Witchers of Nifelheim

"In that case... whats are our murder victims races. If no unicorns have died we can perform a wide sweep of the area choppers and dogs, everything because its likely the suspect slash suspects reside in this area and is indeed a unicorn. Or the opposite their all unicorns and an earth pony is seeking vengance." She sighs leaning back in her seat, "These car rides are getting incredibly uncomfortable."

"According to witness accounts, the killer was an earth pony" Amy quietly said, wrapping herself in her arms:
"... a man in his late fifties, graying hair, with shining eyes and sword aflame. An earth pony, who can cast magic.


Among his victims were, two earth ponies, a pegasi, and three unicorns" she looked away:
"...I... I feel.... incredibly uneasy... the further we advance in this case...
There's so much pain attached to everything... I don't know how long I can keep going like this"



The cars slowly turned and pulled to a gentle stop next to a five floored factory. A large complex, with red bricked walls. Its tall windows were all dark. The factory was quiet.


Five batpony's in civilian outfits awaited you, by the entrance.

As you begin to exit the cars and walk towards them, a man in dirty clothes emerged out of the factory and fixed you with a heavy gaze.
It took him only a few seconds to connect the dots between the same colored SUV's and the military uniforms, before he loudly swore on Tesian and angrily kicked a metal trashcan.


The trash can flew a meter away to the side, scattering its contents across the courtyard.


"FUCK!!!" the man loudly screamed, his voice was mixed with anger and despair. He grabbed his head with both hands and locked it, trying to shield it from the world:


"....who was it..." he quietly called on Soren, without looking at you.


"Pardon?" Harlequin quietly asked, stepping out of the vehicle.


"...every time you government types show up-.. its to tell me another one of my workers had been brutally murdered" the man in the dirty clothes said:
"So who was it this time... which one of my workers died?..." he looked at you.

His expression was miserable.

Still sitting in the car, Twilight lowered her head when the mention of the unicorns murdering everyone came up. If one could see her face, they could see regret.

She had her copy of the map in front of her, as she had been tracing with her finger over the locations to see what it made.

After a moment of reflection, she stepped out and softly spoke.

"Hey, about these murders, I have some questions about a specific murder. See, without the fourth murder, the figure we make looks a lot like a "7" or a capital "L". Maybe with a next murder to elongate it. But the fourth murder deviates from that line. Are there any specifics about that different then the others?"

"Charee." Rain says with brutal honesty and an unemotional gaze, "we are actually here to investigate a little, Im sure you dont mind us asking some questions yes? Preferably in your office." She crosses her arms.

When the man's loud exclamations were heard across the area, the purple princess gave a quiet thanks to the fact most here probably did not understand the specific swears. Putting her question on hold for now, she spoke to the group.

"Don't speak up without thinking. This is a delicate situation."

She went ahead to him, speaking to him in her most polite Tesian possible.

"Sir, I'm sorry we have to inform you on a death once again. Truely, I understand the depth of your grief must be great in many ways. If it's not too much, let's go inside, I'll inform you there. It's probably a little more comfortable then with a bunch of soldiers looking at you."

She reaches out her hand. "Is that okay, sir?"

Kaylee Brown wrote:"Roger that ma'am" the radio switched off.



"Lets see" Amy began tapping away on the keyboard:

"Mmm... its seems that Barret Carrel Age: 23, Alesya Wion Age: 19 and Charee Gillon Age: 21, were living in rented apartments.
While Mark Buote Age: 61, Denis Voyer Age: 45 and Viau Zay Age: 53, were living in their own private apartments.

It appears only Charee Gillon and Alesya Wion used the factory's company help, to find their living apartments.
Everyone else used their own private connections or sources to find theirs."


She looked away and typed something on her keyboard: "Now, lets mark the murder sequence..." she checked the screen several times, then wrote down the numbers on the map:
"There" she said, nodding.












Amy looked at the map again, her expression slowly becoming grim:

"I don't know about magical or religious significance, but it has a historical one... its.. not good.


About 90 years ago, a crowd of unicorns gathered here and wiped themselves into a frenzy. Believing themselves to be superior, they found every earth pony they could reach and violently killed them.

A lynch mob swept across the area. Horror, chaos, fire and pain.
The streets ran red with innocent blood. The victims were never properly buried. Left on the street.


They say, if you start digging under the asphalt, you can still find their bones..." Amy wrapped herself in her arms and looked away.



A few seconds passed in silence, before Harlequin asked over the earpiece:
"Where exactly did this happen?"


"...right here..." Amy vaguely traced her hand around the printed map:
"This whole area you see on the map... its soaked with innocent blood. They died here, for nothing." she looked down.

"Bingo" Rogue snaps his fingers, sounding a tad too cheerful about that news. "That event could possibly've made this entire area a locus for forces on the darker side of the spectrum, with the locations of the present-day murders maybe overlappings places where particularly large numbers of the innocent died. What would the area've looked like back then, was the city still around, do we have a map of it?"

Twilight wrote:"Hey, about these murders, I have some questions about a specific murder. See, without the fourth murder, the figure we make looks a lot like a "7" or a capital "L". Maybe with a next murder to elongate it. But the fourth murder deviates from that line. Are there any specifics about that different then the others?"

Amy shook her head: "No, all the signs were the same. A completely burned body, in the middle of a pentagram, with the smell of rose hips present in the apartment."

Rogue wrote:That event could possibly've made this entire area a locus for forces on the darker side of the spectrum, with the locations of the present-day murders maybe overlappings places where particularly large numbers of the innocent died. What would the area've looked like back then, was the city still around, do we have a map of it?"

"The city was still around-" Amy began: "Though there were no skyscrapers or anything. All the houses were made of wood and stone, no taller than 2 floors. No good roads to speak of.
The district was densely populated. We don't have a map though, unfortunately."

She looked down: "...its.. hard to tell, where exactly large numbers of people died. The history only knows that it happened in this area.."

Rain wrote:"Charee." Rain says with brutal honesty and an unemotional gaze, "we are actually here to investigate a little, Im sure you dont mind us asking some questions yes? Preferably in your office." She crosses her arms.

Twilight wrote:"Sir, I'm sorry we have to inform you on a death once again. Truely, I understand the depth of your grief must be great in many ways. If it's not too much, let's go inside, I'll inform you there. It's probably a little more comfortable then with a bunch of soldiers looking at you."

She reaches out her hand. "Is that okay, sir?"

The man sighed in resignation: "Yeah, sure, whatever"
He feebly shook Twilight's hand, then turned around and started drifting into the factory.

You get the feeling he assumed you would follow him.


Amy grabbed her laptop and left the vehicles, together with Tom. Harlequin began following the man as well.
As you enter the factory, you suddenly find yourself in near darkness. The place was really big, with a tall ceiling, completely packed with conveyor belts and heavy machines.
The only source of light, were the tall windows at the front wall, but they did little to illuminate the entire massive area.


The man in dirty clothing marched across the entire floor, then went up a shaky metal staircase, up to a small office room, on the second floor.
A candle was burning there, on the table, the only source of light in this dark room with no electricity.


Upon entering the office, the man crashed into a moth eaten armchair and grabbed a bottle from the table. The bottle was already half empty, you couldn't read the label on Tesian, but you did notice the '40% alc'. mark on its ingredients.

The man was about to take a swig right from the bottle, then stopped and vaguely pointed it in your direction:
"Want some? I have a few glasses somewhere.."

He ducked under the table, fishing out a set of dusty glass mugs from a drawer.



"So..." he sighed, looking at you with an exhausted expression: "What did you want to know"

Looking at him, you get the feeling that the man had experienced severe episodes of anger, regret, hopelessness and despair, to the point where he was too exhausted to keep feeling those emotions, and was now too tired to react to anything.

Sand stays in the car as well. Preferring to discuss with the others over interacting with the clearly distraught man. She still takes the time to draw the scene in front of her.

"Also something to consider. Pentagrams have a tie to the elements as well. Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Spirit. Now aside from the Spirit aspect, which I think would have been the life if the victim, each of the other elements was there. The burn marks for Fire; Rose Hip and Dog Rose smell for Earth; flooded floor for Water; and the open window for Air."

"I think looking for places where those elements are all in one place would help."

Rain sets her hand on the table, learning from Fire that drinking with a man in shambles builds trust, "I'll take one." She says quitely leaning back in her chair. She raises her brow, "From first to last how long have people been going missing from here?"

Twilight took a seat in a chiar, if there was one left. She looked around, noticing how messy this place was.

~Man, he really let himself go. This room hasn't seen any cleaning in ages. This can't be all from just the electricity going away. But why is he still here? WHat keeps him in this place?~

She turned to him, politely holding up her hand.

"Thank you for the offer, but I prefer not to drink during work." She lowered her hand.

She put her hand to her chin, pondering what to ask first. When Rain asked her question, she gave her a quick, stern glance.

She raises her brow looking to the princess "Its a good question, Princess Twilight but do excuse me if im not one to put things lightly." She huffs, "Sugarcoating things just causes unnessisary problems. If you however would like to ask the same question in a diffrent way go right ahead."

"Missing?.. they didn't really go missing" the man sighed, pouring one of the glasses full and passing it to Rain, then pouring one for himself and emptying it in one go:

"Oh god, that's some good shit." The man coughed, tightly closing his eyes:

"So anyway...


It all went to shit pretty quick. First, the magic started to vanish, half of my machines began to shut down, had to send everyone home. Safety hazards an all.
Then, cops began showing up, every few hours, like clockworks. Telling me another one of my people was murdered.

Started.... about.. 4 days ago ya?" the man drunkenly swayed the bottle in your direction, pointing with it at you:
"Been going on like this, ever since. I shut down the factory. The machines stopped working entirely, and even if they did, no one would show up. I mean who the fuck would want to show up to work after that?"


The man emitted a hiccup, looking under his desk, at a stack of papers that were scattered on the floor there:

"...this whole affair. Its some shitty luck. Why is this happening to me?..." he mumbled to himself.





Amy set up her laptop on the desk, next to the candle and in front of the drunken man, and began typing away on her keyboard.
After a few moments, she pressed a finger to her earpiece:

"...Sand, I've checked the other crime reports. There was no flooding in the other crime scenes. No large puddles or traces of water.
It also appears that the other apartment floors were not made of wood and didn't had any inflammable objects near the pentagrams.

Its beginning to seem like, the only reason there was any water in the latest crime scene, was really because the killer tried to put out a fire, before it set the whole apartment complex ablaze. It appears to be a one time occurrence."


She thought for a moment: "I could try running a search for all of those 4 elements in the area, but its going to be extremely difficult to pinpoint a specific place. There's a lot of ground to cover, so it may take some time.
We should also consider that, the rules of magic, as we understand them, may not necessarily apply here.

If this earth pony is really casting magic, then he may be utilizing something completely unknown to us. The rules of magic, as we know them, may not apply to him at all.
The pentagrams may be driven by different elements, or different rules entirely.

There's still a lot of unknowns.." she said, falling into thought.

"Do we at least know if the roads followed the same grid layout as today?" Rogue asks Ash, having come with them inside.

"The main roads probably remained the same as back then, yeah" Amy said, thinking: "There were less buildings back then, so there were probably more roads back then, that don't exist anymore"


The man poured himself another glass and waved it in front of his eyes, staring at the splashing liquid inside:
"...anything else you guys wanted to know?" he emitted another hiccup.

Sand had reluctantly followed the group. She studies the office meticulously from her spot, leaning against a back wall to get the best view of the area.

The state of the office could only be described as an unholy mess. Stacks of folders laid in a heap, at the left side of the table. A bunch of scattered documents laid on the floor.
Numerous cardboard boxes, filled with more documents, were sitting against the walls.

A large piece of paper, was pinned to a notice board, at the far end of the office. Squinting at it, through the dim candle light, you could make out the words 'Work Shift Roster' printed at the top of the paper.

The table drawers didn't look any more neat either. Some were left half open, with numerous documents sticking outside. A landline telephone was sitting on the desk, with a fine layer of dust covering its surface, especially prominent in the candle light.


The drunken man looked at his glass again and heavily placed it on the table. His eyes are half closed now. It looks like he might pass out, if left to his own devices.

"But we can't confirm where these extra roads were?" Rogue asks Ash, as he wanders over to the work shift roster, to see if all of the victims had any connections there, such as being on duty at the same time.

"We could submit a request to the mayors office" Amy said, thinking: "Maybe they have some old maps in the archive somewhere"


As you begin to examine the roster, you are at first assaulted by a wall of text. It appears that well over 300 people were employed at this factory.
The roster was divided into pairs of columns: Day shift and Night Shift, with a date written above each one.

The roster only displayed the schedule for the past week, but there were still a lot of names to cover. You spend close to 10 minutes looking over the lists of people, trying to find the familiar names, when you are suddenly stunned by a revelation.


A night shift, 4 days ago.
Eight names are listen below.

Charee Gillon
Barret Carrel
Alesya Wion
Mark Buote
Denis Voyer
Viau Zay

Davis Archer
Kathy Faniel


The last two names were unfamiliar, but there was no room for doubt.


8 people were listen on that night shift. And 6 of them have been killed.




Harlequin slowly approached and when she noticed the night shift you were looking at, her jaw
dropped, eyes growing wide open:


"...holy shit. I think you just cracked the case" she nervously covered her mouth, reading the 8 names over and over, as if to make sure she wasn't seeing things:



"...this night... four days ago... these 8 people shared the same shift.
This is the connection, they all shared the same shift!!!

Now, six of them are dead... Two are still alive.


You understand what this all means right?" she looked back at everyone.

"Either one of them is our killer or they both come into our custody for protection" she crosses her arms, "Those are our last two victims." She cracks her knuckles, "Alright we need adresses sir if you could give us the adress of both kf these employees that would be fantastic, thank you."

"It's clear." Twilight said.

She turned towards the clearly drunken chief. "Sir, we may be on to something, but we need permission to use the information on at least two of your workers, Davis Archer and Kathy Faniel. Their lives are in danger, if our lead is correct."

She turned to the group, looking stern. "Okay, I want their adresses and some of our forces to go there immediately. If they're alive, take them to a place they won't be found. The killer is far too strong to face in a fair battle, we need to be clever."

"Second, I want them to answer something. This commonality is just a coincidence, or all of them have seen something they shouldn't have. We need to know what information they have to be sure why they're targeted. Let's not waste any time, find the data and split up!"

"There's another possibility" Rogue says "You said this factory produced chairs, would there be a record of the chairs assembled by them on that shift, how many of them were made, what type they were, and are they still here on site or have they already been sent off?

Rain gets on her radio, "Possibly relaying adresses split into fireteams and prepare to move to two locations arm up and when you get to the objectives eyes and ears open we have lives to save."

The factory director suffered another hiccup:
"..youuu know I can't.. give out conffffidential... information about mmmy employees... without a warrant"
He's really drunk.


"Getting a warrant is gonna take hours!" Amy said desperately, getting up from her seat: "Please, sir, I know you care about your employees. Otherwise you wouldn't be like this now.
Every second we waste, can mean their death.
We need that info, now"



The director quietly sighed, then dived under the table, beginning to dig through the piles of documents. How he managed to find anything in this chaos, was a miracle in itself:

"There..." he said, standing up and passing you two sheets of paper: "All their personal info, addresses and cellphone numbers"


He fished out another document from the pile: "Lets see... four days ago... night shift...
Heyyy!...." he drunkenly frowned:

"They didn't complete their working quota for that night! Its like they stopped working in the middle of the shift! They didn't even teeeelllllll me!..."
He fell back in his moth eaten armchair:

"...they were assembling airplane passenger chairs for first class. They're supposed to be stashed in Section A, its down there... somewhere" he vaguely waved in a direction, on the first floor of the factory.



"Fireteam 1 and 2, prepare to move out" Harlequin called over the earpiece. Tomas took off and ran towards the SUV's, taking a seat in one of them.

Amy and Harlequin stayed behind in the office.


A few moments later, Harlequin finished relaying the addresses over the radio and two SUV's peeled off and drove away from the factory. It seems Tomas was driving one of them.





Harlequin and Amy remained at the office. Two SUV's and Amy's van remained parked by the factory.

"Alright, lets analyze the situation" Harlequin called:



"We have two potential victims. An SUV is driving to each of their addresses as we speak.

- We need to decide where to bring them, once our men reach their apartments. Where should we hide them?

- We should also consider calling their cellphones immediately.
We can't waste any time, the killer may already be near them. And the victims may not be at home. It may be best to warn them and have them meet us somewhere.
But, if one of them is indeed the killer, our phone call may tip him off.


How do you want to play this?" Harlequin asked, looking at you.

Rain starts making her way to the door, "Im going to investigate this place they are stashing these seats." She opens her wings and hovers across the factory floor looking for section A, when she finds it she moves for the entrance to investigate.

After several minutes of searching in the dark, you find several rows of wooden boxes. 'Section A' was printed on a sign that hung above the rows.

There's hundreds of sturdy boxes in this section, all appear to be sealed tight. Some sort of blunt instrument may be required to open them quickly.

So far, you don't see anything out of place in this area.