Oscar shook his head, furiously chomping on his cigar. "No, we need to find out what's happening here now, before something snaps." He wasn't exactly sure what that something was, but he could feel it in the air.

While Alisa didn't say much, it was clear that she was uneasy. In a way, that only made sense: The strained effects of the Veil that are causing Oscar and Gremian to attract attention from the corner of human eyes apply to her as well, and even more noticeable due to her continued close proximity to the two of them, as opposed to simply walking past them in a hallway.

She herself attracted no such extra attention, both her hair and her beanie falling over her ears that were the most nonhuman of her otherwise very humanlike appearance, and that was without taking the Veil into account. Here, with Oscar and Gremian soaking up attention, she attracted even less than usual. The fact that she was about as old as the average student allowed her to further blend in as well.

"OH!" Gremian replied to Oscar. "You think it is the opposite: the Storm is causing the boredness. Well, onward then." He said with resolve.

He was searching for some signs either to the museum or a yellow triangle with a lightning. A place where one should be aware of the electricity might be a good hiding place for a Storm.

Flea hrrrmmmeeded and burbled back at the pigeons. "Say, you think you could all fly up to where it feels wrong? Show me the edges of the area where it's all broken? If I know how big it is, I reckon I can get these lumpy two legged fools to fix it! We can't have the world being broken, that's just dumb!"

She wondered exactly how Alisa was managing to process the fact that Flea was talking to pigeons... in pigeon. The Veil was a strange thing indeed, but this had to be a real stretch, even then.

"All right, folks. Make your minds up, and I'll tag along. I asked the birds to do their thing. Never underestimate a pigeon!"

As Gremian put it... onward, then...

The Museum is a tribute to the history of commercial seafaring, particularly in the United States, with artifacts and models and displays of all kinds.  And guides, eager to please the visitors, as they don't get nearly enough.

Almost as much as Flea is in her world in the parks with the birds, rats, and other small city dwellers, Gremian is in his world here.  Almost, not precisely, as for the most part its just representations of machinery, not the real thing.  That's probably fortunate, as devices of all sorts often react badly to his presence.  Or he reacts badly to them.  Or a little of each.  It's never been truly sorted out, and since we're dealing with Fey, here, maybe it never can be.

But it's more than just technology here, there is magic.  All Fey can sense that, even the ones like Alysa that maybe don't yet know what they are sensing.  They can feel something different here, the strain that Gremian and Oscar felt at the entrance.  The Fey here don't normally feel the Veil, but that's because it is always there, and always constant.  Like an odor, eventually no one notices it.  Until something changes.

It's changed, and the change is centered.. here.

They probe around for a while.  Walking around, looking at things, looking for anything unusual or interesting.  Fortunately that is exactly what Humans do at museums, so their behavior attracts no attention.  Although, a docent or two, like the students outside, do seem briefly puzzled by something as they pass by.

There's something on the second floor... a section of the museum that seems at first to be under construction, but they see the sign.  A new exhibit being prepared.  It gives the name of the company preparing the new exhibit:  Maleficium General Contracting.

It's closed off behind a temporary wall.  The sign promises unusual artifacts from a sunken ship.  Whatever they are building seems to involve a lot of copper and wiring.

Alisa looked around, not really knowing what to look for but feeling a sense that something wasn't as it should be regardless, and so she simply tried to focus on where that feeling was stronger during her search. She did stop at an exhibit occasionally for personal interest, but did not go out of her way to browse what the museum had to offer: There was a time and place for everything, and this was neither.

When she noticed the sign, she actually burst out laughing. With quite a few medical terms being in Latin, it was a language she was at the very least quite familiar with, and she turned to look at the others once she had her outburst under control again.

- "Oh wow, 'Evil General Contracting'? Looks like someone went with words that sounded cool there."

Still grinning, she shook her head slightly, taking out her phone to snap a picture of the sign to send to her roommate. Who'd probably toss it in her class' group chat, knowing her. She was already looking forward to reading the replies.

Gremian shrugged. "Maybe. Or a old surname. Or more likely, a smart partner trying to get caught to get away from the dangerous (but idiot) partner. Either way, sound like the central place and were we are going." He said with some more confidence that he really felt.
"Ready to enter when you are and the sky is clear." He looked around to make sure that they were alone to go in without being stopped.

A Gremlin's gotta do what a Gremlin's gotta do...

They are unique in the Fey world- a species of Faerie creature that obviously didn't exist years ago, only coming to light when machines, and the inexplicable failures that went with them, became numerous.

Or maybe...

In medieval times, German miners blamed "Kobolds" for things going strangely wrong.  Kobolds even gave their name to the metal Cobalt- unable to understand why this ore was so poor, occasionally poisonous, and yielded metal that just didn't seem to work right, they blamed it on Fey magic.  Kobolds.  Were they the ancestors of Gremlins?

Like the Kobolds who seemed to be attracted to the crude machinery in the mines, Gremlins are fascinated by mechanical things, and where there is a construction barricade... there is always something to draw a Gremlin in.

He can't help it.

But inside Gremian discovers there is more here than an ordinary construction site.

Big electrical cables hang like limpid pythons.  They run up towards the roof, towards a high enclosure Flea saw the exterior of.  And they come down, connecting not to lights and electrical outlets but, via a serious of copper clamps, to that odd thing, something like a big brass wheel, but inscribed throughout with ancient Fey runes.  There are markings on the walls, matching some of the runes, and it looks like the wheel has been very precisely set to line up with them... or were they drawn to line up with the wheel?


There are also post-it notes, written in Human hand in ordinary script, but apparently in French, next to some of the marks on the walls.

There is a sign plaque next to the big wheel.  Not a professional one, a temporary one with a printed page just glued down to wood.  Half of it has been torn off.   It identifies this as the "...artifact recovered from the wreck of.... being shown on travelling exhibit across... unknown origin though stories claimed it had... Johann Georg Faust, an..."

Alisa leaned in and squinted as she tried to read more of the sign.

- "...an astrologer, alchemist, magician and writer believed to be the... something something ...in many works of fiction, including the opera and... that's the end of what's legible."

She then looked at the others.

- "...The Spanish section wasn't as worn down, so it had one or two more lines. Still, what is all this? It looks like they're trying to piss off every safety inspector in the city!"

Gremian eyes were fully open as he looked around the room. He almost whistled, admiring all the copper that he could looked at.

Gremian turned toward Alicia and shrugged. "Hum, not sure. Probably both an accumulator And someone/something with enough influence to make the museum workers do all that work." With his hand, he pointed at the cables and the runes on the wall. He momentary pouted. "Someone has a better plan than disconnecting cables until we wake up a guardian?" He asked, uneasy.

Eventually, it seems... no one has a better plan.

(Where are Flea and Oscar???)



Electrician apparatus almost calls out to a Gremlin.  Someone simply must make it go wrong.  It's the natural order of things.  If no one did... engineers would rule the world.  Gremlins look at un-tampered with machinery the way a labrador retriever sees an uneaten treat.

Alisa shrugged in response.

- "Well, i don't know about waking up guardians and stuff, but if you're going to be messing with power cables, we really should turn the power off them. Or at least ground the cables. This is, in no way, a safe thing to be doing as that wheel's made of metal, it'll conduct electricity like crazy."

Gremian looked at Alisa with some incomprehension. He thought quickly about something. "Okay, not waking up, just arriving, probably through the same door as we did. Probably because... cameras, you know. And I'll be disconnecting cables while that happened. Because I'm sure that we must stop the Storm before it shows up again, and that the Storm is currently recharging in or under the wheel. But not from the cables, because I'm sure they are full of electricity only when the storm is moving in or out of the wheel. But, to reassure you, I'll use my jacket as an insulator while I break the cable." He paused. "Maybe you can find some way to block the door so I can do more cables?" He asked her.

Flea suddenly popped up from behind a chunk of incomprehensible stuff! Well, incomprehensible to her. Machines were not her thing.

"Got the birds keeping an eye out. You need me in here? This place is awesome! You know how many rats they got in the sub-basement? Roaches. There's a whole load of roaches! If it wasn't so far from the food, I could probably set up a nice vacation home here! You want me to muster the troops? Anybody tries to interrupt, they can get a whole load of bugs up their pants. Don't care who you are, a load of roaches on your nads, and you freak out! Buy you some time!"

- "Hmm..."

Alisa took a deep breath, and let out a long, audible sigh when she heard Flea talk. It seemed one could get used to anything over time.

- "Yeah, that could work. While you disconnect cables and Flea's keeping an eye out, i'll look around for a good place we can make our escape from. I doubt they'll let us leave through the main entrance, and i'm... hesitant to be caught committing crimes on camera, that kind of stuff can axe a scholarship pretty quick."

Gremian sets about his work, with Flea keeping watch with the help of some small, shady friends.  She relies on the very smallest, this time, the bugs.

It's never easy, working with them, even with her powers.  They aren't particularly bright.  They can do remarkable things, and honeybees have surprised scientists (they can count!) but in general, working on the bug level just isn't like dealing with the birds and mammals.

(The smartest wild animal in New York City is the Harbor Seal- a small group of them do live in city waters, but only in the colder months!)

Still, the bugs are good enough for early warning with intruders.  Detecting the approach of intruders, and reacting, is what cockroaches do best.

Gremian notices something as he goes to work.  When contractors are building things, plans are often lying around.  Sometimes, big complex drawings on paper, sometimes just a rough field sketch.  Often they'll tape things up on temporary walls, so everyone can see it conveniently.  He finds some electrical plans there.  Gremian isn't an electrician himself, he specializes more in making things not work, but years of experience around electrical equipment means the normal symbols of electrical plans are familiar to him.

There are some weird symbols here.  He doesn't know what to make of them, but he has seen them before.  Old books back in the library, the oldest, creepiest kind, have those symbols.

"Since you're part of the Library, they won't mind the criminal records." Gremian briefly reassured Alisa.


Gremian shrugged. Someday, maybe, probably not, he would learn to read the Runes of the Fae. He considered checking if Alisa could somehow pick a meaning to thoses runes, but... He was sure enough that it was some sort of warning... Which only serve to tempt him more to violently disconnect the cable. He was hopping for some big firework.

Gremian removed his leather jacket. He rolled it around his left hand. He wasn't risking his right hand on electricity. He quickly studied the cooper clamps. "Everyone ready?" He asked impatiently.

- "Gee, that totally doesn't make them sound like the Mob."

Despite the sarcastic undertone, Alisa smirked at Gremian, giving away the joke. She was trying to put her mind at ease to focus on the task at hand, one way or another, and humor was a known coping mechanism.

At one point, she found it: A maintenance ladder leading up to the roof. She took off her jacket and threw one end at the bottom steps, attempting to pull it down far enough for her to reach, and when she did, pulled it all the way down -- but not far enough to have it touch the ground, just in case -- before putting her jacket back on.

- "All done here too, go for it."

Flea floated over from where she had been, eyes distant, face locked in concentration as she tried to process data from hundreds of tiny, pure instinct, brains. "The bugs aren't happy. They don't like it much here now. Used to be good pickin's. Now it ain't, and what happens here, it makes 'em spooked. I can't get nuffink from them that makes sense! It takes a lot to wrangle a cockroach. Sumfink really bad is goin' on. I don' likes it. Can we go now?"

Flea was not notorious for her bravery. She tended to run at the first sign of danger. But she was known for her instincts. If she sensed bad stuff coming, she was usually, spookily, right. What was going down here wasn't the whole story, perhaps. Part of something... worse?

Or the cockroaches were panic stricken and she was registering that. Either way, she looked ready to bolt.

With everyone ready, Gremian didn't hesitate. He hit the clamp. Enough time to break it. Then he moved to the next clamp. Until he can move the cable out of alignment. Tied it in a complicated knot to make sure it can't connect back. It would take something more than firework, electrical arc and smoke to stop a gremlin from destroying something that looked so fancy.

The effect is subtle at first.. but faerie folk are sensitive to the subtle.  They feel things others might dismiss.  Such is life when you're made of half magic, half substance.  Moments after Gremian sets about his task...

It's back.  The Veil.  In full force and good as new.. as if it wasn't ever being destroyed, just, somehow, interrupted.

Even the bugs seem back to normal.

But is it really over?

The setup here, of course is not an accident.  But this will require a trip back to the Library, of course, and further investigation...

And there is still the matter of the fey folk left without their identities.  Were they cured?  Or are they still roaming around thinking they are ordinary mortals?

Gremian grinned. He took a depth breath through his nostrils. It was good to feel the Veil again. "Hey Alisa, do... you feel... something... different?" He asked, deliberately slowing down. He turned toward Flea. "And... do I... have... more time... to... breakmorecables!?" He couldn't hold his excitment about causing more destruction. Only the idea that wrong persons would witness such glory was holding him back.

Alisa looked around, the muscles on her forehead twitching into a frown for a brief moment before blinking.

- "I dunno. Looks mostly the same, but the place just... feels more normal, i suppose?"

She caught on to her own thoughts, and took a deep breath before exhaling in a long sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose.

- "Never thought i'd be saying this, but yeah, break more cables and see what happens. Just to make sure that, whatever it is, we got all of it fixed up."

Flea did an aerial backflip, and clasped her hands nervously. "No time! NO TIME! Think! Use the meat in ya noggins! Whatever ya did, they goin' ta notice, real quickyfast! And come right 'ere! They gonna be super pissed! Ya don't wanna be around when they does, neither. People gets reallllyyyy messy when someone breaks up their big plans. I got responsibilities! D'you know 'ow many squirels will starve if I gets squished? We got to go! Think of the squirrels!"

She flitted about in agitation. She was all for breaking things, but not when it maybe included her own self!

Okay, it is time to start up a new thread!  Having gathered a strange set of clues- including the peculiar name of the contractor who built this odd thing- and disabled the odd device, they can return to regroup!


Gremian has had quite a feast of sabotage, it will hold him for a long time!  Shopping cart wheels will run suspiciously smoothly in his neighborhood for months.

Shopping Cart Wheels?

Yes.

Shopping cart wheels represent the epitome of Gremlin technique.  The art is not merely to ruin technology, any moron could do that.  Heck, many geniuses do that.  The art is to do it in such a way that it produces maximal frustration among mortal users, while leaving the actual cause of the damage subtle and mysterious.  A Gremlin could easily remove shopping cart wheels, or break them.  But the humans would just fix them.  Better to leave them just annoyingly wrong, with the cause of the damage never obvious, so they can frustrate over and over again.  And if the damage is slight and subtle enough, it will never actually be fixed, so the damage will accumulate over time.  It is estimated that at least twenty percent of the shopping carts in the New York City area have been tampered with by Gremlins.

The New Thread will be Nemesis.