8 - Investigations

The floating portraits of lost undertakers pass to be thrown into the recycling system. Room pocket dimsional flats in a painting that have been abandoned or that the pairs that shared these are no longer part of the current kingdom realm. Folks stepping in cleaning out these pil painting leave them to be barely furnished and ready to be moved into new partners or single occupied rooms. There was folks putting things into throw piles or put a sort of equivalents a yard sale.

"Wow..." A person crawled put from a blacken frame, "This one isn't useable." Thier cleaners partner helps them getting up from that, "Everything in there was wrong."

"Salt then..." The nod and they move the frame to the spirit erasing. When a room was beyond repair or just damaged like this one is. Then they have dip the frame into soul salt, erasing it into pure material. Its what should happen, but the frame did not melt like ice in flames. nothing was happening, "This is a first." The moved it out of the salt.

"Hey, you sure no one is in there?" pointed to the attention that the image was changing. They look to each other and moved around to the front. Links of broken chains shot from the image, these chains pulled the painting to float once again and that it hung about the ceiling. Freaked out of this happening to someone, they block the image closed - preventing anyone in or out. Put to quarantine until someone higher ranking with fighter abilities, maybe a diplomatic attempts later. There was no taking chances. Fallen undertakers have used frames to evade drop to hell before. Normally the salt process would send the spirits within portraits forcefully off kingdom.

There to many questions with why this black frame is here and who owned it. Chains that keeps it hung up were fragle looking, imperfect links that shouldn't be staying in single uniform. Narlled and bitten chains that were blasted as badly as the internal contain of the room itself.

"Those links look familiar." Long pink hair peering around the sale floor, looking mostly for illegal items and evidence towards any cases on behalf of the monarch. He was alone while he has teams of those sharing his uniform throwing about the rubbish piles. A hand out with a old frail notepad of over scralled notes. He flicks pages seeking details from so long ago.

"Riddle! We have something here." The latest room frame was tipped over, spilling undresses husks. Missing folks that that been missing for a while. Same murderer and same methods. Clawed hands tearing core out and spin cords pulled out and refed into the body. Clay models with wire skeletons on show, as this is how they are in this realm. If they were among the living world. They looked like then been reconfigured by a bear with posable thumbs.

Riddle took out his current notepad, a sleeker leather book with the top right cut with patterns. He makes critical notes of the how they posed and the likely way the were in a frame. The frame was sent here due to being pinned behind abnormal placed furniture. Intended to not be found and to be left unassuming.

Reported around the time that Monarch Shock was suspecting abnormal missing names in the duty tomes and there been several shuffles of bad news from neighborhood undertaker kingdoms. There was a group of seven names missing among angels, the demon hunter court seekers and group comprised in seven undertakers, from two kingdoms. Lady Queen Faust sent word of seven missing gods from her realm. Just that few to many coincidentally abnormalities. Seven dead undertaker husks without clothes and brutally misshapen poses. According to the notes, the seven angels were missing their clothes and wings. Every feather. Wing bones of demon imp wings found in location of the angel corpses. The angel wing bones and some flesh found in a pocket realm where the demons were without clothes. Weapons missing. No bites, not in God slayer reach. To many sevens and missing clothes. The valuable harvested parts missing, like particularly the demon hearts, scales and horns. Just as the angels were harvested, their feathers and eyes. Only the angels are missing thier eyes. none found. There seems no additional added things to the undertakers, but they were harvested. Missing rings, souls and faces. Just noticed that the faces were ripped off. All of it so barbaric.

"Lord Riddle! The plastic work in the hallway has been disturbed, a blocked doorway is leaking!" Books away and at moment of caught a glimpse of the frame room inside.

"Seal that. Now!" He commands and the team block the frame, "Not even darkness will seep out." He posed and spoke the chant. Binding the frame. To many years of the unseen has haunted him, made aware that a living person could see things they can't. He noted the burnt frame being placed beside this frame. Makes notes. He frowns at the chains binding, knowing these chains meant something deep in himself.

"Show the way. Team please continue, I expect details in everything that seems out of place. The contains of this tipped room of corpses is left no part unturned." Nods and lowering back to harsh work. He leaves for this leak issue. They sighed to finally relax a little easier.

"He use to be lass harsh." A veteran speaking up to the newbies, "I don't know the circumstances but he had broken or almost broken a law we can't. Although the person he nearly killed wasn't a undertaker like us." They flip bodies, lay them in a more respectful manner and cloth over.

"But she been gone for 80 human turn overs. Time has rewind back so many times, no return of that girl." Another long stay.

"It must have been Trickster." A gossip listener makes an educated guess.

"Worse, she was not only a book keeper. She was a Seer." A moody one shoveling rubble bits, "A living Trickster. She lived to her name."

"as a Trickster."

"Tricky Trickster. A rogue that hated the Seer family. We used her to get all the juicy gossip. When her problems were to much for us, the order of execution came. There was of course problems with trying to kill a living human."

"Time cut into rewind at the moment she should have died." The partners shurg together of where this gossip was getting to.

"She has a perfound deep affect over Riddle. She changed him. No a single monarch or previous partners had ever did that." Moody throwing a shovel deep through and glares at them all, "His voice had even changed. He was softer and mute in his orders. He did gestures only. Now he commands."

"Sometimes it takes someone special to hold your better self accountable." A worker from the recycling team speaking into this, being on the nose with holding a real mirror, "Mirrors here in this realm shows what our souls see of ourselves." The use the mirror in pointing to a body, "So in theory..." They peer confused and look of how there was a shadow off the body laying at the floor. Missing something quiet important for a shadows. A whisper of darkness are mean to have masks of white, they are missing them. Hand holding back inky streams where this mask is missing.

"Who taught you this?" The mood one peering between reflection and area, "How is this even working?"

"That human you were just gabbing about." The worker leaned, "She use to have a frame of her own. Asked for furniture and was here asking why the mirrors weren't working for her." the spy team looks to each other in this juicy gossip, "I thought it was wrong to. She stopped looking for a mirror and requested something else." They all pause in listening.

"What was it?"

"A bowl that can hold holy water, that the bottom of the bowl had to be pastel or grey." There was snapping fingers of some folks.

"Riddle has that bowl still in his room."

"Not filled in holy water for sure." someone whose been in there without Riddles permission, "He maybe OCD but he doesn't keep it filled of anything."

"Hey folks, what would you think this was?" Lifting a mangled bits. Not bone but maybe necklaces. Pulling more of this, seems connected to itself from length to length. A off bit dangles mid sections.

"Religious necklaces being string in a continuous line." They carefully worked as a team to follow the thread without pulling it more.

"Stangling all the corpses, no binding them all." The turn of looking at the mirror of what the thread looked like. Dropped instantly.

"Sinner chain." More looking into the binding and where the other end could lead into.

"Oh, that is not cool." Someone beating to the punch, backing off, "Slayer corpse over here." The few rush over.

"Tangled in the last necklace length."

"The corpse of this slayer is been harvested like the others. Look. Spinal removed and replaced in. Teeth harvested. Scales." Kicked the corpse around, "Skull removed but flesh intact to the shape. Organs missing." peering into the more important part, "Ugh never good." Removal of a crushed god slayer egg, the guarantee of this soul not taking back this body.

"Something that hunts hunters." A cleaner pondering, "For sport. Taking trophies with them." They posed, "As a ex deer hunter myself. I know that the blood was dripped harvested. That's a slow and painstaking task. Clearly someone with expertise in the vein patterns of this creature for ample harvest yield."

"You know... Talking about living undertaker like Tricky. She couldn't use our chants without objects. She wouldn't have to stoop this low to use scrap materials, nor would she kill a god slayer. Anyone that met her would know she's a lover of pets." The cleaner with the mirror and directing it to the god slayer corpse. They all peer about this reflection. Another living world object but this time it can't be touched by any undertakers. Living world silver on a ornately made dagger. Looks more like a mantel peice decorative piece then a fighting tool. Details was exactly what Riddle will be getting in his report of corpse remain findings. The god slayer egg was a broken orb that can be mistake as a fortune tellers tool. To put it off further was living world dust over the object, like it did sit as a decoration once.

"Shattered glass that contained living world salt." In this realm, it has a black grain appearance that wobbles like jelly in touch. The more melted the older the salt is, the less potent it becomes. This salt was to old and ineffective, even when it was used on the slayer. The specked hits of this was imaginable if the skull stretched the face skin correctly.

"So there is Tricksters at play, maybe a Seer or three." Posing theory in the hard workers.

"If you think so." The pattern of claws that held to many things. Claws pricked through the wing bones. This isn't human. Something smart as one. Then again, still a percentage of it being a human. Maybe a rouge demon or outsider of the realms. There is some sections that even undertakers weren't allowed access into catalog of soul and soulless. This would be nice to peer into about now.

"She had a frame?" a newbie pondered.

"Yeah, the burnt one over here." The worker pointed, "Or maybe it was stolen off realm and this frame replaced it." They shook, "The wood isn't standardized and we can't erase it."

The mirror is now posed at the burnt door, revealing that it is not the door that was in a state of decay. Instead it was wrapped totally in a clothy material which was torn and patchworked. The narrled chains that lifted it to float chokes around the door, sealing it on abnormal methods. In not using the mirror and inspecting the doorway frist hand, the door was intwind with living cord. However the quality of this cord is nothing scrap of shabby as the corpses. The clean worker is right, Tricky used new bought materials for this exclusive intent. Everything about this burnt frame was out of preservation, there is arguing the thought that the cloth material was camouflage to blend in the door. Until this camouflage was compromise.

"Wouldn't Riddle recognize his ex partners door?" Posing another question from the newbie.

"If it wasn't covered in camouflage, then yeah. Here we all thing it was burnt. It's the material that kept the door hidden that was ruined." The surface of the burnt binding door has even older remains of many attempts of salt and ashes. It seems that attempts over the past has failed at getting rid of this door. It be hard to keep having a reminder of your dead partners hung still hanging around. Or maybe there was attempts to get into the room.

Two very different door frames, similar uses of materials. But one was a sloppy job with concealing methods being amateur and crude. Tricky's door was done with care, everything about it is done internally. Even the way the cord is tied around is so well done that no one can pick to untie it. Further in the unknown material keeping door refined and ageless, there is nothing in any textbook that would explain what it's made of.

"Silver ornate living dagger. Religious necklaces of living world origin. Amateur killing and hiding of bodies. Lack of regard of respect. Missing from books but their duty has continued to being worked. It's true..." A worker shook, "This place is no longer lawful if there is spies around from the Tricksters."

Blades lifting out from hidden places and fake workers melt into made creatures. These things are built to one reason, which was to serve their creator. Clearly here to clean up amateurs mess. Battle comes swiftly of those wanting to make sure the reports to Riddle are on time or just to stick around a while longer. Sparks fly of strength to the blades. This will not be settled any moment soon.