It's a busy day today so I'll just get to the writing :)
Portable The Inspectral thought about it, ghostly fingers running through his ghostly hair, back and forth. “No,” he said at last, somehow more sombre than usual. “No, whatever this is I’ll only need to brief these two on it after I’ve heard about it. Let’s not waste time.” Adams started smiling, then a look of confusion crossed her face as she tried to decide if she’d been granted a privilege or treated as a nuisance. Her pride won out and the smile returned. Collins managed to pull himself together, his chest hurting slightly from his volley of coughing, and came and joined the small group as it huddled by the graves. “There are signs of two rituals having been performed here,” said the RE. “When SOCO get here I’ll have them gather the evidence and go through it all in detail, but what I’m already sure of: there was a ritual enacted first with malicious intent, and then a second ritual was performed later to try and cover up the first. The first one has a lot of signs of being done by a specialist; the second looks rushed and clumsy. There’s Radiant residue in the ground and it’s spread out a bit. I think it’s all around these graves, and my current guess is that a lot of the digging here was just to spread it about. We are, and I’m sorry Harold, going to need that exhumation order.” The Inspectral grunted and Collins felt a chill run down his spine. “So wait,” said Adams. “The ritual was connected with the Radiance? It’s another Radiant priest trying to restart it, is that what you’re saying?” “Not at all,” said Ethel, and while his tone was still lively there was a hint of compassion there. “The Radiant residue is part of the second ritual, it’s been spread around to hide what was happening with the first ritual.” Adams looked momentarily shocked, and Collins saw her hands clench into fists. Then she relaxed. “There are mineral compounds located at ritually significant distances, and they’ll need lab analysis to know what they originally were. There’s blood, and I think it’s human, or near-human. And there’s chitin, and again I need lab analysis, but just looking at the ground makes me think it’s probably feather. Black feathers, and the obvious choices there are crow, raven and poulet negro.” “Necromancy?” asked Adams, jumping in quickly. The Inspectral looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Definitely not,” said Ethel. “There’s no point trying to cover up a necromantic ritual. Those things are so poorly understood… they’re like the early days of nuclear reactors. If it was a necromantic ritual we’d be trying to appease the whole damn graveyard before we could even start looking at it. You’d have an actual zombie outbreak.” “Oh.” Adams thought hard, and then shook her head. “Feathers and blood,” she said. “What’s that if it’s not necromancy?” “Vodoun,” said the Inspectral, heaving a sigh that made Collins feel like lying down in a snowfield and just giving up on living. “Skulls, blood, feathers, and secrecy. We’re thousands of miles from the Carribbean, Ethel. What the hell is a Vodoun priest doing in Moreton?” “Well,” said Ethel, his smile so broad it seemed his face could barely contain it, “religion is a very portable thing, Harold. It’s not like they can stop you at the borders and search you for inappopriate beliefs and send you back in you’re not ‘the right sort’.” “They’re trying it in some the southern States of America,” said Adams. “Alabama’s turning people away in droves.” “There’s a lot of Radiants in Alabama,” said Harold. “That could be a connection. But… that’s not our problem. Our problem is here.” He sighed again, and Collins once more felt like the sun had gone behind a cloud and was threatening to never return. “Let’s go back to the office. Collins, you stay here and wait for SOCO. They’ll have questions; some of them might even be intelligent.”
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It's a busy day today so I'll just get to the writing :)
Portable
The Inspectral thought about it, ghostly fingers running through his ghostly hair, back and forth. “No,” he said at last, somehow more sombre than usual. “No, whatever this is I’ll only need to brief these two on it after I’ve heard about it. Let’s not waste time.”
Adams started smiling, then a look of confusion crossed her face as she tried to decide if she’d been granted a privilege or treated as a nuisance. Her pride won out and the smile returned. Collins managed to pull himself together, his chest hurting slightly from his volley of coughing, and came and joined the small group as it huddled by the graves.
“There are signs of two rituals having been performed here,” said the RE. “When SOCO get here I’ll have them gather the evidence and go through it all in detail, but what I’m already sure of: there was a ritual enacted first with malicious intent, and then a second ritual was performed later to try and cover up the first. The first one has a lot of signs of being done by a specialist; the second looks rushed and clumsy.
There’s Radiant residue in the ground and it’s spread out a bit. I think it’s all around these graves, and my current guess is that a lot of the digging here was just to spread it about. We are, and I’m sorry Harold, going to need that exhumation order.”
The Inspectral grunted and Collins felt a chill run down his spine.
“So wait,” said Adams. “The ritual was connected with the Radiance? It’s another Radiant priest trying to restart it, is that what you’re saying?”
“Not at all,” said Ethel, and while his tone was still lively there was a hint of compassion there. “The Radiant residue is part of the second ritual, it’s been spread around to hide what was happening with the first ritual.” Adams looked momentarily shocked, and Collins saw her hands clench into fists. Then she relaxed. “There are mineral compounds located at ritually significant distances, and they’ll need lab analysis to know what they originally were. There’s blood, and I think it’s human, or near-human. And there’s chitin, and again I need lab analysis, but just looking at the ground makes me think it’s probably feather. Black feathers, and the obvious choices there are crow, raven and poulet negro.”
“Necromancy?” asked Adams, jumping in quickly. The Inspectral looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
“Definitely not,” said Ethel. “There’s no point trying to cover up a necromantic ritual. Those things are so poorly understood… they’re like the early days of nuclear reactors. If it was a necromantic ritual we’d be trying to appease the whole damn graveyard before we could even start looking at it. You’d have an actual zombie outbreak.”
“Oh.” Adams thought hard, and then shook her head. “Feathers and blood,” she said. “What’s that if it’s not necromancy?”
“Vodoun,” said the Inspectral, heaving a sigh that made Collins feel like lying down in a snowfield and just giving up on living. “Skulls, blood, feathers, and secrecy. We’re thousands of miles from the Carribbean, Ethel. What the hell is a Vodoun priest doing in Moreton?”
“Well,” said Ethel, his smile so broad it seemed his face could barely contain it, “religion is a very portable thing, Harold. It’s not like they can stop you at the borders and search you for inappopriate beliefs and send you back in you’re not ‘the right sort’.”
“They’re trying it in some the southern States of America,” said Adams. “Alabama’s turning people away in droves.”
“There’s a lot of Radiants in Alabama,” said Harold. “That could be a connection. But… that’s not our problem. Our problem is here.” He sighed again, and Collins once more felt like the sun had gone behind a cloud and was threatening to never return. “Let’s go back to the office. Collins, you stay here and wait for SOCO. They’ll have questions; some of them might even be intelligent.”
Greg - fascinating stuff. And... poor Collins, left behind in the graveyard. I don't think he'll much enjoy that.
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