Chapter Text
She pulled out a nice spiral notebook, one of a great many scattered across her desk. This one had the distinction of having approximately fifteen stickers on its front, most of them of very cute cats and bunnies; They were large enough, and well-placed enough, that the three-hundred-page spiral behemoth's cover was nearly entirely covered of its original purple colour. It was this which she began to write in, a few dozen pages pack, where a nice little ribbon marked the place she'd left off. In a chaotic mess of Old English, Old French, and Latin, all messed and jumbled about seemingly without rhyme or reason, she wrote the first entry of the new year.
January 01, 2024
Happy new year, Diary no. 34. Today was particularly interesting. A strange note was hand-delivered in the mailbox at about midnight, straight from the office of the curator of the Museum of Death. It read: "You have been noticed. If you want answers, come to the 1st on the first weekend of the year." According to Mr. Ghost, the deliverer was in a big yellow raincoat, big enough to obscure everything else, and he couldn't see their face with the hood up, but knew he was caucasian for he had a white hand. When I examined the note, I detected faint notes of death-sense. When I then went to view the note, I was then able to discern how long ago it had been placed, and from where it had come. I also noted, as viewed from the note, the individual's hand was rather... Cold. I hope this bears no ill tidings.
Then I received a call from Mr. John, who informed me his car had been towed and he was out in the rain. Poor fellow had already been living on the street for some good while at this point, and was far too afraid of anyone to ask for help while he still had his car, it seemed. So I invited him over, let him use the guest house (for what I do not yet know, but I don't really know what I need of the fellow). As I was leaving with him, he felt two more mages, and it was those two from Vegas! Simon-with-no-Y and Mark. They informed us they were planning on fighting off some spectres to have a little place to squat in. They were very determined about this, so we left them be.
It was at this time that Florence (who had examined the note with me) came back from picking up a package— out of a trash can apparently guarded by a GREY WOLF. We opened it, and discovered it was a very authentic-looking Victorian dress. We searched it for magic, and searched for from whom it came, and as I began to peer back in time for when it was made, I discovered a truly magnificent item.
I could feel this brilliant dress was about two-hundred years old, being made-and-remade dozens of times over its lifetime; The silver in it was from the area around Prague. As I watched, a three-armed man, with many many eyes, was fervently stitch-sewing up the dress, muttering that it couldn't disappoint and needed to be just right and couldn't have any more shorts or delays… And something about a "Premicil"? "Premisil"?
This man was "The Little Tailor of Prague", who, if our library and my strange history lessons are true, is one of the most infamous Sabbat vampires from the Old World— who was actually a very good tailor before he was embraced, at which point he did vampire things and died in some Vampiric war.
And… Whoever had delivered this package in BROAD DAYLIGHT… Was about three times older than it was. Six. Hundred. Years.
After speaking with Mr. Ghost about all this, and hearing from him how awful spectres are, I called Mark and conveyed he might like to come over and hear about this before charging in guns blazing no plan. He agreed, came over, and… Did a ritual! A really fun one with my spinning wheel as the drums in Elvis' "Guadelajara". Florence and Mr. John were very nice helpers.
Well, I'd never done a ritual like that, and we sort of kind of did so amazingly well we freaked everybody out because we apparently were likened to the force of "a wyrm-tainted spirit spawn" or a "great devil" or an "otherwordly threat"… Because we got ALL the spectres out of there, indeed… Enough that I turned and saw a great froggish eye in the sky looking down on us all… And we'd irritated EVERYONE in the city, including Mr. Paul, a werewolf who looked like a homeless man and a scraggly red wolf. Those are at least SUPPOSED to be in the area. (Curse you, many hours of wolf research for my dumb Wulver series.)
Well. We traded the VERY Spirit-protected and home-feely and Guadelajara-play-ey Node to the Ecstatics in exchange for their covering of our asses. And now Simon-with-no-Y and Mark are living in the guest house too! Supper will be here shortly, and I think I'm going to tuck in early after; It has been a truly eventful day.
Hopefully soon, I'll get to hear what Mr. John is running from. Otherwise, I think I'd better get on investigating that weird curator's office, the whole Death museum, and maybe the park. Hopefully Florence and I won't get jumped, but… Well, we'll bring an oil lantern just in case.
She looked over her wandering train of thought, and then yawned. Goodness, she hadn't been joking about that; She felt like she'd wearied herself far more than usual. Enough that, perhaps, leg being what it was, she might still be weary the next day. With that brief worry, she hurried downstairs, joining the others in welcoming the deliveryman who had brought them supper— and enough for leftovers for all, too.