Chapter Text
You are an employee at The Magnus Institute. The archivist, in fact. Upon accepting the job offer and realizing the scope of your work, you asked your new boss, the head of the Institute, if maybe there was room in the budget for a second archivist because surely this was far too much tedious work for one to get through in a decent amount of time.
Your boss reminded you that you have assistants.
You asked if the assistants could help with the actual archiving instead of just research.
They said no, there can only be one person directly managing the archive at a time.
You asked why.
They said consistency.
You said hm.
They said anything else?
There wasn’t anything else. Well, there was, but you’re sure it would continue down a similar line of thought.
So, sure, you have a lot of, well, it honestly feels like busy work, even though you understand the importance of an auditory option for manuscripts. Surely typing it up and using speech to text would be better? Either way, you have a lot of work that isn’t your favorite sort of work, but there was also a lot of research to go along with it. And that’s why you were here. Just something to put your Library Sciences degree to use. The field was more competitive than you had cared to consider before going through with it.
Your boss offers faint protests any time you spend “too much time” researching, especially if you leave the Institute to do so, insisting that’s why you have assistants. And your assistants are great! Not specialized in, well, anything you would expect them to be, (you think one was something computer or tech related and the other… biology? Or maybe it was something more specialized) but the pair do a great job when you have need of them and brighten up the floor to boot. You also kind of sort of technically have the Head of Artifact Storage under you, but you haven’t had a need to associate with him all too often as of yet.
Regardless, you need to stretch your brain (and sometimes your legs) more than what is required recording statements and parsing the information provided to you by your assistants, and today’s case seemed like a good excuse to stretch both.
The statement was surprisingly recent and involved a gentleman watching his friend be pulled off the side of a cliff by some unseeable force and then released. If that wasn’t odd enough, the friend apparently fell up rather than down. The man had not reported this to the police for fear of becoming a murder suspect, and somehow the Institute was under no obligation to report such things to the authorities. One of your assistants (it’s been over a month but you’re still terrible with their names) confirmed that the friend had, indeed, been missing in the two months since the statement, and while you’re sure the trail ends there, you have the urge to investigate the cliffside for yourself.
The ride to the location was relatively far away and you didn’t know your assistants quite well enough as of yet to request one of them to join you on the trip, so you let them off early for the day and set off on your own.
When you park and make your way up the hill (a short hike that leaves you more out of breath than it should), you see someone sitting on the edge, legs dangling over it, posture relaxed. You don’t want to startle them, so you cough and stomp your feet a bit as you approach.
As you get closer, you can now tell the person appears to be a young man with dark hair wearing a blue hoodie with an oddly long hood -- almost like a windsock.
“A lovely view,” he says when you’re a few paces behind him.
You’re a bit startled, though you have no reason to be. “Ah, yes,” is all you’re able to get out.
He turns and smiles at you in a way you’d describe as mischievous and, well, not malicious, but not not malicious. “I wondered when you’d come by.”
You swallow. “Sorry?”
The sun glints off of his glasses and, while his smile doesn’t change, you feel his expression has. He laughs and it sounds like wind chimes and it sounds wrong . “You lot are always so stupid when you start out.”
You bristle, your irritation taking over the anxiety bubbling in your gut. “Do I know y--”
Before you finish, the man launches himself off of the edge.
You jolt forward, scrambling to -- you don’t know -- catch him?? But by the time you reach him, he’s gone. You peer over the edge and he’s just… gone.
When you return to the institute, your boss welcomes you back with the same polite disinterest you’ve grown accustomed to. You’re not sure if your poker face is just that good or your boss just cares that little, but you’d wager the latter.
The floor is silent, devoid of the usual chatter and bustle of your assistants. You could go home, probably should, but you head into your office to take notes and brainstorm some possible explanations for what you saw. Is there a hallucinogen being released in the area? Like from some odd plant life or maybe a pocket of gas in the earth recently released? You immediately chide yourself for what is obviously a ridiculous explanation, but what your eyes tell you that you saw is only moreso.
You shake your head and open the door, then pause in the doorway. There is a bulky envelope waiting for you on your desk. This normally wouldn’t cause any alarm, but this one is topped with a large and intricate blue bow which is, at the very least, out of the ordinary.
You carefully slide the bow off and set it aside then open the packet and tilt it until its contents slide out onto your desk. Out falls what looks to be several statements, a sealed note addressed to “The Latest Schlub,” and a small blue pocket knife. You use the knife to open the letter then twirl it absently in your hand as you read.
New guy/girl/who cares,
It looks like you’re finally getting acquainted with the hazards of the job, so I figured it was time to give you some hints on shit to come. I’m always amazed at the clueless idiots the ol’ boss manages to find for this gig, but that’s the way they like ‘em. A word of advice not buried in quite as much obtuse bullshit as everything else you’ll be getting: Windy-boy is harmless enough, but next time bring some fucking back up before you head to a potential murder site. Most of us don’t actively want to do you in, but you’re a goddamned tasty steak and we’re just some hungry beasts -- some more literally than others.
But seriously, kid, don’t screw this up. I got shit riding on you.-- V :::;)
PS: Don’t bother snitching to Cannary -- they already know.
This is the second time today some mysterious stranger has called you an idiot. You are not keen on this being a pattern. You are not keen on much that was said in that letter, nor the writer trying to dissuade you from telling your boss, and, glancing at the statements, you are not too keen on them, either.
All in all, it seems very much like tomorrow’s problem and a wonderful excuse to utilize your assistants (and maybe memorize their names) as your desire to research what is probably some strange prank is at an all time low.
The knife is in your pocket and the papers are in your drawer and you head home, eager to forget the odd but certainly inconsequential threats suggested in the letter. Maybe it was all just some weird new boss hazing.
You do not notice the extra door that appeared on your floor, nor the spider resting on its handle, watching you as you leave.