Chapter 4

  My body was mostly covered in trash, buried inside a dumpster, surrounded by bloodthirsty demons. I felt there was a metaphor somewhere in all of this, but it's hard to think of elaborate metaphors when you're about to be torn to shreds by some sort of eldritch demon things. The best I could do was some sort of pop culture reference about me cosplaying as Oscar the Grouch, but honestly I'd just be phoning it in.

  The demon-like creatures had moved to perch on the edge of the dumpster, looking down at me... Well, I'd assume they were looking down at me. The creatures lacked eyes, or anything regarding facial features. They were completely covered in a black skin like a whale. Their faces were just a smooth blankness of skin. They had wings, two horns, and a tail. They were for the most part humanoid in appearance, but also reminded me of the mix between a demon and a gargoyle.

  Surrounding their bodies were red outlines. The outlines were an effect created by my Read the Room ability. It highlighted anything within range that intended to harm me, my party, or a plot-related NPC. I'd increased its level at the end of the last investigation, so it was also supposed to let me know if an enemy was significantly weaker or stronger than me. Since I didn't see an indication of the new ability, I guessed these creatures were fairly evenly matched to my level. That would have been a relief if it was one-on-one instead of being severely outnumbered.

  Due to the lack of a mouth, I would assume that I could cross being eaten off the list of things I needed to worry about. That still left countless other horrible fates I might suffer. The most likely fate was having the horde of demon-like creatures ripping me to shreds with their claws. Coming in at a close second would be them lifting me like the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz and carrying me off into the sky. I highly doubted my fate would include concerned demons gently helping me out of the dumpster and treating me to some tea at a nearby cafe.

  Under the trash, my right hand desperately searched for my segmented staff. I'd initially attempted to do an awesome aerial maneuver and take out a few of the demons while leaping from the nearby rooftop. Instead, I overshot my mark and buried myself in garbage. My segmented staff had been buried even deeper than me. Being constricted by my close quarters, and having no weapon, I was completely defenseless.

  I freed my left hand from the trash and pointed behind a couple of the demons. "What's that?!"

  Unfortunately, none of them looked since they assumed I was only trying to distract them.

  When I said unfortunately, I meant that it was unfortunate for them, not me.

  In a flash, two of the demons necks tore open, causing them to tumble backward into the alley. A cloud of black blood misted into the air in their wake. A light weight landed on my chest. It belonged to an adorable little ball of murderous miasma, better known as Dalos. The puppy growled menacingly at the remaining demons. Normally an adorable little creature wouldn't elicit fear no matter how much it growled, but the demons had just witnessed two of their buddies have their throats removed by the tiny little Tindalos Hound, so they were at least a little on guard.

  "Good boy, Dalos." If I didn't know any better, I'd think he puffed out his chest in response to my words. "Once we stomp out these gimp-suit-looking devil guys, you'll get all the belly rubs you want."

  "You seriously can't tell they're night-gaunts?" A familiar voice filled my ears, moments before one of the creature's necks exploded like a Capri-Sun when you're trying to look cool in front of the girl you liked at lunch in fourth grade. I mean, Alexis was just sitting right there and I'd finally gotten up the courage to talk to her. I'd opened Capri-Suns a million times, so I figured that was the least of my worries. But no, Mrs. Butler just had to get on my case right before lunch so my nerves were extra jittery. So obviously I couldn't properly stab that stupid bag of juice.

  Who puts juice in a bag?! Put it in a box like a normal civilized person! Now Alexis will never want to talk to me again! I'd even acted like I knew something about Power Rangers to impress her even though I didn't have cable so I couldn't really watch it. All of my Power Rangers information was just picked up from conversations my classmates had. I mean, what even is a Mega Zord?!

  "Damn you Capri-Sun! You ruined my life! I'll never find happiness!" My fingers had found my awesome segmented staff at some point during my tangent. Showing perfect coordination, because Dalos is the best puppy ever, the two of us leapt from the dumpster at the same time. He ripped into a gimp-demon (I guess they were night-gaunts, but whatever) in front of him as I flipped over two of them to my right. As I flipped over them, I released the segmented staff to reveal the connecting chains. I caught the BDSM-demons around the neck with the chains and planted my feet on the back of their necks midair. With a loud crack, they both went limp.

  That is definitely what happened. There's no way that my foot was stuck in the trash, causing me to accidentally tackle the hentai-bats off the dumpster. Obviously, my staff didn't just happen to coincidentally land on their necks so that Joan could stab them both with her impressive penmanship.

  None of that happened, so stop looking at me like that!

  "I didn't remember you being such a klutz." Joan said while wiping her pen on my shirt. Seriously, did she always have to do that? Her pen cleaned itself when she un-summoned it.

  "It's the difference in dexterity points. I was at a super human level before, so it's going to take some getting used to." I got to my feet, spinning my staff in my hands. Unfortunately I lost grip and it bounced awkwardly down the alley. "Hey, thanks for the assist. You're always saving me."

  "Just be careful. I'm not always going to be able to be there when you need me." She looked troubled as the words escaped her lips. "Like in the settlement last investigation..."

  I stopped chasing after my staff as it rolled away. Joan's words cut through me. She hadn't been there for me in the settlement. My Pathfinder ability was refusing to work, and I was outnumbered by countless Deep Ones and Tindalos Hounds. I barely survived, but I was far from heroic. I ran like a coward and sacrificed hundreds of innocent lives just to survive. I'd been helpless as I watched a friend, Deep Juan, get his throat ripped out in front of me. I didn't stay to help him. I ran.

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  "But you've got Dalos with you now." Her words pulled me out of a spiral. "I didn't know what to expect, but he's pretty good in a fight. Make sure you take care of him."

  "Did you hear that, Dalos? I think aunt-Joan wants to give you belly rubs." The blood-drenched miasmic canine nuzzled my leg in response.

  "If you call me aunt-Joan one more time, my hand might slip next time I'm writing with my pen." Her eyes met mine with annoyance. She wasn't actually angry, in fact, she seemed kind of embarrassed. It was kind of cute.

  "Scary!" I teased as I turned back to look for my staff. "Don't worry boy, she really cares about us."

  "I couldn't care less about you, Clay." I briefly looked over my shoulder at her as she spoke. "We're paired up out of necessity, nothing more."

  Player is attempting to deceive User

  Emotion: Embarrassed

  Motive: Tsundere

  I had to wonder if my evolved Read the Room was an otaku, or if it just pulled the term tsundere from my own head. The notification left me a little speechless. Maybe Joan wasn't as disgusted with me as I thought.

  "Why did your face get all red?" She snapped at me as I turned back toward my staff. "I was telling you that you mean nothing to me. Are you some sort of masochist or something?"

  "If you weren't around, I'd probably die." I knelt next to my staff to pick it up off the alley ground.

  "Yes. You would." I regretted turning away from her. Joan's words held an odd weight. She had just been agreeing with something I knew to be true, but there was something about the way she said it that seemed off. This would have been the perfect time for my evolved Read the Room to give me some intel. Sadly, it didn't work unless I was looking at the person when they talked. Even if I had been looking, the ability didn't always trigger.

  I tried to shrug off the uncomfortable feeling. I had nearly been too distracted to notice the object laying on the ground next to my staff. In a pool of the initial victim of the night-gaunts' blood, there was a matchbook. Curiously, I picked it up to investigate.

  "The Deep Tentacle Cabaret..." The design looked similar to what one might expect for a night club advertisement of the era. If it hadn't been for the strange name and the use of tentacles for some of the decorative lines, I would have mistook this as a generic prop. The matchbook's bottom was soaked in blood, causing the club's address to be illegible.

  "What's that?" Joan was already standing over my shoulder looking at the object in my hand. Dalos was next to me, happily slurping up the victim's pooled blood.

  "Stop that Dalos, it's gross. You don't even eat the stuff anyway." The puppy whimpered slightly before returning to my side. Tindalos Hounds didn't actually feed off their prey, they were simply killing machines. From what I understood, they didn't actually need to eat like a normal living being. Instead, Dalos seemed to feed off of a person's essence. He was like a constant syphon. In the presence of a normal person, he'd act like a source of miasma, draining them of their positive thoughts and sanity, but it didn't seem to cause him to grow. For some reason, he only grew stronger when he was in contact with me.

  I had a very small sample size since Dalos hadn't been around too many people, but I remember being told that Tara had a negative reaction while attempting to pet Dalos. Her and Joan and decided that it wasn't safe for people to pet him. For some reason, I didn't have the same negative reaction. I was immune to Dalos. I was also mostly unaffected by the powerful presence of a certain God of Chaos that I'd previously met. Even my weapon had a miasmic effect.

  What are you? What are you, Clay?

  Tep's voice echoed in my head. They didn't ask who I was. They asked what I was.

  "Focus!" Joan's stern voice pulled me from my pointless tangent. "What did you find?"

  I turned back to the blood-soaked matchbook in my hand. "It's a matchbook for some club called The Deep Tentacle Cabaret. I think the victim was carrying it."

  We both looked up to inspect the victim. I'm not sure why that hadn't been my first response after the battle. I was immediately overwhelmed with guilt. I had been cracking jokes, playing with my segmented staff, and doing everything except checking to see if the victim of the initial attack was alright.

  They weren't alright. I couldn't even tell what they used to be. All that was left were badly damaged torn limbs and viscera. From my initial perch above the battle, I recalled they looked like a cave man, but I couldn't really see any specific details.

  "We don't have a lot to go off of. We know those things were night-gaunts. We know there's a matchbook that might have belonged to the victim. We don't have a clue who or what the victim was." Joan shrugged, looking frustrated. This was supposed to be our first lead into the investigation but we didn't have a lot to go off of. We could look for the club listed on the matchbox, but if that was a dead end, I didn't know what we could do after that.

  "You keep saying those things were night-gaunts. I know the name, but how are you so sure?" I asked. Joan was oddly confident about their identity. Usually her and I would have to work together to figure out the identity of a creature, but Joan had immediately identified them.

  "I don't know how much they are used in that table-top game you always reference, but night-gaunts are one of the main staples of Lovecraft. They first appeared in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath in 1943, but they were used a few other times. They are supposed to inhabit Dreamlands, but I guess in this world they just roam around out in the open." She looked at me as if this was common sense.

  "I mean, that god seems to be really loose with their source material. I doubt the world we're in right now is even close to what Boston looked like in the 1930s." I scowled at the inconsistencies of that god. "Part of what made the last investigation so difficult was trying to figure out what the rules of the world were. Sometimes our actual knowledge of the source material works as a red herring."

  "So what do you think is going on? What should we do next?" I was always surprised how willingly Joan put herself into the support role during the investigation. She was stronger than me and dominated our combat. I also knew that she was likely much smarter than me... But she seemed to really respect my opinions.

  "The only thing we have to go on is this club on the matchbook. I'm afraid it might be a dead-end, though. Maybe the matchbook was here before the attack..." I felt something click in my head as my eyes quickly absorbed the scene and the matchbook.

  Insight Activated

  Question: Was the matchbook present before the attack?

  Analysis of the scene:

  -Matchbook found at foot of the deceased victim.

  -Matchbook found in a pool of blood.

  -Pool of blood belonged to the victim.

  -Only the bottom of the matchbook is soaked in blood

  Likelihood that matchbook fell into blood versus already being on the ground:

  96% certainty matchbook fell into blood after or during attack.

  Answer: Matchbook was not present before the attack.

  Well, that was a neat trick. I looked back to Joan, confident in my answer.

  "It wasn't here before the attack. Since neither of us dropped it, then it had to belong to the victim or the attackers. I don't really see pockets on those things, so I'd have to guess the victim had the matchbook." I opened the matchbook and found none of the matches used. "They haven't had this for very long since it hasn't been used. If I had to guess, they recently visited the club or they were given the matchbook by someone else to give the victim the club's address."

  "That's some impressive sleuthing." An unfamiliar voice cut through the alley. Given the situation, it was oddly calm and friendly. I detected an accent, but I couldn't immediately place it.

  Both Joan and I turned toward the source of the voice to find a short man standing at the entrance to the alley. He was wearing a black suit and charcoal grey fedora. My eyes weren't drawn to his outfit, but his face. I knew this man. He was a little different than before, and he was missing the best part of his appearance, but it was definitely him.

  He was missing my beloved mustache, and instead he had mutton-chop style sideburns. He was also missing his trademark confusing accent that was a mixture between a Pittsburg accent and a southern drawl.

  "Riff?!" I gave the words as a question, but I was certain the man standing before me was our friend Sheriff Placeholder from the first investigation.

  Why was he here?!