[Private] In Dunkin' We Trust.

"Sweet, thanks Kai."

Free drink, here he comes. Even though he was making more money now, he would always appreciate a good deal. The bigger his savings account was, the more financial security he had incase his brain went awry again.

"Lots of it. I'm trying to work on putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together. There's no shortage of them."

Once his drink arrived he took a long sip of it before he dived into his findings.

"Okay, so here's what I've found out so far and my current working theories. Golden Boy has been turned into an anchor for multiple ghosts. In order to pull that off, someone would have to be a powerful necromancer because even anchoring one ghost to someone takes a lot of work. I don't think it was a freak accident because of whatever happened when he messed around in the Underworld. I mean, it is possible that somehow when he tried to open it up, he messed it up...but it takes a lot of work to become an anchor. What's even stranger is that there are no ghosts in the streets of Vegas. So, whoever decided to turn him into an anchor did intentionally. Maybe it was a punishment by whoever actually controls the Underworld gate for messing around with the gate.

When I was in Ostara, I activated my Bind the Dead ability--the one that lets me see into Twilight--and suddenly I went blind when the Rite went off." He looked down at his text messages. "I reached out to Roger and he told me it was because we have a deal with the Hedge Ghosts to help protect us. I figured out that the reason we moved away from human sacrifices to having Lost make the sacrifice is because the Hedge Ghosts feed off of glamour.  Personally speaking, I am on board with this exchange.

Here's where I find myself uncertain on my next steps. If we are working with Hedge ghosts to keep us safe, that's a lot better than the alternatives, and I don't want to mess around with that. From a Winter perspective, Golden Boy messing around with the Underworld gate like that was a big no-no. The last thing we want is folks thinking they can learn how to open gates and accidentally releasing all ghostly hell on the city. My main curiosity lays in why Fawkes involved himself in assisting Golden Boy. "

Lucas paused, wanting to give Kai a chance to share her thoughts, and see what her reaction to all of this was.

There were times that Lucas often found himself wishing his thoughts were more in line with most of the Lost he came across. Their focus was on the survival of those they cared and about and themselves. The great picture didn't matter as long as they could keep their people safe and close. No one was holding him accountable to going any further down this rabbit hole other than himself.

He sighed heavily, strumming his finger against the lid of his drink.

He had walked away from two difficult situations in his life before without giving it any further thought. He couldn't bring himself to do it a third time, not when someone else could get hurt because he wasn't brave enough to press forward. Could he forgive himself if Rowan went too deep and got injured or worse? The Fairest' mind drifted back to Ostara, recalling how timid Rowan had been during that time but he was still giving it his best. Rowan had also made it clear that he was worried about Golden Boy and he wasn't going to stop until he figured out what happened to him. Lucas could share that much with Rowan. However, he suspected that would only drive Rowan's ambition rather than bring him any sense of closure.

Damn it.

"Call me Alice because I have to go all the way down this rabbit hole until I find the Ghost Wonderland. Roger told me that the normal ghosts were "around" but he didn't elaborate beyond that. I'm not high enough standing in Winter that I can push for more information without raising red flags or end up like Golden Boy." He added with a frown.

"What I need to do is pledge to a Knight who is on Team Forging Good Relations with the Other Courts. In theory, we should all be on that team. In practice, we've seen that's clearly the case. I don't think we can push forward with our current arrangement because this is bigger than the both of us. My thought is we either consider the pledge satisfied or we find a pledge smith to rework it. What we need is a trustworthy, capable Fall courtier to work with us so we can tap into the bigger occult picture. As well as a trustworthy, socially savvy Spring Courtier who we can keep an ear out in Spring and report back to us. That way, we have all of our bases covered."

Lucas listened to what Kai said and she made a lot of sense. The Wyrd still had the oath in place so there was more work for them to do.

He slowly nodded his head in concession.

"You're right, Kai. It's up to the Wyrd. I'm just...frustrated. "

With his freehand, he gestured in front of him.

"I can see the big picture starting to form. Whoever is behind all of this is a powerful Gravewight. It's not someone who is on the books because they would need to be deep in the Wyrd to pull off what they are doing. Which leads me to believe it's likely someone in Fall or Winter. Probably Winter because well...most of our stuff is unknown.

I can tell that Roger is telling me what I want to hear so that I'll leave the whole thing alone. They've likely rounded up all the ghosts in part so someone like me can't stroll up to the ghosts and ask them what's going on.

I agree that it's dangerous but this isn't good, Kai. My honest fear is that they are rounding up ghosts, shoving then into the Underworld through that gate, and then pulling them back out. When ghosts spend time in the underworld they become more powerful. They could have a friggen ghost farm going on and they are using the ghosts like cattle. Plumping them up and then booting them into the rites.

I've been trying to dive into the mindset of what I would do if I was higher up in the Wyrd, and that's what I would do if I needed more power. "

Sometimes Lucas felt like he was standing in the middle of a fire, screaming at everyone there was a fire, but no body was moving because they couldn't see the fire. Such was the life of a Gravewight.

He took another long sip of his drink and suddenly found himself wishing he had ordered donuts as well. His body could use the delicious, carb fueled serotonin boost.

"Okay, so think of the universe as being like a radio. There are different stations on different frequencies. You and I are currently in 97.9 WTFVEGAS. We can only hear the music that's been played on this station. The next station is Twilight. Turn the dial over and you get into the frequency that Hedge ghosts hangout in. The last frequency is the underworld where all the ghosts hangout.

There's a lot that I don't know about the Underworld and most living beings don't either. It is an endless abyss of death that has various powerful ghostly entities who run the place. Hence why the Gentry created Gravewights.

A Gravewight who is deeply connected with the Wyrd is going to remember all the places they traveled in the underworld, who they met, what they wanted, and all that.

With this theoretical ghost cattle farm, one of two things is happening.

Either one, we are trouncing around in someone's territory, taking their property, and doing whatever we want with it. When we get caught, whoever is in charge is going to be pissed.

The more likely outcome is this powerful Gravewight remembers past dealings and is working with those ghosts or whoever to set up the cattle farm. The thought of these mysterious, powerful, ghostly creatures gaining resources from us makes me uncomfortable for one. I admit, this bad feeling could also be my subconscious freaking out because something about this faintly reminds me of my Durance."

He leaned back into his chair while he worked through his thoughts.
"On top of all of that, ghosts do not want to go to the Underworld. During the reverent crisis, I watched ghosts get sucked into the Underworld. One of them even cried out that they had did as they were told so they didn't understand why they are being punished. Which also leads me to believe the the ghost had been in the Underworld before, yanked out and shoved into animals, and then punted back into the Underworld.

They are going to fight tooth and nail to get away.

And if nothing else, I don't want a Reverent Crisis 2.0 with even more powerful ghosts."

"Thanks, you're a life saver."

Lucas accepted the offered donut and practically inhaled it. The rush of sugar, carbs, and serotonin was already helping him feel better. Especially when he topped it off with even more sugary goodness after taking a sip of his drink.

"I've got some theories on that. As we are hashing this out, some other ideas are coming into my mind. Gates to the Underworld are exceptionally difficult to open up. Think about the radio stations and how 99% of the time, the only station you here is the correct station.  Some radio stations share similar frequency points. Think about when you've been on a road trip and you're driving further and further away from your home. Your usual radio stations start to get fuzzy and they can bleed into a different radio station when you end up in a new region. The underworld and the world we live in similarly need a unique set of conditions to overlap with each other.

The first "condition" a underworld gate needs in order to naturally open up is it needs an area where there's been a lot of death. Now, I very much doubt Buck allowed a massive murder spree to happen in his back yard, which is why we can narrow down a Gravewight was involved in that gate. We also know there's a lot of political tension at the moment among the different courts and within the courts. Queen Philicia coming to power was marred with a lot of controversy within her own court."


He took out his notebook and scribble down his theories. He read them out loud to Kai as he wrote them down.

1) Buck is partnered with this mysterious, powerful Gravewight, who is likely in Fall or Winter. Most likely Winter.
2) Queen Philicia is attempting to open an Underworld gate in the area that the Ostara rite took place. There were enough dead bodies there that the land could meet the condition of Death. After the condition of death is made, another gate opens up: Avernian gate. The Avernian gate then requires a "key" to open it up and turn it into an underworld gate.
-Did queen Philicia switch to a new power fuel because a) she had met the Death condition b) this allowed her to flex to her political allies that she also has access to an Underworld Gate and she can make it more powerful because she can openly make Lost contribute glamor to it

Lucas tapped his pen against his note pad.

"In a nutshell, what the ghosts maybe getting out of this is they are having more Underworld Gates opened up for them that they would not be able to make on their own. This allows the more powerful Ghosts to be able to leave the Underworld and come to the land of the living. By living the Underworld, they can come to the surface and accept the gifts of glamour that we are giving to them to make them more powerful.

The reason I am worried about there before more nefarious reasons behind this is because of what happened with the Reverent Crisis. The ghosts knew that they were going back to the Underworld. This is not something ghosts intrinsically know. Most ghosts are weak, empty, mindless echoes of who they used to be. The fact that the ghost was afraid is very telling. I was too tired at the time to make sense of the significance of that interaction. We also know that the Leviathan Motley was messing around with something called the Old Laws to create new rituals."

He returned to his note pad, creating a diagram which he once again read out loud.

"For Us: Underworld Gate=Access to Powerful cattle ghost form=powerful ritual fodder (Rites, Wards, Reverents)=probably secrets being exchanged between Lost and Powerful Underworld Lords
For the UW Leaders: Underworld Gate=More Places they can Surface=They can go up to the surface and get lots and lots of glamour to feed on+ Queen Philicia is now offering them their own powerful Lost Cattle Farm to feed on=they may have their own powerful ritual fodder & access to secrets."

Lucas drew a doodle of a ghost cow and a Lost cow.

"Here's why this has the potential to be bad
1) With political tensions being what they are, someone pulls a Leviathan 2.0, and abuses the situation.
2) The Gentry catch wind of what's happening. They send a GW they control to the Underworld to figure out which ghosts we are doing business with. The GW is able to persuade the Ghosts into learning more about our rite secrets.

Hence my wanting to vet a Spring Courtier and a Fall Courtier. We can have the Fall Courtier find out what the Old Laws are and see if they can uncover the research the Leviathan Motley were working on. Then, we can have the Spring Courtier look into the Spring Political situation and get a sense of the current political factions within the Court. Any recommendations for either party that I could try feeling out and seeing if we can get them on board to discretely look into these matters?"

"Underworld gates aren't that hard to close even for less potent Gravewights. I could close it right now if I wanted to. I would be surprised if Noir wasn't able to.  Granted, like you warned me about earlier, maybe Buck doesn't want to escalate the situation but on some level he has to be allowing it to continue. Queen Philicia might not be that much of a Wizard but whose to say that there isn't someone sworn to her that is?"

He thought back on all the information he had picked up on recently.

"There have been rumbles about Queen Philicia convincing Alexandrite to pick up the sword again. Concerns have been raised about that because he has multiple dead monarchs under his belt. She has also been meeting with Mitch Carr recently. It's possible that she is trying to get her to swear a knight's pledge, but that would be an unpopular move.  Maybe it's not connected but it feels to me like she is gearing up for something, especially after the declaration at Ostara. I've also heard rumor that she has a lover.  I don't suppose you have any insight into any of the above that I could use to broker with The Magpie? The Magpie is a Spring Courtier who has employed Golden Boy as a errand boy in the past. Even if none of it is connected to what's going on with the Underworld, finding out about Queen Philicia's motives when so many Spring are feeling nervous or why the Queen of desire is hiding her lover, is valuable information to any member of the Verdant court. If the Magpie has any insight on why GB was messing around with the gates or who might know, I should be able to make that exchange with him."