“What’s in Mexico?” Peter asked. “I need to know what our goal is so I can pack accordingly.”
“Now he asks what we’re doing,” Greg commented wryly. “After agreeing to go and packing his bags.”
“That’s Peter for you,” Renea said, looking at her husband with a long suffering smile.
“You may already know about the pre-Aztec ruins in Veracruz,” Greg began. “What you may not know is that, underneath the ruins, there are miles of tunnels - some of which even connect to the underground cave systems that are everywhere in that part of the world. What almost nobody knows is that the civilization that built the place was highly magic sensitive, many modern Witches got their powers from the bloodline of that long dead population. But I digress. I was hunting a very old group of blood-suckers in that area in the late 1980s. I got most of ‘em and tracked the last few to a hidden entrance leading underground near the ruins. I hit a wall both literally and figuratively down there, no trace of the vampires and no hint as to where they went. I’ve been thinking that maybe, if you used your ability on the walls, one of them might turn out to be a door. Or maybe your fun facts would give us a clue as to how we can proceed deeper. They do seem to issue private information that you have no right to see, and that might work in our favor down there. Either way, with a sight as old as this one, and given its magical history, and the fact that centuries old vampires were hiding out there, the tunnels beneath the El Tajin ruins are bound to have some interesting artifacts.”
“Is there any reason to think the vampires aren’t there anymore?” Renea asked smartly.
“None that I can think of. Honestly, I’m really hoping they’re still hanging out around there.” Greg stood up and lifted his black v-neck shirt, revealing a hairy, muscled torso adorned with a long, jagged scar an inch thick in places that stretched from his right hip, meandering its way up to his belly button. “They left me with a parting gift and I don’t really like it. Thought I might see what their return policy is like.”
Peter choked on his wine, laughing so hard. “Where do you come up with these one-liners, Greg? You’re like a one-man action movie from the 80s.”
“I watched a lot of action movies in the 80s,” Greg explained easily. “It doesn’t really matter if they’re still there or not, though. They aren’t my main reason for going to the ruins, just a bonus if they are still there.”
“It does matter,” Renea disagreed pointedly. “You’re taking my sweet Peter down there. It matters to me if the place you take him has ancient vampires with a grudge against you.”
Greg nodded solemnly. “That’s fair. It does matter. Apologies, Mrs. Mayhew. I know it wouldn’t do any good to tell you not to worry, and that I’m planning on going down there armed to the teeth. But I will anyway. Don’t worry, I’m going down there with every weapon I’ve got. I’ll keep your sweet Peter safe.”
Peter frowned as something occurred to him. “Speaking of… How do you plan on getting your monster hunting gear through airport security?”
“I don’t. Hate planes,” he explained. “We’ll have to go on a boat. My guy Hal at the docks will get us set up with something. No security whatsoever, but we may have to lay low. Sometimes he knows the crew. In that case, we’re just passengers. When we’ve got to get somewhere and he isn’t able to get them to let us ride along, we stowaway.”
“That’s a negative, team monster hunters. You can get there any way you want. I’ll be taking a plane,” Renea said, getting to her feet. “Just let me know the dates and I’ll book a flight and hotel. I’ve got a few more emails to send out before bed. Night, Greg. Nice to see you again.”
Renea kissed Peter on the forehead before she and Flapjack went back to the home office. Greg gave Peter a look.
“Yeah,” Peter agreed, nodding rapidly. “That went better than it could have.”
“Definitely. Should we break out that whiskey while you take a look at a few things I brought?”
Peter stood to clear the table. When he returned, he rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Let’s do it. What’d you bring me?”
Greg bent over and started rifling through his black leather travel bag as Peter retrieved drinking glasses and opened the bottle. He began placing items on the table as Peter poured. The collection of trinkets displayed on the elegant wooden table was eclectic, to say the least, and Peter started with the most benign looking item: a baseball with nearly illegible signatures covering almost every bit of its worn surface.
Old Baseball
Durability: 2/59
Quality: Garbage
Fun Fact(s):
1. This old baseball appears to be signed by each member of the winning team of the 1939 World Series, the New York Yankees.
2. It is not what it appears to be, and is instead just an old baseball with the appropriate names scribbled onto it (poorly) by a human named John Wicker in the year 2021.
“Bad news,” Peter reported, nose scrunching up in the way that noses sometimes scrunch up when someone is about to deliver information they know the intended recipient will not appreciate.
“I knew it. A fake?”
“Mhmm,” Peter confirmed. “Was it John Wicker who dared scam the mighty Greg Van Helsing, or were you scammed secondhand?”
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“It was Wicker, alright. I accepted it as part of the payment on a contract he issued to eradicate some fairies outside of town,” Greg said sourly, placing the ball back into his bag. “It wasn’t a tough job, though. No sweat off my back. Still, I think I’ll toss it through his window next time I’m out that way.”
The other items on the table, Peter did not want to touch at all. He excused himself to find a bottle of hand sanitizer before wrapping his hand around the next thing Greg wanted analyzed, a severed tentacle about a foot in length, covered in suckers. It was still moving. Not moving as in wandering around atop the table, just twitching occasionally. Around a dozen suckers latched onto Peter’s hand, causing him to cringe at the feeling of suction, before the informational prompt appeared. As soon as it did, he pulled the tentacle free of his right hand, squeezed out a healthy gloop of hand sanitizer, and rubbed the ick off of his hands as he read over the info.
Tentacle of the Pigmy Kraken
(Alternatively known as an infant Pigmy Kraken)
Durability: 3/10
Quality: N/A
Fun Fact(s):
1. If placed in salt water and given sufficient nutrients, this tentacle needs only time to develop into a new Pigmy Kraken that retains the memories of its original form.
2. Outside of salt water or a dimensional storage device, this tentacle will lose 1 point of durability per hour. If its durability score reaches 0, it will shrivel, and die.
Peter looked down at the slimy, squirming tentacle, impressed. He shared what he’d learned with Greg, who didn’t look surprised. If anything, he looked mildly disappointed.
“That stuff I already knew,” he said, placing the tentacle back into his travel bag. “I was hoping your ability would reveal some way to permanently put these things down. When they’re losing a fight, Pigmy Krakens will detach one or more of their tentacles to preserve themselves. They camouflage too, making it damn hard to ensure you got all the tentacles.”
“Huh,” Peter said thoughtfully. He wasn’t thoughtful in regard to the tentacle though. What caught his interest was something within the provided text. “Dimensional storage device. That sounds a lot like a bag of holding. Greg, are bags of holding a thing? Like a real thing?” Eyes widening, Peter looked at Greg’s ever-present travel bag. “Is that a bag of holding?”
“Yes, to all of those questions simultaneously. Do this one next,” Greg said, pointing at a blood stained dagger about the size of Peter’s forearm.
Peter had eyes for nothing but the bag, though. Disregarding everything Greg had piled up on the table, Peter crouched and slapped his right palm against the leather travel bag. His mouth fell open as he read its details.
(travel) Bag of Holding
Durability: 89/100
Quality: Excellent
Fun Fact(s):
1. Items placed within this bag have their size and weight reduced by 90%.
2. Items within are not subject to standard entropic effects, and are instead held in a stasis, preserving all qualities it had when placed inside.
3. Living beings cannot be placed within the (travel) bag of holding.
4. This particular dimensional storage device holds the world’s only known bottle of Gregcellent.
“Greg,” Peter said, more seriously than he’d ever said anything before, “I need one.”
Greg looked at Peter’s open-mouthed awe for a moment before answering. “They don’t exactly grow on trees, Peter. It takes a magical artificer and some very specific, hard to obtain materials.”
Shoulders drooping, Peter stood up.
“I’ll ask around, see if anyone’s selling one,” Greg said, although he didn’t look hopeful.
Peter brightened at that, and the two of them continued taste testing the whiskey (repeatedly) while Peter exercised his new ability on the myriad of seemingly random items that Greg presented. He’d brought a few Monster Cores as well, to have Peter determine their respective Ranks. When they were done, the two of them began the process of planning their trip to Mexico in earnest.
“I’ll talk to Hal tomorrow then let you know when he’s got a ship for us,” Greg was saying some time later when Renea once again joined the two men at the kitchen table.
Accepting Peter’s offered glass of whiskey with a grateful smile, she sat at the table and had a sip.
“You must have used your Witch powers to sense us discussing logistics,” Peter observed.
“I don’t have Witch powers, Peter. I just finally finished all of my work.”
Peter glanced at the clock on the oven across the room. It was after 10:00pm. “You work too hard, love. And you’re 19% Witch. So any time you conveniently appear to discuss logistics, I’m going to assume your Witch powers are involved.”
“At 19% Witch, you could awaken a handful of useful powers with relative ease,” Greg offered casually.
Having lost his excitement when it got down to logistical details, Peter now looked at Greg with renewed interest. “What kind of useful powers?”
“No,” Renea said tiredly.
“No, what?” Peter asked, incredulous.
“No awakening anything. The last thing I need right now is more supernatural crap in my life. Greg fills my quota for that all on his own.”
“But…”
“No.” Renea sighed heavily. “I know you’d love it if I had magical powers, Peter. But I just don’t want anything to do with being a Witch.”
Early in their relationship, Renea had shared certain traumatic childhood memories including seemingly impossible events revolving around her mother. Her mother who, Peter now knew, Renea’s Witch blood came from. Her mother, who Renea hadn’t spoken to or even about in years. As hard as it was to accept her rejection of magical abilities, Peter understood. She, like many before her, wanted nothing more than to not be like her mother.
“Alright,” Peter said. “We’ll let it go for now. But I bet certain powers would just make your life easier, if anything. At least think about it.”
“Sure,” she said unconvincingly.
***
It was Friday of the same week, early in the afternoon, when Peter Mayhew met Greg Van Helsing at an abandoned warehouse near a large docking yard. He parked his car, opened the backseat for Flapjack to ooze himself out onto the asphalt, and then began pulling bag after bag out of the trunk as he waited for Greg to arrive. Renea would be leaving the following morning on a plane, and would arrive in Mexico before he and Greg did. The plan was for her to land, rent a car, check into the hotel, and then come and pick them up at their ship’s destination - a commercial marina about an hour’s drive west of the airport.
Greg arrived at the warehouse a few minutes after Peter. He parked his motorcycle next to Peter’s sedan, then covered them both with a beige tarp. Peter’s mouth fell open as the tarp started vanishing before his eyes, its disguise extending to hide both vehicles, making it appear as though nothing at all had ever been there.
“Nice tarp,” he said appreciatively.
“I love this bike,” Greg said, as though that was explanation enough. The big man looked down at Flapjack, then back to Peter with a raised brow. “You brought the dog?”
Looking down at the dog as though he hadn’t realized the corgi had been there, Peter smiled. “Yeah. Flapjack’s never been to Mexico. I figured we’re taking a ship instead of a plane to avoid security, so we might as well take advantage of it.”
Greg laughed, then crouched to scratch Flapjack’s head fondly. “You want to go to Mexico, Flapjack?”
Flapjack barked an affirmative. The old boy hurried over to Peter, who helped him into a backpack designed so that he could ride on Peter’s back with his head poking up just over Peter’s shoulders. He strapped the dog onto his back, smiling when Flapjack licked him on the cheek.
“Alright. Let’s get going, it’s a bit of a walk to our ship.” Greg eyed Peter’s luggage, a pile of four large black duffle bags that each appeared to be filled to bursting. “Just the necessities, I see.”
“Heh. Yeah. Again, no security, no baggage limits. I figured it’d be best to be as prepared as possible. You mind giving me a hand?”
Greg glared at Peter, but tossed his single travel bag over one shoulder and picked up two of the black duffle bags. Peter wrapped one hand around the straps of the remaining bags, and off they went.