2021-01-08 - Alchemy and Blackmail

It's morning, and Alexander has already been busy. Although moving quietly to not disturb Isolde on the couch, the man never really went back to sleep - instead, he's spent the night carefully, delicately, checking the book for other hidden surprises.

And there are other surprises. At least five or six hidden pages, although he hasn't tried to unglue those, yet. And fitted inside the cover, in a lightly glued slit in the leather that the tussle last night had opened, are seven small memory cards. Small in size, at least, although their capacities seem to be on the high end. SEEM, because when Alexander pops one in his laptop to try and see what's on it, he finds that he's locked out of it. Frustrating. More, the memory cards aren't labeled, but each one has a small, esoteric symbol on it. An expert opinion on both matters is required.

So, he has some texts to put out there.

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : Hey. Want to take a look at a really old Key of Solomon and some memory cards?

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : Hey. You know how to hack a memory card?

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : You sure know how to get a girl's attention. Do I bring coffee? -fan self-

(TXT to Ravn) Alexander : I have coffee, but if you like sugar or shit in it, bring your poison.

(TXT to Alexander) Ravn : I take my coffee sugar and manure free, preferably. Be there in a minute or three.

Isolde took a while to get to sleep last night but eventually it happened. She vaguely heard Alexander moving around but was reluctant to fully wake up. Finally though, it was inevitable. She peeked her eyes open and then stifled a yawn as she watched Alexander texting. Gaze flitting towards the book, his laptop, and the bigger pile of memory cards. "Any luck?" She presumes not, but it never hurts to ask right? She pulls herself into a sitting position, running a hand through her hair.

Alexander is sprawled on the floor, peering at his phone - at the photos Isolde sent him of the page she found, and her own notes, since those have been taken by the burglars. He pauses to check Ravn's text, and smiles, before going back to making notes. "I think so, yeah. It's a real pain in the ass, because I don't speak French," he mutters, "but check this out for me, if you can?" He hands the notebook over to her; it has some badly spelled French, that appears to be just a name, a series of numbers, and the word lead.

There are perks to keeping a very simple lifestyle; one of these being that you can pull on your jeans and any shirt on the shelf and it'll look like you intended to dress that way. Ravn at least is out of the door almost before the cat wakes up because hello, there are old, rare books to poke at. And a few other important factors, such as say, Clayton worrying about cultists and demons and the walking dead. When push comes to shove, Ravn does prefer his mythological monsters and horrors to stay mythological; they don't need to be running around Main Street.

He walks up to Clayton's door in short time, slashed-sleeve leather jacket collar up around his ears and looking cold, but enthusiastic. Ringing the bell he looks around on the sly. Just in case that there are indeed things lurking that should not be -- things, or people. Monsters get noticed but ex-cultists with ordinary faces and looks can stab you just as dead.

"By the time this is over, you will have at least a basic understanding." Isolde laughed, taking the notebook to skim it over. "Let's see..." Brow furrowed lightly. "Perhaps a phone number? Someone that they thought could help them?" She chewed her lip lightly. "I wonder if these are Catherine's notes? Do you think she would have gone through the trouble of hiding the notes?" The memory cards, she was still up in the air about.

She gaze flits up as the doorbell rings, looking just a little nervous when she glances back to Alexander. But he had been texting someone. Maybe reinforcements?

"It's a book cipher," Alexander says, sounding pleased. "This," he points at the photo with its gibberish, "actually points out specific letters on specific pages in a very specific book - THIS specific book. Normally, you wouldn't make one out of a unique text, since the idea is that people who KNOW what the book is can just get the key from the local bookstore without arousing suspicion. But if this is what I think it is, then--" Alexander breaks off as the knock on the door comes. "I texted Ravn and Abitha. Ravn said he was coming over." He rises to his feet, carefully, nonetheless, and reaches for his knife. He checks the peephole, then smiles, and opens the door. "Hey. C'mon in. You know Isolde?"

The Dane slips in and upnods to the woman on the couch. "Think we met once or twice -- you're at the Poorhouse, right? I'm not very good with names or faces but I remember people who feed me whiskey."

He shrugs out of his coat -- it's gained a couple of gashes and tears more since Dan's meat cleaver ruined the sleeve -- and looks from one to the other. "So, I'm guessing that this isn't a casual meeting of the old books lovers' society of Gray Harbor. How much trouble are we in?"

"Hm. Maybe we will have to divide and conquer then? So long as you can show me how the cipher works. " Isolde wondered, relaxing when he explained whom he had contacted.

As he lets Ravn in, Isolde gives the Dane a smile. "Hello again. Yes, I bartend there." Isolde peers back down at the book and memory cards and then looks back up to Ravn. "People broke into my apartment to try and steal the book. Not locals. At least 3 people are dead. So, uhm, a little bit of trouble."

"It's fine," Alexander says as he waves Ravn into the living room. The book is on the coffee table, the memory cards lined up neatly beside it, sigil-sides up. "They were just people, so I think it's increasingly unlikely we're dealing with a magical mishap, here. I suspect the crime involved is very much more human." He closes the door and smiles at Isolde. "Last night, you said 'blackmail', and I bet you're right. I've been doing some research on the Brethren - and more importantly, where they go when they leave the cult. An interesting mix of professions - mostly academia, the inner circle, but one fellow became a Oregon State police officer, and a few others have outliers. Lawyers, a judge or two."

"And this is the Key of Solomon that was stolen from a university," Ravn concludes, glancing curiously towards the old book. Does a historian's fingers itch? Of course they do; but at least the man has some situational awareness. "Have you found out what makes this copy special, as compared to any modern print bought in the nearest occult bookstore or downloaded off the internet? Besides its obvious value as a museum piece, I mean."

He walks over to look at the book -- and in doing so demonstrates some of that situational awareness, inspecting it with his eyes rather than picking it up and thumbing through it with gloves that are still damp from the wet and cold winter's morning outside. "Not demons and the undead, then -- or at least not doing the dirty work."

"It's a key," Alexander says, simply. Then pauses, to lower himself back to the floor, and coughs. "I mean. Beyond being the Key of Solomon, it's the key to this," he offers Ravn his cell phone, where there's a picture of a paper with gibberish series of letters and numbers, "that Isolde found between two glued together pages in the book. There's probably about half a dozen of those in there, and these," he gestures at the memory cards, neatly laid out. "The letters and numbers correspond with specific letters on specific pages of THIS book. If this book is lost, then the cipher is literally indecipherable. My suspicion is that it's a blackmail log of some sort. I'd imagine that the memory cards have the actual dirt, and the pages are...records of where to find the dirt, and a record of when it was used." He says, "Look - this name," reaching back for the notebook to show Ravn the deciphered text, "is a professor emeritus at a midwestern university. I did some checking, and while I'm not sure what lead, refers to," he pronounces it leeeeeed, as in leading someone, "I note that someone I recognize as a Brethren inner circle member applied for, and received a tenure-track position there around this date," he points to a series of numbers, "and I'd bet that this guy was the lead of the search committee, or had significant influence over the hire."

But as Ravn looks at the notebook, and at the book, and the cards and their symbols, he realizes that Alexander was pronouncing it wrong: it's not lead as into lead others, but lead as in the metal - one of the sigils on the cards is the alchemical symbol for lead.

Ravn leans in, frowning, and looks closer at the symbols. "I'm not saying you're wrong, Clayton. You talked about these people getting -- surprising amounts of tenure and fast track careers the other day too. But that little odd symbol there, the one that looks like a 'four' or a kind of double lightning? That's 'lead'. Not lead, but lead. The Key is a compendium of even older traditions and knowledge, and the authors of those older texts often used secret signs -- in order to obscure the information but also because a number of them did not read or write Greek or Latin."

Alexander perks up at the correction. "Really? Fascinating. What about these?" He pushes the other cards towards Ravn - and, indeed, there are seven of them, and the symbols correspond to the seven alchemical metals, from lead to gold.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : If you saved over it, you're probably screwed.

"Very much so," the historian murmurs. "Some of them are fairly obvious in origin -- iron looks like a spear or a sword, silver is a crescent moon -- but most of them are not self-explanatory, and you need to know the code. I'll say right away that I have no idea whether triangle pointing up is fire or water, but, Auntie Google's got us covered there. The circle is gold, and the slashed orb is salt, I remember that much from doing an essay on Valdemar Daae --"

He looks back at Alexander and quirks an eyebrow. "You don't want to know about 16th century Danish alchemists. What we can take away here is that this just might be some kind of recipe? Did you ever hear any of your fellow cultists talk about things like the philosopher's stone or turning lead into gold? Those things were not as literal as in Harry Potter -- they're philosophical methods, allegorical. But, this place being what it is? Wouldn't surprise me if it actually works here."

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : No. It's password protected. I don't want to save over it, I want to get into it.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : For what game?

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : Murder? Cults, blackmail, burglaries. Fun stuff. Come over, I'll fill you in? Bring whatever kit you need. I'll pay.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : What are we talking? SD card? USB? Send me a pic.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : Also can we talk about what you consider 'fun stuff'?

Alexander quickly starts noting down the symbols and their translations in his notebook. "Excellent. Thanks." Then his text alert goes off, and he spends a few minutes texting back and forth. "It's Machinae. Trying to get her to come over and crack these open for us." When he looks up again, he hums, thoughtfully, at Ravn. "I...doubt it. Not that I don't see what you're saying, Ravn, but nothing about this says recipe to me. This looks like a ledger, really. A blackmail ledger. Which means this," he points at the name and the lead and the numbers, "probably corresponds to some evidence that's worth blackmail, stored on that," he points to the memory card marked lead, "card. I don't--oh, hey, wait a sec." He pauses to take a picture of the memory cards and sends them to Abitha, along with a brief text. "I don't think we're dealing with magic. Just fucked up people."

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : ::picture attached::

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : And we can talk about it. It's still fun, though.

Isolde has been listening quietly, closely. She's pulled her own laptop out, emailing the picture of gibberish notes to herself so she can view them easier on the laptop. A lot of technology tricks have been learned the last few months! "I think there is some mixture of blackmail involved." She agreed. "But it was a magick cult." Yes, they used the k. "So perhaps the symbols are some kind of identifying system? Like what type of blackmail it is? How severe?"

"Well, if Mac can get into those cards maybe we'll find out which is the case. Either way it's trouble." Ravn looks around and then theatrically flashes his eyelashes at Alexander. "So, which cultist's robe do I need to put on, to get a cup of coffee while I take a look at your notes?"

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : Sigh.gif Fine. OMW. 🙄

Alexander nods to Isolde. "That's very possible. We need to get into those cards in order to know, but I do know that alchemical metals were ranked in an order from base to pure...so, if that holds, then lead would either be the least severe, or the most severe - the most base and corrupt." He grins, and stands up. "Okay, coffee. You want some, Isolde? Or anything else?" He checks his phone again as it dings. "Machinae's on her way."

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : Thanks. ::thumb's up emoji::

"Coffee, yes please." Isolde agreed. "I am going to start working from the bottom." She hands Ravn her phone. "Here are the notes I pulled from the pages. The thieves got away with the physical copy. They are in French. A bad French." She nodded sagely and then looked back to her laptop to start trying to do a little deciphering.

"I don't read French beyond the extreme basics," the Dane murmurs but looks nonetheless. "Let me see if I recognise anything else... It probably hangs a bit on what you and Mac can find respectively at the moment."

As was foretold, another nerd knocks on the door eventually. Abitha was in her usual mix of cute but conservative chic, removing her heavy wool belted peacoat. It looked new, probably a Christmas present. She was wearing a blouse and shorts over stockings and boots. Accessorizing beyond her courier bag that no doubt held her laptop, she also seemed to be sporting some stereotypically face-obscuring sunglasses, even though the only brightness outside was likely from the snow on the ground. She doesn't immediately take them off.

"'Sup, nerds." She intones flippantly, her voice a little gravelly until she clears her throat. An Uber is probably heard pulling away.

Alexander breaks off from making coffee in the kitchen when Abitha shows up, going to let her in with a brief smile. "Hey. Welcome to Antiques and Murder." He waves her inside, adding, "Want some coffee?" before wandering back into the kitchen. The old book is possibly quite fascinating for someone like Ravn, even if it's been descrated with the slit along the leather to hide the cards in, not to mention actually gluing together some of the pages to provide places to hide what Alexander's called the 'ledger' pages. As Isolde and Ravn work, they realize that Ravn's suggestion regarding the metals is almost certainly correct - along with more names and series of numbers, they find that every entry is marked with gold, lead, tin, silver, etc. Neatly corresponding to the seven cards that they have.

"Hello." Isolde gives Abitha a friendly smile. "Settle down anywhere." She works slowly but steadily through the list and would help Ravn now and then with pointing out certain words or translating if need be. "It looks like it is some kind of category system...I think." Isolde confirms and looks up towards Abitha. "Hopefully the memory cards aren't difficult to get in to. " Though she wasn't quite sure she wanted to know what was on some of them.

"It does look like it's some kind of directory. Heya, Mac. Come work some magic for us?" Ravn looks up as the game shop over walks in. "I think the ball's pretty much in your court on this one -- unless there's more on these pages we haven't yet had a chance to look at... Alexander, how do you feel about us opening those last glued-together pages?"

“’Want’ posits a state where I am not chemically reliant on caffeine.” Abitha jokes dryly. She moves to find a seat, which always seemed an issue at Alexander’s, giving Isolde a grateful grin to the welcome. She settles in, boots up her laptop, and finally lifts her sunglasses. It wasn’t as bad as the sunglasses made it seem, a little red in the eyes. Also, good makeup skills do wonders. She makes expectant grabby hands for the media after she was ready for it. “I mean, I’m no animal-whisperer or anything, but I’ll see what I can do.” Her lips are drawn in, as if trying to hide a smile or laugh, specifically keeping her eyes on her screen and not look at Ravn.

Alexander returns shortly from the kitchen with coffee on a makeshift tray - a small, warped baking sheet which is clearly the first thing he grabbed from his cabinets. But it holds all the coffee cups, and that's the important thing, right? He sets the 'tray' on the table on the far side from the book and the memory cards, and folds himself into a half lotus on the floor. "Have at," he tells Ravn, with a wave of his hand. "Isolde got the first one open without destroying the pages involved, so the two of you working together should get the rest without too much difficulty." He winces. "Just please don't tear the centuries old book. I'd feel bad." He pushes the first of the cards over to Abitha: the one marked with the symbol of lead. His eyes rest on her face. "...party hard?" he asks her.

Isolde picked up her bag and rummaged through it a moment before producing a smallish bottle. "This is glue solvent." She explained, mostly to Ravn but you know anyone could listen in! "This sort is normally used for origami but it worked well enough. And having two sets of eyes and fingers might make the process go smoother too." She agreed.

"... Oh fuck you, Shoe Girl." Ravn makes grabby hands for the coffee instead. From the tone of his voice, though, he too sees the humour of whatever the game store owner's jibe was about.

Then the folklorist nods at Alexander. "Let's try to not damage the museum piece, yes." He has more experience reading old texts than actually restoring them, but between the two, Ravn and Isolde are wielding origami glue, sharp knives, and lots of enthusiasm. Hopefully the ancient book will survive its encounter with the latter; at least the Dane is telling himself that yes, this really should be done by a proper curator in a museum, but there are actual lives depending on this information -- and yes, speaking even as a passionate historian, contemporary lives matter more than 16th century books. If only fragments more.

“Yes, deflect from your embarrassment by drawing reference to the time you heinously assaulted me by throwing a shoe.” Abitha does finally look and grin at Ravn, “You really know how to character witness for yourself.”

Coffee is soon retrieved, and card is inserted into a reader that Abitha hooks via peripheral to her laptop. She creates a virtual space to unload the data onto and basically bypasses the encryption by telling the created virtual space she owned all the data and didn’t need a password. At least that was a good metaphor for it. She begins to sift, but does at least give one last joke to Alexander.

“Like an Andrew W.K. Song. No RAgrets.” Which was Meme for there might be some glaring regrets, like the amount she’d had to drink. But when your best friend owned a bar, these things happen.

“So... All numbered, not seeing any names in here. Sound files?” She reaches into her bag and retrieves a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Yes, they had cat ears. Don’t question it. She plugs them in, slips them on, then goes to open one of the files.

Isolde looks curiously between Abitha and Ravn, but doesn't ask. Instead, she focuses on the paper and working with Ravn to get the pages unstuck. It's a hold-your-breath until it's over sort of feeling and she lets out a clearly relieved sigh once that second slip of paper comes out. She carefully slides one closer to herself so she can start reading it and trying to translate. When Abitha says she's going to listen to one of the files though? Isolde takes a pause so she can see what the gamer girl has to say. "Your headphones are adorable." She adds in sincerely with a touch of a grin.

"You wanted the shoe, you got the shoe." Ravn tosses Mac a good-natured smile and then glances at Isolde. "I hit her in the face with a shoe. It actually wasn't deliberate, but I am inclined to think of it fondly every time she mentions horses. Long story, probably funnier if you were there."

He is every bit as interested as everyone else as to what is in those sound clips; but seeing as that Mac has the headphones and he does not, he occupies himself carefully studying those lists, trying to mentally cross-reference -- looking for patterns as to what names and notes are grouped into what alchemical elements. This might offer some indication, at least -- such as say, if every name but one under 'salt' is dead, then maybe somebody should warn that guy.

"You look like you have regrets. And that's not how you say regret." Who is the oldest damn person in this room? THIS GUY. Alexander does, however, grin at the cat eared headphones. "Do they move? I've seen ones on the internet that twitch and move." But then she's going to open up one of the files, and he waves excitedly. "Wait, wait. I have numbers for you!" He grabs for the notebook Isolde and Ravn has been working on, and rattles off the numbers by the first name.

Okay, that? That is a video file. She might not want to click on that. But whatever she clicks on - voice or audio - it's clear that's what's on the files is mostly pillow talk and...filmed encounters with various combinations of college co-eds. Mostly, because some of the audio files are, instead, recorded supposed magick (with a k!) rituals where one or more people apparently have to disclose secrets, or express negative and hateful things for the purposes of 'empowering the magical circle'. And, y'know, the recordings don't offer any proof of that doing anything occult. But these would all make very damaging sound-bites when sent to friends, family, or in some cases employers, reporters, or law enforcement officials.

"They do not move, but they do change color." Abitha clarifies, though a grinning aside to Isolde is added, "I have a couple more pairs at my shop if you like 'em." Clearly there was some sort of judgement made neither man present would look as cute in them. Alexander's instructions lead Abitha to said video file, and she clicks.

As an internet savvy nerd that absolutely never goes looking for porn, maybe that lack of experience, or maybe just the way it was filmed has Abitha a little confused as to what was going on. The file plays. Slowly, it seems to dawn on her, just as slowly, her eyes start to widen and widen, and no amount of makeup was hiding the flush that rises from her neck, to ears, to face.

To her credit, she closes the media player. A few quick processes later and she closed the face of her laptop, ejects the memory card and sets it down away from herself.

"That's unlocked." She says in a quiet, clipped voice, looking down into her coffee, still wide eyed.

"Ohh maybe! I will stop by and look at them sometime soon. " Isolde smiled. Though as Abitha went to work, Isolde looks concerned at the younger woman's reaction. She glanced towards the boys and then back to Abitha as she pushed everything aside.

"...Are you okay? What did you see?"

Ravn catches that look on Mac's face and winces. "I think she found the blackmail material. So we can confirm at least that that's what it is. The philosopher's stone here is very real and turns lead into gold by --"

He pauses and picks up the lists. "Hang on. Alexander, random thought -- could this be literally about turning lead into gold, as in, these people in the Lead group want to replace the people in the Gold group?"

One of the reasons Alexander only recently acquired friends. When Abitha shoves the memory card away from her, he promptly scoops it up instead of attending to her distress, and pops it into the memory card slot in his phone, bringing up the..."Ah," he says, turning the camera around in his hands with a sort of detached interest. At least he kills the sound after the first breathy gasp from the screen. "I remember that room. This looks..hmm," he peers at the tiny recording, "the date of recording was about three years after we left, Isolde. So this would have been recorded approximately two years before the cult finally got broken up." He kills the video, eyes the other cards on the table. "Interesting."

It takes a moment for him to realize Ravn's speaking to him, and he starts as he comes out of his thoughts. "Maybe. I'd have to cross reference each and every name with where that person is now, and what blackmail material was held on them, as well as when it was used, and what publicly accessible actions were taken. It sounds interesting, but also a bit tedious. On the other hand, just turning this all over to the police means that most of this material will probably end up coming out, at some point or another."

Abitha looks shocked as the others talk so flippantly and calmly about it, mouth opening, eyebrows starting to curl downward toward anger, “You fuckers knew there’d be porn on there?” Hopefully this answered Isolde’s considerately concerned answer. Abitha’s face continues to contort, nose and lips scrunching as Alexander so dispassionately picks up where she left off. She looks to Isolde, hoping there was some sort of sensible response to such a thing.

Isolde looked towards Abitha with an apologetic smile. "We didn't know what would be on there, but it is a common form of blackmail. Ah...also...it was sort of kind of a sex cult?" She half said, half asked, looking towards Alexander and then back towards Abitha. "So the potential for porn was possible but we didn't know that specific one would be porn. Sorry you had to see it. "

Isolde pondered for a moment. "Do you think they have things on us?" She asked, not particularly sounding worried - more just curious. "Or did they only blackmail people that could get them something?" She relaxed back in her seat on the couch slightly. "That does seem tedious...though we should try to get the other memory cards opened too...to get an idea of what is on each type." A glance towards Abitha before adding, "We can maybe take turns looking at the files? Or Abitha just opens them and we look at a file on Alexander's phone."

" The thieves I'm sure were a part of the cult. Just from the way they spoke...but is it just them or are they working with others?" There were many questions rolling through the woman's mind. "And the other important question...were they looking for something specific? Or just wanting to get a handle on all the information in general?"

"I'll admit I didn't expect it to be literal porn," Ravn murmurs and at least has the decency to look a tad embarrassed about not having thought to warn the gamer girl. "Given how these blokes all seem to be doing very well in society, I expected more -- embezzlement, illicit deals, insider trading. I guess I don't sleep around enough to really consider the idea that someone might record an encounter and use it against me."

Then he looks at Isolde and quirks an eyebrow. "I suppose you could have mentioned the sex part of sex cult. Either way, now we know that this stuff is. The question is what we do with it?"

Alexander frowns. "It's not porn. Pornography is sexual materials created for the purpose of titillation. This is blackmail material that just happens to be sexual. No one's getting off from it." He pauses, brings up the soundless video and glances back at the screen, tilts his head to one side. "I mean. Not now. Then, yes. Clearly." There's a shrug at Ravn. "Didn't seem relevant. And I suspect a lot of these folk were in college or just having graduated when they were recorded. Although the Brethren's actual membership wasn't extensive, there were a fair number of people who were willing to pretend to chant weird things for a couple of hours if it got them free weed and sex." He closes down the video again. "If you open the rest of the memory cards, Mac, I promise that you don't have to open any of them further. And I apologize for the distress."

Isolde's question deepens his frown. "I...would guess that we're not dealing with a large number of perpetrators. But I can't be certain."

There’s an important bit of context Abitha seems to gather from conversation, and her eyes go to Alexander, self-professed previous cult member. They then sweep back to Isolde, who explained it was a sex cult, and used a phrase containing ‘us’. Twice more, she looks between the two. The question seems obvious.

“You were in a sex cult?” Her face is a mask of horror, the next question aimed at Isolde, as Alexander... seemed weird enough it seemed explainable already, “Why?”

Isolde chuckled softly and shrugged. " I was young, crazier and the free drugs helped keep the crazy a little at bay." She doesn't answer one way or the other on her and Alexander. It's neither here nor there this late in the game. "Well and the magic stuff was cool too to me. Something different to focus on. But, ah, all things have to come to an end eventually."

"I don't think anyone's ever invited me to join a sex cult but I've lived in enough college and university dorms to know that people get up to spectacularly stupid things in order to get high and get laid." Ravn hitches a shoulder. "So we know that your old buddies are... very ambitious. The one thing we don't know is why this particular, highly valuable book is involved. It seems a lot of effort to go to, for a cipher -- stealing a museum piece from a university when you can just download a pdf. It's certainly in the public domain, it's five hundred years old."

Alexander also doesn't answer Abitha's implied question. He does answer the stated question, even though it wasn't aimed at him, "When you're eighteen, lonely, and easily influenced, a lot of things look like good ideas. And..." he frowns, "honestly, until this was found," a nod at the book, "the Brethren were the healthiest and safest of the cults I was involved with. People mostly had a good time, and the inner circle was more concerned with their own affairs than with really controlling or abusing the outer members." A grimace. "I did not realize they were using us to gather blackmail material on people of interest. And yes," a quick smile at Isolde, "the magick stuff was cool."

A shrug to Ravn. "People get attached to things. And people tend to be susceptible to the idea that if something is old, then it somehow has more wisdom or knowledge than something that's new." He hums. "The cult was shut down about five years after I graduated. My suspicion would be that Professor Jones would have wanted to retain the ledger, and not risk it falling into some hapless grad student's hands who started asking questions about damage to the binding or pages." He taps on his phone a bit, and grunts. "But Jones is far too old to have broken into Isolde's apartment, and he's...ah, yes. Dead. Heart attack, two and a half years ago. So, let's assume that when he died, someone in the cult, probably the inner circle, realized what was likely to pass into an estate sale, and...procured the book? And maybe other people thought that it should be theirs, instead."

“Ew.” Succinct. Monosyllabic. Abitha’s thoughts nicely summed up. She levers her laptop screen back open and holds out a hand, “Alright, fine. Gimme these other cards. I’ll unlock them for you.” She looks down at the little peripheral connected to her computer, “Then you all can keep the dongle.” She makes a face, as if the memory card attachment would be tainted beyond repair. Also maybe because dongle just sounded worse in this context.

"We appreciate the help, Mac." Isolde smiled again. "I owe you one." Then she looked back to the book and drew in a soft breath. "We should try to get the rest of these pages out too. Once we have all the information together we can start cross referencing easier." She shook her head a bit, taking another sip of her coffee. "I think we're going to need more coffee..."

Ravn sits back on his chair a little, then resumes fiddling with the book and the glued pages. "As long as we're certain that's what's actually going on. I have lots of objections to blackmail -- but I have a lot more objections to demons and the undead. I imagine you might want to turn this stuff over to the police once we've made sure that there is in fact not going to be a zombie apocalypse, though."

He nods at Isolde with a small grin. "More coffee. Maybe some eyeball bleach."

Alexander pushes the cards towards Abitha. "I appreciate your aid in this," he tells her, sincerely, and a little apologetically. "Sorry for you having to see them. I'm happy to compensate you for your expertise. Just let me know how much." He reaches for his drink and takes a sip of coffee. "We've got a full pot. And yeah. I'll have to reach out to the Seattle PD after this, maybe take a trip up there to see them and drop it off. But thank you all." A quick flash of a smile. "And be careful? I'm keeping the book and things with me - after I make backups of all the data, of course, so if our two burglars try it, they should come here rather than harass any of you."

Ravn can't help a small laugh as he reaches for the pot and refills his cup. "So this turns out to be -- well, not supernatural in nature. This is good. I don't want to be fighting demons and the walking dead. However, if I'd stuck my head out the door tomorrow morning only to look Beelzebub in the face, I think I'd have been rather pissed at myself for not giving this the attention it might warrant. Ask me anytime you think I can help. Besides, getting to manhandle a 16th century copy of the Key makes me feel like I should be paying you."