Sometimes, even when fate deals you a strong hand, the table you are playing at means its not enough.  The Maritime Industry Museum is that kind of place.  It's a fine institution filled with models and artifacts and historical exhibits, but it's in New York City, a veritable city of museums, and it's stuck way, way out on the fringe of the Bronx, certainly well off the tourist trails.  It's also well off the public transportation trails, has no advertising at all, and let's be real, if a family is headed into the Bronx for an outing, it's to the zoo.

This is despite the fact that unlike most of the city's attractions, this one is free.

As a result, if the characters scope the place out at night, it is empty.  If they appear during the day, somewhat less empty- they might find some ship aficionados, college students, and of course the small crew of eager docents (retired ship aficionados) that patrol the halls looking to ensnare innocent visitors with lengthy stories maritime stories.

Fort Schuyler is not all museum, it is home to the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College.  The school is spread out over the grounds, and they share the main fort building with the museum, and the students help at the museum.  As the SUNY Martime College is rated among the best colleges in the United States for future career earnings potential of graduates, (the courses are highly focused on "things you can get a good job with), these are mostly quiet and serious students.  Hence, it is empty at night.  Everyone is studying.

And during the day it is quiet.  Everyone is in classes.

It's just a quiet place.

If Flea wants to have animals observe it, she has squirrels, pigeons and seagulls to choose from.

If Gremian wants to sneak in night, he will find that on the one hand, the lack of campus activity makes noise stand out, but on the other, the lack of people means fewer chances to be seen.  And the security at the museum is not tight:  thieves are not interested in a replica of an 18th century steam ship.

It was morning, not too soon, yet not really close to noon. Gremian was waiting for others to join him for a visit of the Museum. He was standing in the shadow of the Throggs Neck Bridge on the corner of Shepard Avenue and Patterson Street. Bored, he looked up and studied the bridge.

Flea dropped off the bridge and landed down by Gremain's side. "It's all fine now. I'm here! No need to panic!" As if... She rubbed her tiny hands in a businesslike manner. "All right then! I have the seagulls watching the place from the watery side, and the squirrels and pigeons are keeping an eye out from land. If anyone who looks not normal comes in or out, or approaches, I reckon they can tell us. They're looking for secret doors and stuff. You need anything else, I can tell 'em!"

Pigeons have navigational abilities so extraordinary they amaze Humans and Fey alike.  The difference, of course, is that where Fey explain it simply with "It's Pigeon Magic!" Humans always feel the need to dig deeper, and have spent great effort in figuring out how pigeons do it.  They've studied the brains and eyes of pigeons, and tracked them with GPS receivers, and bombarded them with magnetic pulses.  That's just a thing Humans do.  But hold on to this for a moment.

Flea's first spies reporting in are pigeons, a flock of them, and they gather around.  A few scout out the ground: perhaps Flea has been thoughtful enough to scatter crumbs, so that any passing Human would just see "odd woman feeding pigeons" and think nothing of it.

"It's a terrible place," one pigeon says.  "DON'T GO THERE."

"Tell her, Tony," another pigeon says.

"Yeah," agrees a third.

The pigeon smooths a few feathers.  "Foist, you said this was a museum?  Ain't no decent museum, I can tell you.  I been to museums, and you know what they got?  Food carts, outside, serving up hot dogs and stuff.  None of that here.  Not even any packs of little Human kids coming out of those yellow buses.  You know, with the lunch bags and the lunch boxes, and right on cue all the little slobs gather in a picnic area and start to eat... and one starts a food fight and soon the buffet is on the floor for every pigeon..."

"Tell her about that time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the Twinkies!" a bird says.

"Yeah, that was.. that was freakin awesome.  Man, I was stuffed.  That kid brought like a whole case, but it fell and... hey, no, I'm supposed to be talkin bout this place. Don't distract me, Angie.

"Anyhoot, this utter and inexcusable lack of lunch is one thing, but... lemme see if I can explain.  There's thing thing pigeons feel... hear, but it's not hearing.  Just,it comes to us.  And it comes from everywhere, and we just like different places have their different smells, they have their different... whatever this is.  Humans don't ever get it, I think, but we do.  But this place... lemme tell you, I've flown past this place before.  It's different now.  I can't tell you how, there's no words for it if you're not a pigeon.  But something changed.  That doesn't happen very often.  Places are  places,  they keep feeling the same way.  Things would be pretty screwed up for pigeons if they changed, right?"

Flea listened with patience. The problems of animals were far more important than the silly petty issues of humans, of course. Although pigeons had a real problem getting to the point. But it was worth having some stoic tolerance for their random tangents, as they usually had some pretty juicy things to say. Pigeons were everywhere in the city, and sooner or later, they knew more or less everything that was going on. All it took was a little patience, and some creative brainwork to translate concepts from pigeon into pixie.

"Well, that's pretty amazing!" She cooed, her knowledge of pigeon being as good as any native speaking bird. "And you're right. A museum is supposed to be a great place to find food, and a mate! Dinner and a tumble, that's what museums are all about! This place is useless, if you ask me. No wonder someone is using it for something shady. It isn't like it has anything decent to offer!" She snorted derisively.

"But this new thing, the way it feels different, that's important." She scratched her head. "I know the feeling you talk about. I sort of have a thing a bit like it. You can know where you are flying because it feels right. If that changed... hrm." She scowld darkly. "Someone is screwin' up how stuff is meant to work. Well, I won't have THAT! I'll get it fixed, my friends, don't you worry! You've been amazing, as always. I'll tell you what, I'll make sure there's a feast fit for all the pigeons in the city at the museum tomorrow afternoon! You earned it!"

She turned and looked up at Gremian, and started cooing at him, until she remembered that he didn't know how to talk like a sensible person. So she switched to English instead.

"Pigeons say that the place doesn't seem to have anybody coming and going. They're pretty good at watching, so we can take 'em at their word. And the special pigeon magic is gone weird, too. It feels weird when they fly over it. That ain't right. The Pigeon tingly flapsense for when they fly, that never changes, unless someone sticks one of those stupid big metal pointy things up with the dishes on it, or builds one of the big buzzy 'lectric places. Maybe someone put a load of tingly dish things inside, I dunno."

Flea knew all about phones and stuff, and electricity. What she didn't have was the vocabulary to describe stuff like satellites or cellphone towers. Big metal dish tower was far more use as a descriptor for birds. But if the birds said something changed, she had to pass that on, in whatever language she could find.

Alisa resisted the urge to sigh, and lent her assistance in translating and explaining with her more scientific background.

- "I think what she means is the electrical field must have changed. Thunderstorms often throw off birds' sense of direction because all the electricity in the air makes it hard for them to determine where the magnetic north is, and if it's a localized thunderstorm we're looking for, that would... pretty much be a good way of tracking it."

"Great, so we know there is some crazy shit happening here." Oscar helpfully chimed in. "I'm goin' in. All this waiting is for the birds. Literally."

With that, Oscar headed for the front door of the museum.

Gremian picked up a tissue crumbled like a makeshift bag from his pocket. He gave it to Flea. "There, not the mountain you asked for... I've tried fitting three handfuls, but it was kinda full already." Inside the tissue was two Gremian size handfuls of peanuts, salt peanuts he a bought, with some of his pocket change, from a vending machine on the way here.

"So we could make a makeshift compass to find the storm quicker then?" Gremian asked Alisa. "Should be easy to do." He looked around for a small splinter of metal, just in case.

"Well... I would have prep some more, but Oscar is probably right, we should be ready enough, I guess." Gremian said with some deception in his voice. But he started walking to join Oscar at the front door.

Adrika shook her head quickly when Gremian brought up a compass.

- "Ehh... No, if it's to the degree it'd throw compasses off, we'd be having a solar storm and you could see auroras in the sky. WHOLE different scale, even radios would be feeling it. Happened a few years ago back home actually. Anyway, i'm talking more like... homing pigeons getting lost en route."

She turned to Flea.

- "So if your pigeons are actual trained pigeons instead of some code word, they could help us track it down. If we can figure out where the edges of the effect are, then the storm should be somewhere around the center of it, disregarding doors and walls and such of course."

Oscar, Gremian, and anyone following with them, travels to the museum.

As noted before, the museum shares its space with a maritime college.  As New York City colleges go, this one in is a little tougher on Fey folk.  That is because the Veil has to work harder to stretch appearances and actions, to cloak the bizarre behind a shield of normalcy.  The Veil works with what's available to make Humans ignore the presence of Fey.  This is very easy around New York University- people are already used to seeing the strangest things (including a woman who talks to flocks of pigeons, some of which are fake) in the local parks.  Wear anything, do anything.. In Union Square and Washington Park, no one notices.

This is a different kind of place.  Quiet and dignified, full of very serious academically minded students studying the broad range of college offerings that spans from "things involving ships" to "other things involving ships".  No one roller skates around tossing glitter into the air.  This is pure... normality.

The Fey present can feel, just on the edge of sensation, that the Veil is strained here.  It's working harder, it has to... but of course it is only magic, it can't have inexhaustible, eternal strength... can it?

A tension in the air, something pulled tight.  But something invisible.

Oscar and Gremian's Veiled looks are nothing unusual.  Short, human, ordinary... Quite normal in the city, they never get a second look.  But today, it seems like a few head turns.  They pass a few students, and just for a moment, they attract their attention.  Almost as if they thought they saw something unusual, turned, looked again... and nothing was amiss.

The students shrug it off and go on their way.

Gremian hesitated after the first few students had looked behind their shoulder. He moved a little closer to Oscar and whispered: "You felt it too? The boredness... Make me wonder if the Storm took his zapping abilities from here. I would definitively feel safer if we would return tonight instead, with the cover of the Night. What do you thing?"

He was a Gremlin, much of his mischief happened in the Night. And, in the Night, a place like that would lose some of his "normalcy"; Gremian was assuming. That would be bad otherwise that with less lights and less humans around that the Veil would stay as strained.

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.