowed his brow in trying to remember, all the while his eye watched the roots.
“Alright.” Bart snapped the book shut. “I have some of the case solved. The what and how, but not the why.”
“Enlighten us then, ser Hat.” Gregor crossed his arms, unimpressed with the lack of useful clues in the cabinets.
The wizard stepped out of the room to stand beside Grugg, and looked up at the odd sight. “I have heard of such things, but never thought I’d get to see one.” He turned back to them. “Essentially, it’s a giant plant monster. Most of the people in the village are actually like… flowers, at the end of these stems.”
They both returned a blank stare.
“Aside from the two on stage, evidentially.” He rubbed at the side of his head. “Some of the notes are vague. It’s not a bestiary, of course. They were feeding it the stagecoaches… but I don’t understand why.”
“Simple.” Gregor clicked his fingers and pushed past Bart. “For finding the pieces of the other relic.”
Grugg nodded, but he wasn’t so sure. The one in Helpart was protected by five ancient skulls, which in turn were protected by the living souls of the adventuring party that Bart’s brother was a part of. As far as they knew, the relic supposedly in Galeden wasn’t protected in a similar fashion. Certainly he had spent a lot of time around the city using the Moonchaser Orb to try to find the giant skulls - to no luck.
“Is bad news whatever reason,” he eventually concluded, standing back up to his feet. “What evidence both get?” From one of the pouches he did bring, he produced a large sack to put their findings within.
Bart held up two books and a folded sheet of paper. “Records of the plunder from the coaches, and a diary of when the Nightshade check in on the village. Map of the village where this underground part is mapped out.”
Grugg nodded. “This chamber underneath meeting?”
“It is.”
Gregor held up a crystal of clear white.
“Oh,” Bart furrowed his brow. “That’s inert, but it’s used for… it’s like a message stone in a way, but you can use it to make other things speak.”
The ratman raised an eyebrow. “Like how Lady Cooking-pot spoke to us?”
The wizard nodded. “It also explains why they either don’t move or shuffle awkwardly. And why the village is nothing but churned mud.”
“Plant flowers moving around.” Grugg scratched his chin as the ratman added it to the bag. Perhaps that was what he could see out of the corner of his eye while they were standing around.
Bart removed his hat to wipe his forehead. “So we are just looking at why they are doing this, and what the wolfman was doing here.”
Grugg pushed the sack over for Gregor to hold, as he unclipped some handcuffs from his belt.
“Looks like time for questionin’.”