"So is there anything we
do wanna keep?"
You regard the Dark Room from the entrance to the rest of the Bunker with a frown, flanked on either side by Kate and Chloe. You wait a second to see if Kate answers Chloe's question, but it looks like they're waiting on you, little miss trauma.
Ha ha.
"Well…" You take a few steps forward and gingerly lean down and touch the camera, still facing what used to be Jefferson's shooting space on it's tripod.
'Used to be Jefferson's'... ya, no thank you. With a snort, you stand up, rear back, and kick the stupid thing partway across the room. You wince internally as you hear something in the
very expensive camera crack as it hits the floor.
No, better that it's gone. Pointedly ignoring Chloe and Kate's respectively amused and pitying smirks, you start to talk. "The camera equipment can go, all of it. We
could resell it, but that'd be opening ourselves up to trouble if the Prescotts decide to use the law against us."
Chloe rolls her eyes and gives the camera a swift kick of her own.
Crunch. "I don't think they even have to consciously decide to. The law is just
passively on their side."
You sigh. "Ya, I guess so." Another look around the room brings your attention to the office corner. "We'll definitely be keeping the cabinet, it's probably gonna be a huge source of info for us. We should also
probably keep the computer, at the very least there's probably even more incriminating photos in there that didn't 'make the cut' for his binders."
"Good call," Kate mutters, walking forward a bit. She pokes her head into the room separated by the plastic flaps. "What about the storage space?"
You follow, pushing through the flaps to look around.
Hm, I didn't really see much of this part while I've been here other times. More important stuff going on then. You survey the shelves.
Nonperishable food, water bottles, medicine and antiseptics. You wonder again briefly if Jefferson or the Prescotts were somehow aware of the storm.
Nah, too far fetched. Plus the storm didn't come this time, but this is all still here.
Some medicine you don't recognize on one shelf catches your eye. You move closer to get a better look.
Hm, some unmarked packages, restricted substance markers- ah. With a frown, you take a step back. "We can keep everything in here but
those drugs."
"What are they?" Kate asks, setting down the cereal she had been looking at judgmentally.
"Kidnapping drugs," you state simply. Trying not to think about how one of those needles kept in their sealed packaging is
probably the exact same one that had been used on you a… few times.
"Right." Chloe gently shoulders past you, holding a garbage bag she'd procured from the other end of the storage room. You control your breathing and try to watch calmly as she reaches one arm out across the shelf, and shovels the assortment of sedatives into the bag. She watches you sigh in relief with a grin. "So, that it? Ready to trash more of his expensive camera shit?"
You pause a moment and try to let the uneasy feeling in your gut dissolve into something else.
Jefferson isn't here. This is my space now. It percolates, and resolves into something like a wild exhilaration that brings a grin to your own face. "Chloe, I am hella ready." You look to your right. "Kate?"
The blonde girl smirks. "You two have fun, I'm going to start bringing down my stuff from the truck."
With a cheer, Chloe turns and practically jogs back into the Dark Room, and you eagerly follow. Kate's bemused expression might feel a
touch condescending, but this already feels like it's going to be cathartic, and you're ready to let this strange mania guide you in absolutely
trashing this fucking place.
≅≅≅
It goes well, all things considered. You stub your toe a couple times, and it's still throbbing painfully, but the Dark Room is… basically empty. With just bare, smooth, polished concrete, it's barely recognizable. You kept the cabinet, binders, and computer, of course, but they've been moved down to the meeting room of the Bunker.
It turns out, breaking photography equipment is
really fun when you're doing it on purpose. You're definitely feeling a bit tired out now though, and your legs absolutely feel like pure jelly. Going up and down those stairs over and over again was
not fun, not to mention hauling all those binders
and the cabinet all the way to the meeting room.
Kate's items from Blackwell, including sheets and bedding and clothes, are haphazardly piled in the corner of the first floor Rec Room, where you all sit. Chloe's bluetooth speaker that'd been playing upbeat music during your renovation/trashing now echoes a
relaxing track around the empty, hard walls of the bunker.
"We should probably put up some wall drapings to take care of that echo…" Kate muses, playing with a strand of hair. She's sitting up against the smooth concrete wall, a pillow making the hard surface more palatable.
Chloe grunts in affirmation, watching with interest as the bunker ventilation pulls the smoke from her cigarette to the vent near her.
You're physically tired, but you've got some mental stamina left, so you turn to Kate. "Now that your stuff is here… are you okay with us looking through some of your books?"
She immediately perks up, letting her hair falling perfectly back into place.
How does she do that? "Absolutely!" She says with a wide smile. "Wanna join us, Chloe?"
"Ehhhhhh…" Chloe's avoiding eye contact with a sheepish expression. "I'm- y'know, the whole magic thing is cool and all, but uh, I don't think it's really 'for me', y'know?"
You smile warmly at her. "It's okay Chloe, nothing wrong with sitting this study session out."
She looks relieved, and shoots a thankful glance your way. "Thanks, maybe I'll try to get into Jefferson's files while you two do that."
"Ouh, good idea," Kate says, "want us to turn the music off at all?"
"Nah. In fact, could you move the speaker closer to the conference room so I can still hear?"
"For sure."
Arrangements made, Chloe heads into the conference room, to the corner where Jefferson's computer desk is set up, and Kate moves the speaker and fiddles with her Spotify. Meanwhile,
you're making an absolute mess of Kate's bedding in an attempt to make a cozy study nook in the corner of the room.
She finishes whatever music setup she needed to do, and turns back to you, only to find you burrowed in a corner padded with propped up pillows. "Wow," she says, a teasing smile rising to her lips, "did you just use time travel to throw that together?"
You grin and shake your head. "Nope! I just work fast."
She rolls her eyes. "I guess even destroying all that photography equipment earlier didn't sate your
appetite for destruction ."
You giggle and push your voice as low as you can make it to put on your best 'evil overlord' voice. "Max Caulfield, Render of Time, Destroyer of Bedsheets!"
Kate openly laughs as she drags a storage bin over to your study corner. "Alright 'Render of Time', we don't have time to go through all of these tonight, so give me a second to pick through them for likely choices, then you can pick one or two out."
You hum affirmatively, content to stay snuggled in the blankets for the moment. Kate starts to pick through the bin at a rapid rate, scarcely glancing at book's titles before sorting them into one of three piles. She looks cute right now, you decide. Well, honestly, Kate
always looks cute. But right now with her brow furrowed, eye narrowed, gently biting her lip in thought… yeah. You would be content to be snuggled here with this view for a while.
"Something on my face?" Kate teases, without even looking at you.
Your muscles tense and you quickly turn away, cheeks burning. "N-No…"
What are you doing Max? I'm here for Chloe, aren't I? I- Chloe is… We almost… almost kissed at the lighthouse, the very first time, before I went back and started the loops. I care about her. You scrunch your face up.
No, fuck that, I love Chloe. It isn't- It's not okay for me to feel like this about Kate, is it?
You blink your eyes clear and quickly wipe your face, banishing the thoughts from your head as Kate gets to the bottom of the bin. If she noticed your slightly teary complexion, she thankfully isn't commenting on it.
"Alright," says Kate, "we can
prooobably handle two of these at most tonight. The information that's collected in these isn't organized quite as nicely as it is in… well, anything modern. The women who wrote these were amateur writers, compiling writing on things no one but them, and maybe a few close confidantes, knew about." You nod slowly, and Kate continues. "For a lot of the more modern texts, they cross-reference each other to a pretty high extent, which is what
this pile is for," she indicates the middle pile of books with a wave of her hand, "these are what I think will be likely reference materials. The…
less modern books tend to be more archaic, so we'll probably have to use my phone to decipher some parts of them."
This is pretty impressive. "You have a whole system worked out, don't you?"
Kate smiles proudly, preening a bit. "I do, it's been a few years of collecting and sorting out how best to understand them all. It would've been helpful to have another head to bounce ideas off of…" Her smile disappears for a second as she breaks eye contact, looking down, but it quickly comes back as she looks back up at you. "But now I have you! Trust me, studying these is
so interesting , it's like a whole secret history of the world!"
You smile at her infectious enthusiasm, maybe this
will be a good time. "So what books do you have for me?"
"Let's see here…"
≅≅≅
Which books do you want to study with Kate? Pick two.
[] M.A Glischer - Preferred Environs and Gathering Spots of Fae - 1923
"This one was a pretty hefty read that I never really got around to finishing… it seems like it's one of the more comprehensive books about the Fae though!"
[] Käthe Rottmann - The New Encyclopaedia of Magical Phenomena - 1899
"It
calls itself an encyclopaedia, but I'm pretty sure the author gave up on even alphabetical ordering partway through. This one documents all sorts of supposedly magical stuff, mostly from eyewitness reports of other witches."
[] Maliika Hamidova - My Time In The Forest - 1874
"This one is one of my absolute favourites. It's kind of… weird to study, since it combines prose and narrative with actual substantive thoughts on the nature of Verdant magic and it's uses. I don't know how much it'll help us find out about the different mysteries we're thinking about… but I think it'd help you understand more about Verdant magic! And… also… I'd really like to share it with you…"
[] Talibah Mubarak - Untitled Study of Stones and Fossils - 1934
"I read this a while ago, but I think I remember her talking about some kind of rock that was like, a sink for Fae? I really don't remember that well, but it reminded me of how the Fae react, or
don't react, to Chloe."
[] Uyeno Nari - Japanese Spirits and the Fae - 1885
"This is another great one! Uyeno Nari was a Japanese Priestess who used Verdant magic, who happened to meet an American witch that was travelling through Japan. They collaborated to publish this book, it's mostly about how sapient Fae are responsible for a lot of Japanese mythology, but by doing that it has a
lot of good info about Sapient Fae."
[] Merouda Sleeman - The World We Live In: Interconnectedness and the Root of All Things - 1944
"I'm… not a huge fan of this one. It's a little too, um, New-Agey for me. I heard that Chloe, don't you laugh at me! That said, it
does have some insights about how Fae interact with crowds and large groups of people, it might be worth reading for some more background."
[] Elinor Shoshan - Verdant Energy and the Fae - 1828
"This! This is the seminal work that revolutionized how witches thought about Verdant Magic. Elinor Shoshan was a Jewish scholar living in the Austrian Empire who, using methodologies consistent with the fast-growing research of electricity in years prior, managed to disprove the Fae as being a form of energy, and instead posited the correct theory that they were alive! It's a… little technical, but I'm sure there's something useful in it!"
[] Jimena Varela - Observations from Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War - 1942
"This is another one of my favourites… it's a really raw account from a lesbian witch during the Spanish worker's revolution during the Spanish Civil War. It's kind of a mix of descriptions of Anarchist Barcelona, to recipes, to
magic recipes, to really unique musings on the nature of Fae. She also collected a fair amount of knowledge about magical phenomena that takes a much more modern perspective than the encyclopaedia over there."
≅≅≅
The trick when you're not sure what information to give, is to make the proles vote.
I had a lot of fun coming up with the concepts for all of these books, I hope of couple catch you guys' interest! All of them will likely be useful about the thing they appear to be useful for, but some will have additional information you might not expect too...
Voting is not in plan format FYI, just vote for the 2 you want, highest votes win.
