Chapter Text
PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Easy: Failure] - You wake to the smell of roses.
LOGIC [Easy: Success] - No, it’s the middle of Revachol’s winter.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Easy: Success] - Rose, or its scientific name Rosa, only blooms in the late spring through the fall months. It has a major blooming flush in the early summer months of June and July.
YOU - What you are smelling is the remnants of a half-eaten lychee jelly. It sits upon the nightstand. A sterling silver spoon sits next to it, dirtied with the trace evidence of lychee jelly.
UNCONSUMED LYCHEE JELLY - WHY WILT THOU NOT FINISH ME OFF? WHY LEAVEST THOU ME UNCONSUMED? MINE BODY IS LUKE-WARM. THOU HAST SOILED SAID HOLY COMMUNION OF MY BODY FOR WHAT?
COMPOSURE [Easy: Failure] - Your stomach churns, empty. Like a washing machine with no linens to spin.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - You turn your neck to face the nightstand. You want to see the crime scene with your own, true eyes.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] - Your neck cricks, and the heat of pain triumphs over your cervical. You slept on it wrong. Your body weeps in outcry. Sweat pools across your skin.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Failure] - Why the fuck is it so hot in here? Did you fall asleep mid-sex, you old man?
LOGIC [Easy: Success] - No, you did not fall asleep mid-sex, your pants still on - and your button-up shirt - and your loafers - and socks - and your sock garters. You are in full business attire.
VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Progress the page, continue breathing through your oxygen-supporting lungs. Dust the sleep off your shoulders.
- CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium] - Think about what you were doing before you slept.
- COMPOSURE [Easy] - Go back to sleep.
- Breathe
- EMPATHY [Challenging] - Beg the lychee jelly for forgiveness.
YOU - You suck in a gasp of air and release it from its captivity in your lungs a moment later. You will repeat this action until you die. Yet, you are only aware of its perpetual motion for a minute.
- CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium] - Think about what you were doing before you slept.
- COMPOSURE [Easy] - Go back to sleep.
- Breathe (Again)
- EMPATHY [Challenging] - Beg the lychee jelly for forgiveness.
YOU - Retracing the steps of the last night, you are faced with the muddled footprints in your shoe size. It’s clear that sleeplessness has unwound the threads of events of the previous night.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Failure] - I bet we had a shit ton of booze and drugs. Then we had a shit ton of drugs and booze. You know, to mix it up. Then Lieutenant double-yefreitor Harrier Du Bois got fucked up and amnesia, again.
PERCEPTION (SMELL) - Sniffing your button-up shirt for the lovely poison that is called alcohol, you are only met with the mixture of laundry detergent and sweat. Your sweat is acting as the heavier lifter of the two.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Oh, never mind then.
YOU - You try to shrug off the shroud of sleepiness that wraps around your sweaty forty-four-year-old body. Sleep still sticks to the corners of your body, but your grown awareness leaves it overlooked.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - You sit up. Reaching your hands up towards your face and rubbing your face, you are met with the sight of what is best described as a shit ton of papers around you. The RCM logo is on almost every paper.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] - OWIE. OUR NECK. STILL.
CONCEPTUALIZATION - We fell asleep doing paperwork again. Made our bed out of very important paperwork that you needed to get done.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - The very important paperwork is only a small collection of the current case that you are assigned to. Case File: RE-CJ-27280. Revachol, Central Jamrock, and a number system that you can only describe as assigned by magical archivists punching in random numbers. Kim told you what the numbers meant, although you remember the idea of magical archivists was much better than what Kim said. These numbers are good, maybe.
SHIVERS - A woman sits in the plush rolling chair of her office. Her “office” is closer to a closet that is kitty-corner to the record room. It’s clustered, and objects pile onto one another. Yet, everything has a place and setting. A cup of coffee with two creams and one sugar sits on a coaster. A white mug with “Archivists make it last longer!” holds her array of pens. She dances around the stacked papers with the gentle remembrance of the unliving objects in her office. The only living thing in the office is dying. Chrysanthemums in a glass vase weep under the fluorescent light of the room. Her knees ache with the passing rain and seasons change; despite the dull pain, she crosses the threshold that separates her office from the record room. She reaches and binds herself to the shelves of files. Each file documents a case the RCM followed. She needs no legend or guide to direct her, as she is the legend herself. Each file is caressed into its rightful spot upon a metal shelf. Case File: RE-CJ-27280 is on the homicide-labeled bookshelf, on the middle shelf between the felony-murder and voluntary manslaughter. She has perfect control over her kingdom of papers, despite the dying Chrysanthemums.
TASK GAINED - Bring the Archivist Chrysanthemums.
DRAMA - The true, ACTUAL name of the case is Four of Swords, my liege.
ENCYCLOPEDIA - Tarot Cards are a deck of seventy-eight cards. Divided into two parts, the Major and Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana are made up of twenty-two cards, which follow the story of the Fool’s journey from innocence to completion. The Major Arcana symbolizes stages of growth and transformation of the reader. The Major Arcana unveil the fundamental archetypes of perceived human existence. The Minor Arcana are the rest of the deck, or fifty-seven cards, that are further divided into four suits. The four suits are Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. The Minor Arcana symbolizes the intricacies of daily life, with the cards illustrating the events and steps required to complete the larger picture of the Major Arcana. The Four of Swords can be seen as a moment of rest, with a knight lying under three swords with the fourth underneath him. The knight's hands are in prayer, looking at the child and woman depicted by the stained glass above them.
DRAMA - Kim did say we might have to start changing it up with the names because we are going to run out of cards. Also, he doesn’t like them, you can tell, but he tolerates it because Case File: RE-CJ-27280 is a mouthful.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Know what else is a mouthful? Wink Woak.
YOU - You gather the forgotten collection of sleep-crushed papers. You place it neatly on your bedside table, next to the package of unconsumed lychee jelly.
UNCONSUMED LYCHEE JELLY - AYE, MILORD. ALLOWETH ME TO SERVE MINE OWN PURPOSE. DOTH NOT FORGET ME. OR ELSE BE A WASTED SINNER.
- Consume the lukewarm lychee jelly.
- Put it in the fridge to halt its decay.
- Leave it on the bedside table.
YOU - Picking up the cadaver of the lychee jelly, you march it over to your stale kitchenette that your apartment houses. The fridge hums its song of perseverance and flashes you its cool light while you open its door. You lower the jelly onto the plastic shelves of the fridge. It's fairly lonely there.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - You can count the number of objects of food using only one hand. A dozen eggs, leftover takeout from a restaurant that you didn’t like, a dish of butter, a bunch of apples, and wrapped, sliced ham from the local deli across the street. On top of the fridge lies a loaf of bread housed in a wooden breadbox. It is enough to last you for breakfast and lunch.
TASK GAINED - Go grocery shopping.
You - Breathing in the stale air of your apartment, you fall into the routine that has been shaped over the past couple of months. Make breakfast, which today consists of fried eggs and toast, take your medication, shower, brush your teeth, stare in the mirror, run pomade through your mullet and chops, iron your shirt, get dressed, grab your wallet, keys, and RCM files, put your shoes on by the door, and leave for the day.
INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - You remember to lock the door to your apartment. It is a fragile lock and can be easily picked, as you have picked it yourself various times before, after leaving your keys at the precinct. Despite its lackluster security, it still makes you feel better once you lock it. It feels as if the click of the lock is the final note in the song that is your morning routine. A conductor must finish the performance.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION - Holding the files under your arm, you began your march to Precinct 41.