wolves

Glad to see you figured it out, my friend.  By entering this room you have triggered a binding spell.  Anything you learn here is top secret and cannot be repeated in non-magical spaces. Don’t worry.  It’s not nefarious. The spell only keeps this knowledge from the wrong ears, nothing more.

Let's start with our amber-eyed Fae pal, the Phooka, alias Robin Goodfellow. I’m sure, like my Order, you have questions about his species. I think you’ll find this old local newspaper article intriguing. 

Only one phooka has consistently gone under the literary name "Robin Goodfellow".  Our intel can track his activity in this area for over two hundred years. The people I work with have never been able to conclusively discover whether "Mr. Goodfellow" hails from the Underworld or has resided in this world for his natural life. The answer to that question will determine whether he is, like most of his kind merely a trickster, or whether he is part of what's happening on Sauvie Island.

Either way, there is something wrong about him. He should not be trusted.

Now take out your Malleus pages about the Sidhe.  To your right, on a shelf, is a bottle of glowing blue liquid with an atomizer on top.  Take it and give the second page of the Sidhe entry a spritz. This is a new way my Order has of encoding information so only we can see it.  

Michael from our group got the idea from his childhood invisible ink collection.

You turn from the monitor, locate the bottle and follow Bodach's instructions.

A small yelp escapes your lips as the page darkens and illuminated letters appear on the page.

Your palms sweat as you return to the glow of the laptop and keep scrolling.  Where the text continues.

You've seen the mist on that island.  I can tell you that it's been there for many years and my people have documented its expansion, but have never been able to get onto that island.  As wrong as that phooka is, that mist takes wrongness to new heights.

Heights that suggest whatever is growing on Sauvie was caused by powers stronger than Fae and is a threat to us all. 

I have a parting gift to you before our last communication offers you a choice.  It's food for thought.  While at the Lodge, you read a bit of High King Nuada's journals.  He was one Tuatha capable of the power to alter reality and conjured a similar mist when the Tuatha de Danann arrived in Ireland.  You should learn about the three others who aided him.  On the shelf that housed the ink revealing spray is a folder.  Open it. 

You cross the room, your footfalls on the hardwood floor echoing off the elegantly papered walls.  Right where Bodach said, there sat a manila folder.  Inside are two more pages from the magical book.

All you have learned would tell you that the Tuatha were the heroes.  In the Second Battle of Moytura, they defeated the Fomorians, the great evil of that Age. Their love of this Green World ran deep.  You’ve already read one of the prophecies gifted to Anand of the Morrigna at the end of that battle. 

But another prophecy was spoken that day. By her sister, Badb Catha. And it is far darker, suggesting the Tuatha might fail in their task of mentoring humanity. 

Their failure would also doom the Green World.

Use that spray bottle on the second page.

You stare at the screen for a moment while all this sinks in, hoping you’re wrong about the certainty forming in your heart like a black hole. You’ve felt the ominous feeling on that island. Pangur Ban couldn’t get out of here fast enough once he knew he wouldn’t be pulled into the middle of whatever mythic hell-storm is brewing.

You knock over a stool on your way back to the monitor.

More text scrolls onto the screen.

If I know you, you’re half wanting to run, but also half wanting to go back to Sauvie. Knowledge is power after all. 

All I ask is that you meet me outside this building in an hour and hear my offer first. 

Be a shame to lose a promising recruit like you.  We’ll be in touch soon…

***

Hi again!

This time I want to introduce you to one of my vices....  

I work in County government in the Drug and Alcohol office and in the summer they have an ice cream truck a couple times of month down in the loading dock.  

Yes.  Those days it's my lunch.  

No.  My mother would say that's not a proper lunch.

But I call my own shots now.

This tasty treat is the Peanut Butter Surprise.  

The surprise is Type 2 Diabetes.