VIDEO BEGINS TRANSCRIBING — — —

The video begins in the great room of the lodge, again framing the decorated back wall and stonework fireplace. The box throne from the first two videos is gone, now repurposed into a low round table, with three foldable camping chairs set up surrounding the pile of plastic and cardboard. A steaming mug sits in front of each seat.

In the chairs is Juju’s team, a bizarre cast to see in the homey hunting lodge. Judy herself is wearing the same business-like attire of the previous video, her hair is slightly different though. Put up into a neat bun, with just a few strands astray, instead of the slick ponytail she was sporting previously.

On her left is Tim, still dressed in his robe with the cowl pulled far over his face, projected into the scene as a blue hologram. It's hard to tell if he is truly sitting in the chair and has edited the effect over top of him, or if he's just edited his entire body into the scene.

In the chair on Judy’s right, across the table from Tim, sits a cork board. On a printed sheet of paper, pinned to the center of the board, is Fumushu. Her cheerful chibi avatar smiles into the camera, with a speech bubble pinned above her head in a separate sheet with an enthusiastic “Hello!” Printed on.

“Welcome back Jujubees! The curious case of Grandma’s goblin adventure continues.” Judy spreads her arms, as if to beckon her subscribers to take a seat at the table, “If you haven't figured out from the daily uploads we’ve been compiling and uploading each document as we find them. At the end of each week, the three of us will all get together and discuss what we’ve found.”

She smiles, seeming a bit embarrassed, “Since we hadn’t fully worked out a solid plan for exactly how to upload all of the different types of documents, they have gone up without commentary from the team. A whole bunch of you complained in the comments all week about that, so you can expect more input from the team on what you're seeing going forwards. Now I’ll put links to all the videos we reference in the weekly overviews so you guys don't have to comb through the channel to find the sources we use. If you aren't up-to-date so far, watch the first two videos and come back, I’ll be uploading them to a playlist so you can find them there.”

Judy leans back in her chair, “Now let's get to it. There is one glaring question I think we’ll need to answer to figure out where this case is going. Is magic real?” She nods to the hologram on her left, “Tim, what do you think?”

Tim shakes his head, “I’m of the opinion the whole thing is ridiculous, the video of the ‘goblins’ looks like CGI to me. I cannot fathom why your grandma believes cartoon violence makes for convincing footage. Not to mention their creepy eyes and the deranged magical effects.”

He waves his hand and an image of the goblins' split pupils shows up, distorted in the same style as his holographic avatar. “Look at that, straight out of a bad horror film. The golden box ‘computer’ is only a slightly more impressive hoax. Though I imagine it's nothing that couldn't be done with some clever code and a Bluetooth connection.”

He chuckles, “No, I am certain that the whole thing is some wild goose chase your grandma designed for you, Juju. At least she spared no expense in setting up this whole ruse. I would say we stop giving this the time of day, break out the popcorn and watch through it like the fantasy show it is.”

Across the table, Fumushu’s avatar changes from the cute smile to an angry pout, the exited “hello” now at odds with the drawing. Judy’s face darkens as well, but she seems more conflicted than angry.

She looks to the cork board on her right, “Fumu, what do you think?”

The chibi, still pouting, is animated crossing her arms, the page shifting and dancing with every frame as the next sheet is pinned to the board. This time instead of speech bubbles, a cute girly anime voice speaks out, the voice is slightly robotic, obviously computer generated.

“As I see it, Tim, you're coping. Hard. Magic is the easiest explanation. Occam's razor exists for a reason.”

The Chibi’s expression changes again, this time to a smug smile, arms still crossed, “CGI? You asked me to take a look at those videos. We know full well you couldn’t prove it if you tried. We should send out some of the boring forest footage we cut for time, see if Drizzlearow, or some other geoguessr guy can find where it was filmed. I’ll bet they can’t”

Tim's hologram shifts in his seat, flickering as Fumushu makes her point; she hasn’t finished yet. “I sent the taxidermy snake off to an expert too. His conclusion? Exactly the same as mine, It's real. Or an impossibly well done fake, he had no idea better idea on how to do it then I did. And that's his job."

A twitter post fades onto the screen, supporting Fumushu’s point. It lingers for a bit, then clears away. The chibi avatar remains static, pinned to the corkboard in a smug victory pose. Across the table, it's impossible to tell how Tim still hologram, his face covered in a hood, takes her points.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

In the middle of the two, however, Judy’s emotions are written all over her face, as usual. She seems conflicted, legitimately torn between the two perspectives. It doesn’t look like anger at one side or the other but rather pure confusion. Or maybe pure frustration, as the debate continues to circle around the same points.

Then the two ends of the table fall silent and still, the moment stretching for long enough that it feels as if the two have turned to look at Judy as she processes their points. Soon enough, her face still twisted into a small frown, she begins to speak.

“On my end I haven’t decided what to believe yet, I think the fact this is coming from my grandmother brings it a bit closer to home for me. I have to question my grandma’s whole character. Is -was- she a seriously strong woman who went through all of this and made her way back home? Or is she just some crackpot old lady who’s decided to play a prank on me with her death... On the only person in the family who doesn’t -didn’t- already hate her?”

As Judy speaks, the silence between her two companions turns from anticipation to something more uncomfortable. As if they were getting in trouble with a parent. Tim leans forward, resting his head on his hands, gloves disappearing into his cowl, sleeves hanging down. Fumushu’s chibi avatar animates again, losing her smug grin and crossed arms, instead looking to Judy with a bit of concern.

Judy herself doesn't let that statement linger for long, “I had to find what side of that argument I was on. Do I want the magic to be real, just because I want to believe Grandma is as cool as I knew she was growing up? Or does my family really have a point, is -was- she really just some cruel hateful old lady, and is just setting me up to embarrass myself.”

A deep breath. “So I called my aunt.”

Judy takes out her phone, “I recorded our conversation, and I think it may have cleared some things up.”

The screen blurs and the recorded call begins, the two speakers transcribed on the blurred screen.

“Hey Aunt Jess, This is Judy. I’m calling about Grandma.” Judy’s voice is focused and professional. Much more guarded than It is when she speaks to her subscribers on video.

“Oh Hello Judy! Are you treating yourself better? You seemed so beat up and out of sorts at the funeral.” This voice is sickly sweet, saccharine insincerity laces every word. Her tone is so artificially constructed it's unsettling, giving off the feeling that every word that comes out of her mouth is fake.

Aunt Jess continues. “Now Hun, I hope you’ve given some more thought to what to do with Ulana’s inheritance. I know that old bat had you fooled, but I would hope you realize that; if she really cared for the family like she said, she would have left something for all of us.”

It doesn’t feel like Jess is done speaking, but Judy takes advantage as her aunt stops for a breath.

“This is about the inheritance, actually, I wanted to ask you about Grandma’s whole story. Do you remember anything about it? This is for a video.”

“That old bit? I told her to retire that poppycock. She tried to use some inane craziness to explain why she left us alone with dad.” Aunt Jess twists the question to talk about herself, “Now I was never as foolish as your father. I never listened to any of that. I know well enough what happened. She left us to sleep with some rich billionaire, when he got tired of her, he paid her off. So she would be quiet about the whole deal. That's how she made her money. I guarantee. That's what you should look for.”

The sugary tone falls away into something uglier, heated, and self-important as she speaks, fully transitioning as Aunt Jess clicks her tongue. “Then she came crawling back to us, trying to talk about how important family is and how much she missed us. Disgusting. Whenever she got really angry she would call herself a queen. I mean, how self-important could she be, I could never.”

Judy stays polite, her tone even more controlled now, “A queen? Could you tell me more about that?”

“Oh, dear, that's not important. Some-such to do with goblins. What is important is what you're planing to do with all her stuff. I think you should sell it all and share some of that love around to the rest of the family. Really, it's what your grandma deserved.”

Judy responds, voice still professional but now obviously robotic and cold. “I'll think about it, Aunt Jess. That's all I had for now.” Judy immediately hangs up the phone before her aunt can say more.

The last line of text scrolls off the screen and the blur fades away. The atmosphere at the table is even more frigid than before.

Fumushu’s chibi face has changed, from a questioning one to an exaggerated and ugly glower, seemingly glaring at the phone like she could light it on fire with her eyes.

Tim just simply says “sh~beep~t”.

Judy now less conflicted and considerably angrier nods, “sh~beep~t, is right. I know there was more to get out of my aunt there. On any other case, I probably would have gotten it too. But after that… I was just done. I think I would rather trust my grandma then that.”

At this Fumushu speaks up, “Hold that thought, I have an idea. I think we can prove that magic exists.”

“Oh?” Judy replies

“Yes,” Fumushu’s glare wipes away to a grin,” How are you with needles?”

At this, Judy goes white.

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